Posts Tagged ‘gm china’
Ford doubling Chinese engine production.
by Joseph Szczesny on Jun.18, 2013
GM CEO Dan Akerson during a visit to China.
General Motors and its Chinese partners expect to invest $11 billion in China between now at the end of 2016 as part of an ambitious expansion plan in what is now GM’s second-largest global market.
GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson told analysts during a meeting at the maker’s Milford Proving Grounds that the company is financially strong enough to maintain a steady investment cadence in the years to come. The planned investment includes spending more than $11 billion in China over the next three-and-a-half years.
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GM isn’t the only maker upping its investment in China, now the world’s largest national automotive market. During a visit to China, Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally announced the maker will double the size of its Changan Ford Engine Plant near Chongqing. The $500 million investment will bring capacity to 400,000 powerplants annually.
“This kind of expansion is nearly unprecedented, and it really reflects the level of commitment we have to this region,” said Mulally.
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Tags: Alan Mulally, auto news, car news, dan akerson, dan akerson china, ford china, ford china engine plant, ford news, gm china, gm china investment, gm news, joe szczesny, mulally china, thedetroitbureau
Posted in Automobiles | 1 Comment »
Maker hopes to head off rivals GM, Toyota with new plants.
by Joseph Szczesny on May.17, 2013
VW aims to maintain its lead in China with a mix of new products and more production capacity.
The automotive arms race in China is showing no signs of abating; if anything, the market’s leaders are stocking up more ammo.
General Motors, which this year expects to sell a record 3 million vehicles in China, has announced plans to raise its capacity in the booming market by 20%. Toyota also has disclosed plans to raise their presence in China – which is now the largest passenger car and commercial truck market in the world and is on its way to becoming the top luxury market in the world as well.
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Meanwhile, Volkswagen has marked the beginning of construction on a new assembly plant in Changsha in the south-central province of Hunan. The factory is being built as part of the maker’s Chinese joint venture Shanghai-Volkswagen (SVW).
“We are expanding our capacity in China to four million vehicles per year by 2018 in order to meet demand from our Chinese customers”, Jochem Heizmann, President and CEO of Volkswagen Group China, said at the groundbreaking.
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Tags: auto news, car news, china car sales, gm china, gm news, joe szczesny, svw, thedetroitbureau, volkswagen china, volkswagen news, vw china, vw china factory, vw china plant, vw china production, vw news
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Detroit maker investing $16 billion in U.S.
by Joseph Szczesny on May.07, 2013
General Motors is investing $16 billion into its U.S. business, including plant improvements.
Stung by jibes from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, General Motors Co. is planning to invest about $16 billion on U.S. factories and facilities through 2016, more than it will spend in China, the company said.
Last month, GM Chief Executive Dan Akerson said on the eve of the Shanghai Auto Show that planned to invest $11 billion investment for its joint ventures in China. That was an increase from a 2011 outline to spend $7 billion through 2015.
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The Journal last week ran a commentary on its op-ed page titled, “Welcome to General Tso’s Motors,” saying China “is disproportionately benefiting” from the 2009 U.S.-backed bankruptcy reorganization of Detroit-based GM. The Journal’s editorial page previously has criticized the bailout. GM responded to the criticism in a letter to the newspaper.
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Tags: China investment, GM's Dan Akerson, General Motors Co., General Tso's Motors, TheDetroitBureau.com., U.S. investment, Wall Street Journal, dan akerson, general motors, gm, gm china, gm investment, joseph szczesny, thedetroitbureau
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Detroit-based maker raising investor expectations.
by Joseph Szczesny on May.02, 2013
General Motors' Q1 performance generated interest in the Detroit-based automaker's stock.
General Motors narrowed its losses and boosted its margins in Europe despite watching its overall net income decline in the face of a sweeping changeover at the company’s truck plant there.
Improvements in Europe and China and the anticipation of better results in North America helped to boost interest in GM shares, even as the U.S. Treasury Department reduces the government’s stake in GM. The U.S. Treasury still owns 18% of GM’s shares so any rise in the price of the shares benefits American taxpayers.
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“This was a solid quarter and we are much more of a formidable competitor now than we have been in more than a generation,” Chief Executive Dan Akerson said on a conference call. “We’re a very healthy company that’s getting stronger each quarter.”
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Tags: GM's Akerson, GM's Dan Akerson, TheDetroitBureau.com., U.S. Treasury investment in GM, dan akerson, earnings, general motors, gm, gm china, gm europe, gm north America, joseph szczesny, thedetroitbureau
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Upsurge defies uncertainty in world’s largest auto market.
by Joseph Szczesny on Apr.03, 2013
The new Cadillac XTS has been gaining momentum since its recent launch in China.
General Motors continues to score big in China, its sales increasing by double digits again during March despite worrisome signs of trouble in what is now the world’s largest automotive market.
GM reported its Chinese joint ventures reached all-time highs for not just March but for the entire first quarter of 2013. Sales last month surged 12.6% on an annual basis to 290,538 units. It was the second-highest monthly sales total in GM’s history in China.
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For the quarter, GM’s sales in China jumped to 816,373 units, an increase of 9.6% from the same period last year, the company reported, putting GM on track to sell more than 3 million units in China this year. That seems on track to be another new record.
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Tags: China car market, auto news, auto sales china, buick china, car news, china car sales, china cars, general motors china, general motors news, gm china, gm china sales, gm news, joe szczesny, thedetroitbureau
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Chinese airline to start in-flight car sales.
by Joseph Szczesny on Mar.12, 2013
VW and GM remain locked in a battle for dominance in the booming Chinese market.
Surging global stock markets slipped back this week as China released surprisingly weak economic data – but one sector of the vast Asian nation’s economy remains strong, Chinese car sales surging 40% for the first two months of 2013 after an unexpectedly weak performance last year.
For some carmakers, Chinese demand appears to be surging as they bring on new products, while for others, it is taking new discounts to help bolster sales.
But industry analysts continue to worry about what may happen as government regulators come under increasing pressure from both the public and a new cadre of Communist Party leaders to tighten environmental regulations in the wake of record pollution levels in the capital Beijing and other parts of the country. As TheDetroitBureau.com recently reported, stricter automotive emission rules – possibly including a press for more battery cars – are being actively considered.
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The 40% year-to-date increase in overall Chinese car sales comes despite a drop in February as the Chinese celebrated the Lunar New Year, a week-long holiday during which little or no business is transacted across China.
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Tags: auto news, car news, china auto, china auto sales, china battery cars, china car, china car sales, china electric vehicles, china pollution, chinese auto sales, chinese car sales, gm china, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota china, vw china
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Market reacts cautiously. But workers have reason to celebrate.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Feb.14, 2013
GM Chairman Dan Akerson saw the positive side of the maker's 2012 earnings.
General Motors earnings took a sharp downturn in 2012, falling to $4.9 billion, or $2.92 a share, compared to $7.6 billion, or $4.58 a share, the year before. The maker blamed “unfavorable” special items, but the decline also reflected GM’s ongoing struggles to reverse 13 years of red ink from its floundering European operations.
The largest of the U.S. automakers said fourth-quarter net income came to $0.9 billion, an increase from the $500 million it reported during the October to December period in 2011, per-share results rising to 48-cents, a 9-cent year-over-year increase.
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Nonetheless, the fourth-quarter numbers fell short of the 51-cent consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters, triggering a negative response from investors during early trading.
Despite that tepid reaction, GM officials were upbeat. “We recorded another solid year in 2012 as we grew the business, delivered a third straight year of profitability and took significant actions to put the company on a solid path for future growth,” said Dan Akerson, chairman and CEO.
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Tags: auto news, car news, dan akerson, general motors earns, gm 2012 earnings, gm china, gm earnings, gm europe, gm news, gm profit, gm q4 2012 earnings, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, steve girsky, thedetroitbureau
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But Japanese makers; GM also picking up momentum.
by Joseph Szczesny on Feb.11, 2013
Ford CEO Alan Mulally sees China a key target for the maker which got off to a late start in the market.
A latecomer to the massive and growing Chinese automotive market, Ford China is reporting its best-ever January, selling more than double the number of passenger cars it did in January 2012.
In all Ford sold 44,439 passenger cars—including imported vehicles—last month, a 135% increase year-over-year, and achieved combined passenger car and commercial vehicle sales of 61,475 wholesale vehicles, a 98% increase from January 2012 that helped Ford pick up market share.
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“We’re ending the year of the dragon with pride in having served more customers in China than ever before,” said John Lawler, Chairman and CEO of Ford China. The annual Lunar New Year celebration is now underway across China.
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Tags: Alan Mulally, auto news, car news, china auto sales, ford china, ford china sales, ford focus china, ford news, gm china, joe szczesny, nissan china, thedetroitbureau, toyota japan
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by Joseph Szczesny on Feb.06, 2013
The Baojun 630 has been targeting the next wave of new Chinese car buyers.
With the Chinese economy showing new signs of life after an unexpected slowdown, General Motors and its joint venture partners have set an all-time record, selling more than 300,000 vehicles in a single month for the first time during January.
If the pace is sustained over the next 11 months, GM estimates sales in China could top 3.5 million units.
During GM’s best-ever January in China, sales totaled 310,765 units, an increase of 26% from the same month in 2012 and 15.9% above the previous all-time monthly high of 268,035 units in January 2011.
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Domestic sales by Shanghai GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling, and their Buick, Chevrolet and Wuling brands all set new single-month records as well in January, GM reported.
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Tags: auto news, baojun sales, buick china, car news, china car sales, chinese car sales, general motors china, gm china, gm china sales, gm news, joe szczesny, thedetroitbureau
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Maker still has a month to go before closing books on 2012.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Dec.06, 2012
A Cadillac XLR at its Beijing debut earlier this year.
The once-explosive pace of growth in the Chinese car market has slowed down sharply this year – which means that General Motors had to wait until November to set a new sales record.
With a month left to run up the final total, GM and its various affiliates have sold 2,593,642 cars, trucks and crossovers in China, compared with 2,547,171 for all of last year. The good news for GM – and its competitors – was that November saw a renewed surge in a market that has, over the past decade, seen sales nearly double in some years.
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GM isn’t alone, however, Ford was one of a number of other makers that also reported hitting all-time sales records by the end of November and still more are expected to get there by the time December’s numbers are tallied. On the other hand, key Japanese makers could miss their once-lofty sales goals as a result of ongoing political turmoil.
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Tags: auto news, car news, china car, chinese car sales, gm china, gm china record sales, gm china sales, gm news, nissan china, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota china, vw china
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