Beiqi Foton Motor Co has launched a heavy-duty truck – the Auman GTL – for the U.S. and European markets with stringent environmental requirements. In the past, Foton mainly exported to Southeast Asian, South American and African markets. The company has been the top Chinese maker of commercial vehicles since 2003. It shipped 693,000 units in 2010. The company has produced 5 million vehicles since its foundation in 1996, and has factories in Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran. More are under construction in South America and Africa. Last year, international sales exceeded 31,800 units, but Beiqi has yet to penetrate the U.S. and European markets. The GTL cost CNY1.7 billion to develop. The company plans to open 100 to 200 franchise stores in the U.S. and Europe before exporting the model. Beiqi Foton is cooperating with U.S.-based Cummins, a maker of gasoline engines, which has already built more than 100 service stores overseas.

Growth in China’s auto sales will slow to 3% to 5% this year after government incentives that boosted deliveries in 2010 were removed, according to Xu Changming, Research Director at the State Information Center. Deliveries will likely be about 19 million units this year. “I don’t expect any more stimulus policies from the government in the near future,” Xu said. China’s auto sales have slowed this year after surging 32% in 2010 to a record, as the government phased out sales tax breaks and rebates for rural purchases. Total vehicle deliveries rose 3.2% in the first seven months, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). The State Information Center is conducting research on consumer acceptance of electric vehicles to see whether and under what circumstances buyers will opt for the alternative-energy cars, Xu said. Growth in China’s auto sales picked up in August as automakers offered more price cuts to boost demand, the CAAM said. Vehicle deliveries grew to 1.38 million units last month, an increase of 4.1% from the same period of last year. The growth accelerated from the 2.2% increase in July and June’s 1.4%. Passenger car sales gained 7.3% year on year to 1.09 million units while commercial vehicle sales fell 6.4% to 285,900 units. “We expect the auto market to be brisk in the next few months and the mild growth is likely to continue,” the CAAM said. The Association revised 2011 sales growth down to 5% from an earlier estimate of 10% to 15%. In the first eight months of this year, carmakers sold 3.3% more vehicles, totaling 11.9 million units, the CAAM’s figures showed. In the first eight months of the year, overall sales expanded 3.3% to 12 million units, with passenger-car sales gaining 6.1% to 9.2 million units. Sales at SAIC-GM-Wuling Automotive showed the biggest growth last month, the carmaker association said. GM said that August sales rose 13% to 205,885.

Production began at Chery Automobile’s new Venezuelan factory on August 29. Assembly of its A1 and A3 models in the state of Aragua made Anhui-based Chery the first Chinese automaker to build cars in Venezuela. The country imposes a 40% tariff on imported cars, so the factory is expected to boost sales. The Venezuelan operation follows the roll out of Chery’s Fulwin 2 hatchback in Ukraine, where it began to assemble cars in 2006 and has now produced more than 70,000 units. Chery also reached an agreement with the China-Africa Development Fund to form the Chery Overseas Industrial Investment Co joint venture to provide financial and consulting services in Africa. The new company, with a registered capital of CNY1.27 billion, will be 55% owned by Chery, with the development fund holding the remaining share. Chery first exported cars to Africa in 2003 and now sells about 15,000 vehicles on the continent, mostly from an assembly factory it built in Egypt. In August Chery also became the mainland’s first homegrown carmaker to enter the Hong Kong market when its Tiggo and S21 models went on sale. The only Chinese mainland vehicles on Hong Kong’s roads before were a small number of sightseeing buses. The carmaker has a sales goal of  500 to 1,000 units for this year in Hong Kong and plans to increase the number of dealers from the existing two to four. Another Anhui-based automaker, JAC Motors, reported 280% growth in exports in the first seven months of 2011 compared to the same period last year, much of it to Brazil. Chery exported 17,008 vehicles in July, a 92.53% increase over the same month last year, bringing its exports to 88,835 units in the first seven months, an increase of 89.25% year-on-year. Geely Automobile Holdings reported exports of 13,385 vehicles in the first six months of 2011, a 93% increase over the same period in 2010. Overall exports by domestic automakers in July hit 73,300 vehicles, a 57.7% rise over the same period in 2011. Total exports of China-made vehicles ― including passenger and commercial vehicles ― from January to July totaled 454,400 units, a 57.3% increase over the same period last year, the China Daily reports.

A new electricity pricing system for electric vehicles is likely to be established in pilot cities to boost China’s new-energy vehicle industry. New-energy vehicles will become big electricity consumers and provide a potential market for power companies’ future operations, Li Ying, Chief Economist of the State Grid Energy Research Institute, told China Daily. “A new category for electricity use might be developed for new-energy vehicles,” besides those for residential, agricultural and industrial users. Charging costs would be kept below those for petroleum products to maintain the competitiveness of electric vehicles. State Grid Corp of China plans to build 1,700 charging stations and 3 million charging poles by the end of 2015. Potevio, a state-owned telecommunication equipment maker is working with the authorities in Shenzhen to gather data to support the design of a pricing system. Potevio has built 57 power charging-switching stations in Shenzhen, with 850 charging positions.

London-listed car distributor Inchcape plans a fivefold increase in China dealerships in the next five years. With an investment of about GBP10 million per outlet, Inchcape plans to spend a total of about HKD2 billion adding 16 new dealerships by 2016 to the four it now operates. “We are taking our time to build our presence in China because our competitive advantage is customer service, and that takes time to develop people’s skills and capability to deliver,” Chief Executive André Lacroix said. Hong Kong, where it operates as Crown Motors and is the sole official importer for Toyota and Lexus, ranks as the firm’s third biggest market globally. Inchcape grew into a multinational conglomerate with businesses as diverse as shipping, Coca-Cola bottling, high-end fashion retailing, insurance broking and wine and spirits trading, in addition to car sales, until the board decided in the late 90s to sell all of its businesses except the core car trading operations. In China Inchcape now operates Toyota, Lexus and Jaguar Land Rover dealerships in Shaoxing and it has one Lexus showroom in Shanghai.