Chinese-owned Swedish Volvo Car expects to be selling 200,000 cars a year in China by 2018, a senior executive said, two years ahead of its latest target and as a new assembly plant gears up for full production later this year. The company plans to more than double its annual global sales to 800,000 cars by 2020, from 373,000 sold in 2010. Volvo originally said demand in China would account for nearly half the additional volume it plans to generate around the world, but momentum fizzled last year as Volvo was forced to implement discipline at its independent dealer-operators. While Volvo has failed to boost its China sales as much as it had hoped since 2011, the executive – who spoke on condition he wasn’t named as the sales projection is an internal target – said the renewed confidence was due to expectations for local car production and to changes in how it manages its network of retail showrooms. Those changes, he said, have resulted in “lots of good returns, and sales are now growing as planned.” A new Volvo plant in Chengdu is “more or less completed”, said Volvo Spokesman Per-Ake Froberg, and is producing a limited number of cars to test the facility’s manufacturing processes and the quality of the cars it plans to make there. Full production should begin in the fourth quarter. The plant will be able to produce 125,000 cars a year. A second assembly plant is being built in the northeastern city of Daqing, with production not expected to start until the end of next year, Froberg said. With the Chengdu plant running, Volvo could hit its 200,000 cars a year goal in five years. Volvo’s ‘s global sales fell 6.4% in January-April to 132,519 cars, but in China Volvo increased its sales by 27.6% to 18,490 cars. Neither Volvo nor Geely has said which models they plan to produce in Chengdu and Daqing, but company insiders have said Chengdu is likely to make a long-wheelbase version of the S60 sedan that Volvo has developed especially for Chinese drivers. The Daqing plant is expected to produce sport utility vehicles (SUVs) such as the XC90, which one insider said would soon undergo a full re-design. The Daqing plant will likely make the current XC90 model, with the re-designed model shipped to China from Sweden, the South China Morning Post reports.

Volvo Car will begin production this month at its first factory in China, allowing it to avoid the mainland’s 25% import tariffs. “If they fail in China, I don’t really see where they can gain volume significantly,” said Lin Huaibin, Shanghai-based Analyst at IHS Automotive. “If they can do China right, they will gain strong momentum.” Volvo posted a loss last year as global sales fell 6.1% to 421,951 units, with the biggest decline in Sweden. In China, sales dropped 11%, while deliveries at competitors Audi and BMW climbed 40% and 30%, respectively. Volvo’s share of China’s luxury vehicle market fell to 3.4% last year from 5.3% in 2009, the year before the Geely takeover, according to estimates at IHS Automotive. One reason for Volvo’s underperformance is price. For example, its XC60 sport utility vehicle starts from CNY389,900, 8.8% higher than a mainland-produced Audi Q5, according to price comparison website Autohome.com.cn. Volvo’s reputation for safety, Scandinavian design and environmental care and performance will help it attract the growing number of Chinese consumers seeking to embrace a “more understated luxury”, a Spokesman said.

China’s largest heavy-duty truck maker, Sinotruk, is poised to maintain growth in exports this year despite shrinking overseas demand due to the eurozone debt crisis. The Jinan-based truck manufacturer has clinched export orders for more than 14,000 heavy-duty trucks so far this year. The company said South-east Asian countries have become a major export destination for its vehicles, while other overseas markets like Central Asia and Africa have all witnessed steady growth. The company has just delivered the first batch of 300 HOWO-A7 type heavy-duty trucks to Hong Kong. Ma Chunji, Chairman of the board of Sinotruk, also said the firm has broken through in Hong Kong, a market long dominated by European and Japanese truck makers. The company owns the complete intellectual property right for the HOWO-A7 truck, which entered markets in Brazil, Africa and West Asian countries in 2012. Its export revenue rose 82% year-on-year to USD610 million last year.

General Motors aims to boost its exports from China by nearly 70% this year because of strong demand for its China-developed low-cost cars, Bob Socia, Chairman of GM in China, said. The U.S. automaker plans to export as many as 130,000 China-made vehicles this year, up from 77,000 vehicles last year, driven by demand for its Chevrolet Sail in other emerging markets. “While GM’s primary philosophy is to manufacture where it sells, we find that product exports are necessary to meet global market demands when GM does not have local manufacturing capabilities for a particular vehicle,” he said. The Sail, which was co-developed with partner SAIC Motor, became an instant hit when it was launched in January 2010. It is the first foreign brand in China with a price tag below CNY60,000. The Sail, which accounted for 80% of GM’s exports from China last year, is also helping the firm compete with Japanese, South Korean and other brands in South America and other emerging markets, said Socia, who is also Chief Country Operations Officer for GM’s China, India and Asean operations. To meet increasing demand from abroad, GM is now assembling the Sail in Colombia, Ecuador and India, using components supplied by its Shanghai car venture with SAIC. In the first four months of the year, GM shipped 33,623 vehicles overseas, surpassing Geely Automobile to become China’s second-largest auto exporter after Chery, which shipped 46,234 during the period, according to Namrita Chow, Senior Analyst at IHS Automotive. With a few exceptions, exports of China-made cars by foreign automakers have been limited. Volkswagen, GM’s closest rival in the country, has no plans to boost exports from China in the near future, a local Spokesman said. Foreign automakers that have exported small volumes from China include PSA Peugeot Citroen’s car venture Dongfeng Automobile Group Co (DPCA) and BMW. DPCA and BMW shipped 1,152 and 102 China-build cars during the first four months of this year, respectively. Honda shipped 7,972 cars overseas during the period, the South China Morning Post reports.

Beijing plans to increase the number of taxis that run on natural gas from the current 99 to 2,000 by the end of July in a trial project to promote the use of clean energy in public transportation. Beijing now has 2,000 vehicles powered by natural gas, and that number is expected to rise to 10,000 by 2013, which will include 2,000 taxis, 3,143 city buses, and vehicles for some driving schools, the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said. The city plans to add more than 30,000 additional natural gas vehicles by the end of 2017 if the trial project is successful. A total of 7,000 natural gas powered public buses will be put into service by the end of 2015, the Bureau said. By using natural gas, the number of PM2.5 particles can be cut by 93%; nitrogen monoxide by 20% to 40%; carbon dioxide by 25%; and carbon monoxide by 50% to 70%. Natural gas will also cost 30% to 40% less than diesel fuel. Still, natural gas vehicles are not yet widely accepted, and construction of supporting facilities, like refueling stations, is lagging. The capital has set up seven compressed natural gas stations and nine liquefied natural gas stations to support the additional natural gas taxis. Some 100 stations will be set up by the end of the year, and at least 70 more will be built every year from 2014 to 2017 to meet the increasing demand. Natural gas accounted for 14% of the capital’s energy consumption in 2012, an increase from 6% in 2010.

China’s passenger car sales continued to grow at a double-digit pace in May, thanks to new models unveiled at the country’s largest auto show in Shanghai in April. Deliveries of sedans, sport-utility vehicles (SUVs), multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) and minivans last month rose 13.4% from a year earlier to 1.34 million units, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) said. “A large part of the orders lodged during the Shanghai Auto Show were fulfilled in May,” said Rao Da, Secretary General of the Association. Though May’s year-on-year rise in car sales slowed from the 16.6% growth in April, it was a confidence booster for an industry beset by many problems, including policies in large urban areas to limit the number of new license plates to ease congestion and reduce pollution. “It seems unlikely that the government will intervene this year,” Rao said. “The wholesale car industry may add 2 million units this year to 21.3 million units.” However, summer is traditionally a slack season for auto sales. By the end of this month, the inventory pressure at dealerships may mount again if they fail to attain their half-year sales targets, he added.