Short news automotive
June 14, 2012 Category Automotive Metals & Minerals, Short news automotive
- Chinese car dealer Zhongsheng will buy a 70% stake in German car tuning manufacturer Carlsson. The company did not disclose the size of the deal, but it was the second purchase it had made in the past three months after paying CNY1.13 billion for Loong Wah Motors – a dealer with 16 outlets and brands including Toyota and Infiniti.
- Strong demand drove car plate prices in Shanghai to a record high for the fifth consecutive month in May to CNY64,367 — up CNY2,741 on April. The lowest successful bid increased CNY3,000 to CNY64,000, while the total number of bidders was 24,230, up 1,524 from a month earlier. The average price has increased by about CNY10,000 this year. The local government offered 9,300 plates for auction in May — the most this year and up 800 on the previous month’s quota. The city will auction off 9,500 license plates on June 16, the most this year and up 200 from last month.
- Sino-German joint venture Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co held a contract signing ceremony and laid the foundation stone for a plant in Xinjiang on May 28. The plant will have an initial annual production capacity of 50,000 vehicles when it starts operation in 2014 and will be the first passenger vehicle factory in Xinjiang. Volkswagen Group and SAIC Motor Corp will together invest €170 million in the plant. It is the company’s 7th JV plant in China. The group plans to increase combined annual capacity at its joint ventures to 3 million vehicles next year or in 2014, up from the current 2 million units.
- In the mobile car navigation market in China, AutNavi occupies the No 1 position with 38.9%, followed by Careland’s 30.5% and Nokia’s 10.7%, according to Beijing-based Analysys. At present, AutoNavi has about 58 million mobile users, and the number is expected to hit 100 million by the end of this year. But portable navigation device firms like AutoNavi and Garmin that dominated the market for years are now facing competition from internet firms. Garmin, which provides one-third of automotive navigation devices globally, opened a new Chinese headquarters in Shanghai last month.
- BMW opened a design studio and a technical configuration center in Shanghai to provide solutions to product, transportation, automotive, environmental and interaction design. The center will develop BMW’s ConnectedDrive functions aimed specifically at BMW’s Chinese customers.
- Toyota Motor Corp opened its seventh Chinese vehicle plant in Changchun, Jilin province. The Japanese carmaker’s joint venture in China, Sichuan-FAW-Toyota, invested CNY4 billion in the project, which covers an area of 970,000 square meters. With an initial production capacity of 100,000 units each year, the plant will make Toyota’s Corolla.
- Italian brake producer Brembo launched its new production center in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. With an investment of €70 million, the center will serve the plants of Brembo’s European customers, which produce cars and commercial vehicles in Asia. Covering an area of 95,000 sq m, it includes a foundry and production lines for brake discs and braking systems, as well as a research and development center. The plant will employ 850 people and has an annual production capacity of 6 million brake discs.
- Chery Automobile Co will soon start assembling vehicles in northern Vietnam. The new plant would be its 17th overseas production site. Chery exported 17,412 vehicles in April, up 39% from a year earlier. Full-year exports might reach a new high of 200,000 units, the company said. Chery also plans to invest about half a billion dollars in Turkey over five years on a new engine factory and assembly plant. As pressure at home builds, many Chinese carmakers are reaching abroad for new growth opportunities.
- The International Organization of Auto Vehicle Manufacturers said the top five Chinese auto brands measured by production are Changan Automobile, Beijing Automotive Group, Dongfeng Motor Corp, FAW Group Corp and Chery Automobile Co. The biggest one, Changan, plans to be able to produce 4 million automobiles annually under its independent brands by 2020. Changan now has six factories in Mexico, Egypt and other countries. Last year, its overseas operations generated CNY474.92 million in revenues, down 9.59% year-on-year.
- South Korean automaker Kia Motor began recalling 1,624 Borrego models in China from June 6. The recalled vehicles were made between June 17, 2008 and July 28, 2009. According to the company, defects in the brake pedal were found in the U.S. market, but no incidents have been reported in China.
- Chery announced that its May exports surpassed the 20,000-unit benchmark for the first time. The record high monthly export figure of 20,093 units is 42.4% more than the same period of last year, and 15.4% up from April. By the end of 2011, Chery had 16 production facilities, 1,153 dealerships and 1,188 service operations abroad.
- Beijing Hyundai’s bestselling sedan, the 2008 Elantra, is the subject of safety recall due to airbag defects, involving 97,452 cars made between March 16, 2008, and January 25, 2010. The recall will start from July 10 to upgrade the faulty airbag control unit, which can trigger the airbag by mistake when the car is parked or running at slow speed. Unexpected airbag self-explosions have caused some injuries.
- China has agreed to revive financial incentives for consumers to trade in their passenger cars to help increase demand. Relevant ministries are working out the details, such as the types of vehicles covered and amount of state funding. China in 2009 rolled out a cash-for-clunkers program to counter the global financial crisis, spurring CNY49.6 billion in new car purchases the following year.
- China Yongda Automobiles Services Holdings aborted its initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong due to market volatility. The deal, in which the car dealer planned to raise USD433 million, is the biggest IPO to exit in Asia this year. Yongda is the second Chinese auto service firm to delay its IPO this year.
- Dongfeng Motor, a joint venture with Nissan, announced it would invest CNY2 billion to expand the capacity of its plant in Xiangyang, Hubei, and add two Infiniti models to its production line.
- China will allocate an annual fund of up to CNY2 billion from this year to help develop and mass produce new-energy vehicles to cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions, Vice Minister of Finance Zhang Shaochun said. Government departments, logistics operators and car rental firms in 25 pilot cities will be encouraged to use environmentally-friendly cars while buses with hybrid engines will run in major cities. Zhang also called on participating cities to lift traffic curbs on green cars and introduce preferential policies to help with parking, electricity fees and highway tolls to boost their use.
- Two of BYD’s biggest dealers have stopped paying an advance subsidy of CNY120,000 to buyers of electric cars. They said buyers would have to pay the full price and then claim the subsidy themselves. The BYD e6 model costs CNY369,700. The decision was taken after it took some dealers nearly a year to get the subsidies back from the government, and some dealers had even stopped selling electric cars to avoid the delay in recovering their money. BYD sold 129 e6 models in April and 113 in March, which was short of the carmaker’s sales projection of about 300 units a month.
- Volkswagen’s supervisory board approved the creation of a new position on its Board of Directors managing all business related to China, reflecting China’s importance as the world’s largest car market. The company sold 2.3 million cars in China last year, resulting in a €2.6 billion operating profit. Volkswagen’s new China Department will be run by Jochem Heizmann, who leaves his position as the head of the group’s truck business.
- Chongqing will finance purchases of small-engine vehicles in its rural areas to counter the downturn in auto sales in China’s first local incentive program for the auto market. The city’s rural buyers of mini buses with engines of 1.6 liters or less and mini trucks and light trucks under 7.5 tons will receive a 6% subsidy on the sales price, with a maximum of CNY3,000 for each vehicle. The program will cover vehicles that are made by Chongqing-based automakers and bought in the city. Each qualified consumer can make only one subsidized purchase.
- BMW is expecting a 25% to 30% increase in China sales this year to between 291,000 and 302,000 units, Friedrich Eichiner, CFO of BMW Group, said. China surpassed the U.S. in the first quarter of the year to become BMW’s biggest market. In the first four months, the brand sold 100,300 cars, 35% more than in the same period last year. In April the carmaker sold 27,191 vehicles in China, including its MINI and Rolls-Royce marques, a 31% year-on-year increase.
- The new M4 SUV model from Great Wall Motors went on sale on May 25 with three variants priced between CNY63,900 and CNY71,000. The automaker plans to launch more than 20 new models in the next five years. It aims to sell 1.3 million vehicles and reach an annual production capacity of 1.5 million units in 2015.
- China’s Ministry of Transport and Sweden’s Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications signed a memorandum to set up a transportation safety research center that focuses on road safety and intelligent transportation systems. The center will be headquartered at the Ministry of Transport in Beijing, and branches will be set up at Shanghai’s Tongji University and Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology. Volvo Car Corp, now owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, will also be a part of the project.
- General Motors and its joint ventures sold 231,183 vehicles in May, 21.3% more than in the same month a year earlier. Shanghai GM sold 99,113 units, up 7.1% from a year earlier, while SAIC-GM-Wuling delivered 127,749 units, an annual surge of 35.9%. But sales of FAW-GM dipped 0.7% year on year to 3,756 units. Sales of GM’s Buick brand fell 1.2% on an annual basis in May to 51,360 units, but sales of Buick Excelle jumped 19% to 23,085 units last month. Sales of GM’s Chevrolet in May hit the highest level when they rose 13.1% year on year to 48,563 units, with orders for the Chevrolet Cruze soaring 34% to 18,977 units. Cadillac posted a 2.2% fall in sales to 2,205 units in May.
- On August 1, Mercedes-Benz will offer leasing options to private and commercial customers, making it easier to own a Mercedes-Benz. The company has won government approval to establish the Mercedes-Benz Leasing Co. Mercedes-Benz has begun to train financial consultants at its dealerships so they can provide expert advice and consultation. In China, though, only 10% of vehicle buyers used financing to obtain a vehicle in 2011, a proportion that has held steady for years. Analyst said financing is likely to become a much more popular means of buying automobiles in China in the coming years.
- Leonardo Fioravanti, 74, the designer of the Ferrari Daytona and 288 GTO, was hired by Beijing Automotive as Chief Design Officer in April. The carmaker unveiled a prototype luxury sedan at the Beijing motor show and has said it wants to make “world-class” cars by 2025. Beijing Auto is among several Chinese carmakers betting that hiring a star designer will help burnish their brands and reverse a widening gap in market share behind General Motors and Volkswagen. None of the top 10 passenger vehicle models by sales this year belonged to homegrown brands.
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