Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts

The Manchurian Candidate: Anti-Japan Protests Good News for German Automaker in China

One man’s loss is another man’s gain. That’s the way it has always been and that’s the way it is today, especially in the corporate world.
Case in point: China’s anti-Japan protests, which seem to turn uglier each passing day. Toyota, Nissan and Honda have been forced to shut down their plants after attacks on some of their operations and dealerships.
Nevertheless, Chinese consumers still buy cars. If they shy away from Japanese vehicles, then they will probably turn to other brands from nations with which they have no quarrel.

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So That's How They Lower Their Transport Costs in China…


How many small trucks can you fit on the loading area of full size truck trailer? Well, that depends on who and where you ask that question.
In China, for example, a lorry was filmed carrying a total of 18 trucks (!) spread out in two rows. Now that's what we call being efficient – not to mention being a hazard for the rest of the road users…
A short video follows right after the break.
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O Say Can You Read: Romney Says Jeep will Shift All of its Production to China


There is nothing wrong with flying the Stars and Stripes during an election year; after all, in a democracy, people get to hear all sides and then decide whom they will vote for.
Unless, of course, your argument is based on a wrong assumption. Even worse if you make a statement in front of a wide audience based on misinterpreting a news report…
Mitt Romney, the Republicans’ 2012 presidential candidate, told an Ohio crowd last Thursday night that Jeep is considering moving all of its production to China.

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VW Launches Second Generation of Santana Sedan in China After 30 Years!


In most markets, the lifespan of a new model is about six to eight years - give or take, with a facelift scheduled somewhere in the middle. China, on the other hand, is not your usual car market; or at least it wasn’t for quite a long time.
That’s why the Volkswagen Santana, which was based on the second generation of the Passat, code-named B2, and was launched in the Chinese market in 1982, soldiered on for three decades!
During that period, it sold nearly four million units, which made it one of the most popular cars in the country.

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Lucky Scooter Rider Survives Highway Bump Unscathed


Here's another tale from Asian roads - one that has a happy ending, though, as you will soon see for yourself, it could have easily gone the other way with painfully disastrous results…

The driver of the car, the sounds of which reminds us of a Subaru model, was going faster than what the road traffic permitted, and at the same time, a scooter rider in the middle lane failed to look over his shoulder while changing lanes.

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Investors Value Mercedes-Benz Cars at Less than Half Compared to Arch-Rival BMW


It’s been more than a year since Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche vowed that Mercedes-Benz would reclaim the number one place in the premium segment from BMW by the end of the decade. He even sent a letter to his employees, saying that the company “should be far ahead of the pack”.

For the time being, though, the gap is widening, instead of closing and the three-pointed star is still trailing both BMW and Audi in the race for the number one spot.

The latest report by Bloomberg says that market capitalization at BMW is up to €45 billion (US$58.8 billion) compared to €42.2 billion (US$55.5 billion) for Daimler. After subtracting around €20 billion (US$26.3 billion) for its truck business, investors value the Mercedes-Benz passenger car division at €22 billion (US$28.9 billion), or less than half the value of its Munich-based rival.

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Someone Should Find this Driver and Report Him/Her to the Police


Making an honest mistake while sitting behind the wheel is one thing, being careless or to put it bluntly, a complete asshat, is quite another.

On Sunday, the driver of a previous generation Honda CR-V (possibly in Taiwan - if we're wrong, tell us in the comments) was filmed by a motorcyclist making an extremely dangerous move on the road when he or she drove between a Nissan Sentra and a scooter driven by a father with his child riding at the back, almost knocking them down.

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Yema Auto's All-Electric and All-Audi Looking Mustang F16 Enters Production


It's been a little over a year since China's Yema Auto dazzled us with its replication capabilities when it introduced a new breed of clone concepts at the Chengdu Auto Show 2011 with the T-SUV (call me VW Tiguan), E-SUV (Infiniti EX) and the F16 and E-Taxi twins (Audi A4 Avant).

In the time that passed since then, Yema Auto's engineers worked hard to finish the development of one of those models, the F16, that is now ready for a small-scale production in battery-powered form under its sub brand Mustang.

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New and Blue Audi R8 China Edition Looking for 80 Wealthy Chinese Customers


With a population in excess of 1.3 billion and a booming economy, something tells us that Audi won't have much of a problem finding 80 buyers interested in its limited run R8 China Edition that was built exclusively for the country featured in its name.

In what will likely sound odd to the ears of Westerners, the cars will be numbered from 1 to 99, and that's because Chinese consider 4 an unlucky number, so Audi decided to eliminate it.

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China's Qoros Offers First Glimpse of its New European Sedan


Qoros is the latest Chinese carmaker to attempt to crack the difficult European market with its first ever production model that will be revealed in a world premiere at next year's Geneva Motor Show.

We still don't know the name of the car, but Qoros has already told us that it will be a compact sedan model in the likes of the Volkswagen Jetta and Ford Focus.

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Ex-GM Engineer and Husband Convicted of Stealing Hybrid Tech Secrets to Sell to China's Chery


Last Friday, November 30, former General Motors engineer Shanshan Du and her husband Yu Qin were found by a jury of nine women and three men guilty of conspiring to steal the Detroit carmaker’s trade secrets.

The 53-year old Du was found guilty of conspiracy to possess trade secrets without authorization and two counts of trade secrets, and not guilty of three counts of wire fraud. Her 51-year old husband was found guilty on all six counts, as well as a seventh, that is obstruction of justice.

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Kia Loses the Right to Use Quoris Name in Europe to China's Qoros


We don't how many European or Korean, for that matter, carmakers would like to associate one of their top products with a Chinese brand, but Kia found itself in a legal battle with China's Qoros over the name of its new rear-wheel drive flagship saloon, the Quoris, and it lost - at least in Europe and for the time being.

The Korean carmaker introduced the full-size luxury sedan in its home market as the K9, but in July this year, it announced that the export version would be named Quoris, which the company claims is derived from the English words 'Core' and 'Quality'.

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China's 2012 Guangzhou Auto Show in 300+ Photos


Being the most populous country in the globe with more than 1.34 billion citizens, and not to mention, the world's second-largest country by land area, it's only natural that China plays hosts to several automobile shows throughout the year in a number of regions.

This week, it's the 10th edition of the Guangzhou Auto Show. Guangzhou is the third largest city in the country and is located in southern China, approximately 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Hong Kong.

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Toyota to Launch Two New Car Brands in China Next Year, while Nissan will Release Venucia EV


Japanese carmakers are having a hard time in China this year after local consumers shunned their products due to a territorial dispute over a group of islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, but they're making plans to regain any lost ground starting from next year. Read more »

Shanghai GM’s Springo EV is the First Electric Vehicle Developed by a Chinese Joint Venture


It may not be an event of international stature, but GM still chose the 2012 Auto Guangzou Auto Show to launch the new Sail Springo EV, which has the distinction of being the first-ever production electric vehicle developed by a Chinese joint venture.

It is the first step in GM's plan to increase its EV and hybrid sales in the world's largest car market - and since the country's tax system makes imports prohibitively expensive, local production was the only way to go for the Detroit brand its partner.

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Porsche Cayman Coupe Slams Into the Rear End of a Truck without Lights


The driver of a Porsche Cayman coupe was filmed by an adjacent vehicle fitted with a dashboard-mounted camera smashing violently into the rear end of a truck at high speed.

The accident, which looks like it took place in China or at least in a neighboring country (if any of our readers can help with the translation, leave us a message in the comments), occurred when the Cayman driver didn't notice the truck that did not have any lights open at the back and was traveling on the left hand side of the road.

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Subaru Comes on Top After Failing to Build a New Car Plant in China


It’s funny how things turn out sometimes. In September 2011, the Chinese government rejected a proposed joint venture between Subaru and Chery Automobile on the grounds that Toyota, which already has two plants in the country, is a shareholder in Subaru parent company Fuji Heavy Industries.

Failing to build a new plant in the world’s biggest car market must surely be labeled a failure on Subaru’s behalf, right?

Actually, after the Sino-Japanese furor about a group of islands and the anti-Japan sentiment that swept many Chinese consumers, this turned out to benefit Fuji Heavy Industries.

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Toyota Vios Collects a Not So Friendly Bump from a Lexus RX


One of the worst things that can happen to a driver travelling on a highway is for one or more cars to suddenly slow down in front, as not all motorists keep a safe distance from each other nor do they always pay attention to what's going on ahead of them.

In this occasion, a group of vehicles slowed down on a highway located close to New Taipei in northern Taiwan, with a Lexus RX smashing into the rear end of a Toyota Vios sedan, sending it violently across the road.

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Jaguar-Land Rover and Chery Seal Joint Venture, Begin Construction of New Plant in China


On Sunday, November 18, Jaguar Land Rover and Chery Automobile Company Ltd. set the founding stone of a new manufacturing facility in the city of Changshu, near Shangai, in China.

The two companies’ joint venture, which has been on the cards since March, is named Chery Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Company Ltd. and involves the local manufacturing of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles as well as the creation of new models for a partnership brand in China.

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Watch the Devastating Effects of a Truck's Tire Exploding on a Taiwanese Highway


Most of the times, when we think of a tire problem, our mind automatically goes to a flat, which is indeed a routine problem that can be quickly fixed. This can be done either by pulling over to the side of the road and swapping it with a spare, or in the case you roll on run-flats, by driving to a nearby tire shop.

A flat is one thing, but a tire blowout or explosion is a completely different and much, much more dangerous scenario altogether, even more so when you're talking about a large wheel on a heavy commercial vehicle.

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