Archive for China

The first new “Modern Gentleman” cars have rolled off Nanjing’s assembly line in Nanjing, from a factory that Nanjing managed to piece together using the robots and assembly lines they bought from Rover.

The first two new models from Modern Gentlemen are the MG7 Saloon and the MG-TF sports car. Nanjing’s new factory can produce 200,000 cars, 250,000 engines, and 100,000 gearboxes annually.

Nanjing intends to keep the original British flavor, however it’s future direction from MG will be the Chinese market. However, it also intends to sell the cars around the world, but China is the major market. Some Modern Gentleman cars will also be produced in Longbridge, UK as well as Ardmore, Southern Oklahoma, with the latter to begin soon next year. MG originally stood for Morris Garages.

Remember my China Pirates post? Those amazing engineers from China have done it again, this time with a clone of the smart fortwo, not so much of an complete engineering clone with matching doors but more of a complete rip-off of the concept. This Chinese smart fortwo is a front engined, front wheel drive vehicle instead of the smart fortwo’s rear engine, rear wheel drive layout.

They even went as far as to copy the Tridion Safety Cell design, but I doubt there is an actual Safety Cell incorporated into the chassis, it is likely just a design element to make it look more similiar to the smart fortwo than it would look like without the “safety cell”. Even the interior is somewhat similiar, but not exactly the same.

Amazing eh? You’ve seen what happens to a real smart fortwo in an accident, complete with Tridion Safety Cell and all sorts of funky crash protection engineering, but would you risk your life in this similiarly sized car with no knowledge on it’s chassis’ capabilities in an accident?

More photos after the jump.

Related Posts:
smart fortwo crash test vs a Mercedes Benz S-Class

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Tan Sri Cam Soh, group executive chairman of Chery’s local partner Alado Corporation Sdn Bhd says Proton and Chery are expected to start their CKD program by mid-2007. The CKD program will involve Proton assembling Chery vehicles in Malaysia using Proton’s Shah Alam assembly facilities. The models in question are the Chery B14 MPV and the Chery Tiggo T11 SUV. It is said that Chery wants to make Malaysia it’s right hand drive market assembly and export center. A similar agreement is working well between Naza and Hafei, with Naza handling the right hand market for the Hafei Lobo with it’s reengineered Naza Sutera.

Proton’s agreement with Chery and Alado was previously extended in December 2006 to 28th February 2007. There is another agreement, one between Proton and Mitsubishi, that is set to expire on 2nd February 2007. We should know the outcome of that particular agreement soon. Look at the related posts for more information on the two Chery models to be assembled in Malaysia.

Related Posts:
Proton to product MPV and SUV with Chery
Chery Tiggo (Chery T11) coming to Malaysia
Chery V5 Crossover (Chery B14) MPV

Here’s Malcolm Bricklin’s new plans for his Visionary Vehicles brand. Hybrid cars, made in China for real cheap. Bricklin’s previous plans with Chery to bring in Chery vehicles into the US under the Visionary Vehicles name collapsed when the two parties did not manage to agree on how to use the money financed by investors.

He is currently in talks with 15 different Chinese car companies to try and get a hybrid car designed and built, then shipped to the US to sell under the Visionary Vehicles brand. Bricklin says the car will be a hybrid car, which means it has both a combustion engine and an electric motor, but the car will run primarily on the electric motor, with the combustion engine being a really small unit only running constantly at a certain RPM to recharge the electric motor’s batteries. The car can also be recharged by plugging it in to a regular wall socket. Fuel economy is estimated to be about 100 to 150 mpg, which translates to about 42 to 63 km per 1 liter of fuel!

Malcolm Bricklin says he hopes to have everything finished and set to go into the showrooms by 2009, and a prototype would be ready within 6 months. The car would be the size of a Mercedes Benz E-class, and could cost between US$10,000 to US$25,000. Tesla Motors, which stunned everyone a few months ago with it’s Tesla Roadster, is also developing a similiar vehicle, a hybrid sedan the size of the E-class/5-series.

Source

Related Posts:
Electric 4-seater luxury sedan from Tesla

After news of talks between Chrysler and Chery surfaced in May last year, Chrysler group CEO Tom LaSorda has finally signed a letter of intent with Chery Automobile Co to develop a small car for the group, but this is pending approval by DaimlerChrysler supervisory board, which will meet this month to discuss the matter. Other partners which were considered were Mitsubishi Motors Corp, and Hyundai Motor Co Ltd, but it is Chery who managed to clinch the deal in the end.

The collaboration is expected to be approved by the DCX board, and manufacturing will soon begin, according to Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines. It is not known for now Which badge under the Chrysler group will appear on the grille of this new small B-segment car, but the logical choice would be Dodge, the group’s value brand. Chrysler previously exhibited a concept small car, the Dodge Hornet, an aggressive-looking muscular small car, but the new compact from the Chery-Chrysler collaboration will not be the Dodge Hornet.

The car is expected to be built in China, as Chrysler says it cannot profitably produce a small car in the US. Chrysler has been in talks with Chery for nearly a year before this agreement was reached. More details will be released in a month’s time or earlier. The new small car will compete against the Toyota Yaris, Chevrolet Aveo, Honda Fit and Nissan Versa in the United States. It will also be sold in Canada, Mexico, Europe and possibly China. While this is a start for Chery’s involvement in the US market, but it is still keen to export it’s own cars under it’s own brand to the US as the small car will not be Chery-branded.

2006 was not a good year at all for Chrysler dealers in the US. The company kept cranking out minivans, medium to big cars and SUVs throughout the whole summer despite warnings and suggestions by dealers against the move. Chrysler just went on and on with overoptimism fueled by the success of the Chrysler 300. Despite employee pricing sales incentives and other promotions, dealers choked on inventory and floorplan bills skyrocketed with dipping sales. The Chrysler group posted a US$1.48 billion loss in the third quarter 2006. Will this new small car give Chrysler and it’s dealers a much needed boost? And even if so, what is Chrysler going to do with it’s sales bank of unsold cars? Instead of slowing down production when demand dropped, production was kept at full capacity, and now unsold Chrysler cars are just lying around in storage areas. Sound familiar?

Check after the jump for an interview with Tom LaSorda.

Related Posts:
2006 Dodge Hornet Concept
Dodge Attitude

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China, the world’s 2nd largest auto market had grown 25% since last year, reaching 6.45 million vehicles in the first 11 months of 2006. With such a huge market to tap, it is obvious that investors would be setting their eyes on the China auto market. But not all is well. China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the nation’s economic planner announced plans to curb the Chinese automotive industry’s rapid expansion which is resulting in overcapacity, something which is not a good thing as profitability will suffer due to underutilization of plants, amongst other negative effects.

While the government had been actively promoting the growth of the Chinese automotive industry as one of it’s ways to stimulate the economy for the past 10 years, growth had gone out of control and had started to become wasteful. Total combined output capacity of all the factories in China is currently at 8 million units a year, and another 2.2 million units of capacity is already under construction. These factories mostly belong to global auto giants like GM and Toyota. Following current trends, total capacity is expected to hit 20 million cars per annum in 2010, much much higher than the predicted sales of only 9 million units in the same time period.

New rules have been put in place:

1) Sales of vehicle makers applying for government approval to establish new plants outside their home bases must have exceeded 80 percent of their total production capacity in the previous year.

2) Companies which are considering the creation of a second car plant must have sold at least 100,000 cars. Minimum sales targets for SUV, multi-purpose vehicles, trucks, vans and buses were also given.

While the government had already realized this earlier and issued decrees to try to slow down the growth previously, being typical businessmen the smart automakers have found ways to bend the rules. These new rules were designed to further curb growth, for the good of the industry.

Chery Automobile Co. Ltd has shown signs of being a responsible car manufacturer that intends to stick around, rather than taking the “make fast profits and ignore issues like brand building and after sales support” approach that many others have adopted with their shitty deathtraps.

A recall notice has been issued for the Chery T11 Tiggo SUV, a unique visual blend of the 2nd generation Toyota RAV4 and the 2nd generation Honda CR-V which uses Mitsubishi 2.0 and 2.4 liter engines. The recall affects 1,875 of the Chery Tiggo SUVs with automatic transmissions, of which 80 are for the export market. The faulty component involves a fan controller which needs to be repaired. The faulty fan controller might cause engine failure, likely due to overheating.

Related Posts:
Chery Tiggo (Chery T11) coming to Malaysia

Malcolm Bricklin, who wanted to bring in Chery vehicles into the USA via his company Visionary Vehicles has abandoned his plan, some say because of the news of Daimler Chrysler talking to Chery to produce a small car for them - i.e.: the Dodge Hornet. But the actual story was Chery and Bricklin could not come to an agreement of how to use a US$200 million seed by billionaire George Soros. Malcolm Bricklin has been known to be the one who is daring enough to bring foreign auto brands into the US, some of his better stories have been Subaru, and his worst is likely Yugo.

However, Chery officials have said it still has plans to enter the US market, and Chery suppliers have confirmed that Chery is talking with several potential investors about developing and selling a Chery-branded car in the United States (which isn’t exactly what Mr. Bricklin intended - he wants the cars to be badged Visionary Vehicles), though an agreement is not likely to be reached anytime soon.

Shown above is Chery’s recent Chery A3 concept car, with one more photo of it after the jump.

Related Posts:
Chrey to build Dodge subcompacts for DCX
Chrysler to pick sub-compact partner by year end
Chery to build small car for Chrysler

Source

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Volkswagen’s Neeza concept car is a concept car for the Chinese market - looking somewhat like a coupe and station wagon crossover, it was designed with the tastes of Chinese customers in mind. At first glance, it looks like a stretched Touareg - well, that would make it an Audi Q7 actually - equipped with a more concept-like futuristic front and rear end, as well as back-hinged rear doors for easier access to the interior.

The name Neeza is based on a character in Chinese folklore - Ne-Zha. Ne-Zha was a young boy who fought evil spirits with magical spirits, and had incomparible willpower and a youthful and anticipatory spirit. The red band in the interior is a reference to the red silk scarf that Ne-Zha wore.

Volkswagen says the Volkswagen Neeza concept was design based on Chinese cultural motifs - the philosophy of “round heavens and the rectangular earth.” Uh, whatever that means.

More photos including a cartoon depiction of Ne-Zha after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Neeza Concept

Another car manufacturer has developed a model specially for the Chinese market. Introducing the Volkswagen Magotan. Despite sounding like a strange hybrid fusion between a Mango and a Rambutan, Volkswagen’s joint venture in China - FAW-Volkswagen - this is actually a Passat specially developed for the Chinese market.

Static torsional stiffness is up 57% over the standard Chinese Passat sold by Shanghai-Volkswagen (not FAW-Volkswagen), which is actually a long wheel base VW/Audi B5 platform car, as opposed to the this Magotan Passat’s PQ46 platform. The trunk is gigantic - 565 liters! The suspension consists of a MacPherson strut front as well as a four-link trapezoidal system for the rear. The Volkswagen Magotan is also the first sedan of it’s class in China to have an electronic parking brake, simply press a button to activate the brake, saving space in the car that would have otherwised been used for the mechanical connections.

There is also a Keyless entry start and exit system, which lets you enter the car as long as the transmitter is in your pocket - turning on the engine also works the same way with a push start button.

The press kit for the Magotan made me realise something about the mentality of FAW-Volkswagen though, but I am not sure if it’s the Germans or the Chinese who were responsible for this. The photos in the press kit show a normal Volkswagen Passat, but the Passat logos and German numberplate were erased, and new Magotan logo and Chinese numberplates pasted on. Don’t tell me you have to cut costs to the extent that you can’t re-do a photoshoot of the proper car?!

This is the exact reason why I will not try Chinese-made cars for the time being… who knows where else they have slashed on costs? But anyway, more photos after the jump, though if you’ve seen press photos of the Volkswagen Passat you really don’t have to bother. Same thing.

[UPDATE: Added video.]

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Magotan for China