Archive for International News

LATEST UPDATE: Nissan Grand Livina 1.6 and 1.8 launched in Malaysia

Nissan Motors has unveiled the Nissan Livina Geniss, a seven-seater MPV part of Nissan’s new global car line-up. It was displayed to the public today at the 2006 Guangzhou International Motor Show. The MPV was designed and engineered at Nissan’s Technical Centre in Atsugi, Japan.

The Livina Geniss rides on the Renault-Nissan B platform underpinings that also spawned the Nissan Micra, Renault Clio and Renault Modus.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan Livina Geniss

Nissan is investing in auto parts export facilities in Indonesia and Thailand, with the Thai plant set to become Nissan’s largest parts export base outside of Japan. The Thai plant is expected to generated some US$300 million worth of exports per annum, while the Indonesian facility is expected to generate US$100 million worth of exports, procuring parts from about 90 Thai-based component manufacturers. That is about 16% of the parts exported by Japan. The 40,000 square-meter Thai plant will begin operations in January 2007 while the Indonesian facility will go operational in August 2007.

Nissan Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, it’s Singaporean office will be managing the export operations for the ASEAN region, and will handle complex, cross-border financial transactions. Basically the production centers will be Thailand and Indonesia and the financial, marketing and management center will be in Singapore. The Singaporean facility currently handles Southeast Asian transactions but there are plans to grow it into a global centre to handle financial transactions worldwide. Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB) has awarded Nissan Asia Pacific Pte Ltd “International Headquarters” (IHQ) status, allowing the company to enjoy a tax rate of 10% and below.

This is quite a major investment! Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. Geographically, Malaysia is in the middle of all three countries. But so far our National Automotive Policy has not been able to attract any new major investments from Nissan. Sigh!

Stay tuned for reports on the latest talks of a GM-Renault-Nissan alliance!

Sources: Bernama, Channelnewsasia, Reuters, Dow Jones Marketwatch

Mercedes Benz gained a design accolade earlier this month when it’s Mercedes Benz R-Class won the best of the best Red Dot Design Award, one of the most prestigious awards of it’s kind worldwide. The Red Dot Award received 2068 entries this year, and a total of 485 products were awarded the red dot. However, the best of the best award was reserved for 36 outstandard products, and the Mercedes Benz R-class is part of the ranks. Other Red Dot Design award winners include Nokia’s Nokia 8800 mobile phone and LG’s design team who won Design Team of the Year.

The Mercedes Benz R-class is a six-seater sports touring SUV (IMHO, funky speak for ‘minivan’) offering a host of poweful engines producing from 224hp up to 306hp. There are also AMG versions, with the R63 AMG giving you 510 horses to play with from it’s 6.3 liter V8 AMG engine. The R-class was one of the first Mercedes Benz together with the CLS to feature Mercedes’ new muscular design with sculpted side profiles and all that jazz. The car features Mercedes Benz 4MATIC all-wheel drive, air suspension at the rear and a 7-speed 7G-Tronic slushbox.

Click here to read the rest of Mercedes Benz R-Class wins Red Dot Award

Chery has released information on their latest compact car, the Chery QQ6 known internally as the S21. The Chery QQ6 is a small notchback said to be inspired by the design of the Volkswagen New Beetle. The notchback form is popular in China, as evident by Citroen developing the Citroen C-Triomphe, a special notchback version of Citroen C4 the specially for the Chinese market. The 4-door supermini is based on a new platform, not carried over from the previous Chery QQ and the notchback form is the first in a series that will also include a hatchback and a stationwagon.

This platform is said to be developed by Chery entirely on it’s own. It offers two engine options, a 1.1 liter and a 1.3 liter. It will be priced between US$5,250 and US$6,500 in the Chinese market. With the introduction of the QQ6, it’s sibling the Chery QQ will be renamed the Chery QQ3 as Chery intends to continue selling the Chery QQ3. More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Chery announces Chery QQ6 (S21)

The upcoming replacement for the Toyota Corolla Altis here in Malaysia might see the introduction of a CVT transmission, thanks to a new pair of engine and transmission announced last month by Toyota as part of it’s efforts to revamp it’s gasoline engine and transmission line-up by the year 2010.

The new engine is the 1.8 liter 2ZR-FE, which replaces the 1ZZ-FE in Toyota’s line-up. The 2ZR-FE has a few enhancements over the 1ZZ-FE found in our current Toyota Corolla Altis. For one, the new 2ZR-FE has Dual VVT-i which varies valve timing optimally for various engine speeds and loads on both the intake and exhaust valves. The previous 1ZZ-FE only has variable valve timing on the exhaust valves. Maximum torque has increased from 170Nm at 4,200 rpm to 175Nm at 4,400 rpm. Horsepower has increased from 132hp at 6,000 rpm to 136hp at 6,600 rpm. Fuel efficiency is supposed to be 5% higher compared to conventional engines.

Note that our local Toyota Corolla Altis actually has abit more power and torque than the Japanese specifications thanks to differences like an increased compression ratio of 10.5:1 instead of 10.0:1. Our Toyota Corolla Altis 1ZZ-FE engine makes 136hp and 171Nm of torque, slightly higher than it’s Japanese counterpart.

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PT Toyota-Astra Motor has launched a new Toyota Avanza facelift for the Indonesian market, together with the new 2007 Toyota Camry as well as a special 50-unit limited edition of the Toyota Yaris with a Superman theme called the Yaris Superman. The new Toyota Avanza facelift gains a new front grille design, a new front bumper, as well as new side protection mouldings on the doors. The interior also gains a new ivory colour scheme, and the third row of seats gets seatbelts. It’s K3-VE 1.3 DOHC VVT-i engine also benefits from better fuel emissions, now complying with Euro II standards, but there doesn’t seem to be any gains in horsepower or torque.

I do not have any information on whether or when UMW Toyota will be launching the new Toyota Avanza facelift here in Malaysia. The Toyota Avanza currently makes up 40% of Toyota sales here in Malaysia, which translates to about 16,800 units for the first six months this year. That’s 2,800 Toyota Avanza 7-seater MPVs a month, which is very good for a Japanese make considering the Proton Waja sells about 2,500 to 3,000 units a month according to Proton Edar CEO Datuk Maruan Mohd Said.

UPDATE: Toyota Avanza 1.5 now available in Malaysia, facelifted model. Click here for details.

Mercedes-Benz has officially revealed the new Mercedes Benz CL-class luxury coupe. The CL-class is a two-door coupe based on the Mercedes Benz S-class, and you know the world is starting to get ridiculous when I have to specifically say a coupe is two-door in order not to confuse it with “four-door coupes” like the Mercedes Benz CLS. More details after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of 2007 Mercedes Benz CL class - CL500, CL600

UPDATE: The new 2008 Toyota Corolla Altis has been launched in Malaysia! - click for more details, specifications, photos and pricing.

Toyota Motor Corp will be delaying the new Toyota Corolla until 2008, citing engineering resource constraints as the reason. Toyota says the current Corolla, available on Malaysian soils as the Toyota Corolla Altis will keep it’s current design for a sixth year in the USA, only to be replaced in 2008. The Toyota Corolla is normally kept for 5 years, with a mid-life facelift, after of which it is replaced with a new model. Photo shown above is the US market Toyota Corolla S with a Sport Plus Package. The USDM Toyota Corolla is similiar to our local Toyota Corolla Altis, different from the Singaporean Corolla which seems to be based on the European Corolla instead.

Toyota has had to focus all of it’s engineering resources to make sure the 2007 Toyota Camry launched on time, and is confident that the current Corolla will do well for another year. The Toyota Camry is Toyota’s best-selling US model, therefore it was put on a priority and most resources were allocated to it. UMW Toyota plans to launch the 2007 Toyota Camry by end-2006.

It looks like it will be some time until Toyota refreshes the Corolla here in Malaysia, so in my opinion the new 2006 Honda Civic will remain the king of the mid-sized sedan market here in Malaysia until 2008. I’ve heard that the Civic has waiting lists of 2 months for the 1.8S and up to 4 months for the 2.0S model, unconfirmed though.

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As if 170hp from their new 1.4 TSI engine is not enough, Volkswagen is currently testing a 200hp version of their twincharged pocket rocket engine. The engine is currently available in 140hp and 170hp units, and uses twincharging - a combination of supercharging at low engine RPM and turbocharging at high engine RPM - and really precise direct injection to achieve it’s amazing power figures.

Volkswagen acknowledges that most consumers still have the impression that displacement rules all, and look at the size of the engine rather than the amount of torque and horsepower it produces. The 1.4 TSI engines that go into current Volkswagen cars do not have the 1.4 liter engine capacity advertised anywhere including on the model names. The Volkswagen Golf with a 170hp TSI engine is called the Volkswagen Golf GT.

The 1.4 TSI is currently found in the Golf, Golf Plus, and Touran models, but will eventually find it’s way into the Polo, Eos and Passat. I think it will do especially well in a Polo GTI, which is currently powered by a 1.8 liter 150hp engine.

Related Posts:
Volkswagen 1.4 TSI Twincharged Engine
Volkswagen Golf GT 1.4 TSI and 2.0 TDI

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The Bugatti Veyron is the current benchmark of exotic raw supercar performance, surpassing the 1000hp mark and has been the talk of town long before it was actually launched. That might end soon. Porsche is planning a Bugatti Veyron killer called the Porsche GT1. The announcement of the new GT1 comes shortly after Porsche announced the end of production for the Porsche Carrera GT. The Carrera GT (shown above) was only in production for 3 years and there are only 1,111 in the world, with more than half of it in North America.

The new Porsche GT1 will offer roughly 950 horsepower and will likely be based on the same chassis as the Porsche Carrera GT, except that it will have a solid roof coupe body instead of being a roadster. Despite having “only” 950 horses, the GT1 is expected to be lighter than the Veyron for better power to weight ratio. The Porsche Carrera GT weighs only 1380kg while the Veyron weighs 1887kg. The GT1 is expected to be around the same weight as the Carrera GT. Of course, it will likely have all wheel drive to put all those horses down to the ground so they can be usable for some good acceleration times. Top speed is expected to be 254mph (408 km/h), 2mph over the Veyron’s top speed of 252mph.

And of course, it’s not that hard to beat the Veyron’s looks.