made 5,161,076 units of automobiles in the first 11 months of 2005, up 10.18 percent, compared with the same period of last year, according to CBU-Autostats. Sales were 5,231,516 units, up 13.60 percent. China’s automobile market in 2005 is expected to exceed 5.8 million units in sales, up 14 percent year
Read MoreDetroit -- "The flag dropped in Detroit today," CBS News reporter Anthony Mason told the American audience at prime time CBS News on the evening of January 10. "The race is on and the Chinese are on their way."Mason was at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) with thousands
Read MoreMagna Steyr, an Austria-based automotive design and engineering company, has recently set up its China Office in Pudong, Shanghai. Richard Hu, its technical sales director, has been traveling all over China over the past two years, making friends with executives of automakers and trying to win business for the Austrian
Read MoreLaunching new models has been one of the increasingly used tools by passenger vehicle manufacturers to stimulate market demand. The rate of annual new model launches has increased significantly in recent years. In 2005, according to incomplete statistics, more than 80 new or upgraded passenger vehicle models were launched. That equates
Read MoreBeijing – Toyota Prius, the first home-made hybrid car, hit the market in Beijing on January 15, according to the company news release. The prices for the cars in the Chinese market are ¥288,000 ($35,688) and ¥302,000, depending on whether it has leather seats. Toyota expects to sell 3,000 Prius
Read MoreBeijing – China produced 5.7077 million units of automobiles in 2005, up 12.56 percent from that in 2004. Sales outpaced output by about 50,000 units to 5.7582 million units, up 13.54 percent, signaling a healthy reduction of inventory, according to statistics from CAAM. CAAM predicts that China’s automobile market is to
Read MoreWUHAN/CHONGQING – Retail prices of the Peugeot 206 made by Dongfeng-Peugeot-Citroën and the Lifan 520 made by Lifan Industry Group were announced on January 19. The 1.6L Peugeot 206 has four variants priced from ¥86,800($10,850) to ¥108,800, while the Lifan 520, also a 1.6L model powered by a Tritec engine, is
Read MoreToyota Motor Corporation is a latecomer to China, as far as automobile assembly is concerned. It established its first automotive joint venture, the Sichuan-Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. in 1998, 13 years later than Volkswagen of Germany. The leading Japanese automaker arrived also much later than General Motors, Honda, Citroën and
Read MoreIn China's economic reform that started in 1978, a succession of rags-to-riches people came onto the stage, shone for some time and then vanished. Lu Guanqiu is not one of them. Observers call him an entrepreneur with perennial wisdom.Chairman of the board of Wanxiang Group Corporation, Lu Guanqiu, 60, is
Read MoreGeneral Motors, the U.S. partner of Shanghai Automotive Industry (Group) Corporation (SAIC), is reportedly gearing up to find a second cooperative partner in China, according to local media reports.A recent news story published in Zhongguo Jingying Bao (China Business) said that the likely candidate might be Jianghuai Automobile, one of
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