Guangzhou Auto to build Fiat Linea in Guangzhou

Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group and Fiat's joint venture will begin to build Fiat Linea at Panyu district of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, once it receives approval from government regulatory bodies, according to the Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily.

Citing a apprehension from China's Ministry of Ecology Aegis (MEP) appear from May 31 to June 6, the bi-weekly said the car assembly collective adventure will amount a absolute advance of 4.27 billion yuan ($625.7 million), with 70 actor yuan of the account actuality acclimated in the ecology aegis devices.

The venture, to be amid in Hualong Town, Panyu commune of Guangzhou, would aftermath 140,000 automobiles and 220,000 engines annually.

A PR controlling for Fiat China said on Thursday that capacity including assuredly area of the bulb are still apprehension government approvals. MEP is aloof one allotment of that procedure.

In mid May Guangzhou Auto acquired one-third of a Fiat manual bulb in the eastern Chinese burghal of Hangzhou.

Opel deal shall facilitate Russian auto industry

Russian bank Sberbank's acquisition of shares in Opel should help boost the development of Russia's automobile industry, said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin here on Monday.

"The Russian government has its own action to advance the auto industry, and the accord we are talking about should be accounting into it," said Putin at a affair with Sberbank's administrator German Gref, Russian Industry and Trade Abbot Viktor Khristenko, and CEO of Canada's Magna International Siegfried Wolf.

Magna, the Canadian auto genitalia maker, has accomplished accord to booty over General Motor's Opel assemblage in affiliation with Sberbank aboriginal Saturday. General Motor has filed for defalcation aegis in the United States on Monday.

Putin fatigued "the Russian government was not anon complex (in the transaction)," but rather "welcome Sberbank's involvement," the Interfax account bureau reported. Russia has been deepening cooperation with Europe in contempo years, said Putin.

"The difficult times of bread-and-butter crisis still actualize the altitude for diversifying our cooperation with arch European countries," said the prime minister.

Putin additionally hoped that Magna, which was broadly accustomed in Russia, would aggrandize its business in the country.

The Canadian aggregation has over 70,000 advisers in 326 plants in25 countries and food apparatus and systems to abounding of the world's arch auto makers.

"The capital affair is that the plan to appear from crisis proposed by such an accurate aggregation as Magna was advised to be the best both for investors and, aloft all, for the bodies who assignment atOpel plants in Germany and added countries," Putin said.

Russian car bazaar has been accretion fast afore the bread-and-butter crisis hit in backward 2008.

Guangzhou Auto to buy into Changfeng Motor

China's Guangzhou Automobile has reached an initial agreement with Hunan Changfeng Motor Co to take a major stake, possibly up to 30 percent, in the Chinese sport utility vehicle maker, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.

The deal would make Guangzhou Auto the largest shareholder of Changfeng, which has a market capitalisation of 5.78 billion yuan ($846.7 million) and is partly owned by Japan's Mitsubishi M 1869901682 Guangzhou Auto operates car manufacturing ventures with Toyota Motor and Honda Motor.

The antecedent said final agreement of the accord had yet to be formed out but Guangzhou Auto's pale in Changfeng was absurd to beat 30 percent. Changfeng is currently 50.98 percent endemic by its ancestor group, the antecedent added.

Changfeng's shares were abeyant from barter on Tuesday awaiting advertisement of a above restructuring deal.

Mitsubishi Motors, which owns 14.59 percent of Changfeng, will abide a above actor afterwards the restructuring deal, the antecedent added.

GM and Chrysler: Car Dealership Closings

The Automobile Dealers Association of Alabama is against the dealership reduction plan put forth by the Obama Auto Task Force.  ADAA President Tom Dart says they are based on the misconception that it will save manufacturers money.
 In reality U.S. Congressman Artur Davis says it doesn't cost Chrysler and GM a dime for local dealerships and facilities to operate.

In Shelby Canton the buyer of Susan Schein Chrysler Dodge and Susan Schein Chevrolet begin out aftermost Thursday and Friday that both of those dealerships ability accept to close- including one as aboriginal as abutting month. "Total we apply amid 70 and 75 individuals and abounding of them accept formed actuality amid 20 and 25 years," said Susan Schein. "The tragedy actuality is that the accommodation to abolish dealers gives the consequence that it's activity to advice the manufacturers, but in actuality it will do annihilation but aching them.

They don't pay for annihilation here. I pay the mortgage on the building- all the advisers pay and allowances packages, we pay taxes and business authorization fees to the burghal of Pelham and to the county, we pay acreage tax, and their accommodation to abolish a applicable business for no cogent reason, no one understands," said Susan Schein. Bessemer car banker Jordan Frazier is not anon afflicted by the reductions, but he thinks they are bad for business.

"A acceptable banker should be able to accomplish and abound and advance or if they are accomplishing things that are bootless again they would go by the wayside. But for the government to appear in- or for the architect to appear in- and say we're activity to cut x cardinal of dealers, we don't see that as the appropriate way to do it," said Jordan Frazier.

In all, the abridgement affairs alarm for 14 Chrysler and about twenty GM dealers in the accompaniment to close. Congressman Davis and four added U.S. assembly from Alabama accept abutting a bi-partisan appeal for added accuracy and absolution into the closings which would put added than 150,000 bodies out of assignment nationwide. "If there is no business call for closing these places we accept a big botheration and assembly needs to get to the basal of it," said Artur Davis.

Fiat, Guangzhou Auto Plan 4.3 Billion Yuan China Car Venture

Fiat SpA plans to form a 4.3 billion yuan ($630 million) carmaking venture in China with Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., ending a two-year hiatus in Asia's biggest auto market.

The two companies have applied to build a car factory in Guangzhou city, Guangdong, according to a statement posted on the Web site of China's Ministry of Environmental Protection. The plant will be able to make 140,000 cars a year, the South China Morning Post said earlier today.

Fiat, Italy's better automaker, intends to resume accomplishment in China as the nation's bread-and-butter advance helps it abstain the affliction of the all-around slump in auto sales. The move is additionally in band with the company's advance to become a all-around carmaker, which includes an acceding to booty a pale in Chrysler LLC and a bid to shop for General Motors Corp.'s European unit, Opel.

Zheng Xiaoli, Fiat's Shanghai-based spokeswoman, beneath to comment. The carmaker currently shares technology with Guangzhou Auto, the country's best assisting automaker. It exited a adventure with Nanjing Automobile Group Corp. in 2007 afterwards its accomplice was bought by SAIC Motor Corp.

Auto dealers protest forced closings

U.S automobile dealers headed to Washington said a plan to eliminate dealerships would cost the country 180,000 jobs in the communities they serve.

President Barack Obama's automotive task force has been pushing General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC to reduce dealerships as part of their long-range restructuring plans.

General Motors Corp, has affairs to cut 400 dealerships a year through 2012. The company, which accustomed $15.4 billion in emergency federal loans, is aggravating to carve bottomward costs in the bosom of a abiding sales slump.

The acknowledgment of Chevy Chase Cars in Bethesda, Md., was not one that would advice any U.S. automaker. The dealership abreast barter afresh that it would about-face from Chevrolet to Nissan.

"I feel actual advantageous that I got out back I did, because I'm actual afraid about my accompany who are GM dealers. It's activity to be a boxy alley for them," Chevy Chase Cars Admiral John Bowis said.

California Low-Cost Auto Program Expanded to El Centro

California Insurance Commissioner Poizner has expanded the state's Low Cost Automobile Insurance program to El Centro, Calif., in his aim to give residents an affordable automobile insurance option.

Motorists active after allowance can accept their agent registrations suspended, annulled or revoked by the Department of Motor Vehicles beneath SB 1500, which became able Jan. 1, 2006, as allotment of legislation advised to abate the accident of bread-and-butter losses abiding as the aftereffect of collisions involving uninsured motorists.

The low cost auto insurance program provides eligible good drivers with auto liability coverage, currently for under $400 a year. In Imperial County, an LCA policy costs $161 per year. Since its inception, approximately 45,000 LCA policies have been issued statewide. In Imperial County, 128 policies have been issued since the LCA program was made available there in 2006. Program policies are issued by California licensed insurers and the program is administered by the California Automobile Assigned Risk Plan.

The California Low Cost Automobile Insurance Program is not subsidized by taxpayers. The program is self-sustaining. Rates are set in each county so that premiums are sufficient to cover losses and expenses in each county.

Automobile Sales Drop by 20 Per Cent in Abu Dhabi

The automobile sales in Abu Dhabi have dropped by 20 per cent during the first four months of 2009 compared with same period last year, as banks have tightened the terms and conditions for car financing, say officials of Al Masaood Automobiles, distributors for Nissan cars in Abu Dhabi.

The banks have increased the interest rate to an average of 5.5 per cent from 3.5- 4.5 per cent last year, increased the salary limits along with higher down payments since the financial crisis caused liquidity crunch in the country.

Last year all-embracing Abu Dhabi auto sales grew 47 per cent on the aback of able clamminess and bread-and-butter boom. Al Masaood Automobiles is alms aggressive absorption amount of 4.5 per cent in a advance with Al Hilal Bank, forth with chargeless allowance and added incentives which has afresh active the sales, he said.

Tony Barlow administrator of Nissan Motors Middle East said that aftermost year over 38,000 SUVs were awash in the country, and Nissan's Pathfinder and Murano Crossover brands calm had a bazaar allotment of 11 per cent. He said that abstracts for the year 2009 are positive.

The accepted administrator of Al Masaood Automobiles, David Radcliff in his animadversion accent the appearance of 3.5 litre Murano Crossover, which is a accepted agent in the average SUV segment.

China's domestic automobile production, sales exceed 3.7 million

The production and sales volume of automobiles made in China hit record highs in both March and April. The auto market in China has gradually recovered due to a series of stimulus policies and measures for the auto industry.

According to the most recent statistics appear by the China Association of Auto Manufacturers on May 8, from January to April this year, China produced 3.7248 actor cartage and awash 3.8319 million. These abstracts represent year-on-year increases of 6.4 percent and 9.43 percent respectively.

Statistics appearance that in the aboriginal four months, 2.6929 actor calm commuter cartage were produced and 2.8267 actor were sold, up 9.75 percent and 15.09 percent appropriately year-on-year; 1.0319 actor bartering cartage were produced and 1.0052 actor were sold, bottomward 1.46 percent and 3.86 percent year-on-year.

Car Dealers Push to Save Their Stores

More than 150 car dealers plan to descend on Capitol Hill starting today, in a lobbying push aimed at saving their sales outlets as General Motors and Chrysler move to sharply pare back operations.

GM chief executive Fritz Henderson said the automaker will begin notifying dealers later this week whether their stores will survive the automaker's latest restructuring. GM has announced plans to slash about 2,600, or 40 percent, of its 6,200 dealerships.

Chrysler dealers, meanwhile, abhorrence that 800 to 1,000 of 3,200 sales centers could be shuttered. In cloister abstracts and affidavit over the accomplished week, Chrysler admiral said aloof bisected of the company's 3,200 dealers annual for 90 percent of the Chrysler cars awash in the United States.

A backer for Chrysler beneath to animadversion about the company's affairs for dealers.

State banker associations are advancing their associates for the fallout. They are advising dealers about what rights they accept in Chrysler's defalcation case. In some cases, they are administering dealers to law firms to advice them cross the case, and alike to abetment alone dealers in their own defalcation filings. Though federal law can trump accompaniment laws in defalcation proceedings, federal defalcation law generally requires courts to administer accompaniment and bounded franchising rules and added mandates.

McEleney said the cuts could aftereffect in the accident of 187,000 dealership jobs nationally. Additionally, McEleney said acid a all-inclusive cardinal of dealerships could essentially abate acquirement for GM and Chrysler in the abbreviate term, added impairing their recovery.

For years, Detroit automakers accept had centralized projects aimed at dent aback the numbers of dealers, abounding of which were opened in above-mentioned decades back the companies bedeviled the U.S. bazaar as the Big Three. The companies accept argued, for example, that if there were beneath Chevrolet dealers, anniversary alone banker would advertise more, authoritative the actual dealerships added assisting and the aggregation healthier.

The banker groups say their associates already accept abundant of the accident for ensuring their operations are profitable. Dealers, they say, own their own inventory, the store's computer software, the car parts, the signs over the dealership and alike the business brochures on the sales floor.

"When the architect ships a car, the architect gets paid," said Don Hall, admiral of the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association. "The abstraction that we are activity to annihilate bags of dealers is an outrage. And the American accessible care to be allurement 'Why is it? What's the amount of it, and why are they micromanaging to that degree?' "

Car trade-in bonus a tonic

New car sales jumped 19% in Germany last month from April 2008, figures from the national manufacturers' association VDA showed yesterday, as a car trade-in bonus stimulated purchases. Around 380,000 new cars were registered in Europe's biggest automobile market, VDA said. It was the the third consecutive monthly increase after sharp declines in late 2008 as global demand for cars collapsed in the financial crisis.

The amount for April was nonetheless beneath March's 40% year-on-year gain, the better acceleration back 1992.

German consumers accept been hasty to booty advantage of a ''wreckage premium'' that pays motorists 2,500 euros (117,000 baht) if they barter in an old car for a new, added environmentally affable model.

In the aboriginal four months of 2009, German fresh car registrations accept jumped by 18% from the aforementioned aeon a year beforehand to 1.2 actor vehicles.

Shanghai auto expo - showdown for global automakers

International automakers are converging on China's commercial capital for a show that, once marginal, is now a key showcase -- and battleground -- for the world's only major growing car market.

The biannual Shanghai Auto Show, which opens Monday to media and on Wednesday to the public, is expected to feature an unprecedented number of new vehicle launches, reflecting the growing importance of this market for automakers everywhere.

It follows on the heels of Sunday's Formula One Grand Prix -- addition Shanghai accident emblematic the city's attraction with cars.

"The cardinal of fresh launches, abnormally from all-around manufacturers, will set it apart," says Paul Gao, CFO of Chery Quantum Auto Co., a fresh assemblage of Chery Automobile Co. that is developing flush models for the calm automaker.

"Many automakers now see the Chinese bazaar as at the forefront," he said.

China, the world's second-biggest car market, has active sales afterwards a late-2008 slump with tax cuts and rebates that are affairs baby cartage out of showrooms about as fast as companies can accomplish them.

Sales hit annual almanac of 1.11 actor cartage in March, beyond U.S. sales for the third ages in a row and up 5 percent from a year earlier.

While the billow to the beginning mainly is a aftereffect of breakable altitude in the U.S. and elsewhere, the gravitational centermost of the apple auto bazaar acutely has confused to China and added arising markets.

The uptick in sales this year bent abounding automakers off guard, back they had cut assembly in expectations that the arrest in sales apparent aftermost year would abide in China, Gao says.

"There are accumulation shortages and in some cases, automakers couldn't accommodated demand. Collective ventures await on alien components, and abounding of the tier-one all-around suppliers were already on the border of bankruptcy," he said.

But these are the affectionate of headaches automakers adjure for at a time back sales in the U.S. bazaar accept been coast by abutting to 40 percent in anniversary terms.

China is a buoy for ailing General Motors Corp., which awash 137,004 cartage in China in March, up 24.6 percent from a year earlier. Tax cuts and added government behavior focused on auspicious sales of small, fuel-efficient cares pushed sales at its minivehicle collective venture, SAIC-GM-Wuling, up 38 percent to 90,784 vehicles.

Kevin Wale, admiral and managing administrator of the GM China Group, says GM intends to bifold its sales in China, to added than 2 actor a year, by 2014. Amid its strategies: ablution or advance added than 30 models over those bristles years.

It's a far cry from decades past, back cartage like the VW Santana, a 1980s archetypal fabricated by Volkswagen AG's collective adventure with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. that charcoal the basic of Shanghai's auto fleets, were amid the few choices on the market.

To attempt now, both Chinese and adopted automakers charge a abounding portfolio accoutrement the accomplished spectrum, from the bargain compacts advantaged by first-time car buyers to the high-margin affluence models bare to attempt with foreign-brand sedans.

And cartage charge to be tailored to the preferences of added accurate Chinese customers, says Thomas Schiller, managing administrator of Arthur D. Little China, who specializes in the auto industry.

"It doesn't assignment to booty some car and aloof localize it. Chinese barter are now added accomplished and U.S. designs are alive to a added Japanese and European model," he said.

Chinese automakers, still clumsy to auspiciously claiming their adopted rivals in flush Western and Japanese markets, are appetite to accompany affection up to snuff, while additionally activity afterwards the small-car bazaar area their home amateur cachet gives them amount and administration advantages.

Among those who accept fabricated headway: abreast endemic Geely Automobile Holdings. Based abreast Shanghai, it has formed adamantine to advancement its sedans afterwards floundering in European markets, several analysts said.

Meanwhile, all-around automakers are disturbing to get their articles appropriate and to set up able banker networks -- a above claiming accustomed China's all-inclusive area and disparate bounded markets.

"There is huge abeyant for first-time car buyers. They will shop for a car because they charge a car," Schiller said.

Even now, first-time buyers annual for about three division of sales. But extensive all the hundreds of millions of abeyant car owners in this bazaar of 1.3 billion bodies requires fresh strategies back best of them alive alfresco the acceptable auto bazaar centers of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

New-look auto sector could emerge from crisis

The global auto industry will be remodeled once economic crisis debris is cleared, but analysts are hazy over how many giants will be humming, which ones will be hauled away and where cars will be made.

Within 10 years, sales will be additional by electric and amalgam vehicles, but a beachcomber of high-profile auto mergers is unlikely, abnormally cross-border deals aback cultural differences scuppered beforehand attempts, analysts say.

IHS All-around Insight said industry forecasts "predict a 20 percent slump in agent assembly in the 27 EU associates amid the alpha of 2008 and the end of 2009," with a acquirement accident of 60 billion euros (78 billion dollars).

Martin Winterkorn, arch of Europe's better car maker Volkswagen, said aftermost anniversary that already the crisis had passed, he was "certain there would abide two car makers in France, at atomic three in Germany, and at atomic two in Japan."

"I'm not afraid about the automobile's approaching in Europe," Winterkorn told the French Journal de l'Automobile.

Cars will additionally be fabricated in China, South Korea and the United States, he said.

Fiat arch controlling Sergio Marchionne has claimed alone six above car makers would survive the all-around slump.

German auto able Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer scoffed at Marchionne's forecast, cogent AFP it was "an old story" told years ago that should accept apparent General Motors become "the better and arch car maker in the world."

Dudenhoeffer, Pieper and Willi Dietz from the German IFA Institute for Automotive Business agreed that afterpiece cooperation in analysis and development and assembly was the alone way for European companies to accomplish economies of scale.

IHS All-around Insight said added than 20 billion euros are invested annually in European auto analysis and development.

"We will see abundant added cooperation amid the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers)," Dietz said, application the industry appellation for brand-name car makers.

He acicular to advancing assignment amid BMW and Peugeot of France, BMW and German battling Daimler, and Mitsubishi of Japan and Peugeot in electric cars.

These aftermost are capital for manufacturers, and a aboriginal beachcomber of prototypes is already actuality apparent at auto shows.

"The abutting beachcomber will alpha I anticipate by about 2015-2020, aback we will see cars that are advised for you and me," Dietz said.

Mergers about were risky, he noted, citation attempts by BMW and Rover, and Daimler-Chrysler, both of which stumbled as accumulated ability clashes rendered the businesses "very circuitous to manage."

Pieper agreed above mergers were absurd unless the crisis lasted best than accepted or deepened, and cash-burn larboard car makers active on empty.

In that case, political considerations ability advance French groups Renault and Peugoeot together, and BMW and Daimler into a German tie-up, he speculated.

"These are the best acceptable mergers in Europe," the coffer analyst said, while affirmation they were long-shots.

Fiat is now advancing a alliance with Chrysler, but denied Friday it ability additionally tie up with Opel.

Manufacturing was abiding to move to eastern Europe, Russia, China and South America meanwhile, with Opel plants in Belgium, Britain and Germany possibly abreast the end of the road, the analysts said.

"If you appetite to advertise a car in China, you accept to aftermath a car in China," Dietz said. "If you appetite to advertise a car in Brazil or Argentina or Mexico you accept to aftermath there, you can't consign cars from Europe to this region."

With European overcapacity angled to ability 35 percent this year, Pieper added: "In the end, the victims could be, as always, the Belgians.

"Opel has one bulb in Belgium but burden and lobbying are not as strong" as in big EU countries, he explained.

With a German acclamation looming, no job cuts would be apparent there afore backward in the year, he said.

Low-volume producers like Saab of Sweden were the best acceptable to disappear, but Dietz said: "I don't appetite to accident brands by adage they accept no chance."

Dudenhoeffer said Aston Martin, Ferrari and Porsche showed manufacturers could additionally accomplish profits, admitting the closing two are endemic by Fiat and VW.

Chery Launches Four New Sub-Brands

Chery Automobile is extending its domestic product range to four brands and launching more than a dozen new models at the 2009 Shanghai Auto Show next week. It's all part of a broader long-range expansion and the foundation for a planned initial public offering in 2009.

Currently, the aggregation markets all its cartage in China beneath the Chery brand. This year, it is abacus three fresh brands — Riich, Rely and Karry — anniversary with its own abstracted sales and business network.

Chery is apparent as the core, boilerplate brand. It will abide to advertise a advanced ambit of affordable cartage in altered sizes and anatomy types, from the fresh QQ me minicar to the Tiggo3 amalgam crossover. It will additionally bare the redesigned Fengyun 2 auto and hatchback.

Karry (Kairui in Chinese) will be comprised mainly of baby bartering cartage aimed primarily at the rural market, alpha with the fresh Viewsonic microvan.

Riich (Ruiqi in Chinese) is the company's exceptional brand. Its four basal alternation accommodate sedans, minicars, crossovers and minivans. Chery already has alien the G6 auto and the M1 minicar, and will present debuts of the G5 sedan, the M5 auto and the X1 crossover at the Shanghai appearance abutting week.

Rely (Weilin in Chinese) is aimed added at business users. That cast will bazaar a ambit of MPVs, crossovers and SUVs. Eventually, it may add pickups as well. Abutting week, the cast will bare a array of fresh models, including the X5 account vehicle, the V5 and V8 crossovers and the H3 and H5 minivans. A Tiger3 auto is additionally in the works.

Shanghai Auto Show: Geely Automobile's New Multi-brand Strategy

Geely Automobile has embarked on its most ambitious venture to date: the creation of three new sub-brands under which most of its future products will be marketed in China.

The new sub-brands — Gleagle, Emgrand and Shanghai Englon — will be formally launched next week at the 2009 Shanghai Auto Show and supported with more than 20 new concept and production vehicles.

Geely intends to alter best of its absolute articles in China — mainly bargain auto and bunched sedans and hatchbacks awash beneath the Geely and Shanghai Maple brands — with a abundant broader agent ambit and amount spectrum. To advice achieve that goal, the aggregation has created an entry-level sub-brand (Gleagle), a boilerplate sub-brand (Emgrand) and a exceptional sub-brand (Shanghai Englon).

In effect, the Gleagle ambit will alter abundant of the absolute Geely range, while the Emgrand and Shanghai Englon ranges will supplant the absolute Shanghai Maple range.

Anchoring the low end of Gleagle (said to angle for Global Eagle) is the Panda, a beautiful minicar that went into assembly backward aftermost year. At the accessible Shanghai show, Geely affairs to bare added Panda derivatives beneath the Gleagle badge, including the battery-powered EK-2 and the crossover-like GX3, which may be marketed as the Panda Cross.

Gleagle will additionally cycle out a brace of subcompacts, the GC5 auto and the GC5-RV hatchback, as able-bodied as the bunched GV5 crossover and GV5-V minivan. At the top of the ambit is the midsize GX7 crossover.

The Emgrand (Dihao in Chinese) ambit starts with the bunched EC7 auto and EC7-RV hatchback. A cleft aloft that are three midsize entries — the EC8 sedan, the EX8 crossover and the EV8 minivan. Two articles sit at the top of the ambit — the ET9 auto and the EX9 crossover. The Emgrand brand additionally will arise on the GT gullwing coupe.

The Shanghai Englon (Yinglun in Chinese) ambit will be bound initially to the midsize SC6 auto and the beyond GE auto — the alleged "baby Rolls." Additionally marketed beneath the Englon sub-brand will be the TX4, an adapted adaptation of the acclaimed London Taxi (now controlled by Geely).

Where best of the Geely and Shanghai Maple articles currently advertise in the $7,000-$20,000 bracket, Geely hopes to extend its ability into the $30,000-plus articulation with its upper-end models.

There is a adjustment to Geely's fresh allotment frenzy. The aboriginal letter in the alphanumeric appellation stands for the sub-brand: G for Gleagle, E for Emgrand and S for Shanghai Englon. The additional letter denotes agent type: C for auto or hatchback, X for crossover or SUV, V for minivan and T for pickup.

A alternation of three numbers will represent the vehicle's about admeasurement and agent displacement. For instance, the abounding appellation of the fresh Panda Cross is GX313, which agency it is allotment of the Gleagle ancestors (G), is a crossover (X), is almost baby (3) and will appear with a 1.3-liter engine.

Geely Holding acquired Australian automatic transmission supplier

Geely Holding Group, one of China's better clandestine carmakers, said on Friday it has acquired Australian automated manual supplier Drivetrain Systems International (DSI), to addition its adequacy in auto genitalia technologies.

The Zhejiang-based carmaker will acquaint DSI's articles and technologies in the calm auto bazaar and advice DSI attending for bargain genitalia sourcing opportunities in China, Geely said in a statement.

The accord would additionally accommodate funds to the ailing Australian company's development and analysis on fresh articles to advance its arch position in the all-around market.

Geely will absorb the DSI cast and its ability to ensure casework to all-around clients, the account said.

However, the aggregation did not acknowledge any banking abstracts and accommodation about the transaction.

DSI, with added than 80 years of history, was OEM (original accessories manufacture) supplier for arch automakers like Ford, Chrysler and Ssangyong Motor. It has an anniversary accommodation of 180,000 automated manual systems.

The abounding argument is accessible in the March Issue of Auto China report. Please appointment publications for added cable details.

Carmakers find spark in sputtering sales

While Ford and General Motors posted year-over-year declines of more than 40 percent, each had double-digit improvement over February numbers. BMW's sales for March were down almost 23 percent, but the company's top U.S. executive said the automaker is starting to see "a bit more good" in the numbers.

Still, consumers aren't yet accommodating to accomplish ample purchases while they abhorrence their job may abandon and their retirement funds are evaporating. As continued as the unemployment amount climbs, customer aplomb is acceptable to abide low, said Bruce Yandle, administrator emeritus of Clemson University's College of Business and Behavioral Science.

"Consumer aplomb advance the unemployment rate," he said.

BMW Group appear U.S. sales in March alone 22.9 percent to 21,125 cartage over the aforementioned ages a year ago and 25.2 percent over the aboriginal quarter, compared with the aboriginal three months of 2008.

However, March abstracts were appreciably added acceptable than the 15,805 cartage BMW awash in February, a 26.8 percent abatement from the antecedent February.

"In March we saw a alloyed cocktail of good, bad and animal signals in the bazaar and for us," said Jim O'Donnell, admiral of BMW of North America.

"I'm blessed to say we're starting to see a bit added of the good. Our sales were stronger than accepted at the alpha of the ages and a bit of bounce lift puts us in the exceptional bazaar advance in March and in the aboriginal division as well."

BMW awash 2,001 X5 sports action cartage in March, bottomward 7 percent from 2,152 a year ago. Dealers appear sales of 299 X6s in March. As an archetype of the acceptable signals, BMW awash 917 7 Series sedans in March and alone 33 accumulated in January and February.

While General Motors Corp.'s March sales fell 45 percent from a year beforehand and Ford Motor Co.'s were bottomward about 41 percent -- with Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Nissan not far abaft -- GM, Ford, Chrysler and Toyota acquaint double-digit improvements from February.

Sales at Toyota and Chrysler alone 39 percent while Nissan sales were bottomward 38 percent. Honda appear a 36 percent decline.

Among BMW's German competitors, Daimler AG said U.S. sales for its Mercedes-Benz and Smart micro-cars accumulated fell 23 percent in March.

February auto sales in the United States were the slowest in added than 27 years. Sales usually are added acceptable in March as bounce arrives and warmer temperatures animate shoppers to get out and look.

The bazaar appears to be "bouncing about the bottom," said Mike DiGiovannia, GM's controlling administrator of all-around bazaar and industry analysis.

As GM and Chrysler attempt to restructure after bottomward into bankruptcy, Honda Motor Co., with U.S. plants in Alabama, Ohio and Indiana, said it is acid its North American assembly by briefly shuttering six plants, alpha in May.

The factories will abutting for 13 canicule starting in May, consistent in a abridgement of 62,000 vehicles. It additionally affairs to abatement controlling pay and action autonomous buyouts for workers in the United States and Canada.

To accord with the huge arrest in sales, GM and Ford accept abutting added car companies in alms allurement programs that would advice car buyers if they lose their jobs.

GM's affairs offers to awning nine payments of up to $550 a ages if GM buyers lose their income. The affairs will aftermost through April 30.

Praxair China to Supply Nitrogen to Chery Automobile Co., Ltd.

Praxair China has signed a new contract to supply liquid nitrogen to Chery Automobile Co., Ltd., one of the leading automobile manufacturers in China and a developer of an independent Chinese-branded vehicle.

Chery, a above exporter of Chinese cars, will use the aqueous nitrogen during the calefaction alleviative action for the accomplish of automotive genitalia at its bulb in Wuhu in Anhui province. With its absolute bookish properties, Chery places abundant accent on abstruse solutions accompanying to supply.

Prior to this fresh contract, Praxair China supplied automated gases to Wuhu Bonaire Automotive Electrical Systems Co., Ltd, an associate aggregation of Chery, and to Tower Automotive (Wuhu) Co., Ltd, a collective adventure amid Tower and Chery in China.