China Auto News of the Week (Oct. 6 - Oct. 10, 2008)

Honeywell, Changan to jointly develop turbochargers

Shanghai, October 6 (Gasgoo.com) Honeywell and Chinese automaker Changan Group recently signed an agreement to jointly develop technologies for turbochargers used in small-displacement cars, the Xinhua news agency reported today.

The move will help enhance the environmental friendliness and energy efficiency of motor vehicles and at the same time lower the cost. The term of the cooperation will be one year.

"The turbocharger technology allows a vehicle to use a smaller engine (30% smaller in size) while achieving power levels of a much larger engine," said Shane Tedjarati, President of Honeywell (China).

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Chrysler, Great Wall join hands for small car

Shanghai, October 7 (Gasgoo.com) Great Wall Motor is developing an A-class small car with Chrysler LLC, and the Chinese carmaker has commissioned a domestic auto design firm to create all-new car models, said 163.com today.

Sources said that since mid-August Chrysler has sent several technicians to supervise the development of Great Wall's new models. The previous model designed by Great Wall has been replaced by a new one, whose design the Chrysler technicians get involved in. This jointly-developed A-class model is likely to carry the Chrysler label. It will be made in Great Wall Motor's Baoding facility and sold worldwide.

Great Wall Motor exporting 4,500 pickups to Cuba

Shanghai, October 7 (Gasgoo.com) At the beginning of October, Great Wall Motor had its first shipment of 1,500 pickups exported from Tianjin port to Cuba. This is the first batch of the 4,500 pickups sourced by the Cuban government from the Chinese pickup maker, and the other 3,000 units will be delivered by the end of this year, said xinhuanet,com today.

This sourcing deal has been the biggest single order in terms of export volume and value that Great Wall Motor has received this year to date. Most ordered in this deal is the Great Wall Golden Deer series of pickups in 12 types, including diesel and gasoline editions. These pickups will be mainly used by Cuba's energy, electricity, medical, and transportation authorities.

Battery maker sees China leading on electric cars

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The head of Johnson Controls Inc's battery unit believes China could adopt electric cars faster than elsewhere because of its size and comparative lack of reliance on gasoline for transport.

Alex Molinaroli, president of the Power Solutions unit, said China's government would likely lead the way through policy to provide vehicles to the many among the country's 1.3 billion people who now rely on bicycles and scooters.

"The next step up from that is going to be some sort of vehicle, (but) it may not be a vehicle that would be acceptable in both Western Europe and the U.S.," Molinaroli told the Reuters Global Environment Summit on Tuesday.

China to make 4 mln ton DME annually for auto use

Shanghai, October 8 (Gasgoo.com) China's projects of producing dimethyl ether (DME) as an alternative energy for automobiles will have a combined annual capacity of four million tonnes by 2010, said Jiefang Daily today, citing sources from a DME forum in Shanghai. DME makers are waiting for the government to issue regulations and permissions for making the new energy.

XinAo Gas Holdings Limited, currently a leading Chinese company in producing DME, has established its industry chain of converting coal to methanol fuel to dimethyl ether. This coal-based process is much cheaper and easier than producing DME out of natural gas and can make good use of China's rich coal resources. Therefore, the price of DME as a new clean energy for vehicles in China will be little affected by the erratic global oil price.

Ssangyong Motor cuts 2008 sales target by 44%

The South Korean affiliate of China's Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC), slashed its 2008 sales target by as much as 43.6 per cent amid poor sales, union officials said Tuesday.
 
In addition, Ssangyong and its union have been in talks to cut 474 workers, or about 10 percent of its total workforce, according to the union officials.

Ssangyong had planned to sell 141,800 vehicles at home and overseas this year, but that target was reduced to as low as 80,000 units, the Ssangyong union said in a statement.

Dongfeng to mass produce hybrid cars in Wuhan

Shanghai, October 9 (Gasgoo.com) Dongfeng Electric Vehicle Co, a subsidiary of Dongfeng Motor Co, said it will roll out its own-brand hybrid car by the beginning of 2009 in Wuhan, targeting sales of 5,000 units for the year, xinhuanet,com reported yesterday, citing executives of Dongfeng Electric Vehicle Co.

Currently Dongfeng Electric Vehicle Co. has finished the research and development of a function hybrid sample and a performance hybrid sample. The company plans to launch Micro-Hybrid programme by the beginning of next year, which will add a control system onto ordinary vehicles for saving fuel at 5% to 7% by increasing cost for each vehicle by 3,000 yuan ($440).

China sees gasoline prices rise higher than U.S.

Shanghai, October 10 (Gasgoo.com) Following Beijing's recent rise in gasoline prices, China now claims a higher gasoline prices than the U.S., local Chinese media said today.

Crude oil prices fell to a new low for the year Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, dropping to under $85 per barrel, U.S. news agency United Press International (UPI) reported.

At the pump, the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.403 (equal to $0.898 per liter) Thursday, down from Wednesday's $3.447 a gallon.

China's passenger car sales drop 1.44% in Sept

Shanghai, October 10 (Gasgoo.com) China's passenger vehicle sales fell 1.44% in September from a year earlier to 552,800 units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

That means the passenger car sales in the Chinese market shrank for the second straight month in September, the industry data showed today, as a slowing economy put a damper on fast-growing demand in the world's second-largest vehicle market after the United States.