With fewer than 8000 miles to go before the conclusion of its stay, our Mazda 2 continues to serve primarily as a spunky ’round-town runabout. The car has racked up nearly 10,000 miles since September, most of which were turned within the borders of our home state; a sprint to Virginia accounted for the rest.
Keep Reading: 2011 Mazda 2 Touring – Long-Term Road Test Update
The EPA just released fuel-economy ratings for the recently debuted 2012 BMW 3-series, and the numbers are very impressive—and not just for the luxury sports-sedan segment. The 328i, which is powered by a turbocharged 240-hp four-cylinder engine, is rated at 24 mpg city and 36 highway when equipped with the optional eight-speed automatic transmission. The 328i is rated at 23/34 with the six-speed manual.
These are, frankly, great numbers. You can see how the 328i’s fuel economy compares to other competitive vehicles in the chart below, but let’s compare apples to oranges for a moment: The Toyota Corolla, which has a great reputation for being frugal, is motivated by a 1.8-liter four with just 132 hp and is rated at 26 mpg city/34 highway when equipped with a four-speed automatic.
Even the turbocharged six-cylinder 335i has done well by the EPA’s yardstick. At 23 mpg city/33 highway, Bimmer’s 300-hp sports sedan betters most everything in its class. (That’s for the car with the autobox; figures for the stick-shifted 335i drop to 20/30.) The automatic 335i makes the dual-clutch-equipped Audi S4 (18/28) look like a thirsty pig in contrast, and the BMW even trounces the heavier—but diesel-drinking—Mercedes-Benz E350 BlueTec, which is rated at 21/32.
We know a diesel engine is coming to the 3-series, and a hybrid will be out soon. But with numbers like these, we have to ask whether these alternative powertrains are worth the cost—for BMW or for future consumers. Look for our complete instrumented test of the 335i soon; in the meantime, you can read our first drive of the 328i here.
Tesla has revealed a teaser shot of the electric Model X crossover in an email invitation to the car’s February 9 debut; the image shows only a darkened front three-quarter view of the high-riding EV. The visible portions of the grille and hood imply that its basic look won’t differ greatly from that of its platform mate, the Model S sedan. (Check out our ride in a Model S prototype here.) It’s still unknown whether Tesla will unveil the production-ready Model X or a concept car next week; whatever it ends up being, we’ll bring you full details as soon as we have them.
It’s Monday, and that means it’s time to present this week’s shifter. You’ll have until mid-day Wednesday to identify the make and model of the vehicle from whence this shifter came. The first person to respond correctly in the Backfires section below will win a Save the Manuals button and sticker*. Good luck!
(* Offer open to U.S. and Canadian residents only.)
The Chinese automobile market is maturing with growing competition and emerging new market segments, as well as new consumer groups (Kasperk et al. 2011, Gadiesh, Leung & Vestring 2007). The automobile companies present on the Chinese market cope with the upcoming changes in combined efforts of their established joint ventures. Those have been the premise for foreign carmakers to participate in the market, while at the same time supporting Chinese companies with technology and process-knowledge transfer (Kasperk et al. 2011, Deng & Ma 2010). Now these joint ventures are being carried to a new level in developing automobile brands together. Regulations of the Chinese government for building new plants and its goal of building global brands drive companies to encourage in such a joint venture brand development.
In 2010 and 2011, several major carmakers, have announced cooperations with a joint venture partner in establishing a new brand for the Chinese market. Already existing brands stemming from such efforts are Shou Wang (BAIC and Hyundai) and Wuling (GM, Liuzhou Wuling Motors, and SAIC). The confirmed announcements of new joint venture brands are aggregated in the following overview. Rumors furthermore suggest a joint venture of Chery and Jaguar.
All of the joint venture brands announced include manufacturing in China. In case of Chana and PSA Peugeot Citroen the two companies are going to develop joint R&D centers which are aimed at potentially providing saving potentials. Chinese companies in addition have the advantage in creating a joint venture brand to learn from foreign car makers in this field, also thinking of Chinese car makers’ strive for internationalization. Developing a new brand might be even harder and more time-intensive, than developing a new technology (thinking of the example of Volkswagen’s Audi). Risks and resource inputs in developing a new brand are reduced in doing so within a joint venture.
For many foreign companies still struggling with manufacturing low-priced cars, this is a major goal of the new brand development. With a new brand, the own brand of a foreign car maker is not impacted by brand value erosion when aiming at a lower segment, at the same time the cars in the new brand still can be sold to the Chinese middle class market (about 40% of the total market) with regard to a famous mother company’s brand. The German car makers focus on electric cars, to learn from their Chinese counterparts (BYD and Daimler) and to test concepts in a market that is relatively responsive to the concept of E-Vehicles.
Therewith a bridge might be built over those conflicting tendencies, also adhering to individual characteristics and the price sensitivity of consumers in rural areas. High-priced cars in the near future are likely to continue to be in the hand of foreign brands. Dongfeng and Honda’s car specifics of creating a brand to target low- and high-priced markets seem to not fit, still more Chinese brands and joint venture brands might target the luxury markets for its growth potential.
The wave of new joint venture brands will help the Chinese market to become more mature and make use of synergy effects and knowledge transfer on a process level above technology and manufacturing. 2012 and 2013 will reveal to what extent Chinese and foreign car makers will utilize the potentials of new brands and how their competitiveness in the Chinese market will be strengthened.
Chan, T.-S., Cui, G. & Zhou, N. 2009, “Competition Between Foreign and Domestic Brands: A Study of Consumer Purchases in China”, Journal of Global Marketing, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 181-197.
Deng, H. & Ma, A. 2010, “Market Structure and Pricing Strategy of China’s Automobile Industry”, The Journal of Industrial Economics, vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 818-845.
Gadiesh, O., Leung, P. & Vestring, T. 2007, “The Battle for China’s Good-Enough Market”, Harvard Business Review, vol. 85, no. 9, pp. 80-89.
Kasperk, G., Drauz, R., Wilhelm, J. & Laeuppi, U. 2011, “Internationalization of Chinese Automobile Companies”, Lulu, Raleigh.
Up until recently the burden of taxation was pushed onto farmers, now Chinese farmers are nothing compared to American farmers that have massive swathes of land for as far as the eye can see in the Mid West, Chinese farmers are mostly substance farmers with small tracts of land that are mostly toiled by hand. With the growing Chinese middle class the burden of taxation is moving up the pay scale, farmers no longer pay land tax but the government has to collect tax elsewhere to offset the loss at treasury coffers, thus the government turned to ‘luxury items’ such as pleasure craft and vehicles.
Tax on cars has being going up in recent years, originally the ‘Yang Lu Fei‘ was used and then abandoned. The Yang Lu Fei which literally means ‘care for the road tax’ was paid monthly and went off the weight and no of seats in your vehicle, a 5 seat mini car paid around 100rmb per month, larger 7 seat vehicles around 200rmb. Eventually this was scrapped and rolled into gasoline prices which made for an easier system, car owners no longer had to pay a monthly tax and random roadside tax inspections ended.
The new tax system is called the Car and Vessel Tax, a clumsy name but nevertheless it is a much needed tax, tax is counted as follows:
(1) Taxpayers
Taxpayers include enterprises, units, individual household businesses and other individuals who possess and operate vehicles and/or vessels within the territory of the People’s Republic of China (excluding enterprises with foreign investment, foreign enterprises and foreigners).
(2) Tax base, tax amount per unit and computation of tax payable
Taxes for vehicles and vessels are calculated slightly differently:
a. For vehicles: 60 to 320 yuan per passenger vehicles; 16 to 60 yuan per ton ( net-tonnage ) for cargo vehicles; 20 to 80 yuan per motorcycle; 1.2 to 32 yuan per non-motorized vehicle.
b. For vessels: 1.2 to 5 yuan per net tonnage for motorized vessels; 0.6 to1.4 yuan per deadweight tonnage for non-motorized vessels.
So who is excluded from this tax? Of course government organs and military appliances don’t to pay, yes, the government with the largest fleet of vehicles in the world is exempt:
Tax may be exempt on the vehicles and vessels self-used by governmental organs, people’s organizations and military units; the vehicles and vessels self-used by units financed by financial fund allocation; the fishing vessels with a deadweight capacity not in excess of one ton; the pontoons and floating docks used exclusively for passengers, the loading or unloading of cargo and the storage of goods; the vehicles and vessels used by police department, fire department, health department and environmental department; the vessels subject to payment of Vessel Tonnage Tax according to Rules; special vehicles designed for the convenience of the handicapped; and the tractors used mainly in agriculture production.
What does this mean in the real world?
Taxes will look like this per year for automobiles in 2012:
Taxes will be collected by insurance companies on yearly premiums and will form the basis of all insurance policies in 2012. The new taxes are aiming to steer Chinese car consumers away from large displacement vehicles and into smaller more fuel efficient models. For example, the Ford Mondeo originally came with a 2.3L engine but later came with a 2.0L Ecoboost model, older 2.3L Mondeo’s will have to pay a tax of 900rmb but the newer more powerful Ecoboost models will be eligible for 480rmb of taxation. The big winners from this tax policy are those companies that already have a turbo powered models on the market, such as VW’s TSI range, Chinese manufacturers are playing catch up but the days of using off the shelf 2.4L Mitsubishi engines are over.
The vessel tax is not aimed at common small scale fishing vessels but at the rise of large yachts, the Chinese yachting industry has grown rapidly in the past few years as yachts have taken over cars as the number one way to flash your cash.
The old colonial countries were once great business for British Leyland, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand were willing recipients of BL products back in the company’s hay day, however the rise of Japanese and then Korean manufacturers put BL to an early grave. MG-Rover continued selling its produce to the lands down under until the company’s collapse in 2005, the original New Zealand distributor, British Motor Distributors, was one of the only MG-Rover affiliated companies to honor warranties on cars sold in the country when MG-R went under.
Now the company is back selling MG’s once again, MG Motors took delivery of the first batch of MG6′s earlier this week. The 6′s were made in Shanghai and shipped to New Zealand in sedan and hatchback form, currently only the UK has the ability to manufacturer MG’s at its Longbridge plant, so NZ customers will be receiving Chinese made models.
Apparently MG New Zealand will be showing the new 6 at the MG National Rally.
As mentioned in our earlier article on Chinese car designers, Chinese designed and made is nearly always synonymous with low quality and low cost, but of course that is changing. World class products such as Apple products, Nokia phones, Dell Computers etc are made in China, but what about the industrial designers and who are they?
Chinese auto design houses find themselves between a rock and a hard place, for them it is a matter of building their brand name whilst balancing the requirements of the client. Its no secret that Chinese auto companies are top down, and if the leader of a company demands that his Mercedes S-Class be the design basis of a $12,000USD family car that he is planing in his head then the whole market loses, the design house doesn’t have a serious car in its portfolio, consumers get a funny looking ‘shanzhai’ car that is pulled from the market after two years due to poor sales, and eventually the company loses money and blames the design house for poor quality cars. This scenario is changing slowly but surely, design houses are gaining greater confidence in their abilities and taking a more aggressive stance with regards to unique designs.
CH-Auto
CH-Auto was established in 2003 by former Beijing Auto Industry engineer Mr. Lu Qun, in the 90′s and early 00′s there wasn’t much work for engineers at BAIC, legend has it that engineers were used mainly for their translation ability, turning German and English instruction manuals into Chinese which led to a brain drain at BAIC. Mr. Lu saw a demand for independent auto design and established CH-Auto in Shunyi District in Beijing, the company occupies an impressive building and has a full range of services: Design, Engineering, EV Development, Testing etc etc. CH-Auto has developed a few of the big name cars on the road in China today, the Geely Panda for instance was one of theirs, as was the Changfeng CS5 SUV and also Acumen sedan, although the Acumen sedan has not yet made it to the market. CH-Auto also worked on the Chrysler 300 and Sebring based concept cars for BAIC Auto, although these models were never shown to the public, let’s just say they were impressive beasts. The picture to the left? That’s their Scorpion concept car from 2010.
TJ Innova
TJ Innova could be compared to a Shanghai based CH-Auto, they offer the same range of services although they are Shanghai based rather than Beijing based. TJI was established a few years before CH-Auto, the company was founded in 1999 just as the Chinese auto industry was waking up, as of 2007 TJI could boast that 10% of the cars on the road in China had some TJI influence within its design, in recent years Greatwall, JAC, Dongfeng have visited TJI to get their design needs finished.
Anhui KaXing Design
Being Anhui based, KaXing was obviously going to get a lot of business from local auto companies which include JAC and Chery, it seems JAC haven’t sent KaXing too much work but Chery have been sending their design needs to KaXing for a number of years now. KaXing opened its doors in 2001 and was quickly hired by Chery to develop the QQ, and from there on in it seemed the two were inseparable, KaXing developed the Oriental Son, Chery A5, Fulwin, Tiggo and of course the QQme. Currently KaXing has a staffing level of 387 people and still works closely with Chery.
IAT Auto
Beijing based IAT Auto were founded in 2001, slightly earlier than CH-Auto but has quickly become an international consultancy and doesn’t only focus on the Chinese market. IAT Auto has worked with Chinese brands such as Zotye, Wuling, Dongfeng etc but has also worked with international brands such as Suzuki to make their models more suitable to local market conditions. IAT have also been working on the Beijing based Saab models.
Foreign automotive media were eager to announce that the Buick Excelle was the best selling car in China in 2011 yesterday, the truth is yes – it’s a popular car, but no it wasn’t the most popular.
The problem here being a translation issue, the China Assosciation of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) did announce that the Excelle was the best selling car in 2011, however the problem lies with Buick’s naming system. In the Buick line up their are three Excelles, one is the older generation which was a Daewoo designed model and also had some Suzuki input, oddly it also had a Holden designed engine in the Chinese market, this older Excelle was known as the Kai Yue in Chinese and was facelifted in 2008 to bring it up to style, it currently only comes with a 1.6L model paired to an automatic and manual gearbox.
The second and third Excelles are known as the Ying Lang in the Chinese market, the hatchback is the Ying Lang XT whilst the saloon is the Ying Lang GT. Both are based on the latest generation of Opel Astra, the GT variant being the Buick Verano in the US market. So which sells better? Obviously it is the first Kai Yue Excelle rather than the newer versions which only share an English name.
A brief look at December 2012′s sales indicate that the Kai Yue outsells its rival XT and GT models by a large factor – 13,846 Kai Yue’s were sold (down 19.13% over Dec 2011 Figures), in the same month just 6,250 GT’s were sold and only 2,131 XT’s were sold in the same period showing that despite the massive upgrade in quality and style for the latest generation of Excelle’s, the old Kai Yue is still a strong seller and obviously a great gateway into the Buick brand. The Kai Yue may look like a limp fish amongst Buick branded Opel’s in Chinese Buick dealerships, but it is obviously holding the brand up high thanks to its low pricing, from just 100,000rmb ($15k USD) you can own a Buick, where as the XT and GT are priced high from 134,000rmb to 184,000rmb.
The latest generation of VW Jetta will hit the market in March 2012 according to recent Chinese media reports, the new Jetta will be sold under the Sagitar name plate as with the last generation of Jetta as of course the second generation Jetta is still on the market in China.
The new Jetta will come with the same 1.4T, 1.6 and 1.8T engines as the current Sagitar and is expected to hit the same price brackets when it comes onto the market, the turbo models will get 7 speed DSG gearboxes. Pricing is expected to be from 148,000rmb to 180,000rmb, FAW-VW are also expected to introduced a 2.0T model which of course will be the GLI version.
