Random Update of Recent Automobile Stories Coming Out of China

GM making huge investment in China

Last year, Chinese consumers bought 16.6 million cars -- 5 million more than the number sold in the entire U.S., according to J.D. Power and Associates.

Volvo to double its production in  China

Volvo Car Corp., the Swedish carmaker owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., said it plans to more than double its number of models to compete with Volkswagen AG’s Audi and BMW AG in the world’s largest automobile market.

Volvo, which currently sells 6 models in China, is planning to introduce 10 new ones in the country within six years, including “bigger and more luxury high end” vehicles ...

Volvo, ranked fifth in luxury-car sales in China, intends to invest as much as $11 billion globally by 2016 to meet its expansion plans....

Ford to quadruple SUV offerings in China over next year

Ford Motor Co, seeking to tap into China's growing appetite for brawny sport utility vehicles, will quadruple its offerings in that segment over the next year.

The U.S. automaker, a latecomer in the world's largest automotive market, will add the Kuga, the Chinese version of the Escape, and EcoSport small SUVs, and the larger Explorer to its sparse China SUV portfolio, Ford Asia chief Joe Hinrichs said on Sunday.

Ford's announces third huge new Chinese plant in six weeks

Ford Motor has chosen China for its largest factory expansion program in a half century, announcing on Thursday that it would build a $760 million assembly plant in Hangzhou, two weeks after announcing another $600 million plan to expand an assembly plant in Chongqing and less than six weeks after completing a third assembly plant in Chongqing.

Same story, different source

Ford Motor Co., playing catch up in China, plans to build a $760 million assembly plant in Hangzhou that will double its Chinese output to 1.2 million vehicles annually. 

Ford and joint venture partner Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co. will start construction later this year and the plant will open in 2015, initially producing 250,000 vehicles a year, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker said today in an e- mailed statement.

The new factory, which follows other capacity expansions, brings Ford’s total investment in China to $4.9 billion, the automaker said.

GM sets sales record in China in 2011

General Motors and its joint ventures sold a record 2,547,171 vehicles in China in 2011, an average of one car or truck every 12 seconds in its largest global market. GM’s sales were up 8.3 percent from the previous high of 2,351,610 vehicles sold in 2010.

GM’s Shanghai GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling joint ventures along with all of its passenger car brands experienced record domestic demand, enabling GM to remain the sales leader among global automakers in China for the seventh consecutive year.

And a reminder regarding "gasoline demand destruction" in the United States: click here and scroll to the bottom of the page, look at the last graph on the page, and pay attention to the "red dot graph" and repeat to yourself: "demand destruction."