General Motors has announced that it will partner with China's SAIC Motor Corporation on the development of an all-new electric vehicle. The final product will be sold in China under the SAIC brand, but GM will benefit from the deal by having a new electric vehicle platform which can be used to spawn new vehicles in other global markets.
Even in the vehicle-hungry Chinese automobile market, there are winners and losers. SAIC has seen its passenger vehicle sales fall to just under 91,000 units for the first seven months of 2011. That's a two-percent drop versus 2010, and the company is making several moves to reverse that trend. Forty-five billion Yuan will be poured into research and development over the next four years, and the sales figure are also likely to get a shot in t
A123 Systems says it currently has over 20 lithium-ion battery contracts in the works. Of those, A123 says ten of the transportation-related li-ion deals have already entered the production phase and that its "sourced" and "development" contracts call for A123 to eventually manufacture lithium-ion batteries at some as-of-yet-undisclosed date.
A patent filing has revealed that General Motors, in partnership with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), is indeed developing a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission for front-wheel drive applications. It's rumored that this trans will eventually find its way into The General's passenger car models like the four-door Eric Loveday
Chinese automaker SAIC Motor Corp. wrapped up its latest round of private-share placement funding by raising $1.5 billion. The automaker intends to use this money to expand its own lineup of vehicles and develop electric-drive models. SAIC Group reports that the majority of the funds poured in from Baosteel Group, a leading steel mill, and the textile company Youngor Group.
The notion that Chinese automakers would begin selling cars in competitive export markets seemed laughable only a few years ago. But that's what they said about the Koreans, and before them the Japanese. Also laughable: the notion that a British brand like MG would have no outlet to sell their cars in the UK. But that's the situation that MG Rover found itself in after it was taken over by Chinese automakers Noah Joseph
Massachusetts-based A123 Systems has inked a deal to develop lithium-ion battery packs for an upcoming electric passenger vehicle built by China's largest automaker, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC). The vehicle, expected to launch sometime in 2012, will likely be a Chinese-market only offering. A123 System's vice president, Jason Forcier, told Bloomberg that the SAIC vehicle will have a range of 100 miles on a full charge.
While the German automakers – and Buick – mop up outrageous demand for their wares in China's major metropolitan and coastal cities, General Motors wants to be the nameplate of choice in the secondary cities and the interior. And now in conjunction with its joint-venture partners SAIC and Wuling, it has launched another nameplate: Baojun. Meaning "treasured horse," Baojun is th
MG Zero Concept – Click above for high-res image gallery
Inside Line has a rendering of that still-in-the-works successor to the MG TF. It isn't exactly a shock, as it looks much like a slightly evolved version of the current and soon-to-be-dead MG TF. The real revolution will be what the body rests on and what powers it – Chinese owner SAIC is reportedly still playing around with platform possibilities, but it doesn't look like the compa
Pictured above is one tiny corner of the formerly mammoth Longbridge factory complex that last made MGs. Now owned by SAIC, the site is meant to be undergo extensive repurposing. To help keep it British – and perhaps pick up a little more interest in MG – SAIC has called for help in naming five access roads that will grace the new site.
Although it probably plummeted off your radar around the time "My Humps" and "Don' Cha" were topping the charts, the MG TF remains in production. Well, kind of – the factory was idled last year, but it will restart in April. After this year, however, the owners of MG, China's SAIC, have called full-time on the mid-engined convertibl
It has been a busy week at General Motors. The week started off with CEO Fritz Henderson's abrupt resignation, then executives converged on the LA Auto Show where Bob Lutz was the keynote speaker and then theChris Shunk
2010 MG 6 – Click above for high-res image gallery
In the beginning of the decade, before SsangYong got into really deep doo-doo, the Korean automaker began work on a hybrid control unit (HCU) with German engineering firm FEV. From 2004 to 2008, as the research continued, the South Korean government provided nearly half of the financial resources for the development of the technology. In 2005, as Ssangyong's stumbles began, Chinese automaker SAIC took a majority sta
Even though Ssangyong Motor, a Korean company, claims it does not have any plans to sue the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), Korean prosecutors said yesterday that SAIC illegally took information about gasoline-electric hybrid technology from Ssangyong in 2006. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office has indicted seven engineers at Ssangyong for leaking the information to SAIC, which at the ti
BYD F3DM - Click above for high-res image gallery
Chinese-spec Buick Regal - Click above for high-res image gallery
