We got a good giggle (and several excellent limericks) out of Chery’s Bentley-aping Riich brand logo back in March, so we thought we’d show off a peek at what qualifies as upmarket for Chery. Priced at about $8,165, the Riich X1 makes do with an 84 hp, 1.3 liter engine which motivates the tiny crossover to 60 mph in a very un-upmarket 16 seconds. Which is no big deal, considering top speed is rated at about 93 mph. The X1 does offer alloy wheels, climate control, parking sensors and mp3 connectivity though. As tempting as it is to simply laugh off at the Chinese version of upmarket branding, a look at this advertisement for the X1’s sibling, the Riich M1, shows a young professional-oriented vibrancy that’s become rare in US-market auto advertising. What the Chinese market clearly lacks in technology and expectation, it makes up for with an enthusiasm born of seemingly limitless potential. [via Automotorundsport.de]

Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, sure seems to think so. “I think long-term, Prius as a nameplate could even outsell Camry as a nameplate, into this next decade,” he tells Wards Auto. When asked if the Prius’s success would trade off with the Camry, he replied in the negative, saying “I think Prius will become just that much stronger.” But it’s been a long time since a Prius-sized vehicle, let alone a hatchback, has been the best-selling car in the US. And perhaps Lentz was merely making the case for a full line of Prius-branded vehicles, an idea he says has not been approved, but remains his “dream.” Prius will need something to push it past its larger sibling. Both models set their all-time annual sales records in 2007, when the Camry sold 473,108 units, while Prius sold only 181,221 units.

The long-rumored Chinese invasion may be coming sooner than we expected. Automotive World reports that Chinese automaker Brilliance has signed letters of intent with 36 US dealers in preparation for a US market launch. According to the report, Brilliance intends to launch products in the US as soon as it acquires 100 dealers. Apparently Brilliance’s US distributor is targeting former Saturn dealers, Roger Penske’s US network, Hummer dealers and the Galpin group. Rumors are even swirling that Brilliance could buy the Saturn name to re-brand its US-market products.

While Ford are making some headway in North America, their real Western Hemisphere focus is on the growth market of Brazil. Bloomberg reports that Ford will invest 4 billion Brazilian Reals (that’s $2.3 billion to you lot, I only deal in UK pounds) on Brazilian production capacity. Naturally, Ford aren’t doing this alone, the Brazilian government are offering the usual (as yet undisclosed) state and federal tax breaks to Ford. The investment will add to Fiesta capacity at the Camacari factory and help modernize the Troller plant that builds utility vehicles. Ford’s Q3 pretax profit in South America fell nearly in half to $247 million, as revenue dropped 22 percent to $2.1 billion. Though Ford blames currency issues for the drop, soon-to-expire government incentives have been keeping the Brazilian market afloat. Maybe it’s not “Fiesta” time yet.

“In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation,” goes a famous line in the Great Law of the Iroquois, “even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.” Though TTAC tests the thickness of GM’s skin on a daily basis, GM is ahead of the seven-generation game. The Detroit News reports that GM’s engineering staff are already working on the Volt’s third-generation hardware, although previous iterations are still being used to collect data. Meanwhile, the major challenge remain getting everything road-ready for a 2010 launch, a goal that will be reached… “barring any last minute problems.” “I did place a lot of faith in the battery companies, who said they could have them ready,” admits Bob Lutz. Oh, and there’s still one other major obstacle to overcome: the cost. Test vehicles cost “over $250,000″ per vehicle to build, and a major focus of the testing process has been reducing the build cost. And despite the earlier Volt-as-sports-sedan rhetoric, the top attained speed in testing is 107 mph, although engineers say it will likely be limited to 104 mph. Though that’s faster than most EV early-adopters will take their Volts anyway, it’s also only about 15 mph faster than the much-cheaper Nissan Leaf EV, a vehicle that the Volt will have to differentiate itself from considerably to earn its estimated $10k premium over the non-range-extended EV.

Autoweek apparently got an interview with GM vice president of global vehicle engineering and former chairman of Holden, Mark Reuss. Apparently, because their write-up takes a light hand with the quotation marks, using them to fill in the gaps between the author’s breathless interpretations of the topic at hand: Chevrolet’s SS line.

From 1960s Chevelles to modern Camaros, speedy Chevrolets have always been indentified with two letters: SS. But does the tradition-laden performance designation have a future in the new General Motors, which is under pressure to cut costs, make money and meet stricter fuel-economy regulations? “Absolutely,” Mark Reuss, GM vice president of global engineering, told AutoWeek. In fact, the SS line could be better–or at least more clearly defined. Reuss envisions cars outfitted on a case-by-case basis, rather than somewhat generically adding horsepower and red-letter stitching to Chevys across the board. Or as he put it, “Not trying to peanut-butter SS for everything.”

And though the intent of Reuss’s proclamation was clearly to encourage, the SS brand may be one of GM’s most-damaged. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are a few of the reasons why.

UBS has cut Fiat’s rating from “buy” to “neutral”. UBS cites its cautious views on car demand in Europe and Brazil as well as heavy trucks and machinery, the areas in which Fiat are strongest. UBS notes that Sergio Marchionne’s grand scenario of spinning off Fiat’s auto division is still the company’s goal, and PSA Peugeot-Citroen as a “likely candidate”. In the near term, UBS thinks that Fiat’s market share price of €10 per share is fair, as a consolidated manufacturer. Another reason why UBS cut Fiat: Chrysler. The article finishes with a stark warning that the “value of Chrysler to Fiat has been cut to 1 euro from 2 euros.” In the interest of fairness, we shouldn’t listen too much to the stock market as these are the same people who proclaimed that the banking sector was in rude health, right up until they asked for a bailout, catching the market “by surprise”. Especially considering Sergio Marchionne is the non-executive vice chairman of UBS’s board of directors. These caveats aside though, it’s important to note that Chrysler has realistically gotten Fiat no closer to the magical 5m annual sales number it needs to spin off its auto business, nor has it added real value. And Marchionne is apparently eying up PSA as the next target in his mad march to world domination. What a gas.

Earlier this week Chrysler talked about taking real steps to improve its quality. Today it’s GM. Mark Reuss, GM’s head of engineering, had this to say to the Detroit Free Press:

Reliability has been the Achilles’ heel of GM for my entire career,” he said, promising he would focus the company’s engineers around the world on fixing the problem. “It gets down to an individual engineer’s ability to find a problem and leadership’s ability to fix it,” he said, adding that too many GM engineers have been reluctant to point out problems because they were afraid they’d get the blame rather than praise for catching the mistake before customers suffered.

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China’s SAIC, which had bought Britain’s MG and Rover in a roundabout way, is expected to unveil a production version of the MG 6 at the upcoming 2009 Guangzhou auto show next week, Gasgoo writes.
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Sweden’s unions are on a hot trail. They think that –ohmygod- the Chinese government could be pulling the strings with Geely and Volvo. China’s Geely won’t say where they get the money for buying Volvo from Ford. Geely says its backers include Chinese banks. Sweden’s union leaders are concerned that the Chinese government may ultimately be behind the takeover. Well duh, most (if not all) Chinese banks are owned by the Chinese government. Kindof. Somehow.
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