September, usually a good sales month in China, brought no change to the tepid growth of the formerly red-hot Chinese car market. Automobile output was 1.60 million, and remained “basically flat,” as the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said. Auto sales are up by 5.52 percent compared to September last year.

As I noted earlier this week, GM’s decision to bring a pure-electric version of the Chevy Spark to the US opens up an interesting challenge to its “range anxiety”-centric marketing approach. But WardsAuto reports that there’s another challenging question coming out of the decision: where will the baby EV be built? And as I’ve found, GM’s reticence on the topic of the Spark EV program only deepens the mystery for Wards, which writes

Some media are reporting the EV will come from South Korea, where gasoline- and diesel-powered Sparks currently are produced. If so, that’s news to the folks at GM Korea.

My fleeting 15:21 minutes of dubious fame.

There was no better place to clear up some questions about Saab than in Chengdu. After all, nowhere can you find the CEOs of all major Chinese carmakers and government officials all under the same roof, or even at your dining table. There also was no better place to get entangled in the messiest web of facts and fiction. Here is some local color:

If your dearest wish is that the Chinese car industry will implode, then you should pray that the Chinese remain on strategy. For whatever inconceivable reason, the Chinese car industry has embarked on a plan, which – if properly executed – will mean its assured destruction.

Death with Dignity apparently does not exist in Victor Muller’s vocabulary, as Reuters reports that the CEO of Saab’s parent company will receive loans from prospective investor Youngman in order to ward off liquidation in Swedish bankruptcy court. Youngman has committed some $97m in bridge loan financing to the troubled Swedish automaker, of which Saab has received $15m so far and will receive more payments this week in order to pay salaries and other expenses. Saab spokeswoman Gunilla Gustavs explains

“We are putting bridge financing in place so we can fund business during the reorganisation — so we don’t incur new debt. We have running costs, such as electricity, that we need to take care of. There are a number of business-critical operations that need to be funded”

Saab’s salaries are currently guaranteed by the Swedish government as part of Saab’s bankruptcy protection, but that guarantee expires on October 21, just before October salaries are due. Missing that payment would likely have spelled the end of Saab, but with Youngman’s money arriving in dribs and drabs it seems that we may be documenting the firm’s undignified collapse for another month or so.

The third day of the Chengdu get-together morphed into what was called a “Global Automotive Media Summit.” The idea was to prep the Chinese car manufacturers for their global push as far as the global media are concerned. For that, the services of TTAC were enlisted. The manufacturers need any help they can get when it comes to handling the media. From BAIC to SAIC, from Chery to Geely, from state-owned Dongfeng all the way to wannabe manufacturer Pangda, they all were there and delivered their speeches. The speeches could be summed-up in two words, looped like techno-rock:

“Global. Global. Global. Global. Brands. Brands. Brands. Brands. Global Brands.”

Paul Ingrassia, deputy chief of Reuters and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the management turmoil at General Motors, was there and warned about too much haste. His warnings largely fell on deaf ears.

Foreign reporters are a welcome interview target at the Global Automotive Forum in Chengdu, much to the amazement of the reporters who are used to interview other people. There is a lengthy interview with someone from TTAC. I don’t know what it says, it’s all in Chinese. (Don’t trust Google translate. Informed sources tell me the headline says: “Schmit: China’s car makers should open up to the media.”)

While U.S. Senators are wringing their hands and pounding their chests about EV know-how allegedly escaping to China, makers from other countries are doing business. The most recent EV entry is Honda. Honda will build an EV in China and sell it in China in 2012 “in limited quantities,” its R&D chief Toshihiro Mibe told TTAC in Chengdu. The electric vehicle will undergo tests this year. When ready, the EV will be launched under the Honda brand. When asked, Honda spokesperson Natsuna Asanuma was convinced that the Honda EV will qualify for Chinese subsidies.

Mibe dismissed know-how issues: “An EV is much simpler than a regular car. The only difference is the battery and the electric motor.”

The Global Automotive Forum is an annual confab of Chinese politicos, functionaries, industry leaders and wonks of the world. This year, it is in Chengdu, and the motto is “From volume leader to innovation leader.” The subhead could very well be: “What now?”

Speaker after speaker bemoans the fact that China is winning by sheer numbers, but is falling behind in the innovation race. The fractionalized Chinese car industry simply does not have the wherewithal to keep up with the big multinationals.

Soon, Volvos could sport yet another decal: “No animals will be harmed by this vehicle.” Volvo is working on a system that avoids roadkill. According to Bloomberg, the system

“uses a radar sensor and an infra-red camera to alert the driver to nearby critters and brake if a collision is unavoidable. That technology is due to be rolled out in a few years in cars like the XC90 sport-utility vehicle, priced at $38,400, after employees studied the movement of moose and deer in southern Sweden.”

Even David Cain, who runs the annual Roadkill Cook-off in Marlinton, West Virginia, does not see a conflict of interest:

In a statement issued late Friday, China’s Geely poured cold water over rumors that it is interested in Saab, but confirmed that there was a meeting – because they wanted to be nice. There is another version that says that Sweden’s Finance Minister caused Geely’s Li Shu Fu a massive loss of face, whereupon he took his balls and went home.

Where to start? Let’s start with the money. The $96 million promised by China’s Youngman and badly needed by Saab are not here. They haven’t left China either. Not just because China is on vacation. Youngman claims they have not received what they were promised, and until that happens, no money will be sent. “If the conditions are not met, we cannot pay,” Rachel Pang, president of Youngman, said in an email to Dagens Industri. Welcome to China. Now wait what the Swedes have up their sleeves.

Yesterday, we reported that Saab was waiting for some $93 million to arrive from China. The matter has not changed. Now, people on the inside get the impression that yellow knight Youngman wants out. This morning, Swedens’s Dagens Industri cited an inside source that says that Youngman wants out, and another Chinese maker wants in. Yeah, sure.

At Saab, which is working (well, not really working) under court protection from creditors, the big question is: “Did the money come in?”

The money is the €70 million ($93 million) promised by the Chinese bus manufacturer Youngman as a bridge loan. Saab needs cash desperately. Court protection means no new loans. Cash is king. No cash has arrived from China. Saab is not the only party in Sweden that is waiting for answers from China. Sweden’s National Debt office is waiting for answers also. Let’s have a look.

What looks like a Chinese-Japanese matter should cause considerable heartburn in Sweden and the Netherlands: The Chinese government has informed Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. that it will not approve the automaker’s application to set up a joint venture in China, says Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun. Let’s take a closer look.

Last year, tensions ran high – about dirt. Emotions were whipped up about a Chinese embargo on stuff most people never had heard of: Rare earth. The stuff is used to make magnets that go into anything from hard drives to generators and electric motors. Cooler heads tried to point out that rare earth is not rare at all, and that China has as much a monopoly on rare earth as it has on sand. Nobody listened to the cooler heads, and rare earth prices went stratospheric. Step aside, those rare earth prices are crashing down.

Says Bloomberg:

The prospect of a Chinese auto industry growing at insane speed thanks to a booming market and resiliently low wages has long kept auto industry execs up at night, most notably inspiring Sergio Marchionne’s acquisition of Chrysler. But basic economic principles dictate that you can have a high rate of growth or low wages… but not both. Growth inevitably drives inflation, which drives up wages, which in turn slows growth. And according to a report in the Wall Street Journal [sub], that dynamic is already taking hold.

Jae-Man Noh, head of Hyundai’s joint-venture operations in China, said average manufacturing-worker wages in China—about 27,000 yuan ($4,200) a year per worker in 2009—are likely to double by 2015 from current levels.

Auto makers are expected to be affected as much as other industries by the trend, if not more, Mr. Noh said, adding that wage costs for many foreign auto manufacturers already have doubled in less than a decade. He said that a rival foreign auto maker that Hyundai has researched has seen worker wages in China rise to 49,000 yuan a year per worker in 2010, up from 24,500 yuan a year in 2003.

“We need to let go of our perception that the Chinese market is a low-cost production base,” Mr. Noh told a group of reporters at Hyundai’s office in Beijing. He didn’t offer specifics on Hyundai’s wage costs in China.

Thanks to the notoriously leaky Chinese Patent and Trademark Office, and the intrepid research of Carnewschina, we now know that Honda will enter the Chinese market with a second “Chinese” brand.

Manufacturers are racing to enter the largely non-existent market of electric cars in China. After Nissan, Daimler, GM, and possibly Ford, Volkswagen has been caught doing it with SAIC. Reuters found that an electric car called Tantus, “which will be produced by Shanghai Volkswagen, is already on a list of approved new vehicles, according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.”

This is not Volkswagen’s first Chinese EV-to-be. And it’s not surprising.

The Detroit News‘s David Shepardson has a way of being on hand with a microphone whenever GM CEO Dan Akerson lets loose with a memorable line, and today he has Akerson telling a Bloomberg News Forum that the green star of the American auto turnaround, the Chevy Volt, could be built in China within a few years. Said Akerson

We’re going to export into China for probably a year or two and see if it gets a take … if customers set the right usage patterns. If it does, we may manufacture it there.

[Editor’s note: the following block-quoted passages were sent to us by an enterprising anonymous tipster (italicized passages were quoted in the original from linked sources). I’ve decided to let the argument speak for itself, and simply interject a few thoughts (non-block-quoted) towards the end.]

On their Q2 earnings call, GM gave this presentation [PDF] and made the following claims:

“On Slide 12, we provide what we view as key performance indicators for GM North America. The 2 lines on the top of the slide represents GM’s U.S. total and retail share. The bars on the slide represent GM’s average U.S. retail incentives on a per unit basis. Now U.S. retail incentives as a percentage of average transaction price and compared to the industry average is noted at the bottom of the slide.

“For the second quarter of 2011, our U.S. retail share was 17.6%, up 1.3 percentage points versus the prior year and down 0.6 percentage points versus the prior quarter due to the absence of the first quarter sales programs. Our incentive levels on an absolute basis have declined significantly from the prior year as well as sequentially. On a percentage of ATP basis, our incentives were 8.9%, down 2 percentage points versus the prior year. This puts us at approximately 103% of industry average levels for the second quarter of 2011, flat versus the prior year.

“In terms of incentive levels, our plan continues for us to be at approximately the industry average for the year on a percentage of ATP basis. These results for share and incentive demonstrate the impact of our plan to produce great vehicles the customers are willing to pay for.”

I did not try to verify the first part of the highlighted claim (that incentives have declined compared to previous year totals), but the second part of the claim (that incentives have declined sequentially) is demonstrably false.

When Lansing Senator Debbie Stabenow sent her most recent routine letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, complaining that the nasty Chinese want to get their greedy hands on the super-secret electric vehicle know-how of Ford and GM, both manufacturers protested. Against the assistance from Ms. Stabenow. Ford and GM said that “they have no plans to build electric vehicles in China.” At least that’s how the Detroit News heard it. Either the DetN was misinformed. Or GM and Ford quickly changed their minds. Or they just wanted Debbie off their backs. Ford and GM both want to make EVs in China.

More than 142 Chinese cities marked the country’s fifth Car Free Day last week, which was summarily ignored. “Traffic congestion in major Chinese cities showed little signs of easing,” reports China Daily, as Chinese drivers took to the streets with unchanged gusto. The only exception was a few blocks around Beijing’s Bird’s Nest, which remained free of cars.

The board of GM has a week-long meeting in Shanghai. Someone just happened to be in the same place at the same time, and quite possibly unearthed the secret all of India is dying to hear: Under what brand will the Wuling cars be introduced once they hit India? Apparently, not Wuling.

Conventional wisdom and Senator Stabenow have it that the wily Chinese are after precious Americans secrets of how to make new energy cars. Never mind that Ford and GM loudly deny that they have any current plans to build or sell electric vehicles in China. That appears at least half true in the case of GM. GM doesn’t have plans. Its plans are made in China. GM completely outsourced the development of electric vehicles – along with other future technologies – to China.

Reuters reports:

Opel, part of GM Europe, has long sought to free itself of the constraints imposed by GM, which aims to keep it as a regional brand.

“One proposal would be to give Opel shares to SAIC,” [Opel union boss] Klaus Franz told Reuters, adding this move would allow GM to receive in return t he 1 percent in the SAIC joint venture it is missing for a 50 percent stake.

“GM has never accepted that it owns 49 percent in the joint venture with SAIC and that the Chinese partners have 51 percent,” Franz said.

The joint venture builds Chevy, Buick and Cadillac vehicles in China.

“It would be a win-win situation for all and it would be a good way for us to enter the Chinese market,” Franz said.

Franz has long been a provocateur, but this one probably takes the cake. After all, SAIC and Opel together would almost be a better GM than GM… product development and booming China/India sales with none of the North American legacy costs. Don’t count on this happening, but it is an interesting sign of Opel’s renewed desire for independence from Mother GM.

Saab is on court ordered life support. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for Western Sweden has approved Saab’s request for protection from creditors. Saab can now attempt a business reconstruction without the threat of imminent bankruptcy, The Local reports.

TTAC wasn’t able to be on-hand for the Chengdu Auto Show, but thanks to Carnewschina.com, we’ve got the latest in “we’re far enough into the interior that foreign firms won’t complain about our blatant ripoffs” styling, from the new heavyweight champion of Chinese ripoffs: Yema Motors. Seriously, calling these things “derivative” is wholly undeserved a compliment. And if you think this Audi A4… excuse me, Yema F16, is bad just wait until you see the rest of their new cars. From the Infiniti-aping E-series, to the Touareg-alike “T-SUV,” to the Subaru Forester clone F99/F10, the stylists at Yema Motors take their mimicry very seriously. And apparently the last original idea their design team had was “I know, let’s put our faux-Audi grille on the Faux-rester.” Tada, new model! The Jiade Dynasty rolls on…

Writing these Saab stories is becoming as much fun as visiting a fading relative in a hospice: You have to do it, but you want to get it behind you, quickly. Today is the day a court in Sweden will decide whether it admits Saab’s appeal of a prior court decision that would have forced the Swedes into bankruptcy. In the meantime, Victor Muller came up with another plan.

Two days ago, we told you that Senator Debbie Stabenow was barking up the wrong tree when she again fingered China for “attempting to pressure American automakers, including General Motors and Ford, to transfer core technologies of their electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to Chinese companies, in order for those vehicles to qualify for China’s clean energy vehicle incentive program.” Both Ford and GM quickly and as diplomatically as possible said it isn’t so, simply because neither of them has any plans to build electric vehicles in China. Now it turns out that Stabenow was barking up the wrong forest: Nissan will export its Made in Japan Leaf to China. And the Chinese clean energy incentive program looks like a non-starter.

Both Honda and Toyota have consistently lost market share in China, which is even more embarrassing given the fact that Japanese brands in total still command the largest market share in the Middle Kingdom. This is helped by Nissan, which now holds a bigger share of the Chinese market than Toyota and Honda. Honda does not want to take it any more and is planning a counter-attack at the hearts, minds and wallets of the Chinese customer. Honda will even go as far as giving the Chinese cars that are custom-made for China.

It is a regular occurrence. Every few months, the Lansing Senator Debbie Stabenow rushes to the aid of GM and Ford and defends them against the nasty Chinese. The problem is: GM and Ford don’t want or need her help.

The national character of auto brands is a tricky thing. For decades, Volvo wore its Swedishness on its sleeve, emphasizing the values that made Ikea, Abba and Swedish porn so popular in the US… even when it was an outpost of the Ford empire. And then the unthinkable happened: Chinese up-and-comer Li Shufu bought the brand and rolled it into his Geely empire. In the world of national-character-branding, being bought by a Chinese firm is something like hiring Casey Anthony as a brand ambassador, or using a mascot called “Mr Melamine Milk” (another nightmare scenario can be found here). So, how does a brand like Volvo, that was built on Swedishness, get past the “China Factor”? By doubling down on Swedishness? How about by building cars in the US?

It happens to all foreign joint venture partners: They are invited to have tea and a chat with representatives of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). After the pleasantries are exchanged, the weather has been discussed, and statements of mutual admiration have been made, someone from the NDRC side will say: “Don’t you want to start a Chinese brand? We would really appreciate it.” Who can say no to the wishes of the Chinese government?

The latest to say “Ja” is BMW. BMW will build a second, truly “Chinese” brand for China. “We are discussing this with the NDRC, and we will find a solution,” said BMW CEO Friedrich Eichiner to Germany’s FAZ. BMW’s futuristic carbon fiber i cars won’t be BMWs in China.

Now that Chinese car sales are a hot topic on CNBC, and now that even Jalopnik reports Chinese car sales, here a short primer on how it’s done. You may want to write that down. It’s tricky.

The people who have the final word on Chinese automobile production and sales are not from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The final word has the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). Never use the data of the China Passenger Car Association, they just lead you astray. I also recommend to distrust Bloomberg, they are prone to making mistakes – although this time, they were right. If your Chinese is a bit rusty, use sources such as Shanghai Daily to double-check. No problem. Love to help. Now, for the numbers:

According to conventional wisdom, all cars in China are blatant copies of foreign cars. With the joint venture cars, that is certainly true. With some true red Chinese cars this is also sometimes the case. Now it seems that Chinese carmakers ran out of foreign victims and started to copy Chinese cars. Volvo is owned by China’s Geely, as we all know. Can you spot the true Volvo?

Employees of Saab will soon collect unemployment benefits from the Swedish government instead from Victor Muller. They can find solace in the fact that they are not alone. It looks like former media darling and wunderkind BYD is hitting the skids.

Except here, people are not kept around for months doing nothing . They are fired. This is China, not socialist Sweden. According to Chinacartimes, BYD announced that it will cut up to 1,800 members of staff, including underemployed 1,000 members of its sales team.

Our Chinese sales oracle has spoken, and it says that sales of cars in China are good. August sales numbers released by General Motors today indicate that China has left the doldrums behind and is revving up to its old double digit self. Sales of GM China and its Chinese joint ventures set an August sales record and rose 13.4 percent (compared to August 2010) to 205,885 units.

Remember Bertels’ stranger-than-fiction write-up of former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe’s Mongolian EV /Visa plant? Charles Child at Automotive News [sub] has looked at McAuliffe’s scheme and comes away less than entirely impressed, noting that

even casual scrutiny of his vision reveals overwhelming obstacles. Let’s be plain: His plan is dead on arrival.

You won’t find a zinger like that in Bertel’s piece, but only because he keeps his head down detailing the entire bizarre history of McAuliffe’s venture, its roots as the “Hybrid Kinetic Motors” visa scheme, its ties to a couple of notorious former Brilliance boys and its money-first, product-later approach. Child’s takedown isn’t as well researched (nor does it contain anecdotes about former a Ambassador driving a lawnmower into a swimming pool), but the few remaining folks out there who think the former Democrat fundraiser might be on to something big should probably read on. After all, McAuliffe has put so much hype out there, this story is something of a target-rich environment for truth-tellers.

If you look at Nissan’s performance in China, you won’t see anything of the lackluster growth of the overall Chinese market. Nissan announced August sales of 94,700 units in China, up 26.1 percent from a red-hot August 2010. While the Chinese market is waddling like an uncooked Beijing duck, Nissan China recorded the fourth double-digit monthly sales growth in a row.

China’s car market will take it easy and grow only 3 to 5 percent this year after surging 32 percent to more than 18 million last year. This is the prediction of China’s State Information Center, as reported by Bloomberg.

For a while, GM has been trying to get back the crucial 1 percent share in the GM/SAIC China joint venture. That share had been sold when things were dire. Books were written about it, and Ed provided an executive summary. Now, China Daily heard from SAIC. “Mei wen ti!” (No problem.) SAIC is ready to hand back the share —- if GM finds a way that allows Shanghai GM’s revenue to be included in SAIC’s books. Uh-oh!

If the Shanghai Daily isn’t hallucinating (their writing is pretty sober, if not sobering), and if their source is reliable (the source is Pang Qinghua, chairman of Pang Da, the yellow knight from China that was supposed to save Saab from the abyss,) then Saab’s goose is cooked.

Chairman Pang told the Shanghai Daily that “Pang Da Automobile Trade Co and Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co have not submitted an application to the Chinese government to inject much-needed funds in Saab, increasing fears that the Swedish carmaker may drive into bankruptcy due to a cash crunch.”

Why does that mean that the goose is good for eating? Because Saab says so.

GM China always had a comfortable lead over Volkswagen in China – at least on paper. More than half of GM China’s volume comes from small delivery vans, made by a three-way joint venture with SAIC and Wuling, in which GM held 34 percent. This share had been recently raised to 44 percent. The joint venture agreement allows GM to claim 100 percent of the small cars as theirs. “Whatever turns them on” (or Chinese word to that effect) say the other JV partners who happily count the cars again in their annual reports. There is one big problem with that. The “breadvan segment” (so called because the cars looks like loafs on wheels) has been shrinking and is ruining GM’s otherwise good Chinese numbers. Now, GM can’t take it anymore, and is using a familiar tactic: “GM is sacrificing profit margins to maintain market share in China, cutting prices of low-cost minivans by as much as 15 percent to offset slowing sales in the world’s largest vehicle market,” Bloomberg reports.

Did we say that golden cars are all the rage in China? Rage? It’s an epidemic! Carnewschina is following the rapidly developing story. Latest gold find: A Lamborghini Gallardo LP-560 2, unearthed in Shijiazhiang, capital of Hebei Province.

Placing females on the hood of cars has always been a tried if tired tactic in car selling. Putting money on the hood usually sexes up sales faster than scantily-clad vixens. The Chinese car industry is in fast growth, and in puberty. So it goes for – women.

Carnewschina found a Volkswagen dealer in Daqing in China’s Heilongjiang Province who thought that his sales charts could use some excitement. He hired some girls to stand around the cars in bikinis. Apparently, this stratagem did not quite work out as planned. Further drastic savings were called for:

The bikinis had to go.

Hit the jump only if you are home alone, or if you can prove that you are studying trends in car retailing, and that it’s all in the name of science. You have been warned …

When an American wants to attract attention to his car & dealer woes, the tech-savvy slighted customer sets up a [name_of_dealer]sucksrealbad.com, and protests from the privacy of his webserver. The traditional types take up position in front of said sales outlet with some placards.

In China, the preferred mode of protest is by farm animal. A Chinese man called bull on his car and dealer.

What car for the Chinese man who has everything? Easy answer: A golden car! Golden cars are all the rage in the Middle Kingdom, where ostentatiousness has entered the Rococo age: The man who lives in a mansion adorned with turrets, pillars and gold-plated putti of course needs to have the wheels that complement his eclectic tastes. The car industry is happy to oblige. Carnewschina has found this gaudy Siebener parked down by the street. Perfect in hot weather, saves a lot of energy over the usual black. You think that’s an isolated case?

Now we know the truth behind the rebels routing Kadafi in Libya. “British, French, Qatari and other special forces working inside Libya?” Bollocks! It was the skilled deployment of fine Chinese weaponry that turned the tide. Chinese guns made the Colonel collect the last cadres of his female bodyguards and head for wherever people head to for a last get-together with their bodyguards before their bollocks are removed in a less than surgical manner. (I am getting sidetracked. Where were we?) Ah, yes, Chinese weaponry!

Tycho over at Carnewschina found the picture above in Huanqiu.com, a Chinese site dedicated to the military side of China, and, to provide proper balance, to barely dressed members of the fairer sex. If you are into uncamouflaged Chinese guns & girls, this site’s for you! (Someone is trying to undermine my morals, and my writing focus.)

Apparently, this is Camry week. TTAC has already thrown two of its most feared and revered auto testers, Michael “Hard Plastic Killer” Karesh and Alex “Yellow Fever” Dykes, into the battle – with similar, yet finely nuanced results. Yours truly has arrived in Tokyo, where he cools his heels (as much as a thermostat set to electricity-saving 82F allows,) until the JDM Camry is unveiled on Sept. 5 to by then totally Camry-numb members of the media.

Alas, your correspondent of the car wars has left China too early, because the global Camry conflict has shifted to the Middle Kingdom, which finds itself in search of the core Camry character.

Conventional wisdom says that the Chinese will suck all the know-how out of their foreign joint venture partners, and once they are through with them, they’ll discard them like Dracula a bloodless virgin. As a thank you, the Chinese will flood foreign countries with cheap Chinese cars. The trouble with conventional wisdom is that it is rarely true, or wise. Actually, the Chinese are now worried that the foreigners amass too much power. “Foreign car producers have begun to take more control of their joint ventures in China, sidelining their Chinese counterparts from business partners to factory providers,” China Daily writes today. China Daily is owned by the Chinese government.

Someone call Homeland Security: Large segments of Americans (if we still can call them that) are willing to spend hard-earned dollars on (are you ready for that?) CHINESE cars. Market research company GfK Automotive’s did its annual Barometer of Automotive Awareness and Imagery, and found that a whopping 38 percent of the respondents would consider buying a Chinese car. Indian cars? A little less, but 30 percent ain’t nothing. That’s amongst all respondents. Once you get to Gen Y consumers, you’ll see wholesale desertion to the enemy.

Says the study:

“The openness to purchasing a Chinese and Indian vehicle is highest among Gen Y consumers, with 52 percent saying they are open to a vehicle from a Chinese automaker and 41 percent saying they are open to a vehicle from an Indian automaker.”

Imagine that. The cars aren’t even on U.S. shores, and especially basement dwellers are ready to buy them – even worse, with dad’s money.

My former wife was an artist. One of her shows was for the benefit of Washington DC’s National Zoo. At the opening, a society dame walked up to her.

“Love your boobies.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The lady referred to the depiction of a school of the sula nebouxii, a.k.a. the Blue Footed Booby, a water bird. Boobies can cause all kinds of misunderstandings. That thought crossed my mind as I watched the picture above.

I found it at Chinacartimes. Apparently, the picture is spreading like wildfire through the Chinese interwebs. Says CCT:

Those who have followed TTAC’s coverage of China’s car electrification plans in general and BYD’s track record in particular will have noticed a degree of healthy skepticism. Actually, we had declared that the electric car only has a chance if you for all intents and purposes outlaw regular cars, as it is the case in Beijing. I have been out there today, and haven’t seen any: If there are no EVs to buy, then none will silently prowl the streets. As far as BYD goes, last March we called them a “down and out car company that should qualify for a handicapped parking sticker.”

Now at last, Forbes’ resident China expert Gordon G. “I hate China” Chang wakes up to the matter and writes:

SUVs are hot in China, and VW’s SUVlet, the Tiguan has turned into a hot seller. In the last few months, it steadily worked itself up the SUV charts and was in the second position in July, behind the Honda CR-V, and before the Nissan Qashqai. In China, the Tiguan is made by Volkswagen’s southern joint venture with Shanghai Volkswagen. What to do when Volkswagen’s Northern joint venture with FAW develops offroadish desires?

China Car Times heard around the hot water dispenser (they like to drink hot water in China, yuck, I know) that First Automobile Works has signaled its wishes that Volkswagen should go off-road with them. Volkswagen can hardly give them the Tiguan as well. That would be taking socialism too far. So what’s Volkswagen to do?

Volvo, given up as beyond salvage by former owner Ford, was sold off to China’s Geely in the automotive equivalent of a yardsale at $1.8 billion. Saying no is always easier than saying yes (well, there are certain exceptions), so most augurs said: “This won’t work.” Asked why, they answered: “It was tried it before, and it failed.”

Wonders of wonders, it appears to be working: Volvo Cars reported an EBIT of 600 million kronor (about 93 million U.S. dollars) in the second quarter, 40 percent more than in the same period of the previous year, a statement from Volvo Cars says.

At the times of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Toyota proudly stood on the podium of the Chinese sales winners, along with Volkswagen and GM. Ever since, Toyota received the wrong fortune cookies in China: Its market share deteriorated steadily, down to half of its 2008 high. Toyota now is on an all-out offensive to re-gain lost ground, with promising success.

The truck depicted above was found by one of Carnewschina’s many stringers in Southern China, Guangxi Province, National Highway 323, km 1181, near the town of Desheng. The stringer noted an indicated speed of 80 km/h. This gives a whole new meaning to a crash truck.