#roewe

Lotus may not have been sold to the Chinese (yet) but someone else was. And they’ve been making cars for over a year. Supposedly, they’re not bad to drive either.

One of Bertel and my favorite Chinese car blogs, ChinaCarNews, has been reporting since October than the next-generation of MG/Roewe midsized sedans would be based on GM’s Global Midsized (Epsilon II) chassis (which underpins Buick LaCrosse/Regal and the new Chevy Malibu), and now the rest of the media appears to be catching up. From InsideLine to Autocar, everyone’s running with the story that MG/Roewe, which is owned by GM’s main Chinese partner SAIC, is working on an Epsi II-based MG7 for launch in the 2015 timeframe. According to InsideLine

[In 2015], the MG7/Roewe 750 sedan replacement appears some 15 years after the debut of the Rover 75 they’re based on. A coupelike four-door, it uses GM’s Epsilon platform and will be powered by 2.0 and 2.4 four-cylinder gasoline engines and a 1.9 diesel, all with dual-clutch transmissions.

GM and SAIC signed a Memorandum Of Understanding back in October [.DOC file here], which included the provision that, in addition to developing a next-gen electric architecture,

SAIC and GM anticipate sharing an additional vehicle architecture and powertrain application in an effort to help reduce development costs and benefit from economies of scale.

This could explain MG/Roewe’s rumored use of the Epsilon II chassis, but for the moment GM dismisses these rumors as “speculation.” And no wonder: even GM hasn’t announced when it will offer a dual-clutch transmission in its Global Midsized platform. Chances are, The General will want to offer that combination before its Chinese partners use it to beef up its MG/Roewe brands, which have been in product rehab for some time now.

When you are a Chinese car company, especially one that is mostly government owned, reporting profits is not one of your prime objectives. As long as you don’t lose money hand over fist, as long as you provide jobs for many people, as long as you grow in market share and influence, having money left over is sometimes just a (taxable) nuisance. But in times like these, it’s unavoidable. And it doesn’t hurt your stock when you are a publicly traded company. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, better known as SAIC, has announced that their net profit for 2009 jumped 900 percent from the previous year, reaching a record of nearly $1b ($966m, to be exact.)