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Archives for March 2015

Wednesday morning car news roundup, March 25, 2015

March 25, 2015 By

Today is Wednesday

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Filed Under: Morning News Tagged With: First published on March 25, 2015 9:04 am

Tuesday morning car news roundup, March 24, 2015

March 24, 2015 By

Today is Tuesday

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Filed Under: Morning News Tagged With: First published on March 24, 2015 7:45 am

Auto Industry 101.5: Takeover prices. (Prepare to be disappointed.)

March 23, 2015 By
Geely paid $1.5 billion for all of Volvo

Geely paid $1.5 billion for all of Volvo

In this 5th installment of Auto Industry 101, we talk about the price for your toils and troubles of starting a car company. This short course is written due to the recent interest in disrupting the auto industry. The course is kept extremely simple, Auto Industry for the Twitter Generation. Those in the industry will find nothing new. Those new to the industry hopefully will find a helpful primer.

Takeover fantasies usually help prop up a stock price, and Tesla can’t complain about a shortage of takeover fantasies. I am frequently asked what Apple, or a global automaker would pay for Tesla. Here is my usual answer. [ There is more … ]

Filed Under: Analysis, Emerging markets, EV, Green Tagged With: , , First published on March 23, 2015 8:48 am

Monday morning car news roundup, March 23, 2015

March 23, 2015 By

Today is Monday

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Filed Under: Morning News Tagged With: First published on March 23, 2015 8:30 am

So Tesla is taking our advice, and does a Chinese JV. Or so they say

March 23, 2015 By
Tesla's presumptive JV partner Lifan (formerly Hongda) is known for a liberal approach to intellectual property

Tesla’s presumptive JV partner Lifan (formerly Hongda) is known for its liberal approach to intellectual property

Tesla Motors is “sizing up Chongqing-based auto manufacturer Lifan Group and Chang’an Automobile Group” for a possible joint venture, writes Taiwan’s Wantchinatimes, which in turn did read it in Shanghai’s National Business Daily. As the DailyKanban wrote in Auto Industry 101.3, a 50:50 joint venture with a Chinese automaker is the only way to make a meaningful entry into the Chinese auto market. As we wrote in Auto Industry 101.4, a Chinese JV is the only way to bring a foreign EV to the Chinese market with any chance of success. Here come the howevers: [ There is more … ]

Filed Under: Asia, China, EV, Green, Inside The Industry, News Tagged With: , , , , First published on March 23, 2015 6:06 am

Friday morning car news roundup, March 20, 2015

March 20, 2015 By

Today is Friday

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Filed Under: Morning News, News Tagged With: First published on March 20, 2015 9:47 am

Auto Industry 101.4: Selling EVs to China. A how not to

March 19, 2015 By
Ni hao

Ni hao

 

The 4th installment of Auto Industry 101 won’t be a lecture on how to successfully export an electric car to China. There isn’t enough empirical data for this: No-one so far has successfully exported an electric car to China. Today, we explore the reasons. This short course is written due to the recent interest in disrupting the auto industry. The course is kept extremely simple, Auto Industry for the Twitter Generation. Those in the industry will find nothing new. Those new to the industry hopefully will find a helpful primer.  This lecture may be a bit long. So here is the executive version on how to export EVs to China:

Don’t.

I drove my first electric car in China in early 2007, at around the same time Tesla showed its first Roadster. The Chinese EV was a prototype, built by the Anting Automotive College of Shanghai’s Tongji University. A formal meeting was scheduled for the next morning. The next day at the college, everybody was aflutter, and the meeting was canceled. “Last night, the boss has been called to an urgent meeting in Beijing,” the distraught Dean of the college told me. “No reason was given. We hope he will come back.” At lunch, a call came, and to everybody’s relief and joy, Wang Gang, the President of Tongji University and founder of the Anting College, was installed as China’s Science and Technology Minister.

Suddenly, EVs had a strong and knowledgeable sponsor, right close to China’s very top. Wan Gang had powerful allies: China’s military. The brass was worried: Car sales began to boom in China, and the gasoline in the tanks mainly came by tanker from the Middle East. There had been two Gulf Wars in short succession, and Iraq was falling apart. There was a protracted war in China’s western periphery, in Afghanistan, and the unrest began to affect China’s Xinjiang Province. A flare-up around the Malacca Straits could easily choke China’s oil supply. China’s generals were old enough to remember that World War II did not start in Pearl Harbor, but a year earlier, when America cut off Japan’s oil supply. A big push for EVs promised independence both from Saudi oil, and from imported western technology. Powered by the vast scale of its market, Chinese would assume technological leadership in new energy transportation, while the west would choke on ICEs.

At least, that was the plan. [ There is more … ]

Filed Under: Analysis, Asia, China, EV, Green, Inside The Industry, News Tagged With: , , First published on March 19, 2015 1:18 pm

Thursday morning car news roundup, March 19, 2015

March 19, 2015 By

Today is Thursday

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Filed Under: News Tagged With: First published on March 19, 2015 7:52 am
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