Managing The Dragon

After respectable — but low for China — growth of 7.7 percent in 2012, car sales surged by 21.6 percent during the first quarter of 2013. Even more surprising was the fact that sales of Chinese brands increased even faster than the overall market. Sales by the local car companies increased by 33.6 percent during [...]

Sometimes, too much success in China can create its own set of challenges. Ironically, the very success that Apple Inc. (NasdaqGS: AAPL) has had selling its products to Chinese consumers may be at least part of the reason why the Cupertino, California company found itself at odds with the powers that be in China in [...]

Will the Chinese buy A Tesla? The management of Tesla Motors, Inc. (NasdaqGS:TSLA) certainly hopes so. At the Detroit Auto Show, Tesla announced its plans to open a dealership in Beijing — its first store in China — this spring. George Blankenship, the company’s vice president of worldwide sales, said the store will house an [...]

Hope springs eternal — and nowhere is it gushing more strongly than with electric vehicle enthusiasts all over the world. In the United States, investors in Tesla Motors, Inc. (NasdaqGS:TSLA), the U.S. maker of electric sports cars, seem to be shrugging off the fact that the company is losing a $100 million a quarter, the [...]

The timing of Spring Festival must always be taken into account when analyzing vehicle sales in the first two months of the year in China, but by any measure, passenger car sales were very strong in January. In the first month of the Year of the Snake, passenger car sales surged to 1.49 million units, [...]

For the first 10 months of 2012, a total of 10.8 million passenger cars were sold in China, up 7.6 percent from the comparable period last year. China is now, by far, the largest passenger car market in the world, and given its size and importance, investors want to know: “Who is winning and who [...]

On September 17, the United States notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) of its request for consultations with China on “China’s measures providing subsidies such as grants, loans, foregone government revenue, the provision of goods and services and other incentives contingent upon export performance to automobile and automobile-parts enterprises in China.” Under WTO rules and [...]

Mad Money’s Jim Cramer likes Joy Global, Inc. (NYSE: JOY) and rates the company a “Buy.” Why? In Cramer’s view, China is at the bottom of its economic cycle and is turning up. Therefore, the world’s second-largest economy will need more coal to make the electricity to power its growth, and with it, the type of mining [...]

Last week, the Ford Motor Company (NYSE: “F”) announced that it will launch Lincoln in China in the second half of 2014. Ford is currently in negotiations with potential dealers with a goal to establish an independent dealer network for the model that will offer a new level of personalized service not currently offered by [...]

Several weeks ago, the Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) was in the news when it announced that its affiliate, Jiangling Motors Corporation, Ltd. (JMC), has agreed to acquire 100 percent of Taiyuan Changan Heavy Truck Company (Taiyuan). For JMC, which currently makes light trucks and sports utility vehicles, this acquisition marks its first entry into China‘s [...]