Chery Automobile Co. has applied for government permission to establish a joint venture with Jaguar Land Rover in China with an investment of 12.1 billion yuan ($1.9 billion). The new plant, to be constructed in Changshu in east China's Jiangsu province, would produce up to 130,000 vehicles a year, according to the Web site of China's Ministry of Environment Protection.

SHANGHAI -- Given Chery Automobile Co.'s close ties to the Chinese government, the company has a good chance to win regulatory approval to establish a joint venture with Jaguar Land Rover in China. Land Rover SUVs and Jaguar sedans are in strong demand in China, so the alliance should be able to generate sizable profits for Chery. But the partnership alone can't help Chery much. To pull itself out of its doldrums, the Chinese automaker must rein in its reckless expansion and streamline its product lineup. Pictured: Yang Jian is managing editor of Automotive News China.

BEIJING (Reuters) -- Volvo Car Corp.'s Chinese owner offered to take a large minority stake in the Japanese maker of Subaru cars. The offer, which was never accepted, illustrates Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.'s efforts to gain technology to improve its cars. Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Geely offered to buy a 20 percent stake in Japan's Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. late last year through an investment banking intermediary.

Chinese workers at FAW-GM Light Commercial Vehicle Co.'s Hongta plant went back to work Sunday after staging a one-week strike. FAW-GM Light Commercial Vehicle Co. is a 50-50 joint venture between General Motors and China FAW Group Corp. The workers and some of the plant's retirees blocked the plant gates and demanded higher wages and housing allowances, according to the plant's Web site.

HONG KONG -- Injection molder and metal fabricator Eva Precision Industrial Holdings Ltd. is building a factory complex in the central Chinese city of Wuhan to serve China's automotive market. The project will help the company ease dependence on its exports business. Eva Precision, of Hong Kong, said it will open the plant as a metal-stamping facility and may add plastic molding equipment.

Jianghuai Automobile Co. has withdrawn its plan to raise 2.8 billion yuan ($443 million) to expand vehicle production. The automaker had planned to issue 150 million shares of stock on the domestic market. But China's shaky domestic stock market led the company to shelve its plan, a JAC spokesman told journalists. The move is a setback for the automaker's effort to strengthen its passenger-vehicle business.

Shaanxi Automobile Group Co., a Chinese heavy-duty truckmaker, plans to assemble trucks in Brazil from semi-knockdown kits shipped from China. The plant will be set up as a joint venture with Brazilian truck dealer Metro-Shacman, according to the government of the northwest China province of Shaanxi. The plant, to be built in Pernambuco state in northeastern Brazil, will start production in 2013 with initial annual output of 3,000 heavy-duty trucks.

DETROIT -- Ford is one of the world's most elastic car brands, but Ford Motor Co.'s efforts to play catch-up in China may test just how far the blue oval can be stretched. Ford -- which is chasing such rivals as General Motors, Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp. in China -- just introduced the redesigned Focus into China's hotly contested C segment, the biggest segment in the Chinese market.

The Beijing auto show featured lots of flashy luxury cars and light vehicles, scantily clad women, loud music and flashing lights. But you had to look very carefully to find any electric vehicles. Just a few years ago, the government declared that China would be the world's largest EV market. It hasn't worked out that way -- at least, not yet. Pictured: Alysha Webb, a former China correspondent for Automotive News, is a Los Angeles-based writer.

Ferrari has apologized after someone filmed a special edition 458 Italia -- engine roaring and tires squealing -- performing doughnuts atop a 600-year-old city wall dating to the Ming dynasty. The stunt, performed as part of a promotion to celebrate Ferrari's 20th anniversary in China, left black tire marks on the ancient wall that cleaners were trying in vain to remove, according to news reports.

HANGZHOU -- Rising production capacity by Chinese automakers driven by the heady days of 30-50 percent annual sales growth has bumped headlong into a slowdown, and domestic firms are now seeking overseas customers from Egypt to Ukraine to Indonesia. With Western markets still out of reach, China's domestic automakers are staking their export push on the same formula that's worked for them at home: no frills but acceptable quality.

With revenues of 64.1 billion yuan ($10.2 billion) last year, China Grand Automotive Services Co. outsold Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. to become China's largest dealership group. China Grand sold 412,000 passenger vehicles in 2011, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association.

Volkswagen AG reported that group sales in China and Hong Kong rose 18 percent year-on-year in April to 225,100 units, outperforming industry sales for the period. For the month, industry sales in China rose 13 percent. VW continued to enjoy strong growth from Audi AG, its luxury brand. In April, Audi sales in China jumped 45 percent year-on-year to 34,300 units -- benefiting from a luxury market that remains robust.

BMW AG will open more used-car centers in China to build the brand and expand its customer base in the world's largest auto market. BMW is considering setting up two to four second-hand car trading centers this year in cities including Shanghai and Chengdu, said Gunther Quest, head of used-car strategy at BMW China Automotive Trading Ltd.

ZF Friedrichshafen AG says revenue in China is expected to increase 17 percent year-on-year to 16.4 billion yuan ($2.6 billion). In 2011, the German auto parts supplier generated sales of 14 billion yuan in China, accounting for 10 percent of its global revenue. This year, the company had an especially strong first quarter, with sales up 28 percent from a year earlier.

General Motors has started assembling microvans in its Egypt plant with knockdown kits supplied from its China joint venture SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co. The first microvan, known as the Wuling Rongguang in China, rolled off the production line last week, according to the company. In Egypt, the 1.2-liter five-seat microvan will be sold as the Chevrolet Move.

WUHU -- Chery Automobile Co., China's largest vehicle exporter, says it aims to export 171,000 vehicles this year, up 7 percent from last year. Chery exported 17,412 vehicles in April, up 39 percent year-on-year. That has brought the company's total exports in the first four months to 52,699 units.

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. is beefing up its dealership network in China as it pushes hard to catch up with rivals such as Volkswagen AG and General Motors. Ford plans to add 110 dealers this year in China, similar to the number it added last year, said Joe Hinrichs, Ford's president of Asia-Pacific and Africa. Ford has 400 dealerships in China now, Hinrichs said.

TOKYO -- Subaru's parent -- Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. -- no longer expects to start building cars in China as part of a five-year growth plan, forcing the automaker to lower its annual global sales target during the period by 50,000 vehicles. The Japanese automaker last July announced a plan to boost global sales by 40 percent to 900,000 vehicles by 2016, driven in large part by a tripling in Chinese sales.

China's passenger-vehicle sales rose more than analysts estimated for a second straight month, as Toyota led a rebound by Japanese automakers from disruptions caused by the March earthquake last year. Deliveries, including multipurpose vehicles and SUVs, rose 13 percent to 1.28 million units in April, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said.

SHANGHAI -- China's central government has spent billions of yuan to encourage development of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, but conventional hybrids look like a better bet. Despite the lack of generous government subsidies, conventional hybrids are starting to win the hearts of Chinese consumers. Pictured: Yang Jian is managing editor of Automotive News China.

German transmission maker Getrag expects China and Asia to be the key drivers as its global sales rise an estimated 7 percent this year to 3.2 billion euros (26.2 billion yuan). Led by China, Getrag also said its Asian unit expects to deliver 1.7 million manual transmissions to customers in the region by 2016, up from 644,000 units in 2011.

The AMG division of Mercedes-Benz has opened a dealership in Beijing -- its first stand-alone store -- to sell high-performance cars. The two-story, 381-square-meter store will be located in Sanlitun Village North luxury shopping mall. It will serve as a model for future stand-alone facilities, according to AMG.

Continental AG plans to hire 5,000 more people in China by year end, boosting its work force in the country to 21,000. The new hires will be mainly in engineering and manufacturing, the German supplier said in a statement. Continental, which entered China in 1994, has a work force of 16,000 in the country, accounting for 10 percent of its global total.

BMW AG's China sales jumped 31 percent in April year-on-year to 27,197 units, Bloomberg News reports, citing a company spokeswoman. For the first four months of the year, BMW sales rose 35 percent to 107,211 units. Mercedes-Benz, however, says April sales in China declined 11 percent year-on-year to 14,677 units.

NEW DELHI -- Aston Martin plans to increase the number of dealerships in China to 18 or 20 stores this year, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a company executive. As of December, Aston Martin had five dealerships in China. Company sales director Andy Gawthorpe told The Journal that China, India and other emerging markets will generate 20 percent of the automaker's annual sales this year.

SHANGHAI -- General Motors' sales in China rose 12 percent year-on-year in April to 227,217 units, as sales of its low-priced microvans jumped sharply. SAIC-GM-Wuling Automotive Co., which markets China's top-selling Sunshine microvan, reported a sales increase of 27 percent to 127,362 units.

Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp. late this year will start selling its first model based on the old Saab 9-5 platform purchased from Saab Automobile AB in 2009. The car, known as C70G, is fitted with a 2.0-liter turbocharged gasoline engine. Its main competitors include the Buick New Regal and the Mazda6. BAIC plans to launch a complete product lineup based on the Saab 9-5 platform -- known as the M-trix platform within BAIC -- over the next few years.

BEIJING -- Tianjin FAW Xiali Automobile Co. plans to boost annual output to 600,000 units by 2015, up from 253,000 units last year, a company executive said. Tianjin FAW, the small-car subsidiary of China FAW Group, also plans to upgrade its product lineup, said Men Jun, the company's vice general manager.

HIJIAZHUANG -- Great Wall Motor Co. says it plans to export 100,000 vehicles this year -- up from 79,277 units last year -- and up to 300,000 annually by 2015, the state-owned Xinhua news service reported. However, Great Wall CEO Wang Fengying warned that the rising yuan could dampen exports, Xinhua reported. As of Friday, the yuan was trading at 6.29 per dollar.

Navistar Inc., a U.S. truck and bus manufacturer, will join Jianghuai Automobile Co. to enter China's school bus market and export trucks to Brazil. According to a letter of intent, Navistar will import school buses into China and help JAC to design and build school buses. The U.S. company also will help JAC sell its light- and medium-duty trucks in Brazil via Navistar's network of Brazilian dealerships.

The state-owned China Development Bank Corp. has agreed to finance Volvo Car Corp.'s r&d and production in China. The deal will help Volvo to expand operations in China and develop electric-vehicle powertrains, Volvo CEO Stefan Jacoby said in a statement.

BEIJING -- Last week I attended the Beijing auto show, which generated the usual hoopla of show cars, press conferences and CEO interviews. Yet it wasn't the new car models that impressed me most, but the vast economically underdeveloped areas I saw as I traveled to Beijing from Shanghai by train. And that, in turn, reminds me of the huge growth potential that China's auto market still promises after years of hectic expansion. Pictured: Yang Jian is managing editor of Automotive News China.

BEIJING -- China is poised to surpass Germany as Pininfarina S.p.A.'s largest market by year end, company CEO Silvio Pietro Angori says. China and Germany each generates about 35 percent of the Italian design house's revenue. Italy contributes about 20 percent and other markets generate the rest, according to Angori.

WUHU -- Chery Automobile Co. and Bosch China Investment Ltd. plan to set up a joint venture to develop and produce instrument clusters and infotainment systems for Chery vehicles. To form the partnership, Bosch and Chery will acquire equity stakes in Atech Automotive (Wuhu) Co., a supplier of instrument clusters and infotainment components to Chery. Atech is in this east China city.

Renault's push into China may be a case of better late than never. The automaker launched a big effort to succeed in the world's biggest auto market at the Beijing auto show last week when the company unveiled the Talisman sedan. Renault has a lot of catching up to do. It sold just 24,000 vehicles in China last year, up 60 percent from the year before, but a small number compared with the company's global sales of 2.72 million in 2011.

Audi AG is aggressively expanding its lineup in China to exploit growing demand among newly prosperous young Chinese for crossovers and compact luxury vehicles. Despite a recent slowdown of industry sales in China -- and tough price competition in the luxury segment -- Audi's global sales chief, Peter Schwarzenbauer, says he is sticking with his plan to double production capacity in China to 700,000 units by 2015.

BEIJING -- Foreign auto suppliers must invest rapidly in Chinese r&d facilities to tap a market that demands more high-tech features, executives say. International suppliers have a technological edge over domestic Chinese competitors, but they must tailor their products to local needs, said Majdi Abulaban, president of Delphi Asia Pacific.

BEIJING -- Honeywell Transportation Systems, which has been victimized by makers of counterfeit turbochargers, says it has gained the Chinese government's help in a crackdown on bogus aftermarket parts. The supplier recently won a court case in China against Shanghai Gerritt Turbo Systems Ltd. for infringing on Honeywell's line of Garrett turbochargers.

BEIJING -- Joachim Schmidt, Mercedes-Benz's global sales chief, wants U.S. public dealership groups to take the plunge and enter China. "I would appreciate it," said Schmidt in an interview. But so far nobody seems willing. Like most foreign carmakers in China, Mercedes is setting up dealerships at a blinding pace. It has 214 and is adding a dealership about every week. All are independently owned and operated.

BEIJING -- It was inevitable, right? China was too hot not to cool down. And this country's once-torrid auto market, which surged 54 percent in 2009 and another 33 percent in 2010, hasn't just slowed. In the first quarter, auto sales actually fell. But global automakers are more gung-ho than ever. They will lavish ever-increasing amounts of money and executive attention on the world's largest market. "There is tremendous growth coming," Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said last week at the Beijing auto show. "China is not a source of worry."

Forget Beijing or Shanghai. Porsche AG, Maserati and Bentley Motors Ltd. are taking the fight for China's rich to the deserts of Inner Mongolia. The maker of the 911 sports car opened a dealership in Ordos -- a sparsely populated mining city known as home to Genghis Khan's mausoleum -- in March after sales jumped 10-fold in four years to 200 vehicles, according to the head of Porsche China. Executives at Volkswagen AG's Bentley and Fiat S.p.A.'s Maserati said they also plan to open showrooms in the city.

BEIJING -- SAIC Motor Corp. will produce its first electric car and plug-in hybrid this year, Ling Tianjun, chief engineer of SAIC's new energy vehicle division, said last week at the Automotive News China Conference here. Production of the E50 electric car will begin in October. The car, powered by lithium ion batteries, has a maximum speed of more than 75 miles per hour and a range of 150 km. A full recharge of the battery pack takes six hours.

BEIJING -- French supplier Valeo SA plans to double its China sales to 1.5 billion euros (12.5 billion yuan) by 2015, the company told journalists last week here. Last year, Valeo's China sales accounted for 8 percent of its global total. By 2015, China will contribute 11 percent of its global revenue, according to Valeo.

BEIJING -- General Motors' Chinese microvan joint venture plans to launch production at two plants in India and Egypt using kits imported from China. In July, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co. will start producing the C300 microvan [pictured] in Egypt using knockdown kits shipped from the venture's Qingdao plant, said Karl Slym, the venture's executive vice president. In August, the joint venture's Indian plant will begin assembling the CN100 with kits supplied by its Liuzhou plant.

Ford Motor Co. is a distant also-ran in China, where GM's Buick and Chevrolet brands outsold it 5-to-1 this year, according to researcher LMC Automotive. The Ford brand has just 2 percent of China's passenger-car market. Intent to catch up, the second-largest U.S. automaker is spending $4.9 billion (30 billion yuan) to build eight factories and introduce 15 new models in China by 2015.

NANJING -- The Brembo Group has opened a 70 million euro (585 million yuan) factory and foundry in China that will produce as many as 6 million brake discs a year. The plants, on the outskirts of the eastern China city of Nanjing, will employ 1,000 workers when they reach full capacity.

BEIJING -- Olivier Boulay has been Mercedes-Benz's design guru in Asia for 15 years. First it was in Japan, and now he is among the first wave of western designers carving out a modern look for Chinese vehicles. The Frenchman set up the company's styling studio in Yokohama in the mid-1990s. In 2008, global design boss Gorden Wagener sent him to Beijing to establish a Mercedes studio.

BEIJING -- Italian design and engineering firm Bertone is in talks with a Chinese car collector to sell its one-off Nuccio supercar. "We are currently in close negotiations with a Chinese collector who wants to buy the Nuccio," Bertone CEO Marco Filippa told Automotive News Europe at the auto show here. The asking price for the Nuccio, which took an estimated 15,000 hours to design, engineer and build, is about 17 million yuan, Filippa said.

BEIJING -- BMW AG is making a bigger version of its popular 3-series sedan in a bid to tap into Chinese car buyers' taste for larger cars and lure them away from the likes of General Motors. The stretch 3 series, made uniquely for the Chinese market, is 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) longer than the regular model and is part of a broader effort by German luxury-car makers to sell more cars targeted toward first-time buyers in China, after years of focusing on selling their priciest models.

BEIJING -- China's sales of SUVs are likely to grow 16 percent to 1.9 million units this year - a growth rate that would easily outpace the rest of the industry, a senior industry official predicted at the Automotive News China conference this week. Shi Jianhua, vice secretary general of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, also said sales of MPVs are likely to grow 13 percent to 600,000 units in 2012.

BEIJING -- Ferrari plans to expand its Chinese dealer network to 15 stores -- up from 10 -- by the end of next year to keep pace with demand, Ferrari China boss Edwin Fenech told Automotive News Europe. Last year, Ferrari sales in China grew 66 percent to 777 units. Greater China, which includes mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, was Ferrari's second-largest market last year after the United States, where Ferrari sold 1,957 cars.

LOS ANGELES -- Coda Automotive, a Los Angeles startup electric vehicle maker, plans to co-develop an EV with Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor Co. that will go on sale in the second quarter of 2014. Coda CEO Phil Murtaugh said Wednesday that the EV will be the first product the companies will co-develop under an alliance to produce EVs priced to compete with conventional vehicles when factoring in government incentives.

BEIJING -- General Motors CEO Dan Akerson won't rule out closing factories as he restructures GM's loss-making Opel unit and said it will be "a while" before Opel turns a profit. Describing the carmaker's European operations as a "four-alarm fire," Akerson declined to comment when asked if he would have to shutter plants. He cited ongoing union negotiations over restructuring options.

BEIJING -- GAC Fiat general manager Jack Cheng is convinced the Italian automaker has learned from its past errors in China and that a "new Fiat" is ready for a jumpstart in the world's largest auto market. Cheng said production of the Fiat Viaggio compact sedan will begin on June 28 in a greenfield plant in the Changsha Economic Zone in Hunan province. The Viaggio is not a rebadged Dodge Dart, "but an Alfa Romeo Giulietta you can buy at a Fiat price," Cheng said this week during his speech at the Automotive News China Conference.

Beijing -- Chrysler Group LLC introduced a concept Jeep vehicle at the Beijing auto show this week designed especially for the Chinese market. But just when that model -- or any Jeep model -- will be produced in China is unclear as talks continue with Fiat-Chrysler's partner in China about localizing production of the Jeep brand.

BEIJING -- Honda was among the foreign manufacturers flexing their design potential at the Beijing motor show with a pair of concepts styled for the Chinese market. The duo, named the Concept C and the Concept S, preview vehicles set to arrive in China in the coming years.

BEIJING -- Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Co., Nissan Motor Co.'s joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Corp., aims to sell as many as 1 million vehicles under the new Venucia brand in five years. The first Venucia-badged production model, the D50, went on sale Monday during the Beijing auto show priced from 67,800 to 83,800 yuan ($10,724 to $13,255).

BEIJING -- Nissan is proving that being late to the party in China doesn't have to be a handicap, and is poised to widen its lead among Japanese automakers with speedy and aggressive expansion plans. Despite being among the last global automakers to enter the Chinese market, Nissan outsold Toyota Motor Corp. to become the top Japanese light-vehicle brand there last year for the first time, according to research firm LMC Automotive.

BEIJING -- MG Motor UK's Icon concept unveiled at the Beijing auto show combines the British marque's sports car heritage with a more modern design direction pursued by the brand's Chinese owners, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC). The Icon is MG's first SUV concept and it previews a subcompact model similar in size to the Nissan Juke that may launch in 2014.