‘SAIC’

More Chinese know-how in small GM cars



General Motors (GM) and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) have been partners for many years, and together, they’ve already built several millions cars in China. They share R&D facilities in the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC), and they’ve just announced their most important project so far: a brand new engine and transmission.

These transmissions make faster shifts, and they’re more efficient that a conventional automatic with a torque converter. GM says the gain is 10 percent. With another 10 percent coming from the downsized engine, we may expect a 20 percent gain from this engine-transmission combination. Great news!
Behind that, we may also consider that Chinese engineering is growing. This engine and transmission will be developed at PATAC with assistance from Detroit, and it will be used in GM




Shanghai, China - Chinese carmaker Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC) ...





SAIC-GM-Wuling Joint Venture getting ready for sales
















SAIC motors "ROEWE"


New York Times:
SAIC is one of China’s largest automakers and recently bought half of G.M.’s India division, turning that into a joint venture. SAIC is controlled by the Chinese government.


Flush with the cash that we are giving them, and loaded with people who need feeding and support, the Chinese are paying top dollar for land, mineral rights, oil fields and manufacturing.

The U.K. Independent:
China is pouring another $7bn (£4.4bn) into Brazil’s oil industry, reigniting fears of a global “land grab” of natural resources….
The Repsol deal is not China’s first in Brazil. In February last year, Sinopec stumped up a $10bn loan to Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, in return for guaranteed supplies of 10,000 barrels of oil every day for the next 10 years……
This year alone, Chinese companies have laid out billions of dollars buying up stakes in Canada’s oil sands, a Guinean iron ore mine, oil fields in Angola and Uganda, an Argentinian oil company and a major Australian coal-bed methane gas company…..

China’s moves are viewed as unwelcome “imperialism” in many countries. New Zealanders, for example, were growing uncomfortable with China’s aggressive moves in their country’s biggest industry, dairy. The deal went through anyway.














Is SAIC Saab’s Savior?


2009
Rumors involving Chinese automaker SAIC in Saab’s rescue plans have been percolating for some time now. Christian Von Koenigsegg raised the possibility in an Auto Motor and Sport interview [via Saabsunited], saying, “we may look at producing Saabs for China, in China.” Then came word from an anonymous source quoted in Reuters as saying, “SAIC is considering taking a stake in Saab but has not made up its mind or the size of any possible investment.” And yet, mysteriously, it seems that Koenigsegg’s $420M financing shortfall has magically disappeared. SAIC refuses to confirm that it is the anonymous funding source, pleading shyness in the wake of its recent disastrous ownership of Korean automaker Ssangyong.

SAIC may be playing coy. Ssangyong may have left SAIC with a bad taste, but earlier investments in western brands are finally beginning to bear fruit for the Chinese automaker. SAIC’s purchase of MG/Rover’s intellectual property (er, except for the Rover name which Tata got in the Jag/Landie deal) generated a lot of skepticism just a few years ago. But the reborn Roewe brand is taking off, with sales up 276 percent to 40,000 units in the first half of this year. And with Geely sniffing around Volvo, Saab looks to be a strategic hedge for SAIC.















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