If you hate that new car smell, then you’re either a rare one or you’re Chinese. In a country where air pollution is a huge problem, drivers in China want to be able to escape the toxic fumes when they get into their cars, and take a breath of fresh, well, nothing that they can detect with their noses.
Yes, you read it right and we know you don’t like it. All the times you’ve cursed motorbike riders for shooting past you when you are stuck in slow traffic or filtering to the front when you are stationary at a red light, you actually should be nodding in approval. Here’s why:-
Chinese speciality SUV maker, Great Wall Motors aka GWM, has confirmed that it is very interested to make a bid for Fiat Chrysler’s Jeep brand, which would be a very ambitious step onto the global brand stage for one of China’s homegrown and rapidly expanding automakers.
There is obviously something in the water over in China that is encouraging otherwise sane motor company executives to think that a small two-seater all electric vehicle is the motoring way forward. It would appear now that Ford Motor Corp.’s execs have been drinking the very same water.
China’s Alibaba wants to make buying cars “as easy as buying a can of Coke” with the announcement that it will be building its own automobile vending machine. We first saw one in Hangzhou, then in Texas and recently, a mammoth one in Singapore, and now the world’s largest retailer (Alibaba surpassed Walmart to clinch that title last year) is also following suit; this has us thinking that maybe this isn’t just some marketing gimmick after all, and could be how people buy cars in the future.
Results just published by JATO gives the title of planet’s bestselling vehicle thus far this year to the Ford F-Series. With sales of 519,000 since January, a 9% increase over last year, the mighty Ford has outsold the Toyota Corolla by almost 50,000 units, beating it into second place.