Bayerische Motoren Werkes AG, more commonly known as BMW to the likes of you and me, has announced that they are thinking of lowering their global profitability forecasts as market conditions continue to worsen in the world’s largest automobile market, China.
Is this a picture of the new Lotus Extinct?
Lotus Group International has announced the long awaited plans to build and manufacture a Lotus-branded Sports Utility Vehicle in Fujian Province, China, by 2019. The news of the new venture for the Malaysian-owned but UK-based sports car company was made late last year but it is only now that details are emerging from Proton Holdings Berhad, the owner of Lotus.
Low fuel prices, a series of new model launches and better than expected monsoons have boosted consumer sentiments and, in turn, vehicle sales in India. Automakers announced sales numbers on Saturday, and there was a combined growth of 17.2% and a total of 206,455 units sold in the month of July.
Just as we predicted at the start of the year, Volkswagen has surpassed Toyota as the world’s largest automaker. Sales for the first half of the year has been announced and VW sold a total of 5.04 million cars against Toyota’s 5.02 million, leaving General Motors firmly in third spot.
We have become used to the never-ending stream of fake Gucci handbags and Rolex watches (or was that Relox watches?) coming out of China, but a recent trend seems to be the cloning or creation of lower cost facsimile cars from our friends behind the Bamboo Curtain. Is it Convergent Marketing or is it Copying? Well, imported SUV’s are hot property in China but they have to date proven a little too expensive for the average Chinese wallets; this has left an obvious hole in the market for Chinese wannabes to produce their own version of well-known and popular international icons. Here are a few that have caught our attention recently.
This sweet superbike is how London-based graphic designer, Jans Slapins, imagines a Tesla two-wheeler would be. It’s not the first time that Slapins has teased us with stunning, albeit fictional, machines that were created by his adept Photoshop skills. Last year, he posted the BMW Urban Racer concept (below) on his website, which also left us wishing that fantasy was fact.