Chinese 110cc engine tear
SHANGHAI AFX - Chongqing Lifan Group, a China biggest motorcycle manufacturers, has become the sole bidder for automatic installation of the engine in Brazil, citing company officials reported Shanghai Daily.
The private company, which received government approval to begin making cars in China in December, is the only bidder for Tritec Motors Ltd in Campo Largo, Brazil, currently owned by BMW Motors Corp.
The officials refused to provide details of its offer, he added.
TRITEC Motors is a 5 million US dollars joint venture between BMW and DaimlerChrysler Corp., production of technologically advanced and fuel-efficient engines The engines are used in BMW Mini Coopers and PT Cruisers and Dodge Neon DaimlerChrysler.
After the purchase, we plan to purchase the entire production line, remove the redirect and pieces will be reassembled in the city of Chongqing in China, an executive marketing department who gave only the name Lu told the newspaper.
Lu said the company hoped to acquire more basic and advanced technology and shorten the time to develop its own engines.
The company has invested about 90 million yuan to set up four basic production lines with an annual output of 20,000 investment units in the facilities will amount to 2 4 billion yuan, most of which will be devoted to technology , the newspaper.
CHINA, February 17, China pursues a new way to catapult its automaking into a global force to buy a factory of more sophisticated engines in the world, apart, piece by piece, transport it halfway around the world and give it to together again at home.
In the latest sign of the ambitions of the country of manufacture, a major Chinese company, hand in hand with the Communist Party, is bidding to buy DaimlerChrysler and BMW a car engine plant in Brazil because the plant is so sophisticated, it is far more feasible for the Chinese carmaker, the Lifan Group, to go through such an effort to move it 8,300 miles, rather than developing its own technology in this industrial center in western China, the President of the company.
If the purchase is successful and it is too early in the process China could surpass our competitors like South Korea to catch up with Japan, Germany and the US in the sale of some of the most efficient yet comfortable cars fuel market, like the Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla China's failure to develop its own version of sophisticated reliable engines has been the biggest obstacle facing Chinese automakers technical they modernize and prepare to export to United States and Europe, Western auto executives and analysts.
The purchase of this technology abroad not only remove this obstacle but would plant the automotive industry of China firmly able to produce large cars that can also get over 30 miles to the gallon.
The engine plant is one of the most famous and unusual in the auto industry built in southern Brazil in the late 1990s at a cost of 500 million a 50-50 joint venture of Chrysler and BMW, the factory of Campo Largo combines the latest American and German technology to produce a 6-liter, 16-valve engine the Tritec.
Lifan says it is the only bidder for the factory and wants to bring it here to start producing engines in 2008.
China seeks CHONGQING automotive industry, China pursues a new way to catapult its automaking into a global force to buy a factory of the most sophisticated in the world engines, dismantle, piece by piece, transport it halfway around the world and the put together again at home.
In the latest sign of the ambitions of the country of manufacture, a major Chinese company, hand in hand with the Communist Party, is bidding to buy DaimlerChrysler and BMW a car engine plant in Brazil.
Because the plant is so sophisticated, it is much easier for the Chinese automaker Lifan Group, to go through such an effort to move it 8,300 miles, rather than developing its own technology in this industrial center in western China, the company's president said Thursday.
If the purchase is successful and it is too early in the process China could surpass our competitors like South Korea to catch up with Japan, Germany and the United States in selling some cars but the most economical comfortable fuel market, like the Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla.
China's failure to develop its own version of sophisticated reliable engines has been the biggest technical obstacle facing Chinese automakers they modernize and prepare to export to the U S and Europe, Western auto executives and analysts .
The purchase of this technology abroad not only remove this obstacle but would plant the automotive industry of China firmly able to produce large cars that can also get over 30 miles to the gallon.
The engine plant is one of the most famous and unusual in the auto industry built in southern Brazil in the late 1990s at a cost of 500 million a 50-50 joint venture of Chrysler and BMW, the factory of Campo Largo combines the latest American and German technology to produce a 6-liter, 16-valve engine the Tritec.
Lifan says it is the only bidder for the factory and wants to bring it here to start producing engines in 2008. Though the Communist Party of China is actively behind the effort, boldness are tossed by one of the contractors remarkable China Yin Mingshan has become one of the leaders of the most successful companies and most politically connected China with a hardscrabble upbringing that included spending 22 years of his life earlier in communist labor camps and prison as punishment for his political dissent.
Now the enormously wealthy and prominent president and principal owner of Lifan, Yin has his sights on exporting to Europe in 2008 and the US market in 2009.
Trevor Hale, a DaimlerChrysler spokesman, and Marc Hassinger, a spokesman for Bayerische Motoren Werke, each said separately that their companies assessed their options when their joint venture legal agreement expires at the end of next year, but that it was premature to provide details.
The Tritec engine is one of the most technologically advanced and fuel-efficient cars of the engines in the world, said Yale Zhang, an analyst in the Shanghai office of CSM Worldwide, a big automotive consulting company based in suburban Detroit Yin said he wanted to rebuild the factory on vacant land next to his car assembly plant here the goal is to understand the technology thoroughly so that he can supply engines not only for Lifan but also for other Chinese automakers.
In an interview last Thursday in a conference room with glass walls overlooking its car assembly plant recently finished, Yin, 67, said that while Lifan would pay for the factory, the Chinese negotiating team is led not by a Lifan official but by a senior official of the Communist party of China, Huang Zhendong.
Huang, 65, is a member of the powerful Central Committee and led the Chongqing branch of the party party until December, when he became principal member of the influential legal committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing.
Deputy Yin Yang Jong, general manager of Lifan, accompanied Huang on a visit to Brazil Everyone knows you need government supports the government may provide land, Yin said any attempt to buy a comparable plant the United States could be blocked But Yin said that Brazil did not have comparable restrictions on exports of high technology.
Lifan, already one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers with sales in 112 countries of the world, is about to start exporting its remarkably well-built, 9,700 medium enterprises in developing countries sedans in Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean, but years of work is needed before the company is ready to compete in industrialized countries, said Yin.
Chairman Mao taught us if you can win fight the war, if you can not win, run so far, he said I want to train my army in these smaller markets, and when we are ready, we will move to more major markets.
Accustomed to producing lightweight cars sipping fuel for Chinese families cost-conscious, Chinese automakers want to use that expertise as a competitive advantage in the world while oil prices remain high Geely, an independent Chinese automaker which surprised US and European manufacturers by announcing plans at the Detroit auto show last month to enter the US market in 2007, focused on gas mileage even before oil prices surged over the last two years.
When crude oil prices were much lower than they are today, Geely switched from an electronic control injection system of the engine and cheap fuel made by Denso of Japan to a more expensive model, but more fuel-efficient manufactured by Bosch of Germany, said Lawrence Ang, an executive director of Geely.
Multinational automakers have struggled in China to keep up with the public's growing appetite for fuel-efficient models Chinese automakers like Chery and Geely captured a quarter of the Chinese market last year, up from less than 10 hundred two years ago, said Michael Dunne, president of Automotive Resources Asia, a consulting firm.
Why small SpuRt cars powered by engines that sip gas start to 4000, said Dunne.
Raymond Bierzynski, president of the Automotive Technical Center Pan General Motors Asia in Shanghai, said the gasoline costs were more important to consumers in China than elsewhere because these costs represent a larger share of household income low in China GM sells its Buick Excelle compact sedan with special tires with low rolling resistance in China, it does not do in any other market and which increases gas mileage up to 2 percent, at -he says.
Chrysler and BMW began construction of the plant in Campo Largo in April 1998, a month before Daimler-Benz began a recovery that Chrysler completed in November this year.
Advertised in the automotive press at the time probably the plant most advanced engine ever built, the plant had already become corporate orphan by the time production began in September 1999.
The Brazilian automotive market has entered a crisis then and Daimler already had sufficient own engine production capacity and was uncomfortable working with his long-time German rival, BMW.
BMW installs its half of the engine plant in its award-winning Mini Coopers.
But he has already announced that future engines of these cars come from a plant in France which is owned and operated by PSA Peugeot Citroën.
Chrysler used to put the Brazilian production engines in its Neon compact cars and the PT Cruiser.
But now sells half its engines Lifan and Chery Automobile and a Chinese joint venture by Mazda Yin and spokesmen from DaimlerChrysler and BMW declined to comment on the price being negotiated for the plant.
Lifan made its debut on the car market last month with the introduction of the new assembly plant sprawling Lifan 520 sedan, assembled in society here, where the conveyor belt is red and bright giant clamps holding unfinished cars are the bright yellow color flag of China Lifan models based on Honda, another motorcycle manufacturer that entered the car market, and shares the focus on Honda efficient, energy-saving designs.
Lifan has also copied the development of Honda on the huge quality characters of Yin's words adorn a motorcycle engine factory inside and outside Lifan; a map on the assembly line illuminated bed Whoever wrecks brand Lifan, Lifan will destroy the rice bowl of this person.
A test drive here of Lifan sedan 520 was shown to have a robust impressive body without rattles or even wiggles when traveling over very rough pavement, although this does not guarantee long-term reliability There is a sufficient margin in the front seats and rear seats even for an occupant of 6 feet 4.
The price 9.700 includes leather seats, dual airbags, a large trunk and a DVD system with a video screen facing the front passenger a combination that could cost twice as much in a midsize sedan equipped comparable in the U S.
The salaries of less than 100 per month have helped control the cost assembly plant is better organized than many Chinese factories, although it still maintains large inventories of parts and materials to be joined, incurring charges interest to finance such supplies.
Yin has no doubts that China can also compete with the U S.
Americans work 5 days a week, we in China work 7 days, he said Americans are working 8 hours a day and work 16 hours a Keith Bradsher The New York Times.
Lifan Auto China car, Lifan Auto, Chinese, Campo Largo factory.