Shanghai Auto Show: Qoros Debuts In China

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

BMW Mini’s former chief designer Gert Hildebrand and Volkswagen’s former North America vice chief Volker Steinwascher enjoyed the adolations of the adoring masses when they unveiled their new Qoros brand at the Shanghai Auto Show.

The new brand is a joint venture between China’s Chery and Israel’s Israel Corp..

The company plans to start production with the Qoros 3 sedan at an initial capacity of 150,000 units.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Big Al from Oz Big Al from Oz on Apr 22, 2013

    @Niky The pickup is called a Foton Tunland, they are selling them in Australia. I do think once they iron some of the bugs out of it, it will be a good pickup. I do think they are optimistic on pricing though. It's actually bigger than our new midsizer ie Amarok and Ranger. The bed is a bee's dick under 8'. The pickup has a Borg Warner tx case, Bosch electronics as well, all relatively good equipment. The Cummins is the 2.8 ISF, this is the same engine that will be going into the Nissan Titan. Cummins and Nissan have done great work with the engine. It's 2.8 litres developing over 200hp and over 400ftlb of torque. It will not require AddBlue either. The link below is on the Ford Escort which will be made in China for the Chinese market. Very interesting story, especially if you consider Ford Australia also designed the global Ranger and BT50. ford-australias-great-china-hope-just-dont-tell-anyone

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    • Ronnie Schreiber Ronnie Schreiber on Apr 22, 2013

      Big Al, As far as units of measurement go, is a "bee's dick" larger or smaller than a RCH?

  • JSF22 JSF22 on Apr 22, 2013

    I don't know whether it will be Qoros, but eventually someone will successfully synthesize European design and feel, Asian build quality, and low manufacturing cost, and make a killing.

  • TheEndlessEnigma I would mandate the elimination of all autonomous driving tech in automobiles. And specifically for GM....sorry....gm....I would mandate On Star be offered as an option only.Not quite the question you asked but.....you asked.
  • MaintenanceCosts There's not a lot of meat to this (or to an argument in the opposite direction) without some data comparing the respective frequency of "good" activations that prevent a collision and false alarms. The studies I see show between 25% and 40% reduction in rear-end crashes where AEB is installed, so we have one side of that equation, but there doesn't seem to be much if any data out there on the frequency of false activations, especially false activations that cause a collision.
  • Zerocred Automatic emergency braking scared the hell out of me. I was coming up on a line of stopped cars that the Jeep (Grand Cherokee) thought was too fast and it blared out an incredibly loud warbling sound while applying the brakes. I had the car under control and wasn’t in danger of hitting anything. It was one of those ‘wtf just happened’ moments.I like adaptive cruise control, the backup camera and the warning about approaching emergency vehicles. I’m ambivalent&nbsp; about rear cross traffic alert and all the different tones if it thinks I’m too close to anything. I turned off lane keep assist, auto start-stop, emergency backup stop. The Jeep also has automatic parking (parallel and back in), which I’ve never used.
  • MaintenanceCosts Mandatory speed limiters.Flame away - I'm well aware this is the most unpopular opinion on the internet - but the overwhelming majority of the driving population has not proven itself even close to capable of managing unlimited vehicles, and it's time to start dealing with it.Three important mitigations have to be in place:(1) They give 10 mph grace on non-limited-access roads and 15-20 on limited-access roads. The goal is not exact compliance but stopping extreme speeding.(2) They work entirely locally, except for downloading speed limit data for large map segments (too large to identify with any precision where the driver is). Neither location nor speed data is ever uploaded.(3) They don't enforce on private property, only on public roadways. Race your track cars to your heart's content.
  • GIJOOOE Anyone who thinks that sleazbag used car dealers no longer exist in America has obviously never been in the military. Doesn’t matter what branch nor assigned duty station, just drive within a few miles of a military base and you’ll see more sleazbags selling used cars than you can imagine. So glad I never fell for their scams, but there are literally tens of thousands of soldiers/sailors/Marines/airmen who have been sold a pos car on a 25% interest rate.
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