Managing The Dragon

If successful, GAC Motor would be the first Chinese automaker to penetrate the U.S. market, following in the footsteps of German, Japanese, and Korean carmakers that have made the jump from their home markets to the world’s most demanding auto market over the past 70 years.

Last September, China announced that automakers selling more than 30,000 vehicles annually in the country would be required to produce fleets with a corporate average fuel economy of 42 miles per gallon (“mpg”) by 2020, and 54.5 mpg by 2025. The combination of credits and disincentives in the new regulations are designed to improve the fuel […]

After nearly 15 years of remarkable growth, China’s auto industry began to transition in 2017 from its high growth phase to a maturity phase of development where growth is likely to be steady but much slower in percentage terms. From 2002 to 2016, annual sales of trucks, buses and passenger cars in China grew at […]

From the point of view of U.S. companies and investors, the direction of China’s currency; the level of overseas investment by Chinese companies; and the extent to which China might help to solve the North Korea problem are key questions going into 2018. MTD believes that 2018 will be another strong year for U.S. exports and that this strength will heavily influence China’s actions on other fronts, just as they seemed to do in 2017. If MTD is right, we may just run the table with our 2018 predictions. If we are wrong, we are likely to strike out on most of them.

Given the importance of the Sino-American relationship, three of the predictions by Managing The Dragon (MTD) for 2017 dealt directly or indirectly with the relationship between the two countries, and two dealt with issues specific to China. In general, MTD did well on the former, and not as well on the latter.

When Google announced in May 2014 that it planned to build driverless cars, two of the largest industries in the world — the internet and the auto — began to converge. Even when Apple, the other American internet giant, followed with its own plans to build cars, the reaction was somewhat measured in the U.S. […]

Having lived in China for most of the past 24 years, one question I’m frequently asked is: “What about the United States do you miss most?” For my wife and me, the answer to that question is easy—the holidays. On the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, or Labor Day, when everyone in the States is […]

For the first nine months of 2017, total sales of trucks, buses, and passenger cars in China were up 4.5 percent to 20.2 million units, close to the 5 percent increase that most auto analysts are predicting for the full year. China is on track to be the world’s largest car market for the eighth consecutive year.

The United Kingdom and France have announced that sales of gasoline and diesel vehicles will no longer be allowed in their countries by 2040, and the Indian government has indicated its intention to only allow electric vehicles (“EVs”) to be sold in India by 2030. However, China raised the bar yet again for automakers when […]

“If the policymakers and the capital providers are both telling you to do it (i.e. build EVs)…then you’d better get on and just do it.”