By George Gao From:Gasgoo.com

China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC) yesterday announced the crash test results of this year’s fourth batch of seven models. The FAW-VW’s New Bora is ranked five stars along with Chery A3, SAIC Roewe 550, Beijing Benz-DaimlerChrysler’s Mercedes-Benz C200.

In the latest auto crash tests of “Chinese New Car Assessment Program” (C-NCAP, like Euro-NCAP), no car model got the top ranking of six stars. In addition to the four models of five stars, BYD F6 got four stars, and Jianghuai Binyue and New Zotye 2008 got three starts. A Hongqi car of FAW is said to have got the top ranking earlier this year.

The test crashes have been conducted in north Chinese city of Tianjin. CATARC official said that the C-NCAP operators this time bought the 21 units of the seven models directly from these brands’ 4S stores or dealerships without the carmakers’ knowledge. Three cars of each model then underwent three crash tests after the exhaust emission and fuel consumption testing. The test results were ranked by the C-NCAP standards.

The center tested 28 models in 2008, bringing the total number of tested domestic models to 65, which came from 90% of the domestic auto manufacturers. The proportion of five-star cars rose from 8.3% in 2006 (when the testing started) to 36% in 2007 and 46% in 2008.

Industry experts said that the five-star models are mostly the high-end vehicle products with better safety configurations and can represent all the products of the same series.

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Spokesmen of Volkswagen’s two joint-venture auto plants in China on Sunday denied the recent reports that they were suspending production.

There were reports that two auto plants, FAW-Volkswagen Automobile Co., based in northeastern Jilin Province, and Shanghai Volkswagen Automobile Co., were planning to partly suspend production lines to conduct maintenance work.

A public relations manager of the Shanghai company told Xinhua in a telephone interview the company had accomplished its 2008 sales goal in November and postponed the maintenance work to the end of the year as the production lines had been operating at full capacity to meet market demand. During the maintenance period, workers would take turns on vacation.

Su Jingxue, chief of the public relations office of FAW-Volkswagen, said production was “normal” and the company would not suspend production even at the end of the year as usual.

Usually, the company would conduct maintenance work at the end of a year and upgrade production lines for new models. This had absolutely nothing with the financial crisis, he said.

Chinese auto plants spend one or two weeks every year for regular maintenance of production lines. Factories would carry out the work during the summer in the southern region and at the end of a year in the north.

Zhu Yiping, an official with China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), said from January to November, auto makers in the country produced about 8.7 million automobiles and sold more than 8.6 million. The inventory was at a reasonable level.

But he acknowledged some companies had begun reducing production as sales were declining.

According to CAAM statistics, during the past eleven months, FAW-Volkswagen sold 467,343 automobiles in China and Shanghai Volkswagen 442,937. The growth in sales of both companies was higher than the industry’s average.

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The Volkswagen Group delivered 4.24 million vehicles worldwide in the first eight months of this year. This represents a 4.1 percent increase compared with the same period in 2007.

Overall, Group deliveries therefore developed better than the trend on the global market (-0.4 percent)*. Even in August, a month of low deliveries, the Group delivered 448,000 vehicles worldwide (-3.0 percent), performing noticeably better than the sharply declining overall market (-9.1 percent).

“The increasingly difficult economic conditions are also presenting our Group with a challenge. We are, however, very well placed to continue our success. We have a unique brand and product portfolio, an outstanding position in the growth regions and, of course, our fuel and powertrain strategy which paves the way towards ecologically and socially compatible mobility,” Detlef Wittig, Executive Vice President Group Sales and Marketing, commented.

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Preview in 62nd IAA Commercial Vehicles Show,show Concept Pickup planed to produce in Argentina 2009.

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Porsche, whose speedy roadsters are synonymous with excitement and luxury, effectively claimed control Tuesday of Volkswagen, born as the maker of the so-called people’s car and now Europe’s largest automaker.

The move by Porsche to increase its stake in VW from 31 percent to just more than 35 percent - a controlling interest under German law - comes amid rising tensions between the two companies, as well as within the Porsche family.

Ferdinand Piech, the chairman of VW, is a cousin of Wolfgang Porsche, but the two men seem to be on a collision course, even as their two companies grow closer together. Last week, Piech skipped a crucial board meeting, giving the upper hand to Volkswagen employees who opposed Porsche’s attempts to integrate the two companies further.

“Piech effectively voted against his family, and the message is that there will be a war and we will see who is the winner,” said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the director of the Center for Automotive Research in Gelsenkirchen.

By upping its stake, Porsche wrote a new chapter in a saga that began three years ago, when it first acquired a 20 percent stake. Since then, Porsche’s hard-charging chief executive, Wendelin Wiedeking, has slowly asserted his smaller company’s control over the Goliath-like Volkswagen.

Now, VW’s unions fear Porsche will push through aggressive efficiency moves and reject their demand for a pay raise. A union official declined comment.

For the 71-year-old Piech, a onetime chief engineer at Porsche who has spent the past few decades at VW and its Audi subsidiary, observers say his concern is retaining VW’s engineering prowess while resisting Porsche’s more profit-oriented approach - along with preserving his  legacy.

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To the Point: The Best Golf of All Times

- Golf’s high customer value and comfort defy class distinctions

- New Golf design points the way to Volkswagen’s future

- TDI, TSI and DSG systems reduce fuel consumption by up to 28 percent

- First Golf with Adaptive Chassis and Automatic Distance Control

Volkswagen is sending a new Golf out into the world, the best of all times. The Golf is a phenomenon, regardless of its particular generation. Positioned in the compact class, this style icon defies all automotive and social class distinctions. No other car in this price segment has even come close to reaching as large a cross-section of people. The Golf is the only one that always fits right, and the new one is even better fitting.

It was perfected in every detail. It is also the quest for perfection that has elevated the styling of the Golf to a new level. The team headed up by the Group’s chief designer, the Italian Walter de Silva, has succeeded in giving the Golf a presence, a sharpness, a power that generates even more fun. Fun to look at and fun to drive. An intelligent car. Data such as an average fuel consumption of 4.5 liters per 100 kilometers for a 110 PS TDI put fuel prices in their place. Upon request, the Golf can park itself nearly automatically in the city thanks to “Park Assist”, it can maintain an ideal gap on the freeway by distance control (ACC), and at the push of a button it can transform itself from a cruiser to a sports car when the new “DCC Adaptive Chassis Control” system is on board.

Above all, the car exhibits a standard of quality never before attained in this price class. Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board at Volkswagen AG sums it up: “This sixth generation of Golf cars will completely redefine the quality and comfort level of its class over broad categories, offering more customer value than ever before”. In Europe the new Golf will be introduced to the market in October. Following in succession will be Africa, Asia, Australia and North America.

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Ford Motor Co. lost its third-place spot in the global sales rankings for the first half of the year. So says the Volkswagen Group. Volkswagen delivered 3.31 million vehicles during the first half of 2008, up 7.2%. Ford delivered 3.22 million cars and trucks through June, down from 3.42 million vehicles during the same period a year ago.

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Sanyo, the Japanese electronics giant, said today that it is in talks with six car makers about the supply of batteries for fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles — one of few growth areas in the automotive industry.

“We are talking with more than five or six car makers on the co-development and supply of auto-use batteries,” Masato Ito, Sanyo Electric’s senior vice president, told Reuters.

Sanyo and Volkswagen have been jointly developing lithium-ion batteries as the race to the next generation of hybrid cars speeds up. Lithium-ion batteries are capable of holding more power than the nickel batteries that power the current hybrids.

Toyota plans to start producing lithium-ion batteries for its market-leading Prius next year in a joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial. Nissan has a joint venture with NEC to do the same.

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Debut in 2008 Sao Paulo Motor Show in Octerber for All new Gol sedan best seller in this region.

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