Short Torque

Sales dip for GM

US automaker General Motors and its joint ventures in China sold 339,781 vehicles in January, a 2.4 percent dip from the same period last year. Shanghai GM moved 160,067 units for the month, a 6.9 percent fall year-on-year. Matt Tsien, GM executive vice-president and president of GM China, said the decline came as fewer products were available to dealers after the joint venture's sales hit a record high in December.

Rentals as taxis

China's leading auto rental company CAR Inc has started offering taxi-hailing app and services in 60 cities across the country. The move came after private cars were banned from entering the taxi market in many cities in January.

The Ministry of Transport said that innovation is welcome, but ride-hailing apps should not provide a way for private car owners to enter the taxi business. Vehicles at CAR are licensed, said the company.

Departures at Tesla

Electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors Inc said communications executive June Jin at its China operations has left the automaker after less than a year on the job. Jin's departure follows that of Tesla's China President Veronica Wu in December.

Tesla delivered about 120 vehicles to Chinese customers in January. CEO Elon Musk said sales in China have fallen due to concerns over charging infrastructure. The California-based automaker has nine stores and service centers in six cities in the country and has joined with companies including China Unicom and Soho China Ltd to build charging stations.

Letv: To US first

Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp, better known as Letv, said it will invest billions of dollars to develop an electric car it plans to sell in the United States before its home market of China, according to Bloomberg.

Letv is the latest technology company to announce ambitions to build a "smarter", more Web-connected car. The company is studying alternative sources of energy for its proposed vehicle including solar power, said Allen Lu, head of Letv's vehicle business.

Beijing plates scarce

It is getting even harder to win a license plate in Beijing as a record number 2.3 million people have enrolled to compete for 17,600 plates in the first round of the lottery in 2015.

A total of 105,600 license plates will be available for petroleum-powered private vehicles in the city for the full year. Local transport authorities have earmarked 20,000 license plates to new-energy cars in 2015, but there were just over 500 applicants by Feb 8.

New-energy boost

China produced 6,599 new-energy vehicles in January, almost five times the figure in the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Some 3,451 were purely electric vehicles and 3,148 were hybrids. A total of 78,499 new-energy vehicles were produced and 74,763 sold last year.

Motoring

(China Daily 02/16/2015 page18)