Short torque

Local carmakers on Forbes 500 list

Six Chinese automakers made it into this year's list of Forbes 500 companies by operating revenue, with SAIC Group having the best ranking.

SAIC jumped to 46th position with operating revenue of $106.68 billion from 60th spot last year. It was followed by Dongfeng Motor Group, which improved its ranking to 81st from 109th on last year's list.

FAW Group ranked third among Chinese automakers, but it was the only one that saw its ranking fall to 130th from 107th last year. It was followed by BAIC Group (160th), GAC Group (303rd), and the privately owned Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (410th).

Number of cars in China passes 184m

More than 13 million cars were registered in the first half of the year, bringing the total number of cars in China to 184 million, according to the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security.

The bureau said that there are 135 million private cars in the country and 296 million people hold driving licenses. Statistics from the bureau show that the number of cities that have more than 1 million cars as reached 46, with Beijing topping the list with 5.44 million cars.

It was followed by Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, which has 3.89 million cars and Shenzhen in Guangdong province ranked third, with 3.18 million.

Faulty airbags cause Honda recall

Dongfeng Honda will recall 67,411 Civics from Aug 31, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Airbags in those cars, made between Nov 27, 2013 and Feb 25, 2016, might not work due to incorrect configurations in the control units. The automaker will install new control units in those cars for free.

SAIC Volkswagen is recalling 314 Lamando and Octavia cars made between Aug 20 and Oct 9 last year, as their roofs might not have been properly connected to the car bodies.

The affected roofs will be replaced with new ones free of charge.

Fuel consumption rates released

A total of 31 automakers in China failed fuel consumption targets last year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The automakers, including Fujian Benz and Daqing Volvo, may face punishment in accordance with the country's regulations but the ministry has not offered details.

Despite the lackluster performance of those companies, automakers in the country saw their average fuel consumption level fall to 7.04 liters per 100 kilometers last year, which was lower than the target of 7.57 liters per 100 km.

Statistics show that China has been doing a good job in cutting the level of fuel consumption year-on-year.

The figure was 7.22 liters per 100 km in 2014 and 7.33 liters per 100 km in 2013.

Motoring-Agencies

(China Daily 07/25/2016 page19)