At a press conference held earlier today in Beijing, Chinese-owned Volvo Cars announced plans to build a new plant in the city of Chengdu and continuing investigations for a second factory in Daqing, in north-eastern China. Volvo said that the deal is still pending approval from the Chinese government.

"We regard the Chinese market as the second home market for Volvo Car Corporation and a very important part of the plan to build a successful future for the company," said Stefan Jacoby, President and CEO of Volvo Car Corporation.

The Chengdu assembly plant will only build Volvo cars and have an initial output of around 100,000 cars annually, with production estimated to start during 2013. Volvo said that the decision to expand in China will not affect operations and employment in Europe.

At a press conference held earlier today in Beijing, Chinese-owned Volvo Cars announced plans to build a new plant in the city of Chengdu and continuing investigations for a second factory in Daqing, in north-eastern China. Volvo said that the deal is still pending approval from the Chinese government.

"We regard the Chinese market as the second home market for Volvo Car Corporation and a very important part of the plan to build a successful future for the company," said Stefan Jacoby, President and CEO of Volvo Car Corporation.

The Chengdu assembly plant will only build Volvo cars and have an initial output of around 100,000 cars annually, with production estimated to start during 2013. Volvo said that the decision to expand in China will not affect operations and employment in Europe.

With gloved white fingers pointing in their direction, Geely Automobile is in full denial of British accusations. The independent Chinese automaker, which rolled out its luxurious GE model bearing more than slight resemblance to the Rolls-Royce Phantom at the Shanghai Motor Show, seems rather unconcerned. "As it were, they are actually different ... people may feel they are the same at the first glance, but the details are certainly different," Geely spokeswoman Zhang Xiaoshu told AFP.

Keep telling that to the good blokes at Rolls-Royce who are considering legal action against Geely. To most observers in the industry, the production-bound Chinese GE concept clearly borrows the Rolls signature grill, down-sloping rear deck, and the Flying Lady mascot. Unlike the Phantom, the Chinese variant is set to hit the market at a sliver of the cost of the exclusive Rolls. While imitation is often considered the most sincere form of flattery, the British evidently aren't cracking so much as a smile.

[Source: Drive]

Asian consumers loves them some baroque styling. How else to explain the popularity of gaudy, over-the-top couture in the continent's major city centers? Indeed, how else to explain the existence of cars like the Mitsuoka Galue S50 and Galue 204? Proving that the love affair is still very much still alive is this, the Geely Excellence (GE) Limousine.

Despite the obvious aping of traditional Rolls-Royce styling cues (square-rigged waterfall grille, Spirit of Imitation Ecstasy hood ornament, wool carpets, etc.) there is some innovation here, in the form of the rear seat "throne," a kingly perch that forms the literal centerpoint of the car's unorthodox 1+2 seating arrangement.

In any case, the 17.5-foot Goliath is widely expected to be the first offering from Geely's new sub-brand, YingLun, or ENGLON (a melding of "England" and "London), but for the moment, the Chinese automaker is stopping short of confirming production.

[Source: Autoblog China]

The Geely GT Concept stole the show at last year's Beijing Auto Show, mostly because it stood out as one of the few Chinese designs that wasn't a Xerox copy of something sold elsewhere in the world. Geely designers walked out on a limb with their pens and created a truly unique shape with interesting details, and regardless what you think of the result, at the very least it drew praise for being an original Chinese design.

As we reported earlier, Geely has brought the GT Concept back for this year's Shanghai Auto Show, this time with a complete working interior and butterfly doors (the original was just a shell). This suggests that the car is slowly marching towards production as the Chinese automaker works out engineering issues and again judges the reaction it receives at this year's show. Should the GT reach Chinese showrooms, it will likely be called the Tiger (its current name actually stands for "Geely Tiger"). The question now is whether or not Geely will give its unique coupe some claws.

[Source: Autoblog Chinese]

Geely will unveil at the Beijing Auto Show (April 20 to 28) the NL SUV Concept, a compact-sized Crossover. Next to it the Chinese maker will also bring 22 new models.

According to the company the year 2008 holds great significance for Geely’s Internationalization, strategic transform and overall elevation of the competitiveness of Geely Brand.

We have to remind you that Geely will also unveil the GT Concept, a grand-tourer Geely CEO Li Shufu classed as a ’small Rolls-Royce’.

Via Autoblog Chinese, the parade of Beijing-bound debuts continues. Today we've got another one from Geely, which seems to be working to establish itself as a style leader in a sea of Chinese cars, the looks of which range from the vanilla to the bizarre. The renderings you see here show the Geely CE concept, a compact 5-door hatch that easily has the looks to appeal to shoppers outside of Geely's home market. If Geeley is able to bring this car to production and make it safe enough to meet Western crash test standards (something we have yet to see on anything remotely resembling a consistent basis from the Chinese manufacturers), it is going to make a lot of noise, particularly in Europe where a low-priced, stylish, compact hatch like this would sell like french fries at McDonalds. From what we've seen so far, Geely's 18-car Beijing parade is setting itself up to be a stylistic quantum leap over some of its ridiculous past concepts and mundane current offerings

Geely will unveil at the 10th edition of the Auto China car show, April 20 at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing, the Geely GT Concept, a future Chinese supercar.

The year 2008 holds great significance for Geely’s Internationalization, strategic transform and overall elevation of the competitiveness of Geely Brand. This Auto Show will be an ideal stage for Geely to demonstrate its brand image, promote communications, seek possible cooperation and boosting its strategic transforming efforts. With an exhibiting area of 1500 square meters and up to 23 models, 2008 Auto China will be witnessing the largest and most ever celebrated Geely’s presence in an auto show. Geely International welcomes visits from all its distributors and business partners all over the country.

The Geely GT Concept’s design is seriously inspired from models like Maybach Exelero and Maserati GranTurismo, but this is not a surprise. We will need to wait and see what is original in the concept