State-owned Changan Automobile said it plans to build an EV plant in Thailand, becoming the latest Chinese carmaker to invest in the Southeast Asian market amid cutthroat domestic competition.

The company said it has partnered with Baidu, a search and AI giant, to develop vehicles fitted with the chatbot tool known as Ernie Bot that enables conversation between driver and car.

‘Security concerns with respect to Chinese investments in India were flagged during the deliberations,’ Indian media reported an official as saying.

Great Wall Motor and BYD, two major carmakers in mainland China, have accelerated the development and production of expensive electric vehicles, aiming to carve out their own niches as competition in the market escalates.

Great Wall Motor and BYD Co. already have factories there, with Chongqing Changan Automobile, GAC Aion and Hozon New Energy Automobile Co. also poised to start production in the kingdom soon.

Chinese stocks dropped to a five-month low as the market remained fixated on the sluggish economic recovery, while ‘candid’ talks between the US and China commerce chiefs on the countries’ fractious trade relationship failed to lift the gloom.

Great Wall Motor says two BYD plug-in models use normal fuel tanks when they should be fitted with pressurised tanks, leading to higher pollution. BYD threatens to sue its rival.

Alibaba has been ‘exploring opportunities to grow’ in the smart car industry, says company chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang Yong.

The Chinese company is planning a bold push into India’s electric car market, joining a rush of foreign carmakers jockeying for a bigger share of the world’s fourth-biggest auto market.

ByteDance-owned cloud service Volcano Engine and Haomo.AI have established the largest dedicated computing centre for autonomous driving in the world’s biggest car market.

New-energy vehicle sales will maintain their strong growth in China as more motorists ditch their petrol cars in favour of an expanding range of electric options, Fitch Ratings predicts.

Most of China’s top carmakers neither have plans in place to phase out conventional vehicles nor a detailed timetable for their net-zero targets, Greenpeace says.

BYD, Great Wall Motor, Hozon and Aiways have all been delivering EVs in countries such as Thailand, with the aim of gaining a foothold in these markets where three million cars are sold on average each year.

BMW has confirmed that it will invest an additional 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) towards increasing capacity at a battery plant in China’s northern Liaoning province.

Chinese electric vehicle makers are likely to account for up to 18 per cent of the market in Europe in the next three years, up from around 3 per cent now, Fitch Solution says.

Spotlight Automotive, BMW’s 50-50 venture with Great Wall Motor, will initially manufacture two electric Mini models in China.

In a report released on Monday, the climate group Transport & Environment said EV sales growth in the bloc had slowed. Chinese carmakers including BYD and Great Wall Motor are looking to gain a foothold in the EU.

Nio plans to enter the US market in late 2025 and launch more affordable models to compete against the likes of Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y.

Chinese carmaker suspended its investment plan in India and laid off all employees at its operations there after failing to obtain regulatory approvals.

While Great Wall Motors, China’s largest SUV maker, is recalling 16,216 of its Ora iQ cars assembled between July 7, 2018 and October 30, 2019, Chery is recalling 1,407 Arrizo 5e vehicles made between July 20, 2018 and May 28, 2019.

China’s largest maker of SUVs is launching production at its Thai factory, which is capable of churning out 80,000 cars a year initially

Sources say most of the 45 proposals are in the manufacturing sector, which is deemed non-sensitive in terms of India’s national security.

Chinese carmaker Great Wall Motor is making a concerted push into Thailand, where demand for electric vehicles is expected to increase about threefold this year, thanks to support from the government.

China’s automobile market, the world’s largest, is set to face its toughest year yet in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, which is continuing to affect production as well as demand. And incentives rolled out by Beijing this week are unlikely to improve this gloomy outlook.

In rearranging its global operations, GM is accelerating its retreat from unprofitable markets, becoming more dependent on the United States, China, Latin America and South Korea.

SVOLT Energy Technology, a Chinese battery maker carved out of China’s biggest SUV manufacturer, Great Wall Motors, on Tuesday said it was planning its first overseas manufacturing base in Europe.