asia

The Korean pop group Girls Generation came to Tokyo last week to give their first Japan concert. Thousands of fans attended their performances and they got a lot of media coverage:

A few interesting things about them:

• Fans seem to really like their legs and their dancing.
• They have translated their group name into Japanese and use the kanji “少女時代” instead of something written in katakana.
• They have one song in Japanese (“Genie“), and it looks like some of them can speak a little bit of Japanese.
• Most of their fans are young women, but they do find one older guy who has turned his daughter into a fan. “Death Note” Director Shusuke Kaneko is also a fan.

Oh, and here is a screen capture of some American fangirls who were featured in the report. They said they met each other on the internet, so maybe there’s a chance they might stumble across this post. Here you go:

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
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The Chinese government is planning to unify the electric car industry with a set of 15 new electric car standards which will cover manufacturing specifics in a bid to consolidate the electric car industry into one standard within China.

China is planning to become one of the big ‘electric car states’ in the next few years as its plans to lower its dependency on foreign oil, yet continue with rapid car sales at the same time. The different standards will cover 15 different areas of electric car standards and will cover areas such as battery casing size, voltage and current references, charging  stations (including monitoring and billing) and also car security.

It is not entirely clear what global ramification this standardization project might have for international car makers that plan to export electric cars into China in the future, or what it might mean for Chinese electric automotive exports. China may well lead the way in an electric car standard, or they maybe pushed aside by a global forum of international automakers that have their own standardization aspirations.

Ford had a strong month in August this year, with Ford seeing a 24% sales increase in sales over August 2009. Ford delivered a grand total of 368,103 new passenger vehicles from January to August this year, a 42% increase over 2009 sales.

The Ford Focus continues to be Ford’s big seller in China with 13,039 units delivered in August alone, and marks the sixth month in a row where the Focus has sold more than 10,000 units, and the millionth China built Ford was delivered a customer in Lanzhou last week also.

The Ford Fiesta still remains a highly popular model for Ford with 4,629 Fiesta’s leaving dealership forecourts over the course of the month, with Ford laying praise on the government for introducing a 3000rmb subsidy for the Fiesta due to it being an energy efficient vehicle.

Ford’s commercial vehicle joint venture partner, JMC, sold 15,572 vehicles in August alone and 117,057 vehicles from January to August, which translates to an increase of 89% and 64% over the same period in 2010, the huge increase in performance is being claimed by the Ford Transit MPV.

Visiting Japan, it is difficult to miss the proliferation of mascots that seem to be everywhere. A recent research team concluded that there are at least 42 different police mascots in Japan, some nationally recognized and others only known in their specific prefectures and local towns. The Japanese government has mascots for other municipal services [...] Related posts:

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In what could be its biggest get yet, China's leading sportswear brand, Li Ning, signed NBA rookie Evan Turner to an endorsement deal Monday. Turner, the 2010 NCAA National Player of the Year, was selected second overall in the draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Li Ning already has bigger NBA names in Shaquille O'Neal and Baron Davis, but both were signed when they were well past their prime.

USA Diving has also inked a contract with Li Ning, making it the team's official apparel sponsor through 2012. The brand's other non-Chinese national team sponsorships include Spain and Argentina's basketball teams, and USA Table Tennis.

Although these signings and Li Ning's opening of an Oregon concept store and R&D center have all lead to speculation that this could be China's first brand to become an international powerhouse, I've always said that these moves are more about creating an appearance for Chinese customers than about seriously competing with Nike and Adidas globally. Quoted in People's Daily, Ben Cavender of China Market Research Group puts it pretty clearly: ""What they don't admit to and what they are being slightly cagey about is that their strategy is to firm their position in China as a domestic brand. They can appeal to a certain Chinese nationalism by playing on being able to compete head-to-head with the major international brands because they have these big-time athletes."

Related: Can China's hottest sportswear brand go global?

Evan Turner image: Hi.baidu.com

This article also appeared on China Sports Today

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Guangzhou Auto, like Beijing Auto, have been left behind in the State Owned Automakers great race to develop strong self developed brands for the Chinese market and beyond. Guangzhou Auto recently bought in Alfa-Romeo platforms and engines, on which to build its own cars, which will give them an impressive leap over their counterparts in terms of handling and responsiveness on the road.

Guangzhou Auto unveiled its VIP Auto Lounge concept car at this years Beijing Auto Show in April and you could easily see the Alfa DNA in the full design. Lots of detail regarding the cars engines and suspension set up have not yet been announced yet, however when the car finally comes down the line on September 3rd, I am sure we will learn a great deal more.

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*Perhaps

The W5 SUV recently appeared in the central governments list of cars that have been granted production rights for this year, which should mean that we will finally see the Ssangyong based Roewe on the roads before long. The W5 will be equipped with a 2.4L Ssangyong petrol engine, or SAIC’s 1.8T engine and also the choice of automatic and manual gearboxes:

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The Audi A3 was recently succesfully introduced into China with 1.4TSI and 1.8TSI engine, but joint venture partners Audi and First Automobile Works are planning to capitalize on the A3′s recent media popularity by producing the yet to launch A3 Sedan in the Chinese market.

Audi have been without a compact sedan offering since they launched the best selling Audi A4 in Lengthened version, and has gone onto take a great slice of the mid size luxury sedan segment and has basically shut the door on its Germanic rivals in this segment, however it appears that Audi are planning to launch the A3 sedan as a compact sedan rival to the current BMW 3-series and Mercedes C-Class, both of which are produced in China. Oddly, BMW are planning to lengthen the 3-Series to give the Audi A4L some competition, and there is no official word nor rumor on a stretched C-Class.

Beijing Auto have been left out in the cold when it comes to self developed brands, and they are eager to catch up with the market leaders at SAIC who invested early and produced the Roewe and later MG series of cars. Beijing Auto are aggresively developing their own range of cars, some of which are Saab based models and others such as this C30 MPV that they are developing themselves:

Beijing Auto are partners with Mercedes Benz, so it could be possible that they have shared designs with Beijing from the B-Class MPV that launched in China last year. The exterior design is remarkably similar to the B-Class, however it is the suspension set up that gives the design away, the Merc’s is much different to the BJ Auto’s C30, although that is not to say that the C30 is not B-Class derived, we will have to wait for more details on this model.

First Automobile Works are planning to launch their first pure electric vehicle this year, the Besturn B50, and will be FAW’s first mass produced electric vehicle. At the same time, FAW’s Tianjin subsidery, XiaLi, are also planning to launch a pure electric vehicle. An initial production run is set to happen soon in small numbers and an end of year launch is expected.

By the end of the year China will have five pure electric vehicles in production, including the BYD E6, Chang’an Ben Ben Mini and the new FAW vehicles, which will give consumers and governmental departments a wider choice in green vehicles.

Yes, it’s already time for a new edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 44), set to happen this coming Monday (September 6) at Cafe Pause, with the regular start time of 20:00 — as always, the cafe is reserved for the event from 19:30, so feel free to come early. Although the SNOW Magazine Cafe event ended this past Monday, I’ll bring out the participating magazines again for anyone who didn’t have a chance to browse through them.

Also, there was some sort of error when I created the Facebook event page, and so this is the correct one (if you receive a message about cancellation, that’s for the extra page it created).

Kia are planning to recall 18,000 vehicles globally of which 8,000 vehicles are located in the Chinese market. The extent of the issue is not entirely clear, however the cars that are being recalled are the new Kia Sorrento and also the Kia Borrego SUV. The scope of the cars being recalled is quite small with only Kia models imported into China from Sept 2009 to June 2010 this year being affected by the recalls.

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