Shanghai Englon TX4 - The London Taxi

[edge]

I can't even understand what the hell they are talking about.

England Dili? What the... whatever.

[dragin]

After a failed (or aborted) attempt by Brilliance Auto in 2002, Geely has reached an agreement with the British Manganese Bronze Holdings to produce the famous London black taxicab in China. Production is to begin in mid 2008 and capacity will be about 20,000 a year to start.

Is Geely spreading itself too thin these days?

[chinacartimes]

Dragin is correct - Geely will make the London cabs in the future, England di li is referring to the Chinese name Ying = first part of england Lun = first part of london di = ruler/monarch/emperor hua = can mean china/chinese or magnificent or flourishing.

That Google translator is doing everything word for word and the grammar is pretty much straight word for word too.

Theres a better article here auto.sina.com.cn/news/2006-11-06/0033227347.shtml

Although I have wrote about this before on China car times, see my sig.

[m14]

Ambitious Geely, which makes no secret of its eventual plans to expand globally using some of its home country's cheapest-made cars, may start exports with Hong Kong -- bringing a common London sight to the former British colony more than a decade after it reverted to Chinese rule.

"We estimate the production cost can be lowered at least by half," Geely Executive Director Lawrence Ang told reporters on Monday after showing the firms' newest London cab to pre-selected Hong Kong taxi drivers.

Prices had not been finalised but Ang said U.K.-made models sold at nearly 40,000 pounds ($79,350). Geely and Manganese have set up a joint venture in Shanghai that can crank out 10,000 of the cabs a year in about a dozen colours apart from the familiar black, tailored to specific markets and customer demand, and another 30,000 intended for private limousine or sedan use.



It will eventually serve as a global base for production and export to Southeast Asia and, eventually, other regions.

Manganese's U.K. production arm, London Taxi International Plc (LTI), will also benefit in terms of securing cheap Chinese parts, said Matthew Cheyne, LTI's international marketing director.

""From the U.K. point of view, the benefit is we got cost of production saving of 50 percent, 40 percent, whatever it is, sourcing cheap parts in China and that's enough for our benefit," he said.

LTI sold about 2,850 taxis in the United Kingdom last year and exported a very small number of the cabs to overseas markets, such as South Africa, France and Germany.

http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/...LONDONTAXI.XML

[imoto]

The London cab made by Geely will go on sale in Singapore soon.

[m14]

Among the cars that Geely will be bringing to the Detroit Auto Show this year is the London Taxi, which as its name suggests is their version of the recognizable black English cab. The Chinese automaker has made a deal with the largest British maker of these cabs (Manganese Bronze Holdings) to produce the classy black boxes in Shanghai on-the-cheap and then hopefully bring them to the US for sale by 2010.

[mememe]

ok I don't understand it. Geely's sale in China is not even robust and why they are always talking about hitting Europe or America, I mean if they cannot even win the heart and the trust of Chinese consumers then I don't know what they are thinking about Western consumers.

[CCF mod]

Geely tx4 ltc concept at Auto China:

[CCF mod]

Normal Geely tx4.

[CCF mod]

London black cab to regain glory through "made-in-China"

April 28, 2008 - The London black cab, regarded as one of the capital city's icons, is to regain its glory through a joint program with a Chinese car manufacturer in Shanghai, where the first London black cab is expected to roll out in about six weeks.

Manganese Bronze, the former sole owner of the London black cab and now a shareholder with Chinese car manufacturer Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. in their joint venture -- Shanghai LTI Automobile Ltd., said that the new "made-in-China" model, will enable China to leapfrog with greener cabs of international reputation and enliven the London cab which was hard-hit by high costs.

"We are waiting with great excitement to see the London black cab rolling off the Shanghai production line," said Mark Fryer, Manganese's group finance and business development director.

Through the Shanghai production line, the "iconic black cab" history which seemed to come to an end for the high costs, will goon, in a much larger scale, said Fryer.

Manganese Bronze could greatly lower the cost of production when outsourcing its parts as a result of the cooperation with China's Geely, as its enlarged scale will enable them to approach bigger manufacturers with better quality parts, he said.

The first-ever black cab left the company's Coventry factory in1948, and since then, more than 100,000 vehicles have rolled off the production line in the automobile base city of Coventry.

But black cab production fell on hard times at the turn of the century when 70 percent of its parts had to be imported from continental Europe, driving up costs to an unaffordable level.

The cost of producing a TX4 black cab, Fryer said, runs at about 21,000 to 28,000 pounds, but that will be halved, once shifted to China, while at the same time retaining quality.

While continuing its Coventry production with parts imported from China, expectedly 100 percent from China by 2009, Fryer said that Manganese Bronze will do its best to promote sales of the London cab.

"We have pre-sold 500 of the Shanghai produced cabs," the Manganese Bronze director said, adding that he is planning to sell10,000 next year mainly in the U.S. market.

According to the joint venture plan, the Shanghai plant will have the capacity of turning out 40,000 vehicles every year.

Despite Manganese Bronze hosts warning them not to be surprised when they see an old and largely hand-made assembly line in the Coventry factory, many Chinese visitors still come back with a big question mark on their mind -- "is this the famous London black cab home?" Liu Hui, a London-based Chinese who had an on-the-spot tour, said.

The condition of the assembly line in Coventry was as good as it was almost half a century ago, Liu and his colleagues were told before their tour in the factory, but they were still surprised by what they saw.

Mike Brown, the operation director at Manganese Bronze Coventry headquarters, said that the factory in Coventry, still the center of auto industry in Britain, is about 29,000 square meters, but the Shanghai factory is at least twice the size.

Manganese Bronze agreed with Chinese car manufacturer Geely to hold equity in a joint venture company, Shanghai LTI Automobile Ltd, to produce four different vehicles: the iconic London Taxi, a limousine variant of the London Taxi and two additional large saloon cars.

The joint venture, with a total investment of about 53 million pounds(106 million U.S. dollars), is funded from shareholders' equity of 29 million pounds and bank loans of 24 million pounds.

LTI, a wholly owned subsidiary of Manganese Bronze, will utilize the skills of its Coventry business to support the establishment of manufacturing in Shanghai, support quality initiatives in Shanghai LTI and sales in the world market.

source: Xinhua