- This month the Volkswagen Group opened its new plant in Ningbo, located south of Shanghai. This is the  manufacturer's twelfth plant in China (and the carmaker's one hundred and fifth plant in the world).

- The site (created with its partner SAIC) will have a production capacity of 300 000 units per year. The first model to be manufactured in Ningbo will be the Skoda Superb. The current European version of this model has not yet been made in China .

- The Volkswagen Group has recently opened factories in Foshan (with its partner FAW) and Urumqi (with its partner SAIC), and plans to open another in Changsha in 2015 (with its partner SAIC). Two other sites are planned for 2016 and 2017 (with FAW).

- The German group's goal is to reach a production capacity of about 4 million vehicles per year in China by 2018. The Volkswagen Group will sell this year 3 million vehicles in China against 2.6 million in 2012, representing an increase of 15%.

- This increase is comparable to the rise of the Chinese market as a whole. Thus, the Volkswagen Group maintains its market share of around 17-18% in 2012 and 2013, and hopes to maintain this rate of penetration until 2018.

  

- The Chinese carmaker BYD plans to build an electrical bus plant in Europe, perhaps in France, after several field trials conducted in different markets. "We need to sell a hundred units of electric buses to justify the construction of a plant and we believe that we can quickly reach this volume," said the manufacturer. BYD is currently building at the same time an assembly plant in the United States (Lancaster / California).

- BYD however, did not specify in which European country this future plant would be established, but the carmaker believes that some countries have advantages or are more advanced in terms of electric vehicle fleets and cheaper sources of electricity supply, such as France.

- So far, the Amsterdam airport has ordered 35 electric buses from the Chinese carmaker and a Dutch island also has an electric bus fleet.

- Furthermore, BYD has conducted tests in the cities of Paris, Bremen, Bonn, Madrid, Barcelona, Salzburg, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Brussels and Budapest. Additional testing should be performed in London. The BYD electric bus would have a range of 250 km.

- It is to be noted that BYD has become the largest manufacturer of electric buses in the world.

  

- Daimler's Brazilian plant (located in São Paulo) is expected to produce 20 000 vehicles per year from 2015/2016. The models manufactured there will be the new generation of C-Class, CLA and GLA for the local market. The carmaker's objective is to become the leader in the premium car segment in Brazil by 2020.

- According to the carmaker, the Brazilian market is expected to grow by 50% between 2013 and 2020, becoming the fourth largest worldwide market by 2020 (behind China, Europe and the United States), with significant growth of the Premium segment.

- Currently, Brazil is already the world's fifth largest market (behind China, Europe, USA and Japan), with 3.8 million vehicles sold last year (2.85 million PC and 0.95 million commercial vehicles).

- The Sao Paulo plant will be Daimler's third plant in Brazil. Its two other plants  produce trucks and buses.

- The return of Daimler's in the production of passenger cars in Brazil has been accelerated by the tax rate (raised by 30% since 2011) on vehicles manufactured outside the Mercosur.

- Daimler produced in the past the Mercedes Class A (1999 to 2005) and the Class C (2008 to 2010) in small quantities.