Automotive Insights

August, 2007

The global auto industry is focused on the Chinese market. Meanwhile, Chinese automakers are eyeing the global market as the natural next step as the local industry develops, matures and becomes more competitive. We would like to open this edition of ACC insights with an eye on the trends in the global automotive industry and offer some possible growth paths for the Chinese automakers.

With over 100 years of history, the automotive industry has become increasingly, yet to be perfectly, competitive. In identifying areas of improvement, we would like to share with you our latest global study on the Western Europe market on sales and distribution; in this issue, we also share with you our latest research on China's auto distribution and retailing sector, which has also increasingly become a popular pick for financial investors over the last years.

Triggered by increasing pollution around the world and predicted climate change, automotive manufacturers face intense public pressure to develop more environmentally friendly cars. Roland Berger's Global Automotive Competence Center has done an in-depth study of technology trends and hurdles. OEMs and suppliers need to overcome. We take an except of the study: summarize the major findings that are also applicable to OEMs and suppliers in China, in the article of "solving the Powertrain Challenges".

The last article in this issue is about the Commercial Vehicles (CV) industry development trend. This is also an increasingly competitive sector that draws a lot of attention. Though we do not except to see every auto maker participating in this sector, we summarize three types of CV players emerging in China with some global benchmarks.