A Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG seen trough the window from my Beijing-Jeep. The lucky owner must be a great fan of the American police, even including the 911 emergency number which for sure doesn’t work in China. Handwriting reads: ‘to punish and enslave’…

The new Maybach 62S debuted at the Chengdu Auto Show in Sichuan province. The ‘normal’ Maybach 62 debuted earlier at the Beijing Auto Show. China is clearly an imported market for Maybach and this is confirmed by one number: a German employee from Benz-China told me Maybach sold 14 cars at the Beijing Auto Show, most of ‘m the 62. The even more exclusive ‘S’, for ‘sport’ indeed, is available from now for a 10.7 million yuan, 1.6 million USD.

The Benz A and B-class will soon be replaced so Benz sold the rights to the B-class to Beijing Auto and starts to sell the imported A-class from October. There is no other place like China to dump some old stock! Strangely, the horrible R-class is selling in great numbers in China as well meaning Benz problably made the right decision. Price will start around a hefty 230.000 yuan.

International media reports on a deal between Daimler and BYD to make electric cars. Strangely, Chinese media reports nothing yet. It is 10:13 AM now in Beijing and all woke up. It might have to do more with the fact that parties still need government permission to start with their plans.

That permission is essential, as proved by the Hummer-misery in Januari. But in this case it is about electric cars which are, so most believe, not as bead for the bears and the bees as a Hummer. Permission therefore, is unlikely to be denied.

More on the Daimler-BYD deal in this excellent article from Wall Street journal:

“BEIJING—Germany’s Daimler AG and China’s BYD Co. set up a 50-50 joint venture Thursday to develop an all-electric car for the Chinese market, saying they believe China has the potential to be among the world’s largest markets for zero-emission vehicles.

Daimler, owner of luxury-car brand Mercedes-Benz, and BYD, one of China’s leading battery and auto makers, are expected to invest a total of 600 million yuan ($87.9 million) in the joint venture, Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology Co. The money is to be used as registered capital for the joint venture in the southern industrial city of Shenzhen.

BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu and Daimler Chairman Dieter Zetsche signed a contract in Beijing Thursday to finalize the agreement. “Our new joint venture is well positioned to make the most of the vast potential of electric mobility in China,” Mr. Zetsche said.

Daimler also said Thursday that it is aiming to sell at least 100,000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles in China this year, up from the 67,000 it sold in 2009. By 2015, Mercedes-Benz sales in China are likely to increase to 300,000 vehicles a year, the company said.

To strengthen and expand its presence in China, the German company said it plans to invest about €200 million, or about $244 million, to build a plant in Beijing to produce engines, which will be used to power vehicles it produces in China.

“For Daimler, this is a historic decision because this will be the first time ever that we’re going to produce engines for Mercedes-Benz cars outside of Germany,” Trevor Hale, a Beijing-based Daimler spokesman, said in an email message. The new engine plant will be jointly operated with Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings Co., Daimler’s main joint-venture partner in China.

According to a Daimler executive familiar with the BYD collaboration, the planned car is likely to be loosely based on the pure-electric propulsion system used in BYD’s e6, an all-electric battery car that the Chinese company began selling to taxi operators in Shenzhen earlier this year.

The car announced Thursday will be enhanced with Daimler’s vehicle-safety and other technologies.

Daimler engineers and designers recently established a base at a hotel near BYD’s headquarters in Shenzhen to work closely with their counterparts at the Chinese company, which is partially owned by Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., in order to come up with the joint venture’s first car for the new brand.

The Daimler executive familiar with the collaboration said Daimler and BYD might display a prototype of the jointly developed car as early as the Paris auto show in October.

One reason for the growing enthusiasm in China around all-electric cars and other heavily electrified vehicles, such as plug-in electric hybrids, is the belief that the Chinese government will start offering special incentives to support private buyers’ adoption of clean-energy cars.

Executives at Japan’s Nissan Motor Co., which plans to launch an all-electric compact car called the Leaf in the U.S., Europe and Japan in December, and in China next year, say they expect the Chinese government to set purchase incentives of as much as 60,000 yuan for electric cars. Chinese news reports have said incentives of about 50,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan are likely to be announced soon.

Still, even as auto executives such as BYD’s Mr. Wang urge the Chinese government to subsidize private purchases of all-electric battery cars, some Chinese government officials have pointed to reservations about providing consumer incentives to spur electric-car sales.

“Why do we need to provide subsidies and rebates for wealthy private buyers who would be the first in line to buy electric cars? That’s a question some of us in the government are asking,” said Chen Jianguo, a senior official at the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s main economic-planning agency, at a conference in Tianjin last year.

Yet, in anticipation of some type of policy support for private electric-car purchases, some auto makers are likely to launch electric cars in China over the next few years, creating competition for BYD and Daimler.

In addition to Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. of Japan also plans to launch all-electric cars in China by 2012, while Toyota Motor Corp. of Japan and General Motors Co. of the U.S. are gearing up to test-market plug-in hybrid electric cars in China soon.”

Source: WSJ, 270510

It loox actually much ‘newer’ when one sees face to face, yesterday’s official pictures didn’t do it right. The grille is far bigger and impressive compared to the old car and the leds make it more aggressive. Benz hopes to sell a few of ‘m to the new rich in China before it kills the brand. But Benz doesn’t have too much faith in it, the new Maybach looked a bit sad in a small cabin in a corner of the stand, and no one mentioned the car during the Benz press conference.

Maybach will bring the ‘new’ 62 to the Beijing Auto Show that starts tomorrow. Looking at the quality these pictures leaked from a brochure, got you… Pics show the 62 on several locations around Beijing, photoshopped I guess but the car is real. Changes: a new front with a bigger blingbling grille and leds under the bumper.

The old 62 to compare.

We expected the new car to change to change only a little, but this little… Why bother?

Maybach people buy at Chanel and wait for poor people on foot. Very gentle.

The Beijing Auto Show 2010 starts this Friday so the Supercars move in. Today saw the arrival of a very red, China will like, Mercedes Benz SLS AMG carried by a red FAW truck. Nice combo it is, FAW (First Auto Works) is most famous by it’s joint ventures with Audi and Volkswagen.

The market for supercars is booming in China and will likely continue to boom for at least ten more years as more and more people in China get seriously rich. Chinese people love Benz so a supercar makes perfect sense. My guess is Benz will sell a lot of SLS in China.

The SLS then went into a special garage at the exibition hall but the story doesn’t end:

The SLS found a place with all Benzes for the show, except for the hyper secret facelifted Maybach and the E 300L, those machines are hiding elsewhere until the last moment, likely in Benz’ headquarters in Beijing.

Maybach will debut the new facelifted Maybachs at the Beijing Auto Show later this month. Surprisingly a Maybach without much of a front was spied roadtesting right here in Beijing.

Maybe Maybach wanted to make sure the Maybach could stand Beijing’s sandstorms. The facelifted car doesn’t look very different on the back, the tape just camouflages some minor changes at the lights. Biggest news will ne at the front, that is, if Maybach can find it back.

Source pictures: Sina.com

“Maybach is an important part of Daimler’s product portfolio. There is no other decision”, so a Benz spokesman said to Reuters.

“It’s not true, it’s market speculation. We got calls from the media and we have checked with Chairman Wang”, so a BYD spokesman said  to Reuters. Chairman Wang is Wang Chuanfu, BYD’s boss.

Rumors on a possible buy by BYD of Benzes Maybach brand surfaced earlier this week in the Chinese media and were taken to the outside world by websites as this one.

Can’t say we’re surprised, but an electric MayBYDbach would have been… well… yep!

According to a report on one of China’s largest automotive websites, auto.sina.com, BYD has expressed interest to acquire the Maybach-brand from Mercedes Benz as the Germans will pull the plug in one or two years.

An unmaned BYD official told Sina.com that BYD was very interested in Maybach and would “launch the acquisition” as soon as Benz makes the final decision to quit.

Earlier this month MB and BYD announced a partnership to produce electric vehicles for the Chinese market, so the two are friends already. Still I don’t think Benz will ever consider to sell the Maybach-brand to anyone, let alone to a batterymaker turned carmaker from China.

Hard to say how serious BYD really is, but it is good to see the brand keeps dreaming…