Buick Launces eAssist Version of LaCrosse in China

The LaCrosse, Buick’s mid-size sedan offering, is doing quite well in China with 215,000 deliveries in the first seven months of the year alone. Now General Motors is adding the eAssist mild-hybrid version to the LaCrosse's Chinese line-up and is taking orders in 25 pilot cities, with the first cars scheduled for delivery in September. Read more »

Categories: Buick, Buick LaCrosse, China, GM, New Cars, Reports

China Market 2012 Volkswagen NMS Unwrapped?

Chances are you've already seen a set of pictures, supposedly depicting the U.S. market version of the 2012 Volkswagen New Midsized Sedan (NMS), floating around on the web-o-sphere this week. As always, we looked around and tried to find the original or one of the original sources of the photos. Turns out that these pictures originated from a Chinese car site called Autohome. If we are to believe the report, what you see here is the China-market version of the NMS. Even so, we would like to note that we're not entirely convinced of their authenticity as the photographs could very well be fabricated.

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Categories: China, Reports, Scoops, VW, VW Passat, VW Scoops

iPad Alternative?

Even before the iPad was launched the crafty folks in China were busy working on fakes and knock-offs, though so far the turnout has been a bit disappointing. Now. however, news reaches us, via Engadget, of the Moonse E-700, a 7-inch tablet PC that’s rumoured to be going on sale soon for a little over £100. Apparently it will use a Cortex A8 processor, running the increasingly usable Android 1.5 software. It’ll have SD card for storage, built-in wi-fi, 5-hours battery life, 720p HD playback on its 800 x 480 resolution screen and a couple of things still on the iPad wish-list, including a built-in camera and USB port. It’s going to weigh in at a little under 400 grams, or around half the weight of an iPad. No details on a launch just yet but we wouldn’t mind betting it’ll be in the shops in plenty of time for Christmas

Categories: Alternative, battery, battery life, China, Christmas, e 700, ipad, pc, software, USB, usb port, wi-fi

NCSA director: GPU is future of supercomputing

Thom Dunning 

The director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications has seen the future of supercomputing and it can be summed up in three letters: GPU.

Thom Dunning, who directs the NCSA and the Institute for Advanced Computing Applications and Technologies at the famed supercomputing facilities on the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says high-performance computing will begin to move toward graphics processing units or GPUs. Not coincidentally, this is exactly what China has done to achieve the world's fastest speeds with its "Tianhe-1A" supercomputer. That computer combines about 7,000 Nvidia GPUs with 14,000 Intel CPUs: the only hybrid CPU-GPU system in the world of that scale.

Categories: Advanced Computing, Applications, China, Intel, National Center, NCSA, Nvidia, Server, Supercomputing Applications, Technologies, Thom Dunning, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Bentley-Snout Part II: Huatai's New B11 and B21 Sedan Snapped Ahead of Beijing Show

From the makers of the Porsche Cayenne clone (see here) B35 come these two Bentley-faced sedans called the B11 and B21. We're almost certain that many of you will find quite a few styling similarities (in the details) between Huatai's Beijing Auto Show sedans and other Western and/or Asian cars...

The only thing we know about the two family sedans from Huatai is that they will be offered with a choice of a 1.8-liter turbo and a 2.0-liter four-cylinder petrol engines. Full gallery after the jump.

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Categories: Bentley, China, China Auto Show, Huatai, Scoops

Only in China: A Porsche Cayenne Clone with a Bentley Snout by Huatai

Just when you think we've seen it all from China's clone-loving auto manufacturers, along comes Huatai with this gem: the oh-so Porsche Cayenne-ish B35 SUV that was caught here by photographers as it was unloaded off a truck.

Set to make its world premiere at this month's 2010 Beijing Auto Show, the Huatai B35 "improves" upon the first generation Cayenne's looks by adopting a very Bentley-like fascia with a large chrome grille.

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Categories: Bentley, China, China Auto Show, Huatai, New Cars, Porsche, Porsche Cayenne, Replica, Scoops

Buick to get 2010 Opel Astra in China?

It seems that China has become some kind of paradise for Buick as the brand is getting some of the best products that General Motors has to offer. After the Park Avenue and Regal which are essentially rebadged variants of the Holden Statesman/Caprice and Opel Insignia respectively, it looks like that Buick's Chinese range will also benefit from the addition of the next generation Opel Astra, the first photos of which you can check out here.

These spy pictures from Chinese website Auto Sina show that, just as with the Insignia-based Buick Regal, the only significant difference between the European 2010 Opel Astra hatchback and the Chinese market model will most likely be limited to Buick's family crest and waterfall-style grille.

Via: Auto Sina

Categories: Buick, China, Opel, Opel Astra, Saturn Astra, Scoops