agreed. Car ownership is the new status symbol in china. They are willing to buy cars at ridiculous prices.

Several of my friends bought E-classes over there for about $98K US.

 

next up is India. i heard India will top china's population within next 10 year or so. that's scary.

 

Their car market may be larger than US based on quantity of the cars sold, but I'm sure most cars that are sold over there are cheap minimalistic "crapbuckets", and the total value of all cars sold is still greater in the US.

 

Certainly a different mix of cars are top sellers in China (don't know about "crapbuckets" category). Here's a listing of top selling cars in January 2008 per China Car Times just to give an idea as to what sells:



1. VW Jetta – 25,100 sales
2. VW Santana – 19,800
3. Hyundai Elantra – 18,000
4. Buick Excelle – 16,700
5. Tianjin Xia Li – 15,300
6. Chery QQ – 15,100
7. Toyota Corolla – 15,000
8. Toyota Camry – 12,600
9. Ford Focus – 12,300
10. VW Sagitar – 11,600

 

I have this very strong feeling that this is a sign of things to come. I remember reading a book called the "rise and fall of great powers". The cover showed an englishman stepping off a 3 tiered platform, uncle sam stepping down from the top, and a chinese gentleman stepping up to the top tier of the platform.

 

China has a history of going up and down from being the top superpower

 

Mike, you have no idea what is involved in getting a license in China lol.

In China, to operate a motor vehicle, you must take written exam of the traffic laws.

Being able to perfect a parallel parking technique in between bamboo sticks in a pick up truck with 1" of free room front and rear - and no use of mirrors. I remember watching people do it, it was literally a 1000 parallel parking technique that takes 40 min to complete. A touch instantly disqualifies you.

Drive 1000km in 11 hours long distance under a trained instructor.

It took my parents 3 months to acquire their license in total in China.

There are way too many misconceptions in the forums about China

 

I agree that I am no expert on it, but the fact remains that they have an much higher accident/injury/death rate than we do. In fact, Road & Track magazine did a long story on what several of their editors/testers found when they spent some time in China to compare their driving (and road system) with ours. They also brought up some of the points I did.

You also do here.....at least in my state of VA, which requires both written tests, road tests, and a certain amount of driver-training time with a Learner's Permit. Some states also have a graduated license for teen-agers that, for a while, restricts when they can drive and who can ride with them.

IS-SV may have a point, though....at least some of this may be off-topic; me included.

 

The single worst misconception about China is that things are the same everywhere within the country. The idea that something tightly controlled or something loose will be the same even in mildly distant cities could not be further from the truth. The differences between provinces can be even greater.

Beijing is not as in control of China as many Westerners would like to believe. In City A, obtaining a motor vehicle permit may be a stringently controlled and challenging process. In City B, even if in the same province, it can be as easy as forking over a couple hundred bucks extra to the examiner. This idea extends to all other problems in China such as crime, human rights, bureaucratic efficiency, regulation/enforcement, etc.

The VW/Audi domination of the Chinese car market is certainly impressive. Locally made Audi A6s are all over the roads. To compete with the better-designed imports, Chinese automakers will have to undergo a transformation into a truly innovative and competitive industry. Low-quality cars will never bring long-term success especially when Chinese consumption power is increasing every day.

Today the middle class is size X and can afford Y, and the local auto industry has fewer dollars flowing than the US does. How about tomorrow, or five years from now?

 

Excellent post, superchan7.


What are some of your thoughts on why we're not getting those super-low-priced Chinese-car exports? Malcolm Bricklin, a well-known automotive entrepenuer, was supposed to have a deal set up where we would get Chinese-made Cherys in America for well under $10,000 each (in American dollars).....some estimates as low as $7000. I suspect that they just didn't meet U.S. Federal regulations, and someone (maybe Bricklin?) decided that it would cost too much to Federalize them.

Chrysler/Dodge, from what I understand, also had a plan to sell some small Chinese compacts here in the U.S., but I understand Fiat, their new owners, axed that deal (they are, supposedly, going to sell some Fiat-designed compacts instead).

I would have really liked to see those Chinese cars and reviewed them. It would be interesting to see what the Chinese can produce on that kind of budget.

 

they have over 1 billion people that have a high savings rate, they dont need the US to consume their products. The chinese are perfectly capable of consuming it themselves

I am not surprised at this article

 

Where as rural China might be looser in terms of their driving laws, rural China makes up a very small amount car consumption compare to cities.

Also, I have no experience with Beijing, but from what I've heard, Beijing is tougher than anywhere else, and the driving test I post in this forums is for for Shenzhen and GuangZhou, southern China.

 

They have really bad crash test results. The reason why we have some ugly cars is because of our strict safety regulations.

 

Thanks for providing useful insight into China, instead of the usual internet junk. While visiting China in 2006, locals did tell me how the influence of Beijing diminshed signicantly in areas geographically away from the center of government, impacting many aspects of life there (as you mentioned above).

 

1. They have over a billion people but most are still not able to afford a car
2. What does savings rate have to do with buying a car here?

America has over 300 million people but I do believe the average household owns over 2 cars. So we buy more with less people.

What is disturbing is China has pretty much followed our exact path in regards to mass transit and traffic.