China's nouvea riche follow the Murican == The Donald lead -
China's new middle class in love with cars - big carsAnd so begins one of the easiest-ever curves to extrapolate.
Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, August 18, 2007
(08-18) 04:00 PDT Beijing - --
It was the frugal minicar that lured the Liu family to the showroom, but it was the full-size sedan that hooked them.
Like countless other first-time auto buyers in China, the Lius were moving up in the world, and getting four wheels with plenty of steel was a key part of that process.
"A car! This means so much to us," said Liu Yang, while her husband, Liu Yue, fiddled with the dashboard of the Chery Eastar sedan that they were about to buy in a showroom in suburban north Beijing.
The biggest car-buying boom in world history is under way in China as vast numbers of people join the middle class, abandon their bicycles for autos and sport utility vehicles - and, in the process, add to China's already fast-growing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Only a decade ago, cars owned by individuals were rare, and bicycles were the main mode of transport. Now, streets are clogged bumper-to-bumper, and total car ownership is expected to surpass the U.S. level by 2025.
Local governments are wrestling with transportation and land-use decisions that will set China's course for decades. Should China look and act like the car-focused sprawl of Los Angeles, they ask, or the public transit-oriented clusters of European cities?
"It's a vicious circle - more autos, more roads," said Li Junhao, deputy chief of the municipal urban planning department in Shanghai, which has fought the automobile trend more than any other Chinese city by restricting access to license plates and taxing the use of cars in its downtown.
"There's not enough space for the cars or land to build the highways. The dream of Chinese here is much similar to your American Dream, no?" Li said. "It's just the same as anywhere else - you want a car and a bigger house, so you consume and pollute more."
This bigger-is-better attitude in China comes as the U.S. Congress is about to fight over new fuel-economy regulations and California is ready to put into effect its own plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Last month, in a sign of the raw political clout of pro-development forces, China's oil industry blocked a plan by the State Environmental Protection Administration to tighten vehicle emissions rules to meet strict European standards.
Last year, China became the world's second-largest market for new vehicles after the United States, with sales of 7.2 million, a rate that is rising by more than 20 percent annually. Meanwhile, the government is building a nationwide network of superhighways at a breakneck pace. About 15,000 miles, the equivalent of one-third the U.S. interstate system, have been built since 2000, and 30,000 more miles are planned by 2020.
Unlike Japanese and European drivers, who favor the minicar (a two-seater about half the size of a compact car) and subcompacts, China's new middle class wants mobility, power and elbow room.
When they walked into the showroom of Chery, one of China's largest automakers, the Liu family said they wanted fuel efficiency and practicality. At first, they looked at the QQ, a minicar that costs 33,333 yuan (about $4,400). But the only one convinced was the Lius' 16-year-old daughter, Christina. Prodded by her parents to practice her school-taught English on a Chronicle reporter, she managed only, "QQ is cute!" and then convulsed in giggles, hanging on to her mother's arm.
"The QQ is very small, you know, and I need more space because I will spend so much time in the car," said her father, Liu Yue. He explained that from their home in suburban northern Beijing, the drive to his job downtown as a construction engineer will take an hour each way - a 30-minute improvement over the city buses he now takes.
So he and his wife signed the papers for the Eastar, a full-size, four-door sedan selling for 98,888 yuan (about $13,075).
[. . .]
In the first half of 2007, sales of cars with engine displacement smaller than 1 liter declined by 28.9 percent over the same period last year while sales of all sedans increased by 25.9 percent, and sales for SUVs rose 39 percent, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
For the country's legions of new millionaires, biggest is best. Last year, in one much-publicized event, a group of coal mine owners from northern Shanxi province came to Beijing, paid cash for 10 Hummers at 1.3 million yuan each, or $170,000, and flamboyantly drove them back to Shanxi in a convoy.
"Purchasing power is rising, so it's simple - to drive a higher-end car gives you more face," said Su Hui, general manager of the Asian Games Village Automobile Exchange, the mall where the Liu family was shopping.
[More ...]
Guess who taught 'em just what to Want, how Much to want -- to stay ahead of the Wongs.
Silly Me! - imagining, in early '74
(when that wake-up call had not quite yet got a permanent snooze alarm bypass wired in) ...
that the Buick Riviera/Guzzler would be a parked greenhouse by '75 - and we would all be Way-better off for that, cha cha cha