China's SUV Sales Rise 43% Over Last Year, Increasing Oil Demand

The Washington Post:

SONGJIANG, China -- Nodding his head to the disco music blaring out of his car's nine speakers, Zhang Linsen swings the shiny, black Hummer H2 out of his company's gates and on to the spacious four-lane road.

Running a hand over his closely shaved head, Zhang scans the expanse of high-end suburban offices and villas that a decade ago was just another patch of farmland outside of Shanghai. To his left is a royal blue sedan with a couple and a baby, in front of him a lone young woman being chauffeured in a van.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post

Comments

[cabbile]

What they are lacking is a Chinese Al Gore.

[cylindar]

Sounds like a good place to dump all of those unsold SUV's Ha ha you can't even give them away here. I have to laugh everytime I pass a dealer with SUV's on their lot. They are still actually trying to sell those things as if they are worth something. Not a good investment for us and not a good investment for the Chinese.

[ohiomark]

I guess the Chineese don't care about Al Gore's hoax and are moving full steam ahead in the carbon race.

[Destin]

No surprise that China's suv market grew so steadily. Their gas prices only rose to $2.60 (USD) for a gallon (US gallon) for a 9% increase, compared to the US at $4 a gallon for an 80% increase over the same period going back to Jan 2007. ;)

Why is it gas prices in China are so much lower than ours?? I thought China's big "demand" was the reason all the world's oil prices went up. Har-har, then how come they pay less than all the industrialized nations?? More proof that the "supply and demand" theory is a lie.

[Destin]

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/09/business/fi-chinagasoline9

There's the June 9, 2008 article in case someone thinks I was making up the $2.60 a gallon China gas price. ;)

[llmitchellb]

43% could be they sold 16 this year compared to last year's 11. There are a million things we should do, but we have to innovate and give us and them something to buy other than oil. We will not Prius our way ought of this. We have to kill the thirst for oil all together. We are the innovators and we can't let old school corporate greed stand in our way.

[holleyc]

The Obama administration should make eliminating fuel subsidies in the developing world, especially China and India a priority. If not, the billions we will be spending here, though generally improving the economy and quality of life here, will mean nothing in the grand scheme of things if those countries are not spurned into action.

[Americatortures]

As the Chinese own 43% of our debt..it it WE who are paying for THEIR gas -guzzling habits!!! Nice economic policy,Bus­h...NOT!!!

[emstrem]

It's what I've been saying all along, Until countries like China and India straighten up, we are banging our heads against a brick wall. The dictatorship there prolly isn't going to change anytime soon either.

[KillTheMessenger]

Itchy pointing finger today? Try a good anti-itch lotion.

[ICanHasDemocracy]

China seems to be doing the monkey-see monkey do of the US, so in about 5 years they'll realize as they start choking on the fumes with no EPA regs maybe they should have gone green, instead of red and black.

[KillTheMessenger]

Not really. What you are seeing are just the newly rich. The vast majority of the population is taking the bus. They are already choking, but not because of cars but because they are burning coal the dirty way.

[ScottPalmer]

One would think that as we ask China to produce more and more of our products that we might want to "give" them the cleanest technology to make sure we didn't just shift our pollution to a different spot on the planet. I think the butterfly in China just flapped it's wings!

[speakeasy]

Everything we learned about pollution, waste and clean up during our industrial revolution was thrown to the wind for short term profiteering by our corporations in China. Now, they are intent on pushing another deadly sin upon a country seemingly without any type of control or care for their surroundings. What a sad day and what a sad country trying to be something they are not in an environment that cant produce enough to keep this up. We keep hearing about how intelligent the Chinese are, but I seem to be missing it. The only smart thing they are doing is allowing us (as in the USA) to finance their rapidly expanding military so we can fight them in a future war for resources. How can we all be so stupid yet calculating at the same time???

[KillTheMessenger]

Except, it's not even "your" corporations. The total investment of Western countries in China is basically irrelevant. China's Wild West Capitalism is very hard for Western companies to penetrate. They buy services in China, but few of those who dared to open actual operations there are truly happy.