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* The Chinese automotive market : In 2010, China had 90 times as many automobiles as it had in 1990.
* Studies by TADRI: Solving the transport equation
Shanghai,SH,China -Gizmag, by Mike Hanlon -April 28, 2013: -- Every country has different cultures, and despite being the world's second largest country, most populous, and among most influential, China remains one of the least understood countries by foreigners. For much of the twentieth century, China's global presence has been on the rise, but since economic reforms in 1978, its economy has relentlessly grown to become the second largest in the world, and it is expected to become the largest within a decade. China is unquestionably about to reclaim its title as the most most powerful country on earth... As China's population is accumulating wealth, it is going through the same love affair with the automobile that America and Europe did almost a century ago, and by comparison, it's love at first sight...
The Chinese automotive market became the world's largest, and it is still growing rapidly. The car parks of China's technology and manufacturing companies are full of cars which reflect the personal worth and dignity of a generation craving what its parents did not have – foreign cars... In a country where "face" is all important, the automobile has become the most visible indication of prestige, wealth and success and even downmarket western brand names are being favored over local marques...
China has more than 100 car manufacturers, yet Chinese brands account for less than a third of sales, and the above list of the top selling marques in China last month, contains just six Chinese brands in the top 20 – Great Wall, BYD, Chery, Changan, Dongfeng and JAC... At the same time this automotive phenomenon has been occurring, there has been an equally large personal mobility trend happening beneath it, as China also sells millions of electric bikes each year. Indeed, China has more than 2000 electric bike manufacturers, and accounts for more than 80 percent of the world electric bike market...
Just as scooters make up the majority of the personal transportation system in other developing Asian countries, electric bikes make up a sizeable chunk of the transportation spectrum across China's vast and quickly urbanizing landscape. America has nine cities larger than a million people. Europe has 31. China already has more than 120 such cities and while the rich drive cars, the man in the street uses an electric bike... Electric bikes are the most accessible form of motorized transport available, for many reasons, partly due to price, partly to no registration being needed, and partly because every home has its own "gas station" in the form of a power outlet...
Electric bikes are everywhere in China, being used by not just millions of citizens for transport, but as the most common form of short distance delivery vehicle. No parking, no registration and because road laws are largely ignored (a 20 mph silent projectile will often catch you unawares and most disconcertingly, from any direction, on either side of the road and sometimes the footpath too), these electric bikes are being legislated against in many environs (to little effect). In many cities, they are also used by the police and many remote cities, they form the basis of taxi services...
China's citizens bought more than eight million such electric bikes last year and Pike Research forecasts that annual sales of e-motorcycles and e-scooters will reach 18.6 million by 2018...
TADRI (*) recognizes that as China grows, there exists a massive need for new forms of transport that fit between the traditional automobile that took shape in America, and the electric bicycle which has replaced China's traditional form of transport for the last century, the bicycle. Traditional-size cars are already creating massive problems across China, and the next generation of Chinese personal mobility will be smaller and more efficient... Within two decades, China will have 250 cities of more than a million people, and concrete plans are already in place to ensure its vehicles do not require ever-growing supplies of oil. China already consumes more oil than any country but America, and within the next year or two, it will consume more than the entire EU each year... With a GDP growing at 10 percent per annum, China's need for oil is growing by 7.5 percent per year, seven times faster than the US and a trend the Chinese Government is intent on curbing. TADRI and its growing expertise will be key to finding personal transportation technologies which reduce China's dependence on foreign oil reserves.
(*) Some of the closely located collaborative institutions of TADRI include the Clean Energy Vehicle Engineering Center, Shanghai Automotive Wind Tunnel Center, Shanghai Fuel Cell Vehicle Powertrain Company and the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) which in turn is part of the Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
Labels: auto markets
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