Beijing's 30% New Car Sales Surge Explained
“Brakes come off auto sales” the semi-official, English-writing Chinese newspaper China Daily headlines today. “Beijing car sales, which account for about a tenth of the national tally, are surging this month after the end of Olympic traffic controls and because of rumors about new caps on vehicle numbers, ” reports the newspaper, citing the head of China’s largest car dealer. Beijing Asian Games Village Automobile Exchange, an 80k unit megadealer in China’s capital, has seen sales increases of 30 percent this month, and there’s still another week to go. Beijing’s buyers are stampeding back to the showrooms, after half of the cars had been banned from Beijing’s streets during the Olympics. Following the Olympics, a Kafkaesque car ban on Beijing’s byways and highways was instated, driving demand for second cars. Or for two cars at a time. Rumors that Beijing’s city government could limit new vehicle registrations to 100k a year, about a third of the city’s average annual vehicle sales, also unleashed a storming of the showrooms. “We don’t know how the rumor started or whether it’s true, but it’s certainly working in terms of boosting sales,” said Su Hui, General Manager of the megadealer.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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If anyone wants the gory details of the Kafkaesque auto ban, which blows even the minds of the mathematically superior Chinese, kindly peruse Bertel's Brivate Blog ...
Disclosure: I'm a pig. A swine. A hydrocarbon oinker. My raceboat is powered by a MercuryRacing HP525, a marinized (marinated?) 502 CID version of the Chevy Big Block. At WOT (or what I call "on",) it gets me a tad over a mile a gallon. (The F250 that pulls the trailer doesn't get much more ...) A cat? We need no stinking cat. In our world, a cat is a boat with two of those engines. And a super cat is a boat with two blown monsters that blow after two one hour races. Muffler? What? I can't hear you. I confess, I should be taken out to the rainforest and shot. In the meantime, I pay a pennance of $100 just to get me to the gas dock and back ..... But let's face it: The Pickup/SUV exclusion from CAFE was a loophole as big as a barndoor. It led to automotive pornography: More than half of US auto sales were - until recently - "light trucks." According to a belated, but nevertheless educational article in the WSJ, " several years ago Ford even considered dropping cars altogether because they weren't profitable, and focusing entirely on trucks." That was when I had a subscription on an Expedition. Every two years in April, Otis Ford in Quogue, NY, drove a new black one on my driveway without even asking. In the meantime, fuel-sipping diesel engines are all the rage in Europe. And if you think those turbocharged little rascals have a hard time getting up the hill, try a Touareg V10 TDI with 553 lb-ft of torque - so much that they had to put a chip in the tranny that keeps it from being ripped apart by the engine. EPA fuel efficiency 23 mpg on the highway. You can have your SUV, and eat too.