Heh, this is kinda funny considering the other threads!

Jstas

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080708/AUTO01/807080392/1148/rss25

GM, Ford report strong China sales
Associated Press

BEIJING -- General Motors and Ford reported first-half sales grew strongly in China's booming auto market Tuesday, a rare bright spot for global automakers.

GM said sales of its Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac brands rose 12.7 percent from the first half of last year to 590,126 vehicles. Ford Motor Co. said its sales rose 21 percent from the year-earlier period to 172,411 vehicles.

Growth was weaker than the stunning rates reported in 2007, when Ford's China sales grew 30 percent. But they still were far stronger than in North America, where automakers are idling factories amid a severe sales downturn.

"The Chinese vehicle market has continued to grow in 2008, setting a new first half sales record," said Kevin Wale, president of GM China, in a written statement.

Auto sales have been driven by fast-rising incomes in an economy that is forecast to grow at least 9 percent this year.



Check the link for more.

tonyb

GEEZ.....where do they have room to park these babies ?

Ricardo

tonyb wrote: »

GEEZ.....where do they have room to park these babies ?

have you seen the size of China??

Funny. We are selling them our poor MPG cars so that they increase oil demand

tonyb

Have you seen the population of china? Crap man,it's like being at a baseball game,all day,every day.

amulford

Ricardo wrote: »

Funny. We are selling them our poor MPG cars so that they increase oil demand

Yeah, think about that one...

obieone

AHEM! I was listening to Hannity today, and Ted Koppel has a special on BBC (I think) about the China situation. It's called "The Peoples Republic of Capitalism"
He said that China is putting 25,000 vehicles on the road A DAY!!!
And will match our numbers in < 10 years! Stand by for REALLY expensive gas!!!

Norm Apter

Ricardo wrote: »

have you seen the size of China??

Funny. We are selling them our poor MPG cars so that they increase oil demand

Maybe we're doing it to get back at them for selling toys to us with lead paint, bad dog food and tainted tooth paste.

Joking aside, there's an additional factor that contributes to increasing demand in China. Oil in China, like many other countries, is a nationalized industry. The government has been selling gasoline at much below market-rates, taking the loss itself...most probably as an investment strategy to maintain "development" and "production" levels. After all, the Chinese economy has achieved domestic growth rates of 10% or higher for the past 15 years. Oil and coal are probably two key elements in that "development."

Yes, I had heard that figure of 25,000 new cars per day in China. In fact, on another thread here I argued that Chinese (and other developing countries') demand has been one of the leading factors driving up the price of oil over the past 8 years. Others challenged me, claiming that it is more rooted in the activities of financial speculators than Chinese consumption. Obviously there are several factors behind the rise but I still feel that China has been and will continue to be a major, if not the single leading, factor behind the rise from $25 per barrel in 1999/2000 to $130 per barrel today.

Jstas

China is one of the places where demand has increased enough to keep prices high. India is another. It's not just one country. But demand from other countries does not change the price of a barrel of oil $11.80 in 3 days. THAT is speculation based on BS that doesn't seem to come to fruition. But the price may drop but only $3 after rising almost $12. That is where the speculation problem is and it is there because oil is a commodity. When the government controls a commodity like in China, you get no price changes to curb growth and dependence. It's called inflation. Because of that, it artificially boosts the value of the commodity in other markets where pricing is out of control due to the artificially supported economic growth in the government controlled economies. The rest of the capitalistic world suffers because the socialist world is trying to boost it's position. There are no penalties for such speculation in a capitalistic world because it is viewed as market fluctuations. But when somebody in Iran sneezes and Wall St. freaks out and raises oil prices, that is a problem and needs to be addressed.

What will happen eventually is that prices will become so high that places like China that are propping up economic growth on controlled commodity pricing will either bankrupt the government or destroy the built infrastructure and plummet the economy into a depression. Either way, places like China are signing their own death warrant. The government cannot continue fronting the cost of trading goods for the oil without some return on the investment. If that only return on the investment is infrastructure and economic growth brought on by the cheap prices of oil, as soon as those cheap prices go away, China goes from industrial power house to economic ruin overnight. China is killing it's own economy slowly.

The rest of the world is adapting, China is trying to run through the last 200 years of development the rest of the world experienced in about 1/4 the time and like the rest of the world, they are using oil to do it. But they aren't letting the market dictate the pace, they are dictating it themselves and they are going to crash. Then you will 2-3 billion people working rice paddies and living in abject poverty all over again. Mainly because it's getting cheaper to build things at home in the U.S. or in Europe if you live there or even in Africa because transportation costs are high. This will all play out. Maybe bot to our benefit but we, as Americans, should do what we do best. Adapt now and kick the rest of the world's butts at it and lead the way like we did for the past 200+ years.

amulford

Good post.

Norm Apter

You're right. The short-term jumps of $10 in a single day are due to speculation. The point I was trying to make is that the long-term rise in the price (long term as in 8 years) is driven largely by growing global consumption. Lets just say we removed speculators from the scene: I think we'd still have much higher oil prices than 8 years ago. Don't you?

I think that things are changing so fast in China that its nearly impossible to say whats going to happen for sure. They are carving out a path that is neither socialist nor capitalist. Its something in between -- maybe "state capitalism" -- and its a model thats never been pursued and certainly never on their scale, so I think its too early to write them off and predict their impending decline. They might be more adaptive than you think -- in fact, just today I heard that they are developing a serious national energy plan that includes alternative technologies, just the sort of thing that Americans are getting frustrated with our government for not having moved on over the past decade. So sometimes there are multiple levels of development going on at the same time and if anything else China is a place full of paradoxes and inconsistencies. Furthermore, they are so integrated in the world economy that such a decline would have catastrophic implications for the rest of the world, not the least of which the U.S. (Our deficit to China is humongous -- the exact figure escapes me -- and growing bigger year by year). I'm not sure the collapse of China would be good for anyone.

dorokusai

I'm excited that the mileage on my Avalanche has essentially frozen the odometer enough, for me to finally get the Z71 cluster installed

joeparaski

tonyb wrote: »

GEEZ.....where do they have room to park these babies ?

Oh they have plenty of room outside the big cities. I was there 2 years ago training some customers to fly powered parachutes. We were outside a small town, in what we here would consider "out in the country". The thing I noticed the most, is that the the roads out in the boonies were 8 lanes wide, yes EIGHT, 4 for one side and 4 for the other. I have no idea why they needed so many lanes.

Joe

obieone

joeparaski wrote: »

Oh they have plenty of room outside the big cities. I was there 2 years ago training some customers to fly powered parachutes. We were outside a small town, in what we here would consider "out in the country". The thing I noticed the most, is that the the roads out in the boonies were 8 lanes wide, yes EIGHT, 4 for one side and 4 for the other. I have no idea why they needed so many lanes.

Joe

Obviously, they're PLANNING AHEAD!!! One thing they'll never have to put up with are friggin Tree HUMPERS:mad: