China And India, Start Your Engines

Energy Policy: If you think there’s a gas crunch now, just wait until a couple billion more people take to the world’s highways. The competition for oil resources will get worse. So why are we sitting on ours?

America,
President Bush has said, is addicted to oil. But he might have said America is addicted to the automobile, which provides the mobility and freedom characteristic of our society. Even with the development of hybrids and hydrogen cars down the road (so to speak), fossil fuel vehicles will probably be with us for a very long time.

Two rising powers on the international stage, China and India, are repeating our love affair with the automobile, a process that is sure to (1) put upward pressure on oil prices and (2) increase competition for oil resources, particularly in areas of the world and involving countries less than friendly to the U.S.

With 5 million car sales in 2004, China became the world’s third-largest car market, after the United States (17 million) and Japan (5.9 million). And within the next two or three years, according to David Thomas, head of China distribution for Ford Motor Co., China is going to become No. 2.

Thomas also thinks that sometime between 2010 and 2015, China will be the world’s largest market for new cars. In 2002 demand for cars in China increased 56% and an astounding 75% in 2003, before slowing to a mere 15% in 2005, as China tightened rules for credit purchases.

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