Chinese consumers look toward larger vehicles

BEIJING: The Chinese government is putting intense pressure on automakers to improve energy efficiency, but Chinese consumers are increasingly interested in large sport utility vehicles and full-size luxury cars, top auto executives said Sunday at the opening of the Beijing auto show.

The shift of the Chinese market toward larger vehicles is likely to push up the country’s already voracious demand for imported oil and make China an even bigger emitter of global warming gases. The trend toward big vehicles is being driven by rising incomes for China’s elite as well as strict government price controls on gasoline and diesel that are keeping fuel prices below world levels as a way to limit broader inflation in the Chinese economy.


Dieter Zetsche, the chairman of Daimler, announced Sunday that his company’s Mercedes-Benz division would begin shipping GLK mid-size luxury sport utility vehicles soon to China, and said that Mercedes’ sales of sport utility vehicles in China had doubled in the past year.

“We know it’s a big, growing market here in China” for sport utility vehicles, he said.

IHT