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From National Geographic:
Cars are racing into China supercharging its economy, and delivering dreams of a better life. But Chinas cars are clogging its highways and spewing out clouds of pollution. The rest of the world better watch out, because some Chinese automakers have plans to flood the world markets with cheaper Chinese cars be they made by GM or Chinas own Geely Automotive. We go inside the Geely plant in Ningbo, and follow a worker after hours in the canteen with his girlfriend, and then in the dorm he shares with seven other men. We see chairman and founder Li Shufu at his university in Beijing, welcoming the freshmen who one day will work at Geely, and help take it onto the worlds stage. We tag along with David and Vivian Ren as they go shopping for a car in Beijing, and then spend a 12-hour day picking it up, getting the licence plate, and paying for it with cash. The automobile industry and private car ownership are pivotal to Chinas economic recovery. They promise freedom to travel and a better life. But they are contributing to Chinas pollution. This worries environmentalist Sherry Liao who also believes that China is adopting too many western values. Car marketing expert Michael Dunne makes sense of it all. Call it a driving dream or a nightmare. This is China's revolution on wheels.
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Previously on Shanghaiist Sunday Show
Seoul Train
Tibet Refugees on 101 East, Al-Jazeera
Chinese Film Odyssey
Children of Blessing
The Unseen China
Brits Get Rich in China
Know of any other feature documentaries that you'd like to share with readers on the Shanghaiist Sunday Show? Email us at info AT shanghaiist DOT com!
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Chinese brand cars have been proven time and time again to be belching death traps that even consumers in developing markets will shun in favor of a 1970s toyota, mercedes, or US brand.
And now the world's newest industrial behemoth, Tata, has a $2500 car for the Indian market and for export. It has been said that Tata's engineers already have an EU and US export model with all of the required safety and pollution gear for around $5000, making it an urban-ready car at a price someone with a minimum wage job can afford.
Chinese brand cars have been proven time and time again to be belching death traps that even consumers in developing markets will shun in favor of a 1970s toyota, mercedes, or US brand.
And now the world's newest industrial behemoth, Tata, has a $2500 car for the Indian market and for export. It has been said that Tata's engineers already have an EU and US export model with all of the required safety and pollution gear for around $5000, making it an urban-ready car at a price someone with a minimum wage job can afford.
In Gore's Inconvenient Truth he laid claim that the U.S. wouldn't be able to sell their cars on the Chinese market because fuel economy standards are actually stricter here. This seemed strange to me the first time I heard it. Does anyone have any figures to clear this up? If the fuel standards are so high, how can the Chinese be producing so many high-polluting autos??
Those Euro emissions stickers on the windshields are lies.
Not sure what you're getting at but i looked it up briefly and supposedly in 2007 the Chinese were to impose the equivalent of Euro III standards (Euro IV in 2010) while in Europe they're about to impose Euro V; the States work on a different system but i doubt that their standards would be lower that Euro III, meaning that what Gore said was pretty wrong...
Euro III stickers have been on windshields in China since the early 2000s.