[sustran] cheap cars in India and China

Paul Barter tkpb at barter.pc.my
Mon May 12 19:27:24 JST 1997


Adam Karp wrote (among other things):
>My Comment, entitled "China Must Not 'Wait
>Until the Evening': Resisting Mass Motorization's Assault on Bicycles and
>Mass Transit" will be published in 6:3 of the Pacific Rim Law and Policy
>Journal ("PRJ").

Two recent small news items touch on this issue of the influx of cars into
large, low-income, densely populated countries.  So far, car numbers per
capita in these countries are very very low.  But experience elsewhere (eg.
Korea, Thailand, Philippines) suggests that most of the early influx of
vehicles will go into the largest cities where they can cause a big problem
very quickly (primarily by clogging buses in congestion and scaring
bicycles off roads (which were mostly built without large numbers of cars
in mind).

But then again, if Americans can have almost as many motor vehicles as
there are adult Americans why shouldn't the rest of us aspire to that?
;-)    Anyway, here are the items.

1. "India's lowest priced car out by year-end" in New Straits Times (from
AFP) on May 9.
The gist of it says that a Pune-based company called  the Kinetic group is
to produce a 500cc, 4 -stroke, 2-cylinder mini-car which will retail at
between US$2,857 and 3,571 and targets the 200 million strong middle-class
"who have been apiring for low-priced cars."  The engines are imported from
US-based firm, Briggs and Stratton.  At first only 8,000 will be produced
per year, reaching 50,000 within 5 years.  It will compete strongly with
the Maruti Udyog company which now has 80% of the market share. Maruti's
popular 800 cc model is priced at US$6,571.

2.  "Chinese car maker's bid to boost sales". (New Sraits Times, May 10)
This one says that Jiangnan Automobile company will introduce one of the
first installment-purchase plans in China in the hope of boosting sales of
its super compact Alto model, which retails for about US$7,200 (60,000
yuan).  The article also mentioned that the car market is soaring in China
this year. Beijing's largest car dealer is quoted as saying that his sales
in the first 4 months of the year have equalled the entire sales of 1996.
The percentage of sales which were to private buyers is 82% compared with
60% last year  (and practically zero a few years ago).


A. Rahman Paul Barter
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific (SUSTRAN)
c/- AP2000,  PO Box 12544,  50782 Kuala Lumpur,  Malaysia.
Fax: +60 3 253 2361,  E-mail: tkpb at barter.pc.my



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