Small cars: the new trend of auto market

The term "Gold Emission" is usually used by the auto industry to describe the emissions, with which the autos have acted as main sales force in the market.

On the assumption that such a standard is adopted, the autos with Gold Emission are undoubtedly those with the emissions of 1.5L and 1.6L in China's auto market in the first half of this year.

Due to the stimulation of a set of policies like purchase tax relief and auto going to the countryside, autos with the emissions of 1.6L and below have become the main force in the growth of China's auto sales volume during the first eight months of this year; further, in such an emission range, the growth is focused on the auto types with such two emissions as 1.5L and 1.6L according to statistics.

Along with the development of auto market, the "Gold Emission" of Chinese autos presents an increasingly going-down curve, which indicates the peak of emission on the earliest 2.4L, then going down to 2.0L, 1.8L and this year, the emissions of 1.6L and below takes the lead in driving the recovery of market and the 1.6L turns into the "Gold Emission".

Zhang Xiaoyu, Executive Vice President of China Machinery Industry Federation, expressed in the Summit Forum on Developing Passenger Car Market and the Gold Emission Auto held recently that the "Gold Emission" of Chinese autos is possible to decrease further. In his opinion, the so-called Gold Emission shall meet the demands of consumers firstly and become the main body of autos that come into families secondly.

With the continual deepening of polices on encouraging the development of autos with lower emissions, the increasingly improved auto technologies and standing change of consumers' concept in consumption, autos with the emission of 1.4L are expected to become the main force in the market, and the tide of auto's miniaturization is impossible to stop.

"By 2011, the demand structure in China's auto market should be optimized and the market share of passenger cars with the emissions of 1.5L and below will reach over 40 percent, among which the autos with the lower emissions of 1.0L and below will stretch to more than 15 percent."

Viewing from the development object on lower-emission auto types brought forward in the Plan on Adjusting and Revitalizing Auto Industry, the direction that the government encourages high-performance and lower-emission autos can also be seen.

The miniaturization in auto's emission has been a development tendency in abroad, and in accordance with the statistics, the annual sales volume of autos with lower emissions of 1.0L and below arrived at 4.5 million sets, accounting for 35 percent of the total auto sales volume; if the compact hatchback cars are included, the sales volume of minitype cars account for over 60 percent of the total sales volume.

In France, the family cars were cut down by 2cm in length and 40kg in weight averagely, and the small cars with small size, lower price and high quality have become the development trend for French family cars. And in Japan, the market share of autos with lower emissions of 0.66L and below captures more than 60 percent of the total sales volume.

Zhou Shining, General Manager of Jiangxi Changhe Automobile Co., Ltd. calculated an account for the auto miniaturization in China, based on the conditions that the emission of each car drops down by one level, and each car runs for 100km per day averagely, if each car can save 1L gasoline per day, 69,600 tons of gasoline can be saved everyday and 25.404 million tons a year, which equals to a saving of 20.27 percent of import crude oil calculated roughly based on the oil yielding rate of 70 percent.