China #1, US #2... China surpasses US in monthly vehicle sales

[MikeMike]

http://www.autonews.com/articl...3/ANA05/902039967/1131
(sub req'd)

basic gist, In the U.S. 660k vehicles were sold last month, or about the same amount as in 1963
790k vehicles were sold in the last month in China...

the U.S. is no longer the largest vehicle market in the world... Major things are occuring, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Train]

Not an apples to apples comparison.

Not only is China (5?) times the size of the US, the vast majority of the people buying cars there are buying thier first car.

When money gets tight here, people can drive thier current car another year.

 

[LegendKiller]

Not to mention China's unemployment rate is soaring, in a month or two they lost more than 20MM jobs. They have a massive population heading back into the farm fields. Civil unrest is increasing.

China's recession will be huge.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Ditto on what Train said. This isn't even remotely close to a good analogy. I suspect in addition to what he said, we also buy much nicer cars than they do. 790k cars at a cost of say an average of 8k per car vs. 660k cars at an average of 18k per car would be a pretty big difference. I don't know what the actual #'s are but I suspect the amount of revenue generated per car is MUCH higher on U.S. purchases.

 

[CLite]

Originally posted by: MIKEMIKE
http://www.autonews.com/articl...3/ANA05/902039967/1131
(sub req'd)

basic gist, In the U.S. 660k vehicles were sold last month, or about the same amount as in 1963
790k vehicles were sold in the last month in China...

the U.S. is no longer the largest vehicle market in the world... Major things are occuring, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

You know the U.S. has 30% more registered cars on the road than licensed drivers. Combine this with almost 0% savings rates the last few years, trillions in overall household losses (combination of IRAs/House values/etc.), and a lack of fresh credit lines and I can certaintly believe this.

Cars have been over consumed in the U.S. for quite a while, and I don't see any reason for us to not keep trending down in sales due to the back inventory and the complete lack of any kind of pent up demand.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Ditto on what Train said. This isn't even remotely close to a good analogy. I suspect in addition to what he said, we also buy much nicer cars than they do. 790k cars at a cost of say an average of 8k per car vs. 660k cars at an average of 18k per car would be a pretty big difference. I don't know what the actual #'s are but I suspect the amount of revenue generated per car is MUCH higher on U.S. purchases.

Average new car in the us is about $30k. I don't know what it is in China, but if we look at India's silly car recently that was super cheap (and completely impractical, not to mention simply illegal in the US) we can assume that the average new car in China is well under $10k.

The van costs $3,700 (£1,872)

The US does way overconsume on cars. Think of how many old cars on the road you see, say 15 years old. Basically no vehicles from the early 90's do I ever see, despite them being perfectly reasonable to fix. They are not fixed, though, because it doesn't make sense to put $2500 into an engine replacement on a car worth so little, but it's worth so little because we all demand new cars and they are easily attainable, but plenty of cars go to the junk yard that could be put into service.

 

[StageLeft]

The average price for an entry-level compact, which ranges from $8,000 to $16,000 in China

No mention of how many actually buy those in particular, though.

 

[desy]

If you don't see the big picture in this you're missing something important
It goes back to oil, once they become the same car dependant culture we are then competition for foreign oil is going to drive it stratospheric.
They surpassed Japan last year and will keep trending up even if this was a monthly anomally.
Thats 10 million cars in a yr, in 10yrs 100 Million

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Train
Not an apples to apples comparison.

Not only is China (5?) times the size of the US, the vast majority of the people buying cars there are buying thier first car.

When money gets tight here, people can drive thier current car another year.

US Population: 281,421,906
PRC Population: 1,242,612,226

It is curious that they have not surpassed us in sales of automobiles long before this.

You would see many more vehicles being sold in the US if the entire US had the same safety and environmental laws as developing nations (not that I am advocating this). Vehicles would be much cheaper to make, sold at a lower price and fuel would be cheaper.

Plus, there are plenty of existing cars floating around the US market, if this figure is accurate:
Text

The US has 250 million vehicles compared with China?s 13 million vehicles on the road

If that figure is true, they have a bit of catching up to do.

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Not to mention China's unemployment rate is soaring, in a month or two they lost more than 20MM jobs. They have a massive population heading back into the farm fields. Civil unrest is increasing.

China's recession will be huge.

Hard landing for China is inevitable, question is how hard?

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Not to mention China's unemployment rate is soaring, in a month or two they lost more than 20MM jobs. They have a massive population heading back into the farm fields. Civil unrest is increasing.

China's recession will be huge.

Hard landing for China is inevitable, question is how hard?

Personally, unless the commies can bend like crazy, I think "regime change" hard.

 

[CLite]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Not to mention China's unemployment rate is soaring, in a month or two they lost more than 20MM jobs. They have a massive population heading back into the farm fields. Civil unrest is increasing.

China's recession will be huge.

Hard landing for China is inevitable, question is how hard?

Personally, unless the commies can bend like crazy, I think "regime change" hard.

I think you are nuts. They have budget surpluses and even the most dire predictions are that the economy will not grow as fast as it currently is. I don't think there is a single person in the world actually predicting a decrease in economy size in China. They have a very large savings rate per person (50%<--- absurdly huge figure), plenty of natural resources, low energy costs, and almost no backlog in items like cars/etc. They will continue to grow without a doubt.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Ditto on what Train said. This isn't even remotely close to a good analogy. I suspect in addition to what he said, we also buy much nicer cars than they do. 790k cars at a cost of say an average of 8k per car vs. 660k cars at an average of 18k per car would be a pretty big difference. I don't know what the actual #'s are but I suspect the amount of revenue generated per car is MUCH higher on U.S. purchases.

Average new car in the us is about $30k. I don't know what it is in China, but if we look at India's silly car recently that was super cheap (and completely impractical, not to mention simply illegal in the US) we can assume that the average new car in China is well under $10k.

The van costs $3,700 (£1,872)

The US does way overconsume on cars. Think of how many old cars on the road you see, say 15 years old. Basically no vehicles from the early 90's do I ever see, despite them being perfectly reasonable to fix. They are not fixed, though, because it doesn't make sense to put $2500 into an engine replacement on a car worth so little, but it's worth so little because we all demand new cars and they are easily attainable, but plenty of cars go to the junk yard that could be put into service.

Not me. We have bought 8 new cars in our lifetime. All but 1 American made. My wife insisted on an altima this time. Had We bought our 1st new car from Japan. Thats all we would have ever bought. No comparison to the American cars. My car is the old T-Bird bought in 94. V-8 . Still runs great . The suspension is noisey but well maintained. I figure that will be my last car. As I rarely drive now. But I will tell ya this . That T-Bird on its best day could not standup to the All around quality and performance of the Altima. Not even close. And they were about = In price. $24. t-b 94/ $28 Altima 08.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: CLite

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Not to mention China's unemployment rate is soaring, in a month or two they lost more than 20MM jobs. They have a massive population heading back into the farm fields. Civil unrest is increasing.

China's recession will be huge.

Hard landing for China is inevitable, question is how hard?

Personally, unless the commies can bend like crazy, I think "regime change" hard.

I think you are nuts. They have budget surpluses and even the most dire predictions are that the economy will not grow as fast as it currently is. I don't think there is a single person in the world actually predicting a decrease in economy size in China. They have a very large savings rate per person (50%<--- absurdly huge figure), plenty of natural resources, low energy costs, and almost no backlog in items like cars/etc. They will continue to grow without a doubt.

You're missing the point. China needs hyper growth in order to sustain their population. So if they were forecasted to grow 10%, but actually grew 3%, yes it grew but a 70% drop in the expected growth rate is huge and could cause social upheaval. 20mm jobs out of 6 billion population may seem small by %, but 20mm people can do a lot of harm in terms of unrest.

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Not to mention China's unemployment rate is soaring, in a month or two they lost more than 20MM jobs. They have a massive population heading back into the farm fields. Civil unrest is increasing.

China's recession will be huge.

Hard landing for China is inevitable, question is how hard?

Personally, unless the commies can bend like crazy, I think "regime change" hard.

I wouldnt go that far. remember Tienamen square? That was about as close as China got to going democratic. I dont see them getting any closer in the near future.

There will be some serious social pressures and the govt will bend, but it wont break.

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: CLite

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Not to mention China's unemployment rate is soaring, in a month or two they lost more than 20MM jobs. They have a massive population heading back into the farm fields. Civil unrest is increasing.

China's recession will be huge.

Hard landing for China is inevitable, question is how hard?

Personally, unless the commies can bend like crazy, I think "regime change" hard.

I think you are nuts. They have budget surpluses and even the most dire predictions are that the economy will not grow as fast as it currently is. I don't think there is a single person in the world actually predicting a decrease in economy size in China. They have a very large savings rate per person (50%<--- absurdly huge figure), plenty of natural resources, low energy costs, and almost no backlog in items like cars/etc. They will continue to grow without a doubt.

You're missing the point. China needs hyper growth in order to sustain their population. So if they were forecasted to grow 10%, but actually grew 3%, yes it grew but a 70% drop in the expected growth rate is huge and could cause social upheaval. 20mm jobs out of 6 billion population may seem small by %, but 20mm people can do a lot of harm in terms of unrest.

An easy way to visualize this is that China needs Net Exports to grow in order for it to grow. Since the global economy is in a contraction, China exports may not even grow YOY from 2008-2009 and if they do it will be at a pathetic rate.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: CLite

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Not to mention China's unemployment rate is soaring, in a month or two they lost more than 20MM jobs. They have a massive population heading back into the farm fields. Civil unrest is increasing.

China's recession will be huge.

Hard landing for China is inevitable, question is how hard?

Personally, unless the commies can bend like crazy, I think "regime change" hard.

I think you are nuts. They have budget surpluses and even the most dire predictions are that the economy will not grow as fast as it currently is. I don't think there is a single person in the world actually predicting a decrease in economy size in China. They have a very large savings rate per person (50%<--- absurdly huge figure), plenty of natural resources, low energy costs, and almost no backlog in items like cars/etc. They will continue to grow without a doubt.

What's their working population? How many work in manufacturing? How much of GDP is export manufacturing? How much has export manufacturing gone down? How much further will it go down? Who is there, right now, to buy their junk? Not their own population?

Answer those questions and you'll see how quickly this situation can deteriorate.

China's whole plan was to fund us long enough to build a self-sustaining internal-spending middle class that didn't depend solely upon exports to survive. They probably needed another 10 years to do that.

 

[compuwiz1]

We have disposable diapers here, there they have disposable cars. :laugh:

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
...

What's their working population? How many work in manufacturing? How much of GDP is export manufacturing? How much has export manufacturing gone down? How much further will it go down? Who is there, right now, to buy their junk? Not their own population?

Answer those questions and you'll see how quickly this situation can deteriorate.

China's whole plan was to fund us long enough to build a self-sustaining internal-spending middle class that didn't depend solely upon exports to survive. They probably needed another 10 years to do that.

For the most part I agree with you. But the vast majority of China is still just a bunch of poor famers who could give a rats ass about all this manufacturing going on.

Its not like in the US where only 2% of us are working in agriculture. In China if the economy is in the crapper, they just eat what they grow and go about thier merry way being poor as dirt like they've always been anyways. In the US people starve and shit really hits the fan.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
...

What's their working population? How many work in manufacturing? How much of GDP is export manufacturing? How much has export manufacturing gone down? How much further will it go down? Who is there, right now, to buy their junk? Not their own population?

Answer those questions and you'll see how quickly this situation can deteriorate.

China's whole plan was to fund us long enough to build a self-sustaining internal-spending middle class that didn't depend solely upon exports to survive. They probably needed another 10 years to do that.

For the most part I agree with you. But the vast majority of China is still just a bunch of poor famers who could give a rats ass about all this manufacturing going on.

Its not like in the US where only 2% of us are working in agriculture. In China if the economy is in the crapper, they just eat what they grow and go about thier merry way being poor as dirt like they've always been anyways. In the US people starve and shit really hits the fan.

There's never been a situation in the US where 2% of population were farm payroll AND there was a depression or severe rescession. During the GD it was similar to China.

 

[Strk]

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Ditto on what Train said. This isn't even remotely close to a good analogy. I suspect in addition to what he said, we also buy much nicer cars than they do. 790k cars at a cost of say an average of 8k per car vs. 660k cars at an average of 18k per car would be a pretty big difference. I don't know what the actual #'s are but I suspect the amount of revenue generated per car is MUCH higher on U.S. purchases.

Average new car in the us is about $30k. I don't know what it is in China, but if we look at India's silly car recently that was super cheap (and completely impractical, not to mention simply illegal in the US) we can assume that the average new car in China is well under $10k.

The van costs $3,700 (£1,872)

The US does way overconsume on cars. Think of how many old cars on the road you see, say 15 years old. Basically no vehicles from the early 90's do I ever see, despite them being perfectly reasonable to fix. They are not fixed, though, because it doesn't make sense to put $2500 into an engine replacement on a car worth so little, but it's worth so little because we all demand new cars and they are easily attainable, but plenty of cars go to the junk yard that could be put into service.

Not me. We have bought 8 new cars in our lifetime. All but 1 American made. My wife insisted on an altima this time. Had We bought our 1st new car from Japan. Thats all we would have ever bought. No comparison to the American cars. My car is the old T-Bird bought in 94. V-8 . Still runs great . The suspension is noisey but well maintained. I figure that will be my last car. As I rarely drive now. But I will tell ya this . That T-Bird on its best day could not standup to the All around quality and performance of the Altima. Not even close. And they were about = In price. $24. t-b 94/ $28 Altima 08.

Well, I guess someone has to state the obvious, but you're comparing a 94 to an 08. The T-Bird couldn't standup to a Fusion, let alone the refresh for the 2010 model.

But as others have said as far as the OP is concerned, sure, they sold more, but so what? You have more first time car buyers and they're a lot cheaper (do they even have safety or emissions requirements?).

 

[Thump553]

There are plenty of valid contrary points made here, but quite frankly I find the Chinese car market being bigger than the US one a rather mindblowing milestone. At a minimum it means that the current cheap oil is a temporary abberation.

I wonder when the Chinese will get around to any sort of meaningful emission controls?

 

[sunzt]

This is a pretty meaningful statistic. It's all about trends, and figures like these show that china is rapidly growing even during down times. It took many decades for America's car industry to mature and sell the amounts that it currently does in modern times. It took China only about couple decades to rapidly ramp up to surpass American sales, and it will only increase

What you are all witnessing is not just a sales figure comparison. It is part of the rapid expansion and growing consumerism in China that will soon overshadow America's consumer market. While exports have diminished, domestic demand has increased during these times and will continue to do so.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Just another sign, perhaps, of China's ascendancy towards first world status and America's descent towards second- or third-world status.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: Strk

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Ditto on what Train said. This isn't even remotely close to a good analogy. I suspect in addition to what he said, we also buy much nicer cars than they do. 790k cars at a cost of say an average of 8k per car vs. 660k cars at an average of 18k per car would be a pretty big difference. I don't know what the actual #'s are but I suspect the amount of revenue generated per car is MUCH higher on U.S. purchases.

Average new car in the us is about $30k. I don't know what it is in China, but if we look at India's silly car recently that was super cheap (and completely impractical, not to mention simply illegal in the US) we can assume that the average new car in China is well under $10k.

The van costs $3,700 (£1,872)

The US does way overconsume on cars. Think of how many old cars on the road you see, say 15 years old. Basically no vehicles from the early 90's do I ever see, despite them being perfectly reasonable to fix. They are not fixed, though, because it doesn't make sense to put $2500 into an engine replacement on a car worth so little, but it's worth so little because we all demand new cars and they are easily attainable, but plenty of cars go to the junk yard that could be put into service.

Not me. We have bought 8 new cars in our lifetime. All but 1 American made. My wife insisted on an altima this time. Had We bought our 1st new car from Japan. Thats all we would have ever bought. No comparison to the American cars. My car is the old T-Bird bought in 94. V-8 . Still runs great . The suspension is noisey but well maintained. I figure that will be my last car. As I rarely drive now. But I will tell ya this . That T-Bird on its best day could not standup to the All around quality and performance of the Altima. Not even close. And they were about = In price. $24. t-b 94/ $28 Altima 08.

Well, I guess someone has to state the obvious, but you're comparing a 94 to an 08. The T-Bird couldn't standup to a Fusion, let alone the refresh for the 2010 model.

But as others have said as far as the OP is concerned, sure, they sold more, but so what? You have more first time car buyers and they're a lot cheaper (do they even have safety or emissions requirements?).

My 88 Camry stands up to the the 94 Americans just fine.