China to produce 40 million vehicles by 2020

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By Tim Beissmann | January 20th, 2011

The president of one the largest automotive manufacturers in China has predicted that domestic vehicle production will triple within the next 10 years to around 40 million cars per year.

Beijing Automotive (BAIC) President, Wang Dazong, told reporters in Detroit that he believed half of the world’s vehicle production would take place in China by 2020.

Mr Dazong predicted BAIC – currently China’s fifth-largest vehicle manufacturer – would more than double its production within five years to more than three million units annually.

BAIC is currently signed to joint ventures with numerous mainstream automotive manufacturers, including Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Chrysler and Mitsubishi, and last year purchased the tooling for the previous-generation Saab 9-3 and 9-5.

Mr Dazong said hybrid and electric vehicles would play a significant role in the future of his brand and the industry as a whole.

“When you’re talking 40 million [cars] a year and 15 million from India, energy will become a problem”, Mr Wang said, as reported by the Financial Times.

“At the same time, we realise that in the short term it’s not going to become mainstream.”

He predicted hybrid and electric vehicles would account for around five percent of BAIC’s sales by 2015.

Sales of passenger cars in China peaked at 13.8 million in 2010, topping the US for the second consecutive year.

Potentially standing in the way of Mr Dazong’s predictions is the Chinese Government, which has recently taken steps to reduce the number of new vehicles registered in major cities.

Earlier this month, CarAdvice reported that the Beijing City Council had limited the number of passenger vehicle registrations to 240,000 for 2011 for the city, down from around 800,000 in 2010.

Hung Low

Guess this will spark China’s interest into securing their future oil supplies!
They have started securing their food supplies by buying out farms and land here in Aus and elsewhere.

My Cars Called T-Rex

Too think that if that top pic was taken from that same postion 20years ago most vehicles in the picture would be bicycles.

Are our PolLIES just dumbasses or are they sellouts??????

Has to be one or the other…..

Shak

Not the pollies faults. People in Australia prioritise money over patriotism. We don’t seem to care that almost every single one of our Aussie icons is now gone. If the Chinese have enough money and are smart enough to buy up all our stuff cheap then it is our fault and no one else can be blamed.

My Cars Called T-Rex

True Shak people are alot more materialistic these days but if the general populus is money focused then the leaders would be the same,they just get more money.
But what you wrote makes you seem like one of the ones going for money over patriotism(I know your not).

What is happening in NWS at the moment is a absolute Disgrace.

5 billon for the power selloff,It was valued at 25 billon 12years ago and even back then,that was a bargan price.

DGS

Reading this artical gave me a feeling like standing on a beach watching a tsunami aproaching.

40 million cars per year! This bodes poorly for smaller volume car factories anywhere else in the world. All the major brands seem to have already set up some degree of maufacturing in China, will it be viable in the future to manufacture anywhere else?

The implications would go well beyond the auto industry

The supply vs demand curves for oil over the next 15 years could also be interesting.
PoisonEagle

I agree with the tsunami analogy but more literally.
The greed and growth of this industry will quickly send the Earth into a barren wasteland.
The whole CAFE/ EPA standards thing where CO2 levels are all well and good, but what’s the point when manufacturing volume is getting larger, and therefore more cars/ still more pollution than before these standards .
The world is a beautiful place, but greed fueled industry is an ugly , life consuming thing that will not stop until we wipe ourselves out.
I am as petrol-headed as they come but the vast majority of the immense volume of new cars are uninspiring appliances that are becoming derivative, and China’s car business epitomizes this.
jack

Hehe which is why China has struck first, and is building subway lines everywhere, building on the successes of the Japanese and Korean model. There will not be 40 million cars but 40 million subway passengers daily.