Reference no: EM132197067
On the Edge The Auto Industry and Its Effects in China In 2000, China’s car market began to expand dramatically due to the increasing wealth of the country, the encouragement of the government, and a growing middle class that wanted the com- fort, convenience, and pride of car ownership. Foreign car com- panies eagerly flocked to help China expand its car industry, including Volkswagen, General Motors (GM), Honda, Toyota, Ford, Citroen, and BMW, who together invested more than $20 billion to kick-start China’s auto industry. By 2010, China had become the largest car market in the world with over 18 million cars sold that year. With a population of 1.2 billion people and double-digit growth rates, China estimated that by 2035 as many as 300 million cars would be traveling on its highways. In 2011, Volkswagen announced it had sold 2 million cars in China the previous year, and in 2015 GM announced it had sold 3.4 million the previous year.
Was it wrong for the car companies to help China expand its auto industry?
Why or why not
Critics suggested, however, that the overzealous auto com- panies unwittingly might have inflicted serious harm on the global environment. To begin with, the pollution from so many new promised to have severe environmental impacts. Even “clean” cars will generate carbon dioxide as they burn fuel, thus worsening the greenhouse effect. Cars also produce smog and other health hazards (tuberculosis cases will double; emphysema and lung cancers will rise), and China’s form of gasoline contains lead, a toxic metal. Expanding China’s car production will increase oil consumption, placing heavy pressures on the world’s dwindling oil resources. China’s rising oil consumption was partly responsible for continuing oil prices of over $85 a barrel in 2014. If car ownership in China continues to rise, by 2020 China’s oil consumption could be two-thirds of the United States’ (the United States consumes one-fourth of the world’s oil), a level the world’s oil supplies probably cannot support. Some experts claim world oil production would be insufficient to meet the rising demands of China, the United States, and the rest of the industri- alized world, and promising future economic disruptions and political or military conflicts. If China were to substitute electric vehicles for gas-fueled cars, as it plans to, it will have to expand its coal-powered electric plants, which in turn will increase its carbon dioxide emissions.