Good move for Chinese industry, they really need to learn from our mistakes. I find it surprising that China isn't mandating a CAFE type of mileage standard, but at 40+ mpg equivalent with significant incentives for BEVs. Their roads are jammed with cars and they import almost all of their oil, and their auto fleet is growing at an incredible pace. But if they did encourage BEVs, it would just make the pollution worse in the short term because their energy supply is mainly coal. The pollution is so bad that you can see and feel the air in Beijing, it is like walking in a sandstorm on a bad pollution day.
I hope they build a ton of the new, safer nukes, otherwise their air is just going to get worse.

Recent videos of Chinese vehicle crash tests on "you tube" really show problems with safety of many vehicles. I'm sure that these problems can be fixed with different engineering, but for now I think it would be quite a big barrier to entry for Chinese cars in the US market. Great on the increase in hybrid tech though, and I hope it reduces the thirst for more oil.

I guess as I read this I'm beginning to come around to seeing why so many of these fuel economy arguments end up with people on the one hand urging some sacrifice for conservation and efficiency while on the other people decrying what they perceive as arbitrary restrictions on freedom.

I read when I was young that Mao feared if China industrialized, the population was so vast there would be no full employment, and this was part of the reasoning for what was then a nation on bicycles, not cars. How wrong he was. Yet this didn't come without cost-- an environmental disaster looms if every Chinese were to drive a Prius to work (let alone a Hummer). And that's just transport-- consider the fridge and the a/c!

The solutions we are going to want, at the end of the day, are going to be the techologies that permit us to develop sustainably. I've not been to China, but I hope they are learning from our mistakes; when I see all this steel and all these big engines sending one human being down the road, I do wonder how we Americans ever convinced ourselves this was more desirable than mass transit and more efficient urban layout. The Chinese mustn't follow our lead into that. What's more, we've got to realize there's a better way. Yet, if that solution requires people have a change of heart, make different choices because they sincerely want different things, I don't know how we're going to get there. I don't think enough people are yet aware of the collective risks we are taking.

It is always amusing to see someone with a country full of polluting technologies trying keep people of different races and religions from acquiring the same. Always do as we say and not as we do.

China needs to take the lead in greener and greenest technology. The whole world will benefit from that.

I would have preferred that the US have the lead on this but almost all the politicians here are wholly owned subsidiaries of big energy.

"Hope it's not out of the price range of the average Chinese car buyer."

800 million Chinese live in rural poverty. There are 100 million that live a relatively affluent life in some cities.

China used to have only 2 million vehicles registered a short while ago and this number has exceeded 20 million now in a short time. When they get to 200 million, we should see quite a demand for fuel.

This is yet another good reason to help developing nations get the latest and most efficient vehicles. If only for the developed world's indirect self interest, keeping fuel prices from completely going off the charts and slowing economic growth.