China showing preference for environment friendly cars

Statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers have shown that the consumers in the Chinese market are buying economy cars with low emissions.

These cars dominated the sales in the auto market in china in the first half year of 2006. They accounted for half of the top ten best selling vehicles.

Five of the top ten cars sold in the country were models with emission below 1.6 liter. Tianjin FAW’s Xiali continues to head the charts on the list of top selling low-emission cars with 93,800 vehicles sold in the first half of the year. The car is well known for its high fuel efficiency.

It was followed by Excelle of Shanghai General Motors and Elantra of the Beijing Hyundai. These two models sold 86,900 and 85,400 units respectively.

With fuel prices rising around the world, automobile buyers are increasingly buying cars with high fuel efficiency. The trend is most visible in the United States where the sales of fuel guzzling SUVs and trucks have fallen down massively in the last couple of years. Both Ford and General Motors are struggling to compete against Japanese automakers including Toyota and Honda.