Lacking tax/social incentives and suffering from import duties, the Toyota Prius isn’t selling well in China. The Chinese car is double the price of the American counterpart. What seemed like a sure bet for Toyota in a boom market turned out not to work too well.
China’s largest cities are choking on pollution and the Chinese government is pushing up taxes on gas guzzlers, but the public is hungry for horsepower.
While small cars account for 60% of the Chinese car market, luxury model sales are growing rapidly signaling a rise in the economic status of the Chinese.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061120/AUTO01/611200305/1148
As the Chinese economic status grows, the demand on resources grow. For example, people are consuming more meat and less grain. It takes a pile of grain to feed a cow and produce beef…which takes a lot of farmland to grow the grain and feed the cow to make the steak. Adding to this is the global initiative to use grains for bio-fuels to replace petroleum. More humans are trying to squeeze fuel and less efficient food out of a raw grain supply.
http://www.energybulletin.net/21736.html
Transportation in China is evolving in the same way. Human power is replaced by fossil fuel. Smaller cars, mopeds and motorcycles are replaced with luxury cars as the global market feeds China’s economy with new wealth. A Chinese population eager for vehicles (and larger vehicles) will eventually place a squeeze on the global raw food supply as the population and demand for resources increases exponentially.
The Prius, that has come to symbolize conservation in the US, isn't trendy in China.
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