Wealthy, hip Chinese urbanites want to own... Hummers. Beijing Auto rolled out its own version, called the Trojan. And SUV imports from traditional luxury carmakers BMW, Porsche, Lexus, and Cadillac hit record levels in 2007.
Chinese demand for SUVs began to show serious momentum in 2003 – sales doubled to 200,000 that year. The industry has enjoyed double-digit growth every year since, with 370,000 of the behemoths sold in 2007.
The iconic image of America for the last decade has been the big, glittery SUV. Now wealthy Chinese people want to live like Westerners.
Demand for big cars fuels demand for oil – China's consumption grows about 8% per year. In addition, the government subsidizes gasoline, so prices are nearly 40% lower than here in the U.S.
You see, everybody wants to blame "greedy" oil companies for high gas prices... but the real reason is our TV shows. All that TV we exported for the past 10 years showed the world how we live and, more importantly, what we drive.
So don't blame ExxonMobil for high oil prices, blame western TV lifestyles exported to China.