英语原文

US Car Market Clings To Pole Position

General Motors' announcement this week, that China had surpassed the US in car sales, sounded like a moment of great historical and perhaps even political significance.

But while China is on course to become the world's largest car market, that moment has not yet arrived.

“This is the first time in history that China has surpassed the US,” Michael DiGiovanni, GM's head of global sales and industry analysis, said when US manufacturers announced a steep drop in January US car sales.

GM estimated that the overall annualised US selling rate for cars was 9.8m in January, down from 10.3m in December, compared with China's estimated annualised selling rate of 10.7m last month.

However, the two sets of numbers are not strictly comparable.

“It's not apples to apples,” one industry source said yesterday. GM's estimate for Chinese sales includes all vehicles, including passenger cars, commercial vehicles, trucks and buses. Its US figure excludes everything except passenger cars, pick-up trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Figures from JD Power, the auto consultancy, demonstrate why the comparison is so misleading. JD Power says China produced 9.3m vehicles in 2008 – but 2.8m of those were light commercial vehicles and nearly 900,000 were medium and heavy vehicles, categories not included in GM's US totals.

Auto analysts in China believe that January Chinese car sales – preliminary figures for which should be released early next week – may have recovered from very weak levels at the end of last year.

They are expected to have been boosted by seasonal factors, including the Chinese New Year holiday and a cut in tax rates for small vehicles.

JD Power says anecdotal evidence suggests passenger car sales in January were strong – but not strong enough to surpass US sales. JD Power is forecasting Chinese passenger car sales at 5.7m for this year, with all light vehicles – including commercial vehicles not included in the US figures – forecast at 8.5m in 2009.

中文翻译

通用汽车(General Motors)上周宣布，中国的汽车销量已经超越美国。听起来，这一时刻似乎具有重大历史意义，甚至还可能具备政治意义。

但是，虽然中国正朝着世界第一大汽车市场顺利迈进，那个时刻仍尚未来临。

通用汽车全球销售及产业分析主管迈克尔•蒂乔瓦尼(Michael DiGiovanni)表示：“这是历史上中国首次超越美国。”与此同时，美国制造商宣布今年1月份美国汽车销量大幅下滑。

通用汽车估计，美国1月份汽车总销量折合全年销量为980万辆，低于去年12月份的1030万辆。而中国上月汽车销量折合为全年销量估计在1070辆。

然而，这两个数字严格来说并不具有可比性。

“这不是苹果和苹果的比较，”一位业内人士昨日表示。通用汽车对中国汽车销量的估算包括了所有车辆种类：乘用车、商用车、卡车和公共汽车。而美国的数据仅包括乘用车、皮卡和运动型多功能车(SUV)。

汽车咨询机构JD Power的数据说明了为什么这种比较具有如此高的误导性。JD Power表示，中国在2008年生产了930万辆汽车，其中有280万辆是轻型商用车，近90万辆是中型和重型车辆。这两个车种都没有包含在通用的美国数据内。

中国的汽车业分析师认为，和去年年底极度低迷的状况相比，中国1月份的汽车销量或许已经有所回升。初步数据将于本周初发布。

预计销量受到了季节性因素的推动，包括中国农历春节假期和小排量汽车减税政策。

JD Power表示，坊间证据显示，1月份中国的乘用车销量十分强劲，但仍不足以超越美国。JD Power预测，2009年中国乘用车总销量将在570辆，轻型车辆总销量——包括美国数据中没有包含的商用车——预计在850万辆。