Chinese car sales explode by 70 percent

China's auto sales are redlining. First to recover from carmageddon China had jumped into double digit growth territory in February and never looked back. Months after month, the increases became bigger. Now, they explode.

In July, China registered the biggest gain since January 2006, passenger vehicles up 70.5 percent, overall vehicle sales up 64 percent. Double digit growth has solidly returned to China.

“Sales in the second half will continue to be strong, even if there’s a slight slowdown in growth rates,” said Ricon Xia, an analyst at Daiwa Research Institute in Shanghai via Gasgoo. “Not only has demand for small cars been good, bigger vehicles have started to recover as well.” Cash for Clunkers notwithstanding, with numbers like these, China will easily outdistance the USA as the world’s largest car market in 2009.