In China, 86% of gasoline consumption is burned to power automobiles

Shanghai. September 13 (Gasgoo.com) – Automobiles burn one third of China’s total oil consumption and 86 percent of China’s total gasoline production, a senior official said at an automobile industry conference in Tianjin early this week.

"If the trend continues, automobiles will burn 57 percent of China’s total oil consumption by 2010," said Zhang Xiaoyu, president of the council of China Automotive Engineering Society (CAES) and vice president of the China Machinery Industry Federation.

Official statistics show China has a total amount of 49.85 million automobiles in use in 2006 and automobiles burn 86 percent of China’s total gasoline consumption and 24 percent of China’s total diesel consumption.

To reduce oil consumption by automobiles, Zhang outlined a dual strategy plan in the conference: first, to encourage the development of clean and hybrid fuels, which will blend gasoline and diesel; second, to develop high-speed engine technology, which could raise gasoline engine efficiency by 8 percent and diesel engine efficiency by 7 percent.

“If 20 percent of China’s sedans use diesel engines by 2020, the whole nation can save 18 million tons of fuel annually,” Zhanghai said.