大眾陷柴油車丑聞在華業(yè)務(wù)毫發(fā)未傷

由雕龍文庫(kù) 分享時(shí)間：2024-03-10 21:26:53 收藏本文

HONG KONG — China is Volkswagen’s single-largestmarket, and the company vies with General Motors as the country’s biggest automaker. ButVolkswagen’s diesel scandal is unlikely to have many repercussions in China.

香港——中國(guó)是大眾汽車(Volkswagen)的最大市場(chǎng)，此外它還在和通用汽車(General Motors)爭(zhēng)奪該國(guó)最大汽車制造商的地位。但它的柴油丑聞可能不會(huì)在這里產(chǎn)生太大影響。

That is because Volkswagen sells almost no diesel cars in China — fewer than 1,000 of the threemillion or so the company sells each year in the country, where gasoline engines reign.

這是因?yàn)榇蟊娫谥袊?guó)銷售的車型中幾乎沒(méi)有柴油車——公司每年在中國(guó)銷售300萬(wàn)輛車，其中不到1000輛是柴油動(dòng)力;汽油動(dòng)力汽車是在中國(guó)占據(jù)絕對(duì)優(yōu)勢(shì)。

It is not for lack of trying on Volkswagen’s part.

這并不是因?yàn)榇蟊姏](méi)有嘗試過(guò)銷售柴油車。

The company, hoping to replicate its success elsewhere as a diesel leader, lobbied Beijing forthe better part of a decade to let it build diesel-powered cars in China. But regulators in China,which imports more than half of its oil, have repeatedly rebuffed those pleas — partly overenvironmental concerns and partly because the government has preferred to reserve relativelyscarce diesel fuel for trucks and farm tractors.

為了把作為柴油動(dòng)力領(lǐng)先者的成功復(fù)制到中國(guó)來(lái)，大眾在北京游說(shuō)了好幾年，希望能在中國(guó)生產(chǎn)柴油動(dòng)力車。但在中國(guó)，一半以上的石油都是進(jìn)口的，大眾的懇求在監(jiān)管部門那里屢屢碰壁——部分是環(huán)境問(wèn)題，部分是因?yàn)檎氚严鄬?duì)稀缺的柴油留給卡車和農(nóng)用拖拉機(jī)使用。

As a result, the only diesel-powered cars Volkswagen sells in China are imported from Europeand are sold mainly to taxi fleets.

因此，大眾在中國(guó)銷售的柴油動(dòng)力車全部都從歐洲進(jìn)口，主要出售給出租車公司。

The environmental concerns have been raised by Chinese regulators who were in frequentcontact with American experts, notably at the International Council on Clean Transportation, anonprofit research group. The council is the same group that documented the performanceshortfalls of Volkswagen diesels in the United States and brought the matter to theEnvironmental Protection Agency.

中國(guó)監(jiān)管部門對(duì)柴油動(dòng)力車相關(guān)的環(huán)境問(wèn)題很關(guān)心，他們與美國(guó)專家頻繁接觸，尤其是國(guó)際清潔交通委員會(huì)(International Council on Clean Transportation)的專家。這是一個(gè)非營(yíng)利性的研究機(jī)構(gòu)，正是他們將大眾汽車柴油發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)性能不足的問(wèn)題記錄下來(lái)，報(bào)告給了美國(guó)國(guó)家環(huán)境保護(hù)局(Environmental ProtectionAgency)。

American researchers have long been more worried than European experts that diesel emissionsmight be carcinogenic. In addition, diesel exhaust tends to have more particulates thangasoline engine emissions. Particulates are a big health concern in dusty northern China, andthey add to the notoriously bad air pollution in Beijing itself.

與歐洲的專家們相比，美國(guó)研究人員長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)更擔(dān)心的是柴油車排放物致癌的可能性。此外，柴油機(jī)廢氣中的顆粒物通常多于汽油發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)。而在中國(guó)北方塵沙天氣中，顆粒物是一大健康問(wèn)題，導(dǎo)致了北京本身就嚴(yán)重的空氣污染進(jìn)一步惡化。

Making matters worse is that, until fairly recently, many Chinese refineries lacked the technologyto remove much of the naturally occurring sulfur contaminants when they produced diesel fromcrude oil. The resulting high pollution when diesel was burned as truck fuel made regulatorswary of allowing the nation’s fast-growing car fleet to burn diesel as well.

更糟糕的是，直至最近，中國(guó)的很多煉油廠在從原油中提取柴油時(shí)，缺少將自然產(chǎn)生的硫污染物除去的技術(shù)。結(jié)果便是柴油作為卡車燃料燃燒時(shí)產(chǎn)生大量污染，導(dǎo)致監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)不敢輕易讓全國(guó)增長(zhǎng)最快的小汽車也使用柴油。

Another predicament in China for Volkswagen involves Chinese consumers. The car-buyingpublic has long been skeptical of diesels, associating them with tractors and viewing them asunsophisticated. Company executives had long expressed confidence, though, that theycould change these perceptions with an energetic advertising and public relations effort — ifonly they could win permission to mass-produce diesels in China.

在中國(guó)，大眾面臨的另一個(gè)困難涉及中國(guó)消費(fèi)者。購(gòu)車者長(zhǎng)期對(duì)柴油持懷疑態(tài)度，會(huì)把它和拖拉機(jī)聯(lián)系起來(lái)，認(rèn)為這種車比較低級(jí)。但大眾的高管一直表示，只要能獲準(zhǔn)在中國(guó)大量生產(chǎn)柴油車，他們有信心通過(guò)有力的廣告和公關(guān)活動(dòng)來(lái)改變這些觀念。

Diesels have long offered a trade off — higher air pollution, even with cleanly refined diesel,but also better fuel economy. Europe is a market that highly prizes fuel economy, with some ofthe world’s most stringent gas mileage standards. China and the United States have somewhatless stringent mileage standards, although they can still be hard for automakers to meet if theyproduce a lot of big cars and sport utility vehicles. As a European automaker, Volkswagendeveloped a lot of expertise in building fuel-efficient diesels and started its Chinese diesellobbying efforts around 2000.

很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間以來(lái)，柴油車一直是一種權(quán)衡的產(chǎn)物。它帶來(lái)的空氣污染更嚴(yán)重，哪怕用的是清潔提煉的柴油，但它的燃油效率也更高。歐洲市場(chǎng)高度重視節(jié)燃油經(jīng)濟(jì)性，部分油效標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是全世界最嚴(yán)格的。中國(guó)和美國(guó)的油效標(biāo)準(zhǔn)多少?zèng)]那么嚴(yán)格，但既便如此，對(duì)大量生產(chǎn)大型車輛和運(yùn)動(dòng)型多功能車的汽車生產(chǎn)商來(lái)說(shuō)，要達(dá)到這些標(biāo)準(zhǔn)也還是有困難的。作為一家歐洲汽車生產(chǎn)商，大眾積累了大量生產(chǎn)節(jié)能柴油車的專業(yè)知識(shí)，并在2000年前后開(kāi)始在中國(guó)展開(kāi)游說(shuō)行動(dòng)。

Since 2008 or so, though, Volkswagen executives have pushed less hard for Chinese diesels.That may be because they began manufacturing expensive but fuel-efficient models ofgasoline engines in China. This enabled the company to meet Chinese fuel-economy standardswithout needing to resort to diesel engines.

但從2008年左右以來(lái)，大眾高管在中國(guó)推銷柴油車的力度減弱了。這可能是因?yàn)樗鼈冮_(kāi)始在中國(guó)生產(chǎn)昂貴但卻節(jié)能的汽油發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)車輛。這讓該公司能夠不用求助于柴油發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)便達(dá)到中國(guó)的節(jié)油標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。

And those three million cars a year it sells in China indicate that the company is still findingbuyers, even with the more expensive engines.

在中國(guó)年銷量達(dá)300萬(wàn)輛的事實(shí)表明，該公司的產(chǎn)品依然有買主，盡管用的是更昂貴的發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)。

“After 2008, they did not have a strong motive to promote diesel, said Yale Zhang, themanaging director of Automotive Foresight, a Shanghai consulting firm.

“2008年以后，他們已經(jīng)沒(méi)有特別強(qiáng)烈的理由去推銷柴油車了，上海咨詢公司“汽車市場(chǎng)預(yù)測(cè)總監(jiān)張?jiān)フf(shuō)。