LOADED down with goods and livestock, China鈥檚 home-grown three-wheeled vehicles are a common sight chugging along rural roads. These so-called 鈥淐hinese rural vehicles鈥� (CRVs) are often held up as a triumph of appropriate technology. But now it turns out they have a dirty secret. A new survey reveals that they present a worrying environmental problem because of the amount of fuel they consume and the copious emissions they produce. The CRVs are so profligate that they are largely responsible for driving China鈥檚 modern thirst for oil.
The rise of private motoring is often blamed for China鈥檚 growing petroleum habit. 鈥淎ll we hear about is the proliferation of cars in cities,鈥� says Dan Sperling of the University of California at Davis, who led the team that has analysed CRVs鈥� environmental impact for the first time. 鈥淓veryone forgets about the other 800 million people in rural areas.鈥�
China has some 22 million CRVs on the road, nearly equalling its number of cars and trucks. And as fast as car manufacturing is growing in China, topping the million mark in 2002, the country is today making nearly three CRVs for every car.
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The problems these little trucks are causing was rumbled when the Chinese government commissioned a national energy inventory. It found a black hole in the figures, with consumption of diesel far greater than could be accounted for by the vehicles on China鈥檚 roads alone. Now Sperling鈥檚 survey (Transport Policy, vol 12, p 105) has shown that the CRVs鈥� consumption neatly accounts for the difference. And the reason they were ignored is simple: CRVs never figured in China鈥檚 vehicle statistics because they are classified as 鈥渁gricultural machinery鈥�.
It gets worse. The CRVs are so inefficient that they produce as much pollution as all the conventional vehicles in China and account for a quarter of its diesel consumption. This makes them 鈥渁 pretty significant part of China鈥檚 greenhouse gas emissions,鈥� Sperling says.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a bit of a dilemma,鈥� says Mark Radka, head of energy at the UN Environment Programme in Paris. 鈥淚t鈥檚 appropriate technology, and that鈥檚 good for China. But the CRVs鈥� poor efficiency is a problem.鈥�
The CRV dates back to a failed plan to industrialise China鈥檚 rural areas in the 1960s. The surplus machinery was redirected to building a replacement for mules as the workhorse of rural transport, and so the cheap and basic CRV was born. The growth in the number of these vehicles over the past 25 years has been spectacular (see Graph). The most common model has three wheels, though there are also two and four-wheeled versions. They are simple enough for farmers to put them together themselves, although about half are assembled by three major companies.
Most CRVs have a single-cylinder diesel engine, originally designed for use on a stationary agricultural machine. It struggles to reach a top speed of 50 kilometres per hour, but at $300 it is cheap, and it is reliable too. Maintenance? Just change the drive belt once a year.
CRVs are largely exempt from the environmental regulations that apply to other vehicles, and they are so polluting that they are banned from major cities. In rural areas they are subject to a simple visual test on the amount of black smoke they emit, but the limit is rarely enforced. A government estimate puts their emissions per litre of fuel at twice that of trucks.
The future of CRVs is unclear. With China now a member of the World Trade Organization they could find a ready export market elsewhere in Asia. The only other country to produce this type of vehicle in large numbers is India. 鈥淚t could go one of two ways,鈥� says Sperling. 鈥淓ither the government could force the industry to make their vehicles more efficient, or they could discourage CRVs and concentrate on conventional vehicles.鈥�
CRVs could easily be made more economical and less polluting by tweaking the engine to improve combustion efficiency, Sperling argues. 鈥淵ou would need just a little technology transfer to halve emissions and to achieve a 50 per cent improvement in energy consumption.鈥� With changes like these, the CRV could become as important to China鈥檚 development as the Model T Ford was to America鈥檚, he says. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 a desirable strategy for China.鈥�
