大衆陷柴油車醜聞 在華業務毫髮未傷
香港——中國是大衆汽車(Volkswagen)的最大市場，此外它還在和通用汽車(General Motors)爭奪該國最大汽車製造商的地位。但它的柴油醜聞可能不會在這裏產生太大影響。
That is because Volkswagen sells almost no diesel cars in China — fewer than 1,000 of the three million or so the company sells each year in the country, where gasoline engines reign.
這是因爲大衆在中國銷售的車型中幾乎沒有柴油車——公司每年在中國銷售300萬輛車，其中不到1000輛是柴油動力；汽油動力汽車是在中國佔據絕對優勢。
It is not for lack of trying on Volkswagen’s part.
這並不是因爲大衆沒有嘗試過銷售柴油車。
The company, hoping to replicate its success elsewhere as a diesel leader, lobbied Beijing for the 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 over environmental concerns and partly because the government has preferred to reserve relatively scarce diesel fuel for trucks and farm tractors.
爲了把作爲柴油動力領先者的成功複製到中國來，大衆在北京遊說了好幾年，希望能在中國生產柴油動力車。但在中國，一半以上的石油都是進口的，大衆的懇求在監管部門那裏屢屢碰壁——部分是環境問題，部分是因爲政府想把相對稀缺的柴油留給卡車和農用拖拉機使用。
As a result, the only diesel-powered cars Volkswagen sells in China are imported from Europe and are sold mainly to taxi fleets.
因此，大衆在中國銷售的柴油動力車全部都從歐洲進口，主要出售給出租車公司。
The environmental concerns have been raised by Chinese regulators who were in frequent contact with American experts, notably at the International Council on Clean Transportation, a nonprofit research group. The council is the same group that documented the performance shortfalls of Volkswagen diesels in the United States and brought the matter to the Environmental Protection Agency.
中國監管部門對柴油動力車相關的環境問題很關心，他們與美國專家頻繁接觸，尤其是國際清潔交通委員會(International Council on Clean Transportation)的專家。這是一個非營利性的研究機構，正是他們將大衆汽車柴油發動機性能不足的問題記錄下來，報告給了美國國家環境保護局(Environmental Protection Agency)。
American researchers have long been more worried than European experts that diesel emissions might be carcinogenic. In addition, diesel exhaust tends to have more particulates than gasoline engine emissions. Particulates are a big health concern in dusty northern China, and they add to the notoriously bad air pollution in Beijing itself.
與歐洲的專家們相比，美國研究人員長期以來更擔心的是柴油車排放物致癌的可能性。此外，柴油機廢氣中的顆粒物通常多於汽油發動機。而在中國北方塵沙天氣中，顆粒物是一大健康問題，導致了北京本身就嚴重的空氣污染進一步惡化。
Making matters worse is that, until fairly recently, many Chinese refineries lacked the technology to remove much of the naturally occurring sulfur contaminants when they produced diesel from crude oil. The resulting high pollution when diesel was burned as truck fuel made regulators wary of allowing the nation’s fast-growing car fleet to burn diesel as well.
更糟糕的是，直至最近，中國的很多煉油廠在從原油中提取柴油時，缺少將自然產生的硫污染物除去的技術。結果便是柴油作爲卡車燃料燃燒時產生大量污染，導致監管機構不敢輕易讓全國增長最快的小汽車也使用柴油。
Another predicament in China for Volkswagen involves Chinese consumers. The car-buying public has long been skeptical of diesels, associating them with tractors and viewing them as unsophisticated. Company executives had long expressed confidence, though, that they could change these perceptions with an energetic advertising and public relations effort — if only they could win permission to mass-produce diesels in China.
在中國，大衆面臨的另一個困難涉及中國消費者。購車者長期對柴油持懷疑態度，會把它和拖拉機聯繫起來，認爲這種車比較低級。但大衆的高管一直表示，只要能獲准在中國大量生產柴油車，他們有信心通過有力的廣告和公關活動來改變這些觀念。
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 of the world’s most stringent gas mileage standards. China and the United States have somewhat less stringent mileage standards, although they can still be hard for automakers to meet if they produce a lot of big cars and sport utility vehicles. As a European automaker, Volkswagen developed a lot of expertise in building fuel-efficient diesels and started its Chinese diesel lobbying efforts around 2000.
很長一段時間以來，柴油車一直是一種權衡的產物。它帶來的空氣污染更嚴重，哪怕用的是清潔提煉的柴油，但它的燃油效率也更高。歐洲市場高度重視節燃油經濟性，部分油效標準是全世界最嚴格的。中國和美國的油效標準多少沒那麼嚴格，但既便如此，對大量生產大型車輛和運動型多功能車的汽車生產商來說，要達到這些標準也還是有困難的。作爲一家歐洲汽車生產商，大衆積累了大量生產節能柴油車的專業知識，並在2000年前後開始在中國展開遊說行動。
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 of gasoline engines in China. This enabled the company to meet Chinese fuel-economy standards without needing to resort to diesel engines.
但從2008年左右以來，大衆高管在中國推銷柴油車的力度減弱了。這可能是因爲它們開始在中國生產昂貴但卻節能的汽油發動機車輛。這讓該公司能夠不用求助於柴油發動機便達到中國的節油標準。
And those three million cars a year it sells in China indicate that the company is still finding buyers, even with the more expensive engines.
在中國年銷量達300萬輛的事實表明，該公司的產品依然有買主，儘管用的是更昂貴的發動機。
“After 2008, they did not have a strong motive to promote diesel,” said Yale Zhang, the managing director of Automotive Foresight, a Shanghai consulting firm.
“2008年以後，他們已經沒有特別強烈的理由去推銷柴油車了，”上海諮詢公司“汽車市場預測”總監張豫說。
