Research: China becomes auto society

Once crowned "the kingdom of bicycles", China is turning more and more into a country of 4 instead of 2 wheels. A research released on Wednesday shows the world's second-largest economy has become an auto society.

The institution that published the report, the China Academy of Social Sciences, says the booming demand for cars is putting further pressure on the government to adjust market curbing policies and step up environmental protection.

When 100 families own more than 20 cars in any given country, it can be called an automobile society.

According to that global standard, China has officially become a country on wheels.

A blue book on the car market published by the China Academy of Social Sciences, the country's top think tank, says Chinese families have been driving over 86 million cars by the end of June last year. That means that every 100 families have bought 21.5 cars on average, right above the benchmark to become an autosociety.

Wang Junxiu, institute of Sociology of China Academy of Social Sciences, said, "Now we have 20 percent of cities in China that are turning into an auto society, and we see that in five years time, it'll be 40 percent, and 60 percent ten years later. It's quite fast, so it brings challenges to the government's urban planning of public spaces and traffic, as well as market regulation."

China, the world's top car market, is still on a fast lane of private car demand. During the first half of 2012, Chinese families bought a total of 7.4 million cars, that's over 1.2 million new cars a month on average.

The blue book also says that the high number of new private cars coming onto the roads in China every day has a very negative impact on the environment. Take the capital Beijing as an example, in 2011 alone, the cars were the major source of toxic gases in the air, releasing over 20 percent of the PM 2.5 particles.

Since January the ninth this year, Chinese mega cities such as Beijing or Shanghai have been choked by the hazardous air pollution. The government raised the alarm for air quality to yellow, which is severe pollution.