That's the main reason.... US education.
Instead of 500K EB5 can buy into the birthing tourism scheme
for ~30K and get the kid US citizenship which saves a lot
on education.

Not that any admission will change anyone's minds.

At least not the patients at Beijing Cancer Hospital.

Yep, the pollution in BJ is bad, no doubts about it. But e.g. I read recently that if one buys an electric car, one can buy it outside the lottery system now in place....not terribly practical or affordable right now, but maybe in a few years.

Exploding batteries or no, I would love a chevvy volt (or equivalent, if they existed), but I fear the price is completely unaffordable.

tb

Chevy Volts priced at 78k USD in China. GM is offering buy back due to dangerous battery issues. Find a 2000-2006 Honda Insight avg mpg high 60s can hipermile to avg high 90s mpg. Haven' t seen one in China, though

What's attractive about the volt is that it's not a hybrid: it's completely electric (100%) on short journeys, typical of the capital (at least in distance if not time). That should drastically reduce pollution, even compared with a top hybrid.

tb

Well sadly, I'm sure there are more 20 year old rich Chinese kids buying Ferrari's than Volts...

Maybe a Tesla for the rich kids , not as sexy as a Lambo or Ferrari, but doesn' t look like grandpa's Volt.

I just came back to BJ this evening, and within minutes of touchdown my eyes started to hurt. Upon disembarking, the air had this forest fire smell to it, and was thick as pea soup. Really bad.

There is a coalfired boiler at PEK, they are working on reducing its emissions
now.

Bejing Capital
Airport Coal Fired Boiler

The US government (and, if you don't believe them, the average owner of the Honda Insight) would beg to differ. They say 41 mpg average. Willing to bet hypermiling doesn't get it more than 20%-30% higher.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Power...ht&srchtyp=ymm

Buy it now, Tesla will only last as long as Elon Musk can find idealists with cash (like the US Gov't). His product does not have a viable long term business case. And good luck making a warranty claim in 3 years when they're out of business and the technology isn't taken up by anyone.

I'm not overly thrilled about it, but the Volt's the only real game in town.

And now for something on topic:

I've lived here in Shanghai for just over a year. Granted, I have been out of the country a bit traveling, but I've only seen blue sky exactly twice (once for 1 day, once for 2 days) which coincided with massive tropical depressions / storm systems far offshore (most likely sucking the pollutants out to sea - there's a unpleasant thought, take local seafood off the shopping list!).

I live in a highrise in Lujiazui literally on the east side of the river. Many, many days, I can't make out the bund which is on the opposite side of the river. It's not a wide river.

Another example I had is going up to the top of any of the tall buildings here (Pearl Tower or Shanghai Financial Center for example) - your view is always limited by pollution, not by range of sight.

Additionally - and not sure if this is a true impact or not, but it's at least anecdotal - locals here are firework CRAZY. Every couple days there's a 4th of July outside.

*Every* day following a 4th of July is massively "smoggy", which makes sense given the materials used in construction of the fireworks. Imagine those fireworks aren't doing wonders for the environment either.

I'm excited to be able to wrap up my tour of duty here soon and go somewhere less polluted.

That said, other than pollution, I love it here (though I can't recommend it as a Chinese citizen, only a foreigner -- being a citizen would probably suck).

The scales vary massively by country. Some countries believe X is bad, others believe (or, perhaps more appropriately, want their citizenry to believe) Y. Without a doubt though, the more open western nations are more honest about giving their air a "crappy" rating than the more closed eastern ones.

Start here (though as with any wiki, take it with a grain of salt):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_quality

SH > BJ ?

Your referencing the Insight 2

Insight 1 was 2000 -2006

119 mpg over 1361 miles

1561 miles on one tank 13.5 gallons

Volt does not compare to the Insight 1.