Gridlock No Threat to Profitable Growth of China's Auto Market

China's auto market last year continued the sales surge that helped it oust the U.S. auto market from its top spot in 2009. Sales of passenger cars, buses and trucks in China rose 46% in 2009 to 13.6 million , beating out U.S. vehicle sales of 10.4 million. The growth pace of China's auto market was the fastest in more than 10 years, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, and continued to soar in the first six months of 2010 - jumping 30.45% in that time. While booming auto sales contributed to growth opportunities for automakers like General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM ) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F ), analysts worried that the drastic increase in vehicles would contribute too much to painful traffic gridlock and wear and tear to aging Chinese infrastructure. The influx of cars on roadways even led Beijing to announce at the end of last year that it would allow just 240,000 vehicles to be registered in 2011, a little more than 33% of the number of new vehicles registered in 2010. The impending limits sparked a buying spree in December, with 30,000 new vehicles registered in one week alone.