With their market share sliding, their bonds downgraded to junk and their quarterly reports showing 10-digit losses, the Big Three – DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors – are facing a challenge far more formidable than the Japanese onslaught of the 1970s. With 1.3 billion people, an economy growing at a sustained rate of 8-10% a year and a middle class larger than the entire population of the United States, car fever has hit China on a monstrous scale. Millions of Chinese with growing disposable income can now abandon their bicycles and motorcycles in favor of a family car. As a result, China’s auto market is growing by leaps and bounds, and it is by far the world’s fastest-growing. In 2003 demand for automobiles soared by 75%. Last year it slowed down to a more sustainable growth level of about 15%.