China's car market used to run like a high-revving engine. But after double-digit growth in much of the past decade, sales volumes have slowed dramatically. Barclays, a bank, recently revised its growth forecast for 2015 down from 8.5% to just 1.7%. Others think sales may even shrink. China's car dealers, mostly newcomers to the business and over-reliant on selling new cars for their livelihoods, are struggling to cope. Carmakers frantically expanded their networks when sales were booming, and now China has a surfeit of dealers. By the end of 2014 some 26,400 had set up, according to Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, 60% more than in America, even though China's new-car sales are just 40% higher. Often, carmakers handed out franchises with little regard for the suitability of either the location or the dealers themselves. The German premium marques have done best at building an efficient network (see chart). But even their dealers are having to scrap among themselves for custom.
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机译：中国的汽车市场过去一直运转强劲。但是在过去十年的大部分时间里都实现了两位数的增长之后，销量急剧下降。银行巴克莱（Barclays）最近将其对2015年的增长预期从8.5％下调至仅1.7％。其他人则认为销售甚至可能萎缩。中国的汽车经销商，大多是新进汽车的人，过分依赖出售新车为生，他们正努力应付。当销售旺盛时，汽车制造商疯狂地扩展了他们的网络，现在中国拥有大量的经销商。根据研究公司桑福德·伯恩斯坦（Sanford C. Bernstein）的数据，到2014年底，已经建立了约26400家公司，尽管中国的新车销量仅增长40％，但仍比美国多60％。通常，汽车制造商在不考虑地点或经销商自身是否合适的情况下发放特许经营权。德国优质品牌在建立有效的网络方面做得最好（参见图表）。但是，即使是他们的经销商也必须在报废的过程中报废。
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