How China's Dirty Cities Are Reshaping Car Design Across World

  • China outsold U.S. in electric vehicles for first time in 2015
  • Ford, GM designing new models according to Chinese regulations

Traffic travels along the Second Ring Road in Beijing, China, on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015. China's great rebalancing -- the long-sought shift away from investment and manufacturing towards consumption and services -- is one of the nation's big themes of the year. One problem: the rebalancing stops at the water's edge.

Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
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For global automakers, China is becoming the new California.

The U.S. state grabbed the lead a few years ago in establishing fuel-efficiency standards to clean up urban smog. Now, as China struggles with its air-pollution crisis, Beijing increasingly influences the models and technology Detroit, Europe and Japan sell around the world.