Advertising discourse has been pivotal in shaping public understanding of environmental issues. While much has been written on the negative impacts of green marketing narratives on the global struggle against contemporary ecological crises (e.g. Budinsky and Bryant, 2013; Gunster, 2005, 2007; Hansen, 2002; Hansen and Machin, 2008), such studies have been relatively sparse in non-Western contexts. This article focuses on an issue that has arguably become a priority on China’s public agenda: the expansion of private car ownership and its devastating social and environmental impacts.

Over the past three decades, the accelerating industrialization and marketization in China has been accompanied by a sharp increase of domestic environmental issues, which has led to growing public attention and policy discussions. In particular, major metropolitan areas such as Beijing and Shanghai have suffered from increasing low visibility days since the 2000s, making air pollution a high-profile public issue in China (Chan and Yao, 2008; Chen, 2014a, 2014b). Among the various contributing factors of China’s poor air quality, the dramatic increase in private car ownership has been frequently regarded as a major cause by government and media narratives. For instance, the number of vehicles in Beijing increased from 1.39 million to 2.65 million between 1999 and 2005 (Chan and Yao, 2008). In response to such explosive increase, the Beijing government has taken a series of tough measurements to control vehicle exhaust, such as adopting the Euro-III standards and conducting traffic control by banning certain license numbers. One recent example showing the tough control of private vehicles in China was the use of odd-even car ban1 in Beijing and its surrounding six provinces between late August and early September, 2015. This radical measurement reduced almost 50% road traffic and significantly improved air quality. However, when the ban was lifted in early September,Beijing’s air pollution quickly returned to alarming levels (Tatlow, 2015).

As the public concern over private vehicles’ negative environmental impacts keeps growing, question marks begin to haunt the discourse regarding private vehicle use in China. Within this context, many automobile brands begin to employ concepts such as “energy efficiency” and “earth friendly” to continue the promotion of private car ownership. Empowered by various forms of green consumerism, these seemingly environmental narratives tend to underscore the glaring contradictions between the marketing of private vehicles and their actual usage. In many ways, these narratives have received a great success: although automobile sales in China have slowed down in 2014 and are very likely to face even weaker growth in coming years, China remains the most promising market for global automobile corporations (Murphy, 2015). In other words, the growth of private car ownership in China has not yet been challenged by the rising public concern over air pollution. In this regard, the green narratives promoted by China’s automobile advertisements (auto-ads) would continue to be a crucial component in the public debates on China’s escalating environmental degradation.