With rising gas prices, many Americans are turning to alternatives from their gas guzzling cars. And yet while common sense would lead one to believe that a motorcycle is a better alternative to a car, the well established name brand motorcycles aren't seeing the same huge spike in sales that motor scooters are. And why not?

The answer is simple. The best selling brands of motorcycles in America are, relatively speaking, expensive. Whether you're considering economic evaluators such as "total cost of ownership", "return on investment", or "opportunity cost", trying to save on gas by buying a Harley Davidson, Honda, or other name brand motorcycle just doesn't produce the right bottom line.

So does this mean that one has to settle for a motor scooter as a result of the high gas prices? Well, as long as free market forces are allowed to run their natural course, the answer is "no". Options are available to the American looking for a way to save gas without having to settle for a scooter, but those options are in slim availability in the US at the moment. And those options are Chinese motorcycles.

According to the Motorcycle Industry Council, 50% of the motorcycles in the world originated in China, and China has been the leading country in the production of motorcycles since 1994. These numbers usually don't make any sense to American motorcycle enthusiasts because in America Chinese motorcycles make up a very slim minority of the motorcycles in use in the US. So where has China been sending all these motorcycles they've been making?

Primarily Chinese motorcycles are exported to countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The demand in these countries for extremely low cost transportation is higher than anywhere else in the world. For many families, the only vehicle the family will ever own and use is a basic small engine scooter or motorcycle built in China.

In the past few years China has begun exporting their motorcycles to the US. However, the economics that have existed in America have been vastly different than they've been in countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Motorcycle buyers in the US aren't looking for the lowest form of transportation available. In the vast majority of cases, an American purchases a motorcycle as a supplement to another primary vehicle that they own. These conditions have traditional left the motorcycle product offerings from China as a non-factor to American motorcycle buyers.

However, $4 a gallon gas has significantly changed the demographics of the American motorcycle buyer. Now we see a new demand for extremely low cost transportation as a primary vehicle from Americans, and the name brand motorcycle manufacturers aren't producing products that meet that need. Enter China.

China is ramping up as fast as possible to provide the same products that they dominate the Asian, Middle Eastern, and African markets with. While most motorcycle enthusiast balk at the idea of America being flooded by Chinese motorcycles, capitalistic forces are far more powerful than their opinions or objections.

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