As I observe people satisfaction when they purchase a good deal of money to get a car in North America, the impression has always been much more about the usefulness itself than conspicuous consumption. When you are entitled to buy your own new vehicle in compliance with how much of income you make, you look into the micro factors associated with the car such as how gas-efficient it is, how safe it is etc. rather than decisively choosing the luxury cars such as Audi, BMW, Volkwagen etc. just because you have enough money.
In contrast, in China, brand perceptions and a car’s face are the most important. If you drive a car and encounter an Audi or a BMW on a road, people would most certainly advise you to yield to that car because you do not know who you are messing up with. The market for car in China is so young and has opened up the market only three decades ago. The concerns of efficiency do not alter people’s choices of cars since there are only two kinds of perceptions of brands: those luxurious cars from society of corruption and those cars in lower rungs of the market for “normal people.”