China Summons Top Carmakers Over 'Zero-Mileage' Used Vehicles
- Reference: 0177857609
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/29/2028234/china-summons-top-carmakers-over-zero-mileage-used-vehicles
- Source link:
> China's Ministry of Commerce is meeting with some of the country's biggest automakers to discuss [1]whether the industry is using a loophole to mask weakening sales .
Reuters [2]adds :
> It comes after Great Wall Motor's Chairman Wei Jianjun said in an interview with Sina Finance last week that a phenomenon called "secondhand cars with zero mileage" had emerged in the Chinese market as a result of the industry's years-long price war.
>
> The phenomenon, he said, involved cars that had been registered and had licence plates -- marking them as sold -- but had never been driven being sold in the secondhand market. Wei said that at least 3,000 to 4,000 vendors on Chinese used car platforms were selling such cars. The source said the tactic was seen as a potential method within the industry for automakers and dealers to support new car sales as they try to meet aggressive sales targets.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-27/china-summons-top-carmakers-over-zero-mileage-used-vehicles
[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/china-regulator-summons-automakers-discuss-sale-zero-mileage-used-cars-2025-05-27/
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? If the Chinese govt. was in on this they wouldn't need to even bother making the extra cars .. they could just register ghost cars.
Re: (Score:2)
it's not as simple as that... The thing is that the pressure happens at multiple levels of government and multiple levels of corporations.
An example from the US that had a lot of this was the Wells Fargo account opening scandal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-selling_scandal ) though that was just at the level of a single company, not industry wide.
Not the in the US people don't channel stuff, kick the can down the road etc, but it seems to be a lot more common in places where saying no to
Tags and Plates. (Score:1)
Normally in China all this costs extra and sometimes you have to pay a lot or enter a lottery system in which you don't even know if you will get a license plate. By having these already and transferable, could this just make it easier for first time buyers to buy a car in China.
Genius (Score:2)
We can't afford to admit to the CEO or the Politburo that we failed to meet our new EV sales target. So let's report new EV's as being sold, and then resell them as used vehicles in the secondhand market. Surely that won't have any impact on our ability to meet our new EV sales target.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a saying in China, "If you can cheat, then cheat."
Re: (Score:2)
Rather like the US corporate decision process. Perhaps also Europe, as Volkswagen comes to mind.
Re: (Score:2)
> We can't afford to admit to the CEO or the Politburo that we failed to meet our new EV sales target. So let's report new EV's as being sold, and then resell them as used vehicles in the secondhand market. Surely that won't have any impact on our ability to meet our new EV sales target.
That's next year's problem; and in the meantime i'll still have a job for another year. Or maybe i'll be able to find a job elsewhere in the meantime.
Great Wall Motors (Score:2)
GWM released the Ora Funky Cat car in Europe and it failed spectacularly. I would not be surprised if GWM has been doing a little price dumping of its own to get rid of them - selling them to leasing firms and the like at rock bottom prices to clear inventory. The car itself isn't awful, but its just not as good as the competition and it cost too much money for what it was.
Re: (Score:2)
> Swasikars [1]commit odometer fraud [arstechnica.com] to rip off customers.
Interesting. Shame about the forced arbitration agreements. I thought it was a fundamental right to sue people in USA?
Maybe California should prosecute Tesla for odometer fraud.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/tesla-makes-its-cars-lie-about-their-mileage-lawsuit-claims/
Re: Better than western makers (Score:2)
Swasticars. ðY£ It's so dumbfounding, where company cheating/corruption results in a benefit to the consumer. Totally backwards from the normal western experience.
SOP in Australia (Score:2)
In order to win the sales war Holden used to register cars at the end of the year.
The West lies again (Score:3, Insightful)
This is because we banned their EVs to save useless US/Euro car makers. How many sat untouched on your shores to prevent an EV revolution eradicating the US and German (and therefore EU) economies?
Ford also... (Score:2)
Ford is selling "new/used" Mustang EVs at auction.
Truckloads of them are being dumped.
Overproduction risks (Score:1)
This burst of EV manufacturing capacity is similar to the overproduction of housing in China.
The big differences are: 1) EV's can be exported to willing buyers 2) EV's depreciate 3) EV's from bankrupt manufacturers will probably plumet in value due to the lack of support and parts
Cheat Better (Score:1)
Stupid executives forgot to have employees drive them around to put miles on them.