China is sending its world-beating auto industry into a tailspin

Posted by F0urLeafCl0ver

2 Comments

  1. >Unwanted vehicles get dumped onto gray-market traders such as Zcar. Some surface on TikTok-style social media sites in fire sales. Others are rebranded as “used” — even though their odometers show no mileage — and shipped overseas. Some wind up abandoned in weedy car graveyards.

    This seems suboptimal but better than having no manufacturing base like the service-West (barring Korea, Japan, Korea)

    >The brewing crisis has larger implications for China’s economy, in which the auto industry and related services comprise about one-tenth of gross domestic product.

    How big is it in Germany for comparison?

    >At the Chengdu mall, Wang Lihong navigates a rooftop parking lot on a scooter while clutching a selfie stick, capturing video for social media. Wang is a livestreaming host for Zcar, one of the gray-market traders flipping brand-new vehicles that dealers couldn’t sell.

    >Hosts like Wang broadcast on platforms such as Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. Wang recently told his 1.25 million followers that Zcar was Sichuan province’s biggest seller of **zero-mileage used cars**. He said they are usually available in March, June, September and December, “**when dealers rush to meet the quarter or annual sales targets set by the automakers for cash rebates**.”

    I think the role of dealership is not really mentionned enough on this sub

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