This Is How Chinese Automakers Game The System

Read the full story on The Auto Wire

To say Chinese automakers don’t play fair would be an understatement, but a recent report really blows the top off things. While it addresses one aspect of how the Middle Kingdom doesn’t entirely play fair, we suspect it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

You’re not imagining things: used cars have become super expensive lately.

According to Reuters, which did some spelunking into Chinese government documents, plus interviewed car dealers and traders, China’s automakers have been artificially inflating sales for years.

The explosive report highlights how manufacturers will take brand new cars from the factory, shipping them to foreign markets as supposedly used vehicles. That sounds weird, but it’s an underhanded way to inflate sales figures.

Not surprisingly, those cars apparently are such garbage even Chinese consumers don’t want them. Thus, they’re disposed by being shipped to places like Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East as “zero-mileage” vehicles.

There’s been a price war going on in the domestic Chinese auto market, which has then spilled into other countries. Desperate, some automakers have turned to underhanded methods to show growth.

But for years the Chinese auto industry looked the other way, sweeping the practice under the rug. From what we understand, there are plenty of other questionable if not downright unethical practices that are also going on in the business, with Chinese Communist Party leaders oftentimes directing such things.

It’s known Chinese political leaders love what’s called gray zone warfare tactics. While those can take the form of fishing vessels taking over an area of the ocean or building villages in territories disputed as part of India, they can also be economic in nature.

In other words, we’re highly skeptical of all the praise far too many in the automotive industry have been heaping on Chinese automakers lately. With unbelievably low prices and incredible technological claims, we smell a rat, a communist one to be clear.

This report from Reuters helps verify the CCP is using automakers in its gray zone aggressions against the West.

Image via BYD

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