Almost every vehicle China shipped abroad as a “used car” in 2024 was, in fact, a brand new car. Reuters reporting from late July puts the share at roughly 90%, and the practice is now drawing fire from regulators in Beijing, pushback from Moscow, and quiet concern in Manila, where Chinese brands already hold a growing slice of the new-vehicle market.
The 90% figure, and where it comes from
Wang Meng, a vice secretary general at the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA), told Reuters that about 90% of the 436,000 used vehicles China exported in 2024 were “zero mileage” cars that had been re-registered. Compared with China’s 6.41 million new-car exports in the same year, the gap is stark. If even a fraction of those “used” units were actually new inventory being moved off dealer lots, it inflates the country’s headline export performance, depresses residual values abroad, and undercuts the legitimate used-car trade that several importing countries were trying to build.
The economics, says Sino Auto Insights founder Tu Le, are simple desperation. “This is the outcome of an almost four year price war that has made companies desperate to book any sales possible,” he told Reuters, framing the scheme as the natural endpoint of a domestic market that has run out of growth. It is the same pressure that pushed the Toyota bZ5 to a half-Tesla sticker in China and that has dragged Chinese EV prices down across the rest of the region.
Why a new car becomes a “used” one
The trick is procedural, not mechanical. A dealer registers a new vehicle as a private transfer, often within days of leaving the factory. The car is then technically “second hand” on paper, and it can be exported under the looser used-vehicle rules of the destination market. In some cases, the cars are driven to a second registration site to create a credible paper trail of a sale. The vehicle itself is untouched.
Sichuan province has tried to formalise the channel. Alibaba International signed a deal with the local government in 2024 to use Chengdu and Mianyang as dedicated hubs for exporting zero-mileage new energy vehicles (NEVs) under the used-car paperwork. The setup is openly advertised: it pairs a logistics corridor with a digital marketplace, and it gives Chinese brands a way to clear NEV inventory that the domestic market has stopped absorbing at the same pace as factories can build it.
Where the pushback is coming from
Russia moved first, and bluntly. In 2023, Moscow effectively banned re-registered Chinese vehicles after discovering that cars from Chery and Geely had crossed the border with paperwork that did not match their actual condition. The two brands declined to comment at the time, but the policy change is now part of the standard import checklist for anyone shipping Chinese cars to the Russian Far East.
Inside China, the language is getting sharper. Changan chairman Zhu Huarong publicly called on regulators on 7 June for a coordinated crackdown on the practice, warning that it was damaging the long term credibility of the country’s auto exports. State media followed. People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, ran an editorial on 10 June condemning the practice as a form of fraud that risked inviting trade action from importing countries.
Even Great Wall Motor, one of the most prominent exporters, has felt the pressure. In May 2025, the company (listed in Shanghai as 601633.SS) was publicly criticised at an industry forum for the gap between its export declarations and the actual condition of the vehicles crossing the border. The criticism was uncomfortable because Great Wall is one of the brands that domestic regulators had previously held up as a model exporter.
The scale of the workaround
The Reuters investigation sketches a system that has moved well beyond a few bad actors. At least 20 local Chinese governments have set up some form of re-registration service aimed at exporters, according to industry analysts cited in the report. Xing Lei, an analyst at the Shanghai based consultancy AutoXing, told Reuters the practice has become a default for dealers trying to clear excess NEV stock. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association, has separately estimated that a significant share of the country’s NEV exports are not what they appear to be on paper.
Michael Dunne, a US based automotive consultant, said the situation is exactly the kind of behaviour that triggers anti-dumping cases. William Ng, who runs Chongqing based vehicle exporter Huanyu Auto, said his company has turned down repeated offers to source zero-mileage cars for overseas buyers, because the legal exposure for the exporter, the dealer, and the buyer is simply too high.
What the split actually looks like
| 2024 Chinese vehicle exports | Units | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Total new-vehicle exports | 6,410,000 | 93.6% |
| Total used-vehicle exports | 436,000 | 6.4% |
| Of which zero-mileage (paper used) | ~392,000 | ~5.7% of total |
| Of which genuinely second-hand | ~44,000 | ~0.6% of total |
Source: China Automobile Dealers Association via Reuters, July 2025. Totals reflect the CADA estimate that ~90% of used-vehicle exports were zero-mileage re-registrations.
Why this matters for the Philippines
The Philippines is not yet a major direct buyer of Chinese used-car exports, but the new-vehicle side of the trade is already visible. Brands including BYD, Chery, Geely, MG (SAIC), and GAC are now regulars on the local market, with showrooms in Quezon City, Alabang, and Cebu. Philippine car sales in the first seven months of 2026 came in at 241,725 units, down about 10% year on year, even as Chinese brands continue to undercut Japanese and Korean rivals on price. The BYD Atto 2 and the Geely-backed Lynk & Co 900 PHEV are both now on the price list in the Philippines, with the same aggressive sticker that defined the China market in 2024.
The pricing pressure that drove Chinese dealers to re-register new cars as used in 2024 is the same pressure that pushed those brands to discount aggressively in the Philippines through 2025 and into 2026. If a meaningful share of “used” Chinese vehicles arriving in regional markets (Indonesia, the UAE, and parts of Central Asia are big destinations) turns out to be lightly used, the residual value hit will land on the legitimate second-hand market in those countries. In the Philippines, where the organised used-car industry is still small and the informal market dominates, the longer term risk is reputational: a wave of cheap, nearly new Chinese vehicles in neighbouring markets could pull down expectations for used EV pricing here too, just as the local EV market is starting to find its footing.
The bigger question, raised by CADA’s Wang Meng, is whether Beijing will let the workaround run as a relief valve for a slowing domestic market, or whether it will tighten the rules in response to the same trade partners whose markets are being undermined. The People’s Daily editorial suggests the direction of travel. What that means for Filipino buyers, who benefit from lower Chinese-brand prices today but may inherit a flooded second-hand market in two to three years, is the story to watch.
