300,000 people bid for 20,000 license plates in Beijing
300,000 people in Beijing apply for second round of number drawing, with a 5.7% chance of getting a license plate. The second round of application for passenger car quota in Beijing ended yesterday. There are 306,865 individual applications and 13,386 corporate applications from 7,108 enterprises. The chance of getting quota for license plate in the second round of number drawing is 5.7%.
Beijing municipal government issued a new policy to relieve traffic jam at the end of 2010. The quota for newly added motor vehicles in Beijing in 2011 is restricted to 240,000. People who want to buy new cars have to file applications before getting license plates through number drawing.
In the first round of public number drawing, 17,600 individual applications, or 8.37% of the total, are picked. The remaining unselected applications are automatically transferred to the second round, in addition to the newly added 137,045 individual applications. The second round of number drawing will be carried out on February 26.
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“The remaining unselected applications are automatically transferred to the second round, in addition to the newly added 137,045 individual applications.”
Ohboy! So if the people who lost out in January and February, are rolled over into the candidate pool for the March drawing…
This clever plan? I don’t think they thought it totally through.
(Is it too late to bring back the bicycle culture Beijing had before they went car crazy?)
So of the 320251 *total* applications (individual + corporate) for round 2, around 180k or over half are the “losers” from round 1 (this figure is approximate as the article doesn’t provide the # of new corporate applications in round 2).
I’m guessing that the number of new applications will decrease in future rounds, but the decrease won’t be large enough to offset the backlog of “losers” from the previous rounds so the chances of winning will be lower. Interesting.
This also means that there were around 200k applications in round 1, so the decline in new applications can already been seen.
Bit a mess isn’t it? They really they should wipe the slate clean after each round and make them all apply again. People may be bidding even if they are not 100% ready to purchase a vehicle but know they have to keep trying or they miss out.
The corporate numbers look like small businesses are trying are trying to secure 1-2 plates each. It may not be the case though.
That is true – folks who are thinking of buying a car (but not necessarily 100% ready to buy) will enter the lottery anyways. However, if they do win the lottery they have 6 months to complete the purchase otherwise they forfeit the plates (and I believe they have to wait a certain amount of time before they can enter the lottery again).
That said, entering the lottery early is the best way to play this new system (more rounds = more chances to win), especially when everyone else is doing the same thing.
The corporate applications are drawn once two months. So all the 13,386 ones are new.
Susan, do you know if taxis and buses fall under the 20,000 plate/month restriction or are they classed differently being public transport?
I’m pretty sure that buses and taxis are not restricted. Taxi plates already have their own reserved range of numbers, and buses use differnt plates altogether.
Besides, they want to encourage people to take public transport.
That makes perfect sense, thanks for clearing that up.
Sure.