Shanghai license plates continue to be called ‘Tin Gold’ by the media due to their rapid rise over the past five years. During February’s auction prices rose by an average of 8300RMB over January’s auction, in February 9000 plates were put up for auction with the lowest selling plate being sold for 83,571RMB. In comparison a license plate in February 2012 cost a mere 55,000RMB.
License plates are expected to rise again in March with the authorities only releasing 8000 plates. Shanghai’s auction method is pushing Chinese consumers to buy increasingly better cars, and pushing Chinese cars off the streets of Shanghai as many people are either registering their cars outside of the city (but are unable to use elevated expressways during rush hour) or are simply up shopping their purchase to something more luxurious.
Holy shiite, that’s steep!
That’s supply/demand at work as 8k/month is not a lot, it’s a lot less than Beijing’s 20k/month. But if your roads are at capacity then you’ve got to limit the # of new cars, which is what SH is doing.