Notable vehicles (Q1 2025) : Some People Juggle Geese

Ever since arriving in Hangzhou in December 2022, I’ve been noticing stuff about cars here, and I’ve been meaning to share my observations.

Therefore, here are some facts about the automotive landscape in China (especially Hangzhou):

In addition to imported vehicles and vehicles produced in cooperation with foreign automakers, China has a lot of domestically produced car brands. I’d heard of them because I edited news articles for China Knowledge, an English-language news portal offering business, financial, and real-estate news about China. But to see all the different designs in person is dizzying. Never knew there could be so many different shapes of taillights. (LEDs have changed the world.)

There are “cars” on the road that are tiny, some with only three wheels. These glorified golf carts are mysteriously ubiquitous despite not being road legal. (Apparently, they have recently been officially banned in Beijing.)

Some courier vehicles have no driver. These may start to replace the much more numerous three-wheeled courier vehicles that do have drivers. (But who unloads them, I want to know??? Seems like you’ve still got a last-mile problem.)

There are many consumer model vehicles with AI self-driving features. “Already today, a quarter of all newly registered vehicles in the Chinese market are equipped with a Level 2 driving system for highway scenarios.”

There are often mechanical shelves for cars in underground parking garages to increase capacity. (They are super annoying to park in because you have to back in, and you have to do it very precisely, because there’s only about 6 inches of space on either side of the car. Miss and you damage your tire or rim—happened to Siqi twice.)

There are no vanity license plates, but sometimes the license plate kinda spells something by accident. My brain constantly wants the alphanumeric inscriptions to be real words; they’re usually not. Electric and hybrid cars have green/white license plates, whereas petrol cars have blue license plates. There are a lot of EVs in Hangzhou, maybe 20%-30%. (Here’s a 2022 report with some statistics.)

The highway infrastructure continually amazes me. It’s new, it’s massive, and from what I’ve seen, there’s no graffiti.

Intrigued? See below for 25 photos of vehicles and vehicle infrastructure.

AI vehicles

Don’t look now, but I think we’re being followed by an autonomous delivery truck! It belongs to Cai Niao, a courier service. (Photo from Yuhang District, Hangzhou.)

On the right, the white light in the middle of the back of the car indicates that AI self-driving is active. (Photo from Yuhang District, Hangzhou.) There’s a better photo—or at any rate, a daytime photo—in my post about interesting vehicles in Wuyi and Jinhua.

Flashy vehicles

A flashy orange car, Xiaomi brand. Xiaomi primarily sells smartphones and household electronic devices… so maybe this is kinda like a human-sized knock-off Roomba. Actually, Siqi says it’s a knock-off McLaren! I wouldn’t know. (Photo from Yuhang District, Hangzhou.)

This car has purple details, a sailor moon sticker, and a bow and a cat pasted on the back. (Photo from somewhere in Hangzhou.)

Ugly vehicle OMG

An ugly Mercedes that doesn’t know whether it’s a coupe or an SUV… because it’s both. Reminds me a little of my least-favorite car ever, the 1996 Ford Taurus. (Photo from Yuhang District, Hangzhou.)

Amusing license plates

This license plate looks like it says MBOOOO! (It says M BD000). (Photo from somewhere in Hangzhou.)

This car’s license plate number is “98S86”, which is interesting, because—as Siqi pointed out to me—if you turn it upside down, it stays the same! (Photo from somewhere in Hangzhou.)

This car’s license plate says “BUY”. This plate is from Hebei Province, but the driver apparently works where I work. (Photo from Yuhang District, Hangzhou.)

License plate is a palindrome, apart from the Zhejiang/Hangzhou prefix. (Photo from Yuhang District, Hangzhou.)

License plate kinda looks like a palindrome… also, it contains “SG” and “65”… Singapore was founded in 1965. (Photo from somewhere in Hangzhou.)

Strange number of wheels you’ve got there, mister…

This oddly narrow white thing is a “tricycle,” i.e., an electric vehicle with three wheels. These would be fantastic if we all drove them; it’s just that they would be (and presumably are) easily crushed to bits by any real car, to say nothing of a cement mixer, of which there are plenty. (Photo from Yuhang District, Hangzhou.)

This truck has tires under the MIDDLE!!! Not counting the tires under the driver cab, it has 6 tires from front to back, and appears to have four pairs from side to side. That’s 6x2x4 = 48 tires!!! Maybe it could donate one to the tricycle…? (Photo from somewhere in Hangzhou.)

Proof that Hangzhou is dense

You know how malls, offices, schools, movie theaters, stadiums, amusement parks, airports, etc. in the US have big wide surface parking lots? China doesn’t. Siqi has parked in basements under malls, offices, and hospitals—basements that are built to serve as air-raid shelters if necessary—sometimes as deep as Basement Level 3 (the elevators often use negative numbers instead of a B prefix). As if that weren’t enough, sometimes they install car shelves.