A record number of motorists bid in this month's auction for Shanghai license plates yesterday, the last before the city adopts higher vehicle emission standards.

Of the 9,000 car plates up for grabs, 8,200 were offered to private buyers, up 800 from last month.

But supply was far outpaced by the increase of bidders, which surged more than 50 percent from March to reach 94,241.

The percentage of successful bids dropped to a record low of 8.7 percent — down from 12 percent last month.

This surge in demand was driven partly by owners of out-of-town registered National IV emission standard cars, said Eddie Zhang, a car dear in Shanghai.

They will not be able to change them to a Shanghai car plate once the National V emission standards come into force next month in the city. Access to local elevated highways at rush hours is restricted to vehicles with Shanghai license plates.

Despite the huge hike in demand, a price ceiling mechanism setting a 72,600 yuan (US$11,664) limit for first-round bids ensured Shanghai car plate prices continued to stabilize.

Yesterday, the average price rose marginally by 241 yuan to 74,113 yuan and the lowest winning bid increased just 200 yuan to 74,000 yuan.

But while soaring prices have been tamed, the current system is bringing technical frustrations for the online bidders, said Zhang.

Motorist Jason Shen was among those who encountered web traffic problems at the most critical time of yesterday's online auction — the last minute.

Bidders, constrained by the price ceiling in the first session, in the second round can only increase their offers by 300 yuan at most each time, based on the real-time average.

As bidding strategies are interdependent, almost everyone waits until the very end of the auction to place their final bids.

This leads to a surge in traffic and serious problems transmitting data, said Shen, who was left empty-handed yesterday.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)