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In the past two days, many people may have seen that a Tesla Cybertruck has been put on a green license plate in China and is driving normally on the road.

To be honest, when I first saw the picture, my reaction was: Huh? Is this photoshopped?

After all, Musk has long said that it would be difficult for this car to be legally driven on the road in China.

At the beginning of this year, Tesla shipped a batch of exhibition cars to China, but these exhibition cars could only be driven on closed roads and were pulled by carts on public roads.

But after I looked through the photos and videos online, I found something wrong. This is not photoshopped, but a real licensed car. All the photos I have taken so far are of the same car, with a license plate number starting with Tianjin A.

How did the car come from? We asked the people at Tesla,The other party said that it was not officially introduced and should have been imported through parallel imports.

So this may be the first and probably the only Cybertruck in China with a green license plate.

Someone has already listed this car on a second-hand platform. It's the founder's edition, with an English interface, Google Maps, and a mileage of 800 kilometers. It's brand new.

Since it is the first one in China, we won’t bargain with you for the price.3.6 millionYou should know that the highest configuration of this car in the United States is currently 114,000 US dollars, which is equivalent to 810,000 RMB.

3.6 million, you are just here to rob me.

After confirming that the car was real, Brother Neck immediately mobilized all kinds of connections,I asked people from car companies and parallel import car dealers, trying to figure out how it got in.

Before that, let me give you a brief introduction to what parallel imports are.

A dozen or twenty years ago, cars could only be sold through dealers approved by the brand. Cars brought in through other channels were of unknown origin and could not be registered.

It was not until 2014 that the State Administration for Industry and Commerce issued a regulation to stop the registration of automobile general dealers and automobile brand authorized dealers, which means that car dealers no longer need to obtain authorization from manufacturers to sell cars.

Parallel importation was born, and car dealers could buy cars from all over the world, ship them back to China, and after completing all the formalities, they could register the cars just like ordinary cars. For example, the Mercedes-Benz G500 4×4² was not introduced by the manufacturer before, so you couldn’t buy it in China, but now you can.

It is equivalent to adding another channel to supplement the official import. Because there are no layers of dealers, some parallel imported models are much cheaper than those through official channels.

Therefore, the volume of parallel imports is also increasing. In 2015, the proportion of parallel imported cars in total imports was 10%, and in 2019, it has risen to 15%.

Although the policy has been relaxed, this business is not that easy to do.

Generally, parallel imported cars can be divided into American version, Middle Eastern version, Canadian version, European version, Mexican version, etc. according to the place of import.

You have to go to these places to get a car source first. It must be a new car. Refurbished cars and nearly new cars are not acceptable. Different countries have different regulations, and the configuration of the same car is also different. It is not easy to successfully buy a car and understand its configuration.

After the car arrives, it cannot be sold immediately. It must comply with domestic automobile regulations.

According to the information from the "Customs Release" public account, parallel imported vehicles must be rectified at designated locations, and after rectification they must comply with national safety technical standards such as the "Technical Conditions for Motor Vehicle Operation Safety" (GB 7258).

For example, some US-spec cars have red rear turn signals, which must be changed to yellow before they can be registered. These modifications must be made by the car dealers themselves.

The most troublesome thing is that the costs and sales risks are not small.

Obviously, these imported cars are not cheap, and they cost tens of millions of yuan each, and that's just the cost of the bare car, plus comprehensive taxes, customs declaration and inspection, showroom fees, labor costs, etc. If you get a batch of more than a dozen cars, it will cost tens of millions of yuan in minutes.

After finally passing the test, the market may change. I thought there would be many buyers, but they were just shouting slogans. If I keep the car in my hands, I may not be able to turn over the funds.

It can be said that it is not easy to bring in cars that are not available in the country. As for Cybertruck, it is even more difficult to get it officially licensed.

Previously, people said that it could not pass domestic regulations. There were mainly three problems:pedestrian protection, exterior projections and steer-by-wire.

Let me add a comment here. According to our understanding, this Cybertruck is more likely to be introduced as a pickup truck. The reason for mentioning this is that common passenger cars belong to the M1 category, while pickup trucks belong to the N1 category. There is a slight difference between the two in terms of regulations. Next, we will discuss both of them together.

OK, let’s talk about them one by one.

Pedestrian protectionThe current national standard is "Protection of Pedestrians from Vehicle Collision" (GB/T 24550-2009).

The bumper and hood of the vehicle are required to absorb energy and protect pedestrians. The front of Cybertruck is different from other cars. It is straight. The key is that the stainless steel on the surface of its body is very hard and bulletproof. If pedestrians hit it, they will be injured twice.

My personal opinion is that it would not have passed pedestrian protection regulations.

But there are two questions here.

First, the regulation begins by saying "excluding M2 and N-type vehicles whose horizontal distance between the R point of the driver's seat and the transverse plane of the center of the front axle is less than 1000mm." Pickup trucks belong to N-type vehicles. We don't know the data of Cybertruck, so maybe it doesn't need to deal with this.

Second, this regulation is a GB/T recommended national standard, not a mandatory one. This national standard will be updated to a mandatory national standard on January 1 next year, and the new national standard will be more stringent.

So there is also a saying that the window period for Cybertruck to enter the domestic market is between now and New Year's Day next year, and it will be more difficult to introduce it after that.

Let me talk about the second one.External protrusions.

Passenger cars are different from pickup trucks. The national standard for passenger cars is "External Projections of Passenger Cars" (GB 11566-2009).

The problem that Cybertruck is stuck with is that the radius of the corners of protruding parts on the outer surface of the vehicle body should not be less than 2.5mm.

Some of you may not be familiar with the concept of fillet. Simply put, the larger the fillet radius, the smoother the object, and the smaller the fillet radius, the sharper the object. This rule is also to prevent the protruding parts of the car body from being too sharp and hurting others.

The 30X stainless steel used in Cybertruck is thick and hard, and cannot be processed into curved surfaces like ordinary body sheet metal. It can only be welded and bent simply, which is the main reason why Cybertruck has so many sharp corners.

A senior vehicle development engineer told me that it would be difficult for Cybertruck to pass the 2.5mm "bulge" test.

The corresponding national standard for pickup trucks here is "External protrusions of the cab of commercial vehicles" (GB 20182-2006).

There is no requirement for fillet radius in the general regulations here, but it is mentioned in the special regulations for decorative parts, commercial symbols and other parts.

From this perspective, if Cybertruck is a pickup truck, it might be possible to circumvent this. However, the engineer mentioned above told me that when he was developing a pickup truck, he also had to comply with the 2.5mm "outward protrusion" rule.

The last one,Steer-by-wireThe corresponding national standard is "Basic Requirements for Automobile Steering Systems" (GB 17675-2021), which is applicable to both passenger cars and pickup trucks.

I took a quick look and found the following descriptions in 4.1.3 and 4.3.1.1:

The direction of the vehicle's steering control should be consistent with its direction of travel, and the steering angle should correspond continuously to the deflection of the steering control device. If the failure of these parts will cause the vehicle to lose control, these parts should be made of metal or materials with equivalent properties and should not be significantly deformed when the steering system is working normally.

Putting all these words together, it basically passes over the steer-by-wire and variable steering ratio on Cybertruck.

Previously, the Lexus RZ had a special-shaped steering wheel + steer-by-wire in foreign countries. After entering China, it got steer-by-wire due to regulatory issues.

Anyway, after studying it for a while, I think Lao Ma’s understanding is very accurate.Under current regulations, it is indeed difficult for Cybertruck to enter the country, at least through official channels, and it is almost impossible without modifications.

But this time it was actually registered, and the Tianjin A license plate means it was most likely imported from Tianjin Port.

I consulted several car dealers who have done parallel imports, and they mentioned that if the import is of a certain scale, certification and testing are necessary.

One car dealer said that at least three cars should be taken out, one for head-on collision, one for side collision, and one for high and low temperature tests.

In addition to large-scale introduction, there will also be a "one car, one certificate" approach for some rare models.

For example, rare cars like Pagani cost tens of millions each, and some models can only be found in a few pieces in the world, so it is almost impossible to crash into them. However, there are indeed some blue-licensed Paganis in China.

This method would be very costly, and it is hard to say whether Cybertruck will adopt this approach.

But what is somewhat certain is that the first introduction of a new model is the most troublesome. Once it comes in, things will become simpler and the price should also fall.

Just now, a car dealer sent me another Cybertruck, priced at 1.88 million, shipped from Bremen, Germany.

Brother Neck has already experienced Cybertruck, so I won’t argue with you. Friends with less ability please get it quickly.

In fact, if it weren’t for the introduction of Cybertruck, parallel imported cars would have almost faded out of everyone’s sight.。

In 2023, the sales volume of parallel imported cars nationwide will be only 39,300, which is only a fraction of previous years. One car dealer said that the most popular period was 2016 and 2017, but since 2018, the profit of parallel imported cars has obviously declined, and many people have already quit.

There are many reasons behind this, including stricter National VI emission standards, declining sales of luxury cars, price cuts through official channels, etc.

This is destined to be a niche market. After all, if the market is big, manufacturers will take the initiative to attack.

With the development of domestically produced cars and the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the demand for parallel imported cars may shrink. So it can be predicted that in the future, it will only be a way for rich people to get big toys from abroad.

Written by: Daydream

edit: Neck twist right & face thread

Art: Xuanxuan

Image, source：

GB/T 24550-2009, "Protection of pedestrians from vehicles in collisions"

GB 11566-2009, External protrusions of passenger cars

GB 20182-2006, External protrusions on the cab of commercial vehicles

GB 17675-2021, Basic requirements for automotive steering systems

Customs releases, interpretation | A chart to understand the new policy on the development of "parallel import of automobiles"

Du Yongchen, Analysis of my country's Parallel Imported Vehicle Certification System