The staff at Chinese electric vehicle company Li Auto noticed something unusual when they counted the number of cars sold in July 2023. In the first three weeks of the month, according to CEO Li Xiang, 200 cars were registered in China, but never insured — and therefore unable to be driven in the country.
After looking into it, the company realized that traders had been shipping the cars abroad, mostly to Central Asia and the Middle East, Li said on his Weibo account. He posted a picture showing a Li Auto L7 SUV priced at 31.8 million Kazakhstani tenge ($70,897), about…
