What do you know today that you didn't know yesterday?

[Rev. Rye]

Apparently, in the People’s Republic of China, in order to buy a car you have to enter a lottery for a license plate. Out of every thousand applicants, a total of THREE actually end up getting one.

That does not easily reconcile with web search result that shows roughly 15 new cars per thousand people are sold in China each year, unless each person in China (not just the new car buyers) enter the new license plate lottery 5 times a year, or, if the license plate lottery can only be entered once per year per person, then 80% of the new cars must not need new license plates or would still remain unregistered.

Next new thing to learn: Jeremy Clarkson may not be a good source of information about other cultures.

Edit:Apparently, this system is limited to Beijing. That said, Clarkson did not specify that it was limited to the capital and implied this covered the PRC in total. Also worth noting, There are/were loopholes and people exploit the fuck out of them if they can afford to do so.