WORLD
China’s EV brands Neta and Zeekr manipulate insurance records to show high sales
- IBJ Bureau
- Jul 21, 2025
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) brands Neta and Zeekr inflated sales in recent years to hit aggressive targets, with Neta doing so for more than 60,000 cars, according to documents reviewed by the Reuters and interviews with dealers and buyers.
The companies arranged for cars to be insured before they were sold to buyers, the documents show, enabling them under Chinese industry car registration practices to book sales early so they could hit the monthly and quarterly targets, the dealers and buyers said.
Neta booked early sales of at least 64,719 cars through this method from January 2023 to March 2024, according to copies of records it sent to dealers, seen by the Reuters. That was more than half the sales of 117,000 vehicles it had reported over the 15 months. Neta’s effort to book sales early has not been previously reported.
Zeekr, a premium EV brand owned by Geely, used the same method to book early sales in late 2024 in the southern city of Xiamen through its main dealer there, State-owned Xiamen C&D Automobile, according to dealers, buyers and sales receipts seen by the Reuters.
Analysts and investors tracking China’s auto industry gauge performance and estimate inventory levels with two sets of sales data. Wholesale numbers reported by automakers to the industry association show sales from automakers to dealers, while retail data compiled from registration records of mandatory traffic insurance show the sales to users.
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