◎ Cao Qingxin 

Data shows that the national automobile inventory reached 217 million in 2017, which increased by 23.04 million compared with 194 million in 2016, with a growth of 11.85%. The ratio of the automobile to motor vehicles continues increasing from 54.93% to 70.17% in recent ve years, thus the automobiles have become a main part of motor vehicles. Seen from vehicle model, the inventory of passenger vehicles reaches 185 million, including 170 small and micro passenger vehicles, accounting for 91.89% of passenger vehicles; the inventory of trucks reaches 23.41 million, including 3.10 newly-registered trucks, which is the highest level in the history.

Along with sharp increase of Chinese automobile inventory, the output of junked tires surely will grow rapidly. Some speci c phenomena existing in China that can not be neglected are embodied in tire use, such as, longtime overload and overspeed of a large amount of trucks during logistics and transportation and use of some lowprice, poor-quality and non-“three guarantees” tires, which also increase output of junked tires. Compared with light overseas tires, Chinese tires are generally heavy. Take passenger car tire as an example, there are about 130 junked tires per ton for branded passenger cars overseas while there are basically about 120 per ton in China; and there are less junked tires per ton for non-branded passenger cars. Similarly, as for the tires of branded trucks, about 21 junked tires are basically generated per ton overseas while about 17 junked tires, even about 15 junked tires, are generally generated per ton in China; therefore, the process difference in tire manufacturing between domestic tires and overseas tires results in weight ratio of the tires formed after tire scrapping, the weight difference is over 8% as for the same quantity of junked tires.

On August 18, 2016, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Security jointly printed and distributed Special Action Plan on Administration of Illegal Overload and Overspeed Behaviors of Highway Vehicles. Both ministries will implement policy of limit on load and speed of automobiles uniformly and strictly according to the national compulsory standard GB1589-2016 Limits of Overall Dimension, Axle Load and Quality of Automobiles, Trailers and Combination Vehicles newly revised on July 26. Affected by new policy on national administration of vehicles with overload and overspeed on the roads and promoted by Administrative Provision on Tire Labels and Tire Grading Standard, it is optimistically regarded that the scrap rate of junked tires may be obviously reduced. However, affected by objective factors such as yearly increase of automobile inventory and alternation of junked automobiles and vehicle models, the yearly scrap rate of junked tires shall still be 6~8%.

According to the data of junked tire base generated by automobile inventory in 2016 and automobile inventory in 2017, it is predicted that the junked tires generated in 2018 will be 379.8 million units and the weight will reach 14.59 million tons. In it, the junked tires of passenger cars and light trucks will be 136 million units and the weight will be 1.046 million tons; and the junked tires of heavy-duty lorries and buses will be 243.8 million units and the weight will be 13.544 million tons (see details in the attached list). 

Output of Junked Tires of Chinese Automobiles in 2018