A used car refers to a motor vehicle that has been registered with the traffic management authorities and has not yet reached the scrapping standard or is still within its economic service life. The used car industry refers to the sector that specifically deals in the trade of used cars. The main activities of the used car trade include preliminary work for used car assessment, technical condition appraisal, consignment sale, exchange business, price evaluation, and transaction practices. In 2023, the market transaction scale of China's used car industry reached 1.179532 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.51% over the past five years. Preliminary estimates indicate that the market transaction scale of China's used car industry in 2024 will reach 1.2816 trillion yuan.

Because new energy vehicles are emerging technology products and mainly pure electric vehicles powered by lithium batteries, the chemical properties of lithium batteries lead to poor range performance in cold climates. As a result, the new energy vehicle market in China is mainly concentrated in regions such as East China and South China, where both public acceptance and climate are more suitable for the development of the new energy vehicle industry. Consequently, the second-hand new energy vehicle market in China is also mainly concentrated in East China and South China. In 2023, in terms of vehicle sources, the market share of second-hand new energy vehicles in East China was the largest, reaching 38.7%.

Looking at the provincial level, as of April 2022, Guangdong province had the highest volume of second-hand vehicle transactions, with a cumulative volume of 15.63 million vehicles. Zhejiang and Shandong followed closely behind, with cumulative transaction volumes both exceeding 9 million vehicles. In addition, provinces such as Sichuan, Henan, and Jiangsu also had relatively high rankings in terms of second-hand vehicle transaction volumes.