Chinese workers assemble a Volkswagen Passat at Shanghai Volkswagen plant. (Photo : REUTERS)
A total of 100 official vehicles of the 3,000 impounded by the central government will be available on March 18 in the second of a series of auctions.
The auctioned vehicles include Passats and Lincolns, according to the website of Beijing-based Rocar, one of the three auction houses.
The other auction houses, which include Zonta, are also based in Beijing.
The official cars were taken out of government service as part of reform measures that began last July.
The central government's measures, introduced in 2014, stated that government vehicles can only be used for special services, such as intelligence communication and emergencies. Regular government affairs are not included among those allowable activites.
Local governments have until sometime 2015 to fully implement the orders.
Only 106 vehicles out of the first batch of 300 vehicles expropriated by the Chinese central government were auctioned last January.
It fetched 6.6 million yuan ($1.06 million), which will go to the central treasury.
According to Xu Yongsheng, a senior official with the National Government Offices Administration that administered the auction, bidders were highly enthusiastic. He noted that the cars are in good condition.
However, a bidder, Xing Tiandong, who has been targeting the auction, was put off by the high prices. He complained that a second-hand low-end Roewe car hit 110,000 yuan, but the tag price for a brand new unit was only 140,000 yuan.
"I thought it was too high," Xing said.
A Toyota sedan valued at 90,000 yuan was sold for 210,000 yuan, which topped the prices at the auction.
