New-energy car owner follows viral “white plate” trend, gets 9 demerit points and 200 yuan fine

What happened

IT Home (IT之家) reports that local police in Liuzhou — Liuzhou Traffic Police (柳州交警), Yufeng Second Brigade (鱼峰二大队) — stopped a new-energy vehicle whose green-gradient licence plate had been faded almost to white. The vehicle was found during routine electronic-monitoring patrols. The owner initially blamed a car-wash chemical for accidental fading, but officers found two intact green plates with the same registration inside the car and the owner later admitted to deliberately having the original plates chemically altered after following an online “white plate” tutorial.

It has been reported that the white-plate how-to gained traction on Weibo on April 14, with some posts suggesting special chemicals or prolonged lighting to bleach green new-energy plates into a black-on-white look. The owner told police they had paid a vendor who offered such a “service” after seeing the trend online.

Legal context and penalty

Under China’s Road Traffic Safety Law (Articles 90 and 95(2)), intentionally defacing or damaging a motor vehicle licence plate and then driving on the road is punishable by a warning or a fine between 20 and 200 yuan and 9 points against the driver’s licence. The Yufeng brigade imposed the maximum fine of 200 yuan, recorded 9 demerit points, confiscated the damaged plate and ordered the owner to replace it with an intact original.

For Western readers: the green-gradient plates identify new-energy vehicles (electric and plug-in hybrid models) in China and are used to distinguish them for local traffic rules and incentive programs, so altering them can obscure the vehicle’s classification and violate regulatory controls.

Why it matters

This case is a small but vivid example of how social-media-driven trends can collide with regulation. A cosmetic “personalisation” went from viral appeal to a legal penalty. Authorities across Chinese cities have been monitoring similar online fads and vendor services that encourage tampering with official vehicle identifiers — and the sanctions show that what looks like a harmless fashion statement can carry real consequences.