Tao Motor: finding your numbers, your engine and your parts

Who built the engine in your Tao Motor

Tao Motor Inc. is the name on the certificate filed with the US EPA. That is the company that brought the machine into the country, not the company that built the engine. Every Tao Motor certificate on the record names one Chinese engine factory: Zhejiang Taotao.

The numbers to find on the machine

Where these live depends on the shape of your machine rather than on the badge, so we do not repeat the search here — the sheets below cover it properly and are free. What matters for a Tao Motor specifically is which number settles things: the engine family number ties your machine to a specific federal certificate rather than to a badge.

1. The emission control information label

   Carries the engine family number. This is the strongest identifier your machine has and the one most owners have never looked at.

2. The code stamped into the crankcase

   Survives when the label has not. It encodes cylinder count, orientation, bore and displacement class.

3. The VIN

   Identifies the vehicle rather than the engine, and its first three characters name whoever registered it for sale.

Engine families on the record for Tao Motor

If the label under your seat carries one of these, it is a Tao Motor and this is the certificate it was sold under.

Showing 40 of 172. All of them on the Tao Motor record page.

The other names to search under

2 other US brands sold machines whose engines came from the same factory at the same displacement. When a search for “Tao Motor” returns nothing, these are the names worth trying instead.

• Taotao USA Inc.
• Vicoo Industry, Inc.

How to search for a part

Searching the badge is searching the weakest information you have. These are built from Tao Motor's own record, roughly strongest first — replace <part> with what you need, and add the measurement you took.

1. 1GTMMC.124MC1 <part>
2. 2124cc <part>
3. 3Zhejiang 124cc <part>
4. 4Taotao USA Inc. <part>
5. 5Tao Motor Inc. <part>

The strongest search usually has no badge in it at all. An engine family number plus a measurement finds listings from sellers who have never heard of Tao Motor, which is most of them.

Free sheets to take to the machine

• What scooter do I actually have?A one-sheet record of every number that identifies your machine — badge, VIN, engine number, engine family and factory. Fill it in once, photograph it, and never hunt for it again.
• Where is the emission label? Sorted by body styleThe most useful label on the machine, organised by what shape your machine is rather than by what it says on the bodywork.
• Where is the VIN on a Chinese scooter?A search checklist for the VIN, frame number, engine number and emission label — including the places people look last and should look first.
• What the engine code on your crankcase meansEvery character in the code stamped on your crankcase, what it means, and why 139QMB and 1P39QMB are the same engine.
• Badge twins: the other names your scooter was sold underThe same machine was sold under other names. Those names are extra search terms, and this is where you write them down.
• Before you order a scooter part: checklistTwelve checks that take ten minutes and prevent the single most common expensive mistake these machines produce.

Or print all fifteen at once — 44 pages covering identification, measurement, records and diagnosis. Free, no account, no email.