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The Scooter Parts Registry

Method

Where this data comes from, and what was done to it

Every figure on this site traces back to two public US government datasets. This page documents the sources, the reconciliation method, the limits of what it can prove, and every editorial decision made along the way.

Certificates
4,858
Raw factory spellings
628
Reconciled factories
325
Hand-merged
22

The sources

Both primary files are published by the US Environmental Protection Agency as part of its annual certification data release. They are works of the United States government, free to use and redistribute, with no key, licence or registration required. EPA updates them quarterly.

Index page: EPA annual certification data. Both files were retrieved on 2026-09-07, and the SHA-256 above is of the exact copy this build used.

VIN prefixes come from a third public source, the NHTSA vPIC database, also free and key-free.

What was extracted

From each certificate row: model year, vehicle category, certificate number, engine family, the US certificate holder, the engine manufacturer and its country, the vehicle manufacturer, displacement, and the list of models certified. Rows were then filtered to those where the engine manufacturer's country is China, which is the population this site covers.

Be precise about what those numbers count. The two workbooks hold 16,445 rows between them, one row per tested configuration rather than one per certificate. Filtering to China-built engines leaves 6,004 rows, of which 5,012 are distinct — the remainder are exact duplicates, because one certificate can be tested several times. Those rows carry 4,858 distinct certificate numbers, and that is the figure to use when you want to know how many certificates this registry describes.

The problem this site exists to solve

The EPA data is free and nearly unusable as published, for one reason: each American importer types the Chinese factory's name into the certification form by hand. Nothing validates it. So a single factory arrives in the data as many different companies, and nothing in the federal record connects them.

The raw files contain 628 distinct engine manufacturer strings. After reconciliation there are 325 actual factories. That gap is the entire value of this registry — and it is also why the number of American brands attributed to a factory here is often higher than a naive read of the spreadsheet gives.

How reconciliation works

Two passes, in order.

1. Automatic normalisation

Case is folded, punctuation removed, and corporate and legal noise stripped — Co, Ltd, Group, Industry, Technology, Import, Export and so on. This alone collapses spellings that differ only in commas, full stops or capitalisation. It is conservative and makes no judgements.

2. Hand-curated merges

Normalisation cannot know that Congqing is a misspelling of Chongqing, or that a company's engine subsidiary and its industry group are the same operation. Those decisions are made by hand, recorded in a version-controlled file, and each one carries a written reason. They are listed in full at the bottom of this page.

How cohorts are built

A cohort is one reconciled factory and one displacement band. Displacements are banded because EPA files exact swept volume — 169.4cc — while a rider says “150”. Only cohorts containing two or more American brands are published, because a cohort of one tells the reader nothing. Within a cohort, the model years in which two or more brands certified simultaneously are highlighted, since machines built alongside each other are the most likely to share components.

How VIN prefixes were matched

NHTSA's manufacturer search is a substring match, so querying a generic word returns unrelated companies. A result is accepted here only when the word it matched on is distinctive: not a place name, not an industry term, at least four characters, and unique to one factory in this registry. The company NHTSA returns must itself contain that word.

An earlier and looser version of this query produced roughly five times as many codes, including several factories that had matched on nothing more than the word “machine”. Those were discarded. 29 prefixes survive the strict rule and are the only ones published.

Rebuilding this yourself

The pipeline is four Python scripts using only the standard library, plus a static site build. fetch_epa.py downloads and hashes the source files; parse_epa.py extracts rows by column name rather than position, so an EPA column re-order fails loudly instead of corrupting silently; reconcile.py applies the merges and builds the entity graph; fetch_wmi.py adds VIN prefixes. Data is refreshed on EPA's quarterly cycle.

Corrections

If a merge below looks wrong, or two entries should be merged and are not, please say so. Corrections that hold up are made and credited. How to get in touch

Every merge decision

22 factories were reconciled by hand. Each entry lists the spellings folded together and the reason. Certain means the same legal entity or an unambiguous misspelling of it. Group means distinct legal entities within one corporate group, merged because the reader's question is which factory built the engine.

  1. Chongqing Loncin

    group

    Loncin Holdings files under an industry/industrial group entity, a motor entity, an engine entity and a gasoline-engine entity, plus two importer misspellings ('Congqing', 'Chonqing'). All are the Chongqing Loncin group. The largest Chinese engine supplier to the US powersports market by certificate count.

    chongqing loncin · chongqing loncin motor · chongqing loncin engine · chongqing loncin gasoline engine · chongqing loncin gasoline engine amp · loncin · loncin motor · congqing loncin · chonqing loncin

  2. Taizhou Zhongneng (ZNEN)

    group

    Filed as 'Taizhou Zhongneng Motorcycle Co.' in several punctuation variants and once as the parent 'Zhongneng Industry Group' (by CMSI). Trades internationally as ZNEN. The single most important factory on this site: it supplies more distinct US scooter brands than any other.

    taizhou zhongneng motorcycle · zhongneng

  3. Chongqing Zongshen

    group

    Zongshen Industrial Group files under engine, power, motorcycle, automobile and import/export entities. 'Zongshen Piaggio Foshan' is deliberately EXCLUDED - it is a separate Piaggio joint venture with its own engineering.

    chongqing zongshen engine · chongqing zongshen power · chongqing zongshen motorcycle · chongqing zongshen motorcycle engine · chongqing zongshen engine sales · chongqing zongshen i e · chongqing zongshen automobile · zongshen · zongshen power · zongshen automobile engine

  4. Zongshen Piaggio Foshan

    certain

    Held separate from the Zongshen group on purpose. This is the Piaggio joint venture; its engines are Piaggio-derived designs, not Zongshen's own, so folding it into Zongshen would be actively misleading for anyone chasing parts.

    zongshen piaggio foshan motorcycle

  5. Lifan

    group

    Lifan Industry/Technology Group, filed with and without the Chongqing prefix, across power, motorcycle-engine, internal-combustion and import/export entities. Includes four importer misspellings and one filing where the importer literally typed 'same as OEM 1 above' into the name field.

    lifan · chongqing lifan · chongqing lifan power · chongqing lifan motorcycle engine · chongqing lifan internal combustion engine · chongqing lifan suyue · chongqing lifan gp · chongqing lifan power same as oem 1 above · congqing lifan · chongqi lifan · chongoing lifan

  6. Zhejiang Jinlang

    group

    Jinlang files as Power, as Engine, and as bare 'Jinlang Science and Technology'. One record is suffixed '1', an importer's internal enumeration leaking into the federal record.

    zhejiang jinlang power · zhejiang jinlang engine · jinlang · zhejiang jinlang engine 1

  7. Zhejiang Taotao

    group

    Taotao Industry and Taotao Vehicles are the same Zhejiang operation. 'Zheijiangtaotao' is an unspaced misspelling. Note this is the FACTORY; the US importer 'TaoTao USA' is a separate entity on the brand side.

    zhejiang taotao · taotao · zheijiangtaotao

  8. Chongqing Shineray

    group

    Shineray Motorcycle and East Shineray are the same Chongqing group.

    chongqing shineray motorcycle · east shineray

  9. Zhejiang Qianjiang

    group

    Qianjiang Group (owner of Benelli and Keeway). The Wenling Jennfeng plant is a Qianjiang facility.

    zhejiang qianjiang motorcycle · qianjiang motorcycles · qianjiang · qianjiang wenling jennfeng

  10. Chongqing Huansong

    group

    Huansong Industries/Science and Technology. The '2' and '3' suffixes are importer enumeration artefacts; 'techonology' is a misspelling.

    chongqing huansong · chongqing huansong 2 · chongqing huansong 3 · chongqing huansong techonology

  11. Guangzhou Panyu Huanan Motors

    certain

    'Ghangzhou' is a straight misspelling of Guangzhou. Held separate from the Panyu Haojian filings below, which name a different motorcycle works.

    guangzhou panyu huanan motors · ghangzhou panyu huanan motors

  12. Guangzhou Panyu Haojian Motorcycle

    certain

    Two spellings ('Haojian' / 'Hoajian') of one works, both filed with the same 'Ghangzhou' misspelling. Kept distinct from Huanan Motors: same district, different named plant, and no evidence in the record that they are one entity.

    ghangzhou panyu haojian motorcycle · ghangzhou panyu hoajian motorcycle

  13. Chongqing Astronautic Bashan

    certain

    One works; 'Astronautical' and 'Chongquig' are variants, 'MC' an abbreviation.

    chongqing astronautic bashan motorcycle · chongqing astronautical bashan motorcycle · chongquig astronautic bashan motorcycle · astronautic bashan mc

  14. Zhejiang Xingyue

    group

    Xingyue Group, filed with and without the province and with a 'China' prefix.

    zhejiang xingyue · xingyue · china xingyue

  15. Zhejiang Taizhou Wangye Power

    certain

    Same Taizhou works, filed with and without the city name.

    zhejiang taizhou wangye power · zhejiang wangye power

  16. Juneng Motorcycle

    group

    Juneng, filed with and without the province, once as the Jiajia Juneng joint entity, and once as 'motorcyle'.

    juneng motorcycle · zhejiang juneng motorcycle · juneng motorcyle · zhejiang jiajia juneng motorcycle

  17. Zhejiang Jiajue

    group

    Jiajue Motorcycle; the 'Apollo MFR' filing names the same works via its Apollo product line.

    zhejiang jiajue motorcycle · zhejiang jiajue apollo mfr

  18. Shandong Liangzi Power

    certain

    'Shangdong' is a misspelling of Shandong; 'Moto' an abbreviation.

    shandong liangzi power · shangdong liangzi power · shandong liangzi moto

  19. Shandong ODES

    certain

    ODES Industry and its import/export arm. The Zibo ODES 'special style power' filing is held separate - insufficient evidence in the record that it is the same works.

    shandong odes

  20. Jiangsu Linhai Power

    certain

    Linhai Power Machinery Group, filed as Corp/Corporation/Co Ltd across importers.

    jiangsu linhai power

  21. Zhejiang Kangdi (Kandi)

    certain

    Kangdi Technologies Group, romanised as Kandi in its US listings. 'Vehciles' is a transposition typo.

    zhejiang kangdi · zhejiang kangdi vehciles

  22. Lifeng Group

    certain

    Single works, Co/Company suffix variants only.

    lifeng

Related in the registry