CurrawongEvidence-first China sourcing

Measurement recordExhaustive count, public source

NHTSA vPIC listed 106 Chinese trailer makers in August; 111 in September.

NHTSA vPIC held 106 China-listed trailer entries on 9 August 2026 and 111 on 6 September. Ask who made your trailer, then look up that name. The list helps check a name; it does not establish vehicle compliance or whether you can title a food trailer.

Match the manufacturer to your trailer →

· · Snapshot dates shown with each count · Full data downloadable below

Prepared by Bao L. Zhou (Derrick). I lead this desk, from Jinan, China.

1. Five entries added in 28 days; none removed

Identify the manufacturer of record first. The counts below define the public list you can check against.

CountryTrailer registrantsAll registrants
United States6,41017,830
Mexico237361
Canada198470
China1062,589
Australia2339
United Kingdom1281

China had the second-largest total in this snapshot. Vehicle types can overlap: one entry may include both trailers and motorcycles. The count does not measure exports and does not count storefronts or food-trailer factories. Download the country and type totals or the 106-name CSV.

Retested 28 days later: five added, none removed

A count is only as good as its date. On 6 September 2026 the same census ran again: same public endpoint, same paging, same de-duplication, same country handling. The two China trailer lists were then matched by vPIC manufacturer id.

Same census, 28 days apart. NHTSA vPIC, queried 9 August 2026 and 6 September 2026.
Measure9 Aug 20266 Sep 2026Change
All registrants, worldwide22,88122,988+107
Country labels represented92920
Chinese registrants, all types2,5892,633+44
Chinese trailer registrants106111+5
US trailer registrants6,4106,431+21

Matching the two lists by id gives the part a total cannot show: five manufacturers were added and none dropped out. All five carry ids from 25814 to 25886. The August list topped out at 25777. Higher IDs alone do not establish when a filing was made or why an entry appeared. The five are QINGDAO LETSING TECHNOLOGY, JINAN DACHENG INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY, LAIZHOU SUNPOWER MACHINERY, SHLEME POWER and HANGZHOU PERFECT TOTAL MACHINERY.

This compares membership at two dates. It cannot show when or why an entry changed between them. Check the live record before relying on a saved list. Download the 6 September JSON snapshot and 111-name CSV.

2. Match the manufacturer to your trailer and seller

  • Ask the specific question. Not “are you NHTSA compliant?” but: which registered manufacturer will my trailer’s VIN decode to? The answer is a name you can look up yourself in vPIC, free, no account.
  • Check the seller relationship. A seller trading for a listed factory is ordinary. Ask for the relationship in writing and match it against the Chinese registered record. If the seller cannot name the manufacturer, that part of the paperwork remains unresolved.
  • Cross the two systems. The NHTSA filing gives an English name. Ask for the Chinese legal name and code, then check the Chinese registry record. Compare that entity with the invoice seller. The registry alone does not establish who issued your invoice.

3. Method, and what this count cannot say
  • Source and coverage: NHTSA’s public vPIC GetAllManufacturers endpoint, paged exhaustively: 229 pages at 100 records, 22,881 manufacturers, captured 9 August 2026. All pages returned by this endpoint were included; this does not count every manufacturer outside the database.
  • Counting rule: an entry counts for a type if it appears in the vehicle-type list. Country groups use the returned Country text. Outer spaces are trimmed; blanks form an unstated group. “Trailer” is vPIC’s category. It includes all trailer kinds, not food trailers specifically. Entries are counted by unique manufacturer ID; this does not establish a count of active factories.
  • A filing database, not a compliance register: registration under 49 CFR Part 566 is self-submitted identifying information. Listed ≠ compliant or good; absent ≠ violating. Production can be registered under a different corporate name, and the database moves as filings arrive. This is a dated snapshot.
  • Transport note: direct requests worked during this run; requests through our proxy failed at the TLS connection stage. This does not establish why they failed or predict access through other networks.

Citing this study

You are welcome to quote or reproduce these figures, including commercially, provided the relevant snapshot date (9 August or 6 September 2026) and the stated limits travel with them. The lists can change. The files below are the August release; September downloads appear with the comparison table. Data: full JSON snapshot · 106-name CSV. Both files are archived under a citable DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21859686. Primary sources: NHTSA vPIC and 49 CFR Part 566, rechecked 8 September 2026. This source check did not rerun the census. More measured data: the research index.

Archived copies, each with its own DOI, resolving independently of this site: Zenodo · Harvard Dataverse · figshare.

A citation with everything it needs:

Currawong, “How many Chinese trailer makers are NHTSA-registered?”, every entry in the public NHTSA vPIC manufacturer database captured 9 August 2026, with the full 106-name Chinese trailer-manufacturer list. https://currawongweb.com/verify/chinese-trailer-manufacturers-nhtsa/ Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21859686

BibTeX
@dataset{currawong_verify_china_trailer_manufacturers_nhtsa_study_2026,
  author    = {Bao L. Zhou},
  title     = {{NHTSA vPIC manufacturer census by country and vehicle type, with the Chinese trailer-manufacturer list}},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.21859686},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21859686}
}

Questions about this study

How many Chinese trailer manufacturers were in the snapshots?

The vPIC Trailer list contained 106 China-listed entries on 9 August 2026 and 111 on 6 September. These are dated counts by manufacturer ID, not counts of food-trailer factories or a live total.

Does a vPIC listing prove US compliance?

No. A listing provides manufacturer information. Check the exact vehicle and its paperwork separately. The list does not establish safety compliance, title eligibility or the seller relationship.

What if my seller is absent from the list?

Ask for the manufacturer name and how it relates to the seller. A different corporate name or a later filing may explain an absence. This list alone does not establish wrongdoing.

NEXT CHECK

Match the trailer maker to your order.

Use the manufacturer name, VIN and certification label for the trailer you plan to buy. A listing in this study does not establish vehicle compliance or local approval.

Check the trailer VIN and labelConnect the maker and seller names

Being pushed to pay a deposit right now? The checks that matter before money moves are free to read.

If you want these records pulled for your own supplier: the “Factory, or trading company?” selection of the report menu covers company records, packs from $26.55. Delivery follows the window on your order confirmation. First paid order: unhappy for any reason, tell us within 14 days of delivery and it is refunded in full.