The last thing a consumer pondering the purchase of a new electric truck might think about is the origin of the 17-digit vehicle identification number that vehicle authorities everywhere use to keep track of cars and trucks. For Chinese long-haul truck startup Windrose Technology, though, the VIN numbers put on a handful of its trucks shipped to the U.S. turned out to be a problem. By March last year, Windrose had built a few units of a truck that got strong praise from potential U.S. buyers. There was just one snag: Windrose’s Chinese exporter had encountered a bureaucratic roadblock and couldn’t quickly obtain Chinese VINs, which would denote that the vehicles were made in China. Without those numbers, Windrose couldn’t sell any trucks in the U.S. or virtually any other foreign market. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires every vehicle to have a VIN, which indicates in which country it was made, before it can be offered for sale in the U.S.
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