All I can tell you is what I read online when I googled the...

All I can tell you is what I read online when I googled the stats - most of which are from Chinese newspapers.
One article mentioned that licencing fees for cars in China are high. One article stated a figure of $15,000 per vehicle.
When I looked at electric cars, it mentioned that some of the megacities are issuing free licences (a big deal, when you look at how much they apparently charge to licence a vehicle) if you buy an electric vehicle. Cutting pollution being the main aim.

Young females and chinese citizens over the age of 60 years are the current biggest buyer markets for new cars in China.
There are over 280 million licence holders in China. I guess the difference between the 280 million licence holders and the 172 registered cars, is the others are riding motorcycles or mopeds? I did not follow up on this, as it was a bit vague around that - I was interested in and googled about cars.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I simply googled:

How many cars are currently registered in China?