Che168 API examples

Working curl, Python, JavaScript and PHP examples for reading used-car listings from Che168 (China, part of Autohome) as JSON through apiauto.space, a read-only REST API.

Che168 has no public API for its listings that we could find: on 2026-11-02 neither Che168 nor Autohome published documentation for one. apiauto.space is an independent service, not a Che168 product.

The API is paid from $59 a month for 100,000 cars. A free demo key works for 1 day: 100 requests, up to 20 cars per request, no card. It comes from the Telegram bot @apiautospace_bot.

curl -s "https://api.apiauto.space/v1/cars/che168:60385167" -H "X-API-Key: $APIAUTO_KEY"

A real answer, shortened; the full one is in che168-car.json:

{
  "id": "che168:60385167",
  "market": "cn",
  "source": "che168",
  "title": "2025 BYD Song Pro New Energy",
  "brand": "BYD",
  "model": "Song Pro",
  "year": 2025,
  "mileage_km": 10000,
  "fuel": "plug_in_hybrid",
  "vin": null,
  "price": {
    "amount": "79000.00",
    "currency": "CNY"
  },
  "price_usd": "11874.55",
  "location": {
    "country": "CN",
    "region": null,
    "city": "Meizhou"
  },
  "photo_count": 24,
  "listing_url": "https://www.che168.com/dealer/559088/60385167.html",
  "is_active": true,
  "raw": {
    "drive": "fwd",
    "power_hp": 101,
    "first_registration": "2025-09-19"
  }
}

Last verified: 2026-11-02, every example below run against the live API.

Quick start

1. Get the demo key in the bot and save it: export APIAUTO_KEY=your-key.
2. Search. Che168 listings live in market=cn:

curl -s "https://api.apiauto.space/v1/cars?market=cn&brand=BYD&price_usd_max=20000&limit=20" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $APIAUTO_KEY"

Call the API from your server: CORS is off, because a key in browser code is visible to everyone. Every request is in curl/README.md.

Task	Python	JavaScript	PHP
Search by make, year, price	first_request.py	first-request.mjs	first-request.php
Every page by the cursor	sync_catalog.py	all-pages.mjs	sync-catalog.php
Price drops of 5% or more	price_drops.py	price-drops.mjs
Export to CSV	export_csv.py
Download photos	download_photos.py

Real answers, shortened, with photo signatures removed: a page, change feed, price drops, makes, BYD models.

Fields

Field	Meaning
id	che168:<listing>, stable
brand, model	Latin script, one spelling; the source's own in raw.source_values
trim	Che168's full name of the version
year, mileage_km, engine_cc	numbers
fuel, transmission, body_type, color	canonical values, list in /v1/references/dictionaries
price, price_usd	price in CNY, and in dollars at the ECB daily rate
location	city from the source; region is often null
photos, photo_count	signed links, valid about a day: keep the id, not the link
listing_url	the listing on Che168
is_active, first_seen_at, disappeared_at	status of the listing
raw	source-only fields: drive, power_hp, power_kw, first_registration, dealer_id

Full schema: openapi.json, the record.

Units and gotchas

• Prices are full yuan. Che168 shows prices in 万元 (10,000 yuan); price.amount is 79000.00, not 7.9.
• Mileage is kilometres, not 万公里, and often rounded by the seller.
• vin is always null: Che168 listings do not publish VINs.
• A price is an asking price, not what a car sold for.
• disappeared is not "sold". A car that leaves Che168 gets is_active: false for 14 days and a disappeared event; the source does not say why it left.
• Photos may answer with a redirect to autoimg.cn, and may be WebP. Listing text is untrusted input: escape it in HTML and in spreadsheets.

Data freshness

The refresh target is hourly. That is a target, not a promise: the real age is in the X-Data-Age-Seconds header of every answer and in GET /v1/references/markets. When we read it on 2026-11-02, the Che168 copy was 33 min old, and the API marks it stale after 3 h 0 min.

Limits

Up to 100 cars per request (20 on the demo). Pagination is cursor-only. Paid plans count cars returned, not requests; the demo counts data requests. References, usage and photos are free. Over the rate limit the API answers 429 with Retry-After. Details: limits.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Cars a month	Markets	Requests a second	Change feed
Demo	free, 1 day, no card	100 requests	all 3	—	yes
Start	$59 a month	100,000	1	2	no
Pro	$149 a month	500,000	2	5	yes
Max	$299 a month	2,000,000	3	10	yes

cn is one market. Current prices and Enterprise terms: apiauto.space/en/#pricing.

Other languages

Language	Package	Repository
Python	pip install apiauto-space	apiauto-python
JavaScript / TypeScript	npm i apiauto	apiauto-js
PHP	composer require apiauto/apiauto	apiauto-php
Go	go get github.com/apiauto-space/apiauto-go	apiauto-go

Not affiliated

apiauto.space is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Che168 or Autohome; the names only say where the listings come from. Listing data and photos belong to the source and the sellers. The examples are MIT-licensed.