Thanks both of you for this reliable information with details and experience --- this is exactly the kind of thing I need to be reading, and it's very hard to find this information from other sources. So it looks like I've been wasting my time reading the expat boards (i.e. Shanghai expat) or the newspapers for bike registration, as they are riddled with inconsistencies and speculation. The stuff here is far more accurate, and it explains the details that can't be answered satisfactorily from the expat community or even the locals who ride motorbikes in general.

Alright I owe you two a beer for this.

There was a funny story once, can't recall exactly, about someone who walked into a local traffic police office and asked a question about bike registration. Two cops then got into an argument with each other because each cop first told the foreigner a contradicting piece of information.

Having read this info here, it doesn't appear that a ban is likely in Shanghai if the government is still allowing the plates to be reprocessed with an 11 year period to 'start ticking' away again by the transfer of secondary plates to a new bike.

Actually this is starting to make a ton of sense, in that it's all the older gas scooters would be destroyed by the end of 2013. In other words, they want the bikes themselves off the road, and not necessarily the registrations attached to the bikes. Then, with the newer bikes being purchased and registered, the city wouldn't have as much to worry about pollution, safety, etc.. as the newer bike models meet higher standards.

So with that in mind, what happens if the former owners just decide to destroy the bikes and not bother selling off their registration or transfering to a car? If there are multiple bikes destroyed in this way, does this increase the quota of available license plates that could be potentially re-transfered to a brand new bike?