Car companies are accelerating their layout of shared cars, but they still face difficulties such as profitability

The number of participants in the car-sharing sector is increasing. Last week, Honda China announced that it would invest RMB 60 million in Ruichida New Energy Vehicle Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., a car-sharing business company under IT company Neusoft Group, to jointly develop the car-sharing business. Not long ago, Dongfeng Renault, BMW, Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle, Nissan and others launched or implemented some car-sharing projects. At the same time, many Internet companies have also entered the market and are competing to increase their investment in this field. With the entry of more and more powerful platforms, the competition in the car-sharing field is becoming more and more fierce.

Car companies flock to the sharing sector

Facing the advent of car sharing, more and more car companies are choosing to integrate with the car sharing economy. Among them, many car companies choose to cooperate with car sharing platforms to seek mutual benefit and win-win results.

Recently, BMW Group's car-sharing project ReachNow and electric car-sharing brand EVCARD jointly launched a high-end electric car-sharing joint brand in Chengdu - ReachNow powered by EVCARD. In the early stage, 100 upgraded BMW i3 models will be put into use. Nissan Motor and Japanese Internet company DeNA launched a new brand Easy Ride. The two parties will jointly develop unmanned robot travel services and plan to conduct field tests in 2018. Dongfeng Renault signed a strategic cooperation agreement with shared travel platform TOGO and provided 20 Koleos and 90 Renault Capturs to TOGO for operation in Beijing. Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Shouqi Car-hailing and plans to put Dongfeng A9 into operation in multiple cities.

At the same time, many car companies are also actively launching their own car-sharing service platforms and related brands. For example, Shanghai Automotive Group and Shanghai International Automobile City Group jointly invested in the establishment of EVCARD, and Gofun, a subsidiary of Shouqi Group, received investment from Volkswagen and Chery Automobile in the A round. China's first foreign-funded time-sharing rental company is Car2go, which was invested by Daimler and launched 400 Smart gasoline cars in Chongqing last year. Audi also launched the "Audi on demand + mobile travel" service and "Audi Travel" App this year, providing models that basically cover all its models.

Capital market continues to heat up

In addition to vehicle manufacturers, more Internet companies are also trying to make money in the blue ocean of car sharing. Recently, UCAR Group held a strategic conference and announced that it would integrate travel, time-sharing, financial leasing and other businesses, upgrading from a "car travel" to a "car life" platform.

Prior to this, Internet companies such as Meituan, Didi, and Mobike had already rushed into the market. Currently, Meituan has launched a trial run of the "Meituan Car Rental" business in Chengdu, officially entering the shared car field. In November this year, Mobike also cooperated with Gui'an New District and Xinte Electric Vehicles to officially start the layout of time-sharing rental business. Cheng Wei, founder, chairman and CEO of Didi Chuxing, recently stated that he would invest heavily in the time-sharing rental field in the future, and the investment capital would not be less than 1 billion yuan.

In addition, some existing car-sharing platforms are also increasing their financing efforts. Not long ago, the electric car time-sharing rental platform "PonyCar" announced the completion of its C round of financing, with a total investment of over 250 million yuan. Previously, Gofun, a subsidiary of Shouqi Group, raised 214 million yuan in its A round, Yibu Yongche raised 135 million yuan in its A round, and TOGO has received 22 million US dollars (about 146 million yuan) in its B round of financing.

Industry analysts believe that favorable policies are also a major factor in the continued warming of the capital market in the field of car sharing. In August this year, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of Small and Micro Passenger Car Rentals", encouraging the use of new energy vehicles for time-sharing rentals and suggesting that relevant departments cooperate to establish and improve supporting policy measures.

Many problems such as profitability remain to be solved

However, despite the continuous influx of participants, how to achieve profitability is still a difficult problem for shared car platforms. According to PwC statistics, the average loss of a single car by time-sharing car rental companies is 50-120 yuan per day. "Among the more than 30 time-sharing rental companies in China, only one is currently profitable on paper," said Peng Bo, a partner of PwC, in an interview with reporters.

In October this year, Zhang Bingjun, founder and CEO of the shared car platform START, said frankly: "The START platform is not profitable at present, and we will make greater investments in product research and development in the future." It is understood that the START platform adopts a light asset model and does not need to purchase a large number of cars at present, but it still cannot achieve profitability. TOGO has also stated that TOGO's current priority is to expand the market, layout cities and enhance the car-using experience, and profitability is not its current goal.

In addition, the shortage of public resources such as license plates, parking spaces, and charging piles has also become a bottleneck restricting the rapid development of shared cars. It is understood that many vehicles currently operated by shared car platforms are new energy vehicles. At present, license plates for new energy vehicles are becoming increasingly scarce, and the application procedures are becoming more and more complicated. If you cannot get a license, you can only operate according to the long-term rental license, which will increase operating costs. At the same time, new energy vehicles require a large number of charging piles, but the current number of charging piles does not match the number of shared cars, which seriously restricts the vehicle operation rate of shared cars. The scarcity of parking spaces is also one of the problems restricting the development of shared cars. In first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, insufficient parking spaces directly affect user experience.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.