Who controls the fate of Didi Chuxing?

A turbulent undercurrent set off by "Didi Private Car" is impacting the "private car rental" field, which is the most sensitive in the transportation industry. This not only involves a market worth tens of billions, but also involves the future of the entire industry.

At a meeting of the Ministry of Transport on November 27, the central government department said that the Ministry of Transport will investigate Didi's "private car" reservation service. The spokesperson of the Ministry of Transport said: "Don't judge by one stick"...

In the view of Cheng Wei, founder and CEO of Didi, this is a signal that the government, under the guiding ideology of openness, is injecting the theme of "openness" into the car rental industry, which has always been closed.

Yes, with an open mind, a market worth over 10 billion may be in front of Didi and its competitors. A CEO of a car rental company once said that as long as the policy is relaxed, they will pounce on it and do the same thing at any time.

It is at this moment that the regulatory authorities' sixteen-character policy of "putting people first, encouraging innovation, seeking benefits and avoiding harm, and standardizing management" clearly shows the relevant regulatory authorities' encouragement and support for innovation.

License Dilemma

Didi Chuxing is the result of several months of hard work by Cheng Wei and his colleagues.

This product is more "sexy" than Didi's taxi-hailing app. Through Internet technology, it makes the names, mobile phone numbers, license plate numbers, and starting and ending locations of consumers and drivers public to each other, allowing passengers to choose the brand and model of the car by themselves, and can be monitored in real time by a third party, making travel more convenient. At the same time, Didi's private car service also has a relatively standardized pricing system, service control system, and insurance compensation system. Both taxi hailing personnel and private car drivers have relatively transparent information filing and credit evaluation information, and the entire taxi-hailing process is placed under the "protection" of transparent Internet technology.

However, Didi Chuxing does not yet have an “identity”. If passengers want an invoice, Didi can only deliver it to the customer by mail, and they cannot get out of the car and get a ticket like a taxi.

The birth of Didi Chuxing has posed a not-so-small problem to the old taxi industry: license plates.

Previously, for safety reasons, licenses have always been the way regulators manage taxis, and licenses are also a scarce resource in the car rental industry.

According to the Economic Observer, my country's current vehicle license plate management is very strict, and the types are also very subdivided: mainly including five categories: operation, leasing, and leasing non-operation.

The validity period of operating licenses is 8 years, and they are mainly for various taxi companies. The characteristics are limited licenses and difficulty in entry.

Secondly, there are rental licenses, which are valid for about 15 years. The licenses of these car rental companies are also limited, and it is very difficult to enter. They are no different from taxis, but there are more types and grades to choose from. There is also a type of rental license, which is also valid for 15 years. The characteristic of this type of car rental company is that it does not provide drivers. Drivers can only be provided by the lessor or labor company.

The fourth category is the "rental non-operating" license, which has a validity period of 20 years. It is also a car rental company. The validity period of a private taxi license is as long as 20 years.

Since taxi licenses have always been strictly controlled, license resources are extremely scarce.

The Didi Private Car service actually touches upon the interests of this part of the taxi industry. In fact, from the process point of view, the Didi Private Car service is very similar to the taxi service: both can make reservations by phone to pick up passengers, the information is estimated through the cloud, and the settlement is made after the service is completed. The only difference is that the Didi Private Car drivers are dressed more business-like, wear white gloves, and have more car models to choose from.

International practices

But in fact, this service falls into the category of chauffeur rental abroad and belongs to a different industry from taxis.

Internationally, according to the United Nations International Standard Classification of All Economic Activities, the European Union Statistical Classification of Economic Activities, the North American Industry Classification System, and the British Statistical Standards, rental with a driver is a business activity that is parallel to taxis (TAXI), rather than a sub-item of taxis. Fan Yongyao, vice president of the Beijing Leasing Industry Association, also said that the relevant classifications in the Hong Kong Standard Industry Classification published in July 2009 are: "4922 Taxi services, 4926 Passenger vehicle rental services with drivers. Whether from the industry classification serial number or the English name, it can be more clearly seen that taxis and rental with a driver belong to two different industries.

However, in China, designated driver rental has never been legalized. In fact, the emergence and popularity of Didi Chuxing also highlights the huge market demand for this service.

Cheng Wei said that the personal transportation needs currently served by taxis in my country actually include two types: street taxis and door-to-door reserved pick-up and drop-off. In Europe and the United States, these are two strictly differentiated businesses: taxis mainly undertake street taxi business, while door-to-door reserved pick-up and drop-off services (including business negotiations, government official vehicles, and travel and business trips to other places) are mainly undertaken by business car rentals.

"If the market that taxis cannot satisfy even with all their efforts can be segmented into two markets: taxi and business rental, perhaps the problem of insufficient taxi capacity will no longer exist. At the same time, developing business rental without affecting taxi operations can meet the high-end travel needs of the segmented market," Cheng Wei believes.

But obviously, Didi Chuxing is the catfish that stirs up stagnant waters - if you use Didi's private car service, from the moment you make the reservation, the driver's information and the person taking the taxi's information will be backed up on Didi's system - it is clear at a glance on Didi's internal system which driver is picking up and dropping off passengers.

The "Didi Private Car" model, which has only been in existence for a few months, is still in a legal vacuum. In the future, how to allow the mobile Internet to match the designated driver rental service model under the premise of reasonable regulations, open up license plate controls, and meet market demand will be a major problem facing the development of the entire industry.

Fortunately, it is reported that the Ministry of Transport is planning to investigate the new changes brought about by this new technology.

Policy relaxation

On October 11 this year, Liu Xiaoming, Director of the Department of Transportation of the Ministry of Transport, visited Didi Company for research, and Cheng Wei and COO Liu Qing gave work reports. It is understood that Liu Xiaoming is very concerned about Didi's business model, operation model and all aspects related to passenger safety. It is said that when Cheng Wei mentioned that Didi rejected the acquisition request of Uber, a foreign taxi app, he received firm support and affirmation from relevant government leaders.

An insider of Didi revealed that the government is very supportive of having a technology company serve the local market. Didi's private car service started in September 2014, and it has been more than three months. After nearly 100 days of development, Didi has opened private car reservation services in 15 cities across the country, and user demand has grown rapidly. Although some policy issues have not been completely resolved at this time, Didi is still accelerating its layout. While Didi's private car service is "running at full speed", relevant supporting policies are also being introduced.

On September 30, the Ministry of Transport issued the "Taxi Operation and Service Management Regulations". Article 20 of the "Regulations" states that road transport management agencies at or above the county level should develop diversified and differentiated taxi booking services in accordance with the taxi development plan. It is reported that the "Taxi Operation and Service Management Regulations" are scheduled to be implemented from January 1, 2015.

However, Fan Yongyao, vice president of the Beijing Rental Industry Association, believes that this regulation seems to pose a development risk to Didi, because the taxi reservation model stipulated in the regulation is only allowed to be operated by taxi companies, which seems to bring this model back to the old path of taxi operations.

However, all sectors of society generally hope that the introduction of this policy and the government's regulatory authorities may bring new living space to car-hailing services represented by "private cars" rather than new policy bottlenecks.

Behind this living space is a market with huge commercial value. According to Cheng Wei's preliminary estimate, the business car rental field will be a market worth more than 10 billion RMB, and will promote a win-win situation for all parties. In addition to enterprises, for the government, this will further promote the transformation and upgrading of urban transportation and improve the efficiency of urban travel.

"The biggest beneficiaries are consumers, who will have more diverse, higher-quality and more personalized travel services to choose from," said Cheng Wei.

Open sesame after the thorny road?

As a new thing in the mobile Internet era, Didi has experienced several "dangerous situations".

The first round of competition came from market competition. The head-on confrontation between Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache began with subsidies and ended with subsidies. Didi Dache focused on attracting consumers, while Kuaidi Dache wanted to retain the hearts of drivers. This battle reached its climax at midnight on February 17 this year: that night, Tencent ’s top decision-maker personally decided to support Didi Dache in a price war with Kuaidi.

Tencent provides subsidies ranging from 12 to 20 yuan randomly to consumers who use Didi to pay their bills, and users who pay for taxis with WeChat more than 10 times can get a "very expensive plane" in the WeChat airplane shooting game - and with the approval of the top decision maker, there are 1 million such planes!

This is an unprecedented capital war - behind Didi is Tencent, and behind Kuaidi is Alibaba .

Of course, this is not the most important battle in Didi’s development process. The following crisis is even more thrilling.

The biggest survival crisis for Didi Taxi and Kuaidi Taxi apps is the heavy protection of the taxi-hailing platforms by local regulatory authorities. It was once reported that a city planned to connect Didi Taxi and other apps to the platform of the local regulatory authorities, and cash flow and other information would also flow through the platform. Such a process would completely kill the Didi Taxi model based on cloud computing from a technical perspective, and of course, it would also destroy Didi Taxi's business model.

The Didi Chuxing, which was born later, directly affected the taxi industry.

Fortunately, the industry background is also undergoing changes at this time.

In Cheng Wei's view, the country and relevant government regulatory authorities are more open to the new ideas of mobile Internet and have a more positive attitude. Cheng Wei and Didi are facing a huge market.

Roland Berger Consulting estimates that in 2014, the size of China's car rental market will reach 38 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 27%. The total number of cars owned by car rental companies will exceed 400,000. Compared with the 5 million rental cars in the United States, China's car rental market is a huge, untapped "cake" with many competitors lurking around.

Cheng Wei said: "Whether Didi, the industry leader, can reach a harmonious solution with the existing regulatory system is a matter of life and death for the entire industry, and the fate of Didi's 'Didi Private Car' will become a weather vane for the government at a critical moment in market transformation."

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.