In 2000, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China as a national 863 electric vehicle major project to be approved, 3 years later, China's first fuel cell car "Beyond one" came out, and after 3 years, the pure electric vehicle equipped with iron phosphate batteries BYD F3e was successfully developed, but failed to attract much attention. It was not until December 2009, when the first mass-produced plug-in hybrid car in the Chinese market, the BYD F3DM, was officially sold to individuals, which officially marked the beginning of the opportunity for ordinary families to use electric vehicles.
Since then, with the development of national policy subsidies, new energy electric vehicles have entered a special period of development of their own rise, until 2017, the market development has entered a new stage turn. This year, the country has successively introduced 32 new energy policies, not only making new regulations on hard indicators such as mileage and power consumption, but also introducing the parameter of energy density of battery components for the first time, and greatly reducing the subsidy amount. Since then, the new energy vehicle market has entered the stage of healthy competition from vicious deception.
Statistics from the Ministry of Public Security show that by the end of 2017, the number of new energy vehicles in the country reached 1.53 million, and the increase in the market is still huge. Before 2017, the infrastructure configuration of electric vehicles was not perfect, and the owners of new energy vehicles were also jokingly called "new energy warriors" by netizens. If according to the service life of the power battery of 5-8 years, these early new energy vehicles are facing layoffs, and the 1.53 million car owners are also caught in the dilemma of whether to change the battery or sell the car at a low price.
01
Laid-off new energy vehicles, selling cars or replacing batteries?
Only to see the new people laughing, not to see the old people crying, the new energy new car is in the market, but the second-hand car market is slightly deserted. According to the 2019 CCTV "Punctual Finance" report, Mr. Zhang bought about 170,000 yuan of new energy electric vehicles five years ago, during which there were no traffic accidents and collisions, but the purchase price at that time was only 40,000 at most, that is to say, the depreciation rate of this hybrid new energy vehicle was as high as 76%!
From the screenshot price of the second-hand car website, it can be seen that this situation is not an isolated case, according to the "China Automobile Retention Rate Research Institute Report" shows that the insurance rate market for electric vehicles is indeed at a low level, only Tesla Model X is the only car with an age of more than three years, and the retention rate can be maintained at more than 60%, while most pure electric cars only have passed the threshold of three years, and the retention rate is less than 50%, and even less than 30%. For car owners, in just a few years, their cars have changed from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, or even thousands, which is somewhat sad.
Why is the retention rate of new energy vehicles under the outlet so low?
As we all know, the retention rate of fuel vehicles mainly depends on the use of the engine, the evaluators of second-hand cars can give the price range according to the time and mileage of the vehicle registered for the first time, and for new energy vehicles, the quality of the power battery directly determines the value of the car itself, although the manufacturer gives the battery guarantee life, but the electric vehicle is not better than the fuel vehicle, once the time is too long to lead to the attenuation of the power battery, its retention rate decline is inevitable.
Battery attenuation is only one of the reasons, with the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the iteration speed of the product is significantly better than that of fuel vehicles, generally speaking, it is normal for fuel vehicles to carry out an iteration in 4-5 years, but the iteration of new energy vehicles is almost once a year. Under such an iterative speed, the competitiveness of the old car in the market is seriously insufficient.
The trouble caused by the high iteration frequency has a precedent in the new energy vehicle, in December 2018, the first generation of Xiaopeng G3 was officially delivered, and only half a year later, the new Xiaopeng G3 was officially launched. The new car not only has a driving assistance function has been improved, its NEDC comprehensive mileage directly increased from 365km to 401km and 520km, which directly caused dissatisfaction among old car owners at that time, and finally through the replacement of value and after-sales service upgrades and other compensation, the incident came to an end.
In addition to the iterative update of software and hardware, the vehicle has made continuous breakthroughs in terms of scale and battery material, chassis architecture, etc., and the cost has been apportioned and reduced, and some car companies will choose to reduce the pricing of new generation products to increase sales, which greatly impacts the sales price of old used cars.
Since it is not worth selling, can you still eat a battery for it?
Generally, automobile manufacturers have a warranty period for batteries, and the warranty period of new energy vehicles in the early stage is generally within one year, and after exceeding the warranty period, car owners can only pay out of their own pockets if they want to replace the battery. In view of the different battery processes and materials used in different new energy vehicles, coupled with the difference in capacity and density, the price of replacing the battery must also be different.
We can probably infer the cost of replacing a battery through the market price, the average price of the current common lithium iron phosphate battery and ternary lithium battery on the market, respectively, is 0.5 yuan / Wh and 1.08 yuan / Wh, with the mileage of the electric vehicle gradually moving towards 400km, the battery pack capacity is at most 50kW · h (degrees), that is, to replace a lithium iron phosphate battery, its price is in the range of 2-30,000 yuan, but if you are a ternary lithium battery, Then the replacement cost will go to more than 50,000. In other words, the higher the mileage of your electric vehicle, the greater the battery capacity, and the higher the cost of replacement.
The high battery replacement price, so that many car owners fall into the idea of whether to replace the new car, more than 50,000 prices can be directly purchased in full to buy a Wuling Hongguang miniEV or to a first-line brand of new car down payment, which leads to a large number of old cars facing scrap or resale situation.
Of course, not all new energy vehicles are worthless. Tesla is a typical representative, its sales volume and retention rate has been in the top three, which is actually directly related to the vehicle endurance and battery life.
Remember a formula: Battery life cycle = number of battery cycles x single cycle. It is not difficult to find that the reason why Tesla's battery attenuation is slower than other models is because it has the longest endurance of the same level compared with new energy vehicles on the market.
Tesla Model X 75D and Tesla Model S 75D in the NEDC operating conditions of the cruising range of 406km, 470km, such endurance coupled with not losing the battery cycle life of other models, to Tesla's retention rate to play a strong shot.
After such a comparison, it also exposes a problem downstream of the product terminal, if the battery life can be longer, or the cost of replacing the battery can be reduced, this is a good second-hand electric vehicle, after all, the car is in better condition, even if the car age is more than five years, and then go to a new battery can be transformed into a quasi-new car, and the retention rate of the car itself will be greatly improved.
02
Why doesn't anyone want to buy a used electric car?
In addition to the internal factors of rapid depreciation and high cost of electricity replacement, there are still many imperfections in the circulation rate and supporting facilities of second-hand new energy, which also directly affects the price of second-hand cars. When the average person buys a fuel car, they will not consider whether there is a gas station near their home, but the new energy vehicle is different, in the absence of a charging pile to fully popularize, it is not like mobile phone charging, at home can charge the car.
Although the government has invested in the construction of many charging piles, including the charging piles built by the State Grid on the highway, most of the charging piles are mainly built to serve public vehicles, and there are fewer charging piles that can really serve private cars. In addition, car owners without independent charging conditions abound, and if you have to fight a "guerrilla war" every time you charge your car, then your patience will be exhausted in the process of looking for charging piles around the city.
Returning to actual use, the clear travel needs of consumers are more important than the residual value rate of vehicles changing hands for several years. For example, choosing to buy a second-hand new energy vehicle in a large city with limited traffic in the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou, to some extent, buying not only a car, but also buying the "right of way", enjoying the dividends of unlimited travel, hoping to save time and energy in daily use, but obviously this is in the actual travel, because of the imperfection of various new energy configurations, it has not been actually satisfied.
Pull a hair and move the whole body, a variety of reasons to say is very simple, add up to become complicated, coupled with the current new energy used car market does not have a reliable, effective evaluation system, consumers want to buy can not start, fuel vehicles can still be calculated through the car condition, age and other related formulas to calculate the price trend. But for new energy vehicles, no engines, no gearboxes, new brands, new models, and the mysterious black box inside the battery, there is no established judging standard, completely rely on luck to buy a new energy used car, who wants to joke with their wallet?
03
Why are the measures of car companies frequently folded?
In the face of the embarrassment encountered by new energy vehicles in the second-hand car market, major car companies are not indifferent, many brands have proposed policies such as value preservation replacement, repurchase, free power exchange, etc., but because the leading repurchase is each manufacturer, the sincerity of formulating policies is also different.
For example, "Big Brother" Tesla launched a 50% repurchase policy for the model S under its brand in 2015, and the premise of the repurchase is that the mileage is less than 60,000 kilometers within 3 years. With the gradual localization of Tesla and the continuous exploration of prices, the phase policy did not last long, from the announcement to the implementation of only more than a year, it ended hastily.
Tesla's approach is also a microcosm of the industry, WM Motor, Yundu Automobile, BAIC New Energy, have also proposed their own second-hand car repurchase policy, but rarely last more than half a year, and the threshold is designed to be very high, such as WM Motor requires car owners to buy battery rental packages, because its repurchase policy itself does not contain batteries. In addition to requiring a life of 3 years and a total mileage of not more than 60,000 kilometers, Yundu Automobile also needs to purchase official commercial insurance.
The reason why car companies have set up so many rules and regulations for the repurchase of second-hand cars is that they do not want the residual value rate of second-hand cars to affect the sales of new cars, and then put forward a delay strategy. After all, under the premise of huge production capacity, car companies do not want to put all the cars in their own hands and digest the heavy financial burden alone.
Weilai Automobile, which has always been known for its intimate service, launched the first car owner's lifelong free battery replacement service in order to firmly lock new and old users in the big family of Weilai. As long as you become the first owner of WEILAI, you can drive to any operating substation and enjoy a lifetime of free power exchange services, and the number of times this benefit is not counted in the "Energy Worry-free" service package. In the face of expensive batteries, Weilai is obviously a big move.
In fact, according to the income from The sale of cars in Weilai is not enough to balance the cost of "lifelong free replacement", the cost of building a replacement power station is conservatively estimated to require about 3 million yuan, and each replacement power station is equipped with at least 6 batteries, and the cost of each battery is 50,000 yuan or more, which is the basic configuration cost to 3.3 million yuan. Coupled with the site rent, electricity costs and personnel costs, the operating cost of a replacement power station is at least more than one million, according to Weilai's lifelong free power exchange, which means that there is no return on these investments in the early stage, which is at that time has been short of money, self-deprecating "this year's closure, the latest next year", obviously makes the already not rich family worse.
Such a large investment has caused a lot of controversy, after entering 2020, Weilai's sales have continued to rise, the stock price is also soaring, and the talk about Weilai canceling the lifelong free electricity exchange has been endless. Forced by profit pressure, in May last year, Weilai confirmed the rumor that it would cancel the free power exchange for life.
The slogans such as unlimited number of times, unlimited distance, and free for life promised before suddenly became the "love" in the mouth of the scumbag. Not surprisingly, Weilai's cancellation of the lifelong free electricity replacement policy has triggered a wave of weilai's "cutting leeks" questions on the Internet. As the saying goes, "from thrift to luxury, from luxury to thrift", whether it is a buyback policy or a power exchange model, once the user's expectations of you are raised, if the follow-up disappoints the user, the rebound will only be greater.
Compared with the centuries-old fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles are still fledgling "new people", and any new thing that needs to be developed will inevitably be subject to great resistance. From the stage point of view, the focus of new energy vehicle companies is still in the heavy release of various new cars, competing for the incremental market, facing the stock of second-hand cars that will come sooner or later, car companies are only seeking innovation in some sales strategies, and the low residual value of automobiles will eventually reverse the brand value and the pricing power of new cars.
The era of going it alone has passed, and building a value preservation platform is the common responsibility of all parties in the automotive industry. The market for new energy second-hand cars needs car companies, assessment agencies and testing agencies and information suppliers to coordinate to solve, only under the same standard, combined with the car companies' "repurchase, power exchange" and other means, it is possible to form a virtuous circle, on the basis of the standard is not established, and then the beautiful "value preservation repurchase" commitment is probably only a flash in the pan.
Give you 150,000, will you choose a high-end used car, or an affordable brand new car?
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