Source: Photon Planet
"We don't have new energy models at present, the water in this industry has not been thoroughly explored, and we are currently waiting to see." Liu Jian is an employee of a chain of used car dealers whose company has been in the used car industry for 7 years.
Photon Planet has continuously asked a number of used car salespeople from all over the world in the name of buying used trams, and the answers are the same. Everyone has no resources for new energy used cars, and more of them have not touched new energy used cars from beginning to end, and some have tried to do it but left the market at a loss.
Liu Jian said that the recognition of new energy vehicles in the second-hand car industry is not very high, and for most car dealers, they have not yet explored the business path and dare not bet heavily. In addition, customer acceptance is also relatively low, not very easy to sell.
The cold silence of the new energy used car market is in stark contrast to the popularity of new cars.
Used car dealers are on the sidelines
New energy vehicles seem to be invading the hinterland of traditional fuel vehicles.
Since 2016, the market size of China's new energy vehicles has grown steadily, more and more users have begun to choose new energy vehicles, and more people have begun to join the new energy car manufacturing army. For a time, whether it is traditional car companies, or new car manufacturing forces, as well as cross-border players mobile phone manufacturers, real estate developers are crowding into the new energy car-making track.
In 2021, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China will grow rapidly, and the production and sales will reach a new high. According to public data, the market share of new energy reached 20% in November 2021, and it is expected that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles may continue to increase to 23% in 2022. The new energy vehicle market has begun to shift from policy-driven to market-driven.
New car sales are rising, corresponding to the second-hand car market but have not shown synchronous heat, and more second-hand car dealers are still in a wait-and-see state.
Wei Lin works in a second-hand car dealership in Jiangsu, and he is very indifferent to the performance of new energy used cars, mainly because he has suffered several losses, and they are still at ease doing the business of fuel vehicles.
In the first half of this year, in the face of more and more green cars on the market, the company decided to develop a new energy vehicle business, but it was not satisfactory when it was really done. He said: "At that time, the company took two Tesla cars, and finally lost tens of thousands of dollars to sell them. ”
"New energy vehicles are not only difficult to sell, but also not easy to collect, and there are not many resources in the market." Even if it is received, it is difficult to say how much money it makes by selling it, and it is fortunate not to lose. Wei Lin sighed.
At that time, the company had a hard time finding two Teslas, but it took almost three months to sell them. "The tram drops too fast, and the longer the turnaround time, the more you lose. Coupled with the public opinion that Tesla's brakes failed at that time, we were even more difficult to deal with. ”
After that, they didn't collect new energy vehicles.
Not only Tesla, but the entire new energy used car industry is like this, and many people have lost money. Wei Lin said that when he actually did it, he found that the tram and the fuel car are completely two sets of detection systems, and we ourselves have not figured out the structure of the tram, and it is more difficult to convince customers. "Coupled with the fact that the entire new energy vehicle is not so popular now, the insurance point is still waiting to see."
It is undeniable that new energy vehicles must be the trend of the future. Emerging things in the future are also the most likely to be pursued and interfered with by external factors, thus gradually amplifying their voice in the public opinion environment. When it comes to a specific industry, it may be far less fiery than what we see on the Internet.
For many second-hand car dealers, the popularity of new energy vehicles is still in its infancy, and the second-hand car market is relatively farther away from the industrial end, and the degree of understanding of practitioners is relatively low.
Today's wait-and-see attitude of used car dealers also shows that the industry is still new enough. There are also many problems to be solved in the new energy used car market, which are hindering the influx of new energy vehicles into the second-hand car market.
Why are used trolleys so cold?
The main reasons affecting the development of the new energy used car market are as follows.
First of all, the main point is that the overall market penetration of trams is not so high. In the past few years, a large part of the reason why the trams on the market are very loud is because of the guidance of policies.
Mainland China in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other 8 cities to adopt measures to restrict the sale of cars, if you want to buy a second or third car, often can only get the fuel license plate through lottery or bidding. Moreover, in recent years, in first- and second-tier cities, consumers have also been guided to purchase new energy models through purchase tax exemption, subsidies and unlimited numbers.
The data shows that the tram penetration rates of domestic first-tier cities, new first-tier cities and second-tier cities are basically above the horizontal line of 33.9%, 24% and 19.8% respectively, while the third- and fourth-tier cities and below are basically below 17%, and many cities have not even broken through the ten digits. Most cities on the mainland have not been touched by the tram wave.
Perception and infrastructure differences together hinder the penetration and popularity of trams.
In addition, in cold northern areas such as the northeast, the mileage of trams will also shrink significantly, so many people in the northern region are actually not optimistic about trams.
Specific to the second-hand car market, many small second-hand car dealers have a low awareness of trams, based on risk, cost and other factors, we are not in a hurry to rush into the new energy used car market. "Although new energy vehicles are very trendy now, the penetration rate is not too high, and there are not a few people who have made losses, so we dare not rush to act." A used car dealer in Chengdu told Photon Planet.
Second, the reason why many used car dealers are hindered from buying and selling used trams is that their retention rate is too low. If the car dealer can't shoot in time, the probability of losing money in the hand is very large.
According to the report on the retention rate of trams in the first half of 2021 released by the China Automobile Dealers Association, among the retention rates of mainstream pure electric vehicles, the one-year retention rate of WEIO ES6 is 78.12%, the BYD Han EV is 76.06%, the Tesla Model 3 is 73.35%, the Xiaopeng P7 is 72.59%, the ideal ONE is 71.10%, and the WEIO ES8 is 62.98%. The three-year retention rate of most oil trucks is 60-70%.
The one-year retention rate of trams touches that of oil trucks for three years.
A second-hand car dealer in Beijing said that trams of brands such as Wei Xiaoli and Tesla are about one year old and have a mileage of 10,000 or 20,000 kilometers, and the price of second-hand cars will generally be about 100,000-150,000 lower than that of new cars. Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, trams have a much lower retention rate.
Battery life and loss duration are key to its non-preservation of value. As the service life of the tram increases, its mileage will be greatly attenuated, and the cost of replacing the battery is high.
With the trend of intelligent and electrification of automobiles becoming stronger and stronger, after the car is endowed with scientific and technological attributes, the automobile has slowly changed from the original mechanical product to a scientific and technological product, and the speed of depreciation has also been in line with electronic consumption.
Nowadays, the iteration of the tram industry is like mobile phones, computers, for example, with the continuous development of chips and other technologies, reflected in the terminal market is constantly replaced, so the depreciation rate is also very fast. With the continuous improvement of the mileage and the continuous improvement of the degree of intelligence, the iteration speed of the tram is comparable to that of a mobile phone.
Especially now that the tram is in the explosive period of the industry, its technology has not reached stability, iteration, update are carried out at all times, which will undoubtedly lead to the continuous depreciation of the product.
It can be predicted that when the development of industry technology is relatively stable, the cold situation of the new energy used car market will also usher in a change.
Wei Lin told Photon Planet: "The depreciation of trams is too fast, and it also causes many car owners to be reluctant to sell them, so there are not many resources flowing into the second-hand car market." Coupled with the loss of the battery, many customers do not dare to buy, if the car has been pressed on our hands will only fall and fall, so the vicious circle, many car dealers do not dare to touch easily. ”
In addition, because the second-hand car market has not formed a complete evaluation and pricing system for trams. Trams and fuel vehicles in the core structure of the huge difference, the core components of traditional fuel vehicles are the engine and chassis, and the core of new energy vehicles is the battery, motor, electronic control three electric system, the battery in the electric vehicle cost accounted for 30-40%, battery life for second-hand new energy vehicle pricing is extremely important.
At present, the entire used car industry has not formed a unified standard for the detection and pricing of trams, and individual used car dealers do not have professional testing equipment and do not understand battery technology. There is no mature price system and sufficient experience to support it, thus affecting the pricing of used cars.
The lack of a mature price system in the market will increase the risk of car dealers and consumers, which is also a major contradiction in the industry now.
A used car dealer said that at this stage, if you want to make used trams, one way is that you have enough money. "You set your own standards to collect most of the cars in the market, and then dominate the market direction." This costs a lot of money, including publicity, car collection, and depreciation losses that need to be borne. By throwing money to break the dead cycle that car dealers dare not charge high prices and car owners are reluctant to sell at low prices, it may be better to solve this contradiction market. ”
However, spending money to dominate the market is only an ideal level of imagination, and car dealers in specific operations dare not take this risk.
Low-end models are the entry point
With the improvement of tram battery technology and the improvement of the overall popularity of the market, the second-hand market may naturally open. Nowadays, even if the market response is not very good, there are still some used car dealers who want to try to seize this trend.
Zhang Yang is the owner of a new energy second-hand car dealer in Xi'an, in 2019 he began to try to do new energy second-hand cars, at that time there was no elaboration on the model, price, etc., all price segments have been received, during which a lot of money was lost. "I used to do mid-to-high-end models, but it is difficult to collect and sell. Others are reluctant to sell when they are cheap, and the risk they bear is greater. ”
"Now I mainly do some second-hand prices within 50,000, cheap scooters, less risky, and scooters are a just need market, but also better to sell."
Zhang Yang said that now we are all looking for resources in the whole country, and we can still make money with good resources. What he calls a good resource is a policy subsidy for some cheaper cars so that he can collect them at a lower price and earn the difference.
"Brands like domestic brands such as Wuling Hongguang, Chery Ant, BAIC, Dongfeng, BYD, Roewe New Energy and other brands are the ones we sell better now, and cheap scooters are less risky for our car dealers and consumers to try."
Under the tide of new energy replacement, many people have the concern of wanting to buy but dare not buy, so the low-cost scooter has become the first choice of many consumers. In addition, low-end models are also the largest demand market in mainland China, and cutting into the middle and low-end is conducive to reducing the threshold for new energy second-hand car dealers.
Under the accelerated penetration of new energy, new energy used cars will also be the trend of the future. According to the "2021 Annual Used Car Online Auction Data Report" released by Tiantian Auction Car, the transaction scale of new energy used cars is expanding rapidly, and the transaction volume of new energy used cars in 2021 has increased by 65% year-on-year.
The replacement cycle of trams is shorter than that of fuel vehicles, and 43.3% of trams will be sold in less than 3 years, which means more active circulation for the second-hand car market.
In order to increase the penetration rate of trams, the slow sales of the used car market is a problem that has to be solved. After all, no car owner willingly buys a car that depreciates quickly and is difficult to dispose of in the second-hand market.
It is difficult to understand in the market