The prospects for new energy value preservation are brighter
The topic of value preservation has always been the sore spot of new energy.
There are many reasons, fewer people are willing to buy, product replacement is fast, the price of new cars fluctuates greatly, batteries are not used, and so on.
The result is one: second-hand new energy cannot be sold at a good price.
At one point in the industry, there was a saying that "one year fracture, three years lying flat, five years to zero". The gist is that one year of car age, the price is discounted in half; three years old, the valuation is with the fate, how much to give a little meaning; five years old, basically can be sent for free.
When new energy is still non-mainstream, such a tragic retention rate, the problem is not so big.
Considering that consumption is mainly concentrated at one end and one end, the "big households" that are not bad for money to buy a new energy will not care too much about value preservation; buy a cheap small electric transportation, and you can also get a license for free, and naturally you will not expect to preserve value.
Nowadays, the rapid popularization of new energy, according to the September sales, the penetration rate has reached 20%, which is already the mainstream choice in the market. Ordinary people are increasingly considering new energy, and value preservation has become an unavoidable problem.
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In terms of value preservation, new energy is not so unbearable
Objectively speaking, looking at the retention rate of new energy at this point in time, the result is more meaningful than before.
Why? Before 2019, most of the active in the new energy market were various oil to electricity and first-generation hybrid products, eating policy dividends, products are difficult to say, and value preservation is naturally not expected.
Starting in 2019, new energy has truly begun to transform.
The landmark event is the entry of Tesla Model 3 (imported at the beginning of the year, domestically produced at the end of the year), and the second is that new forces such as Weilai, Weima and Xiaopeng began to deliver.
By this year, it will be exactly three years. As we all know, the most used and reliable indicator to measure the retention rate is the price of second-hand cars that are three years old.
Therefore, these more "pure" new energy products, their three-year-old used cars entering the market, obviously more reflect the true face of the new energy retention rate.
Judging from the results, a fact is still obvious: new energy is not as good as fuel vehicles.
According to the "Retention Rate Research Report" of the Automobile Dealers Association in September, the three-year retention rate of plug-in and hybrid models averaged 48.9%, and pure electric models were 39.1%. In the same report, most of the three-year retention rate of most fuel vehicles is between 60% and 70%. The gap between the two is about 15%-20%.
Autohome data generally supports this result. After comparison with fuel vehicles, the average retention rate of new energy is about 15% lower, regardless of whether it is one year old or three years old.
The 15% gap is significant, but not so bad. And, after that, the gap will only narrow.
There are two reasons for this. First of all, recently the industry has been hit by the "lack of core", the supply of new cars is insufficient, and the price of used cars is rising. Luxury brands such as the BBA have even developed the practice of recycling used cars for one year. In this case, the retention rate of fuel vehicles is already at a high point, and it is only a matter of time before it falls.
In contrast, new energy is less affected by "lack of core", the supply of new cars is sufficient, and the price of used cars is stable. The follow-up market will fall back, and the overall retention rate will not be greatly affected.
Second, and more importantly, the structure of the new energy market is very different from the past. Pure electric products and a new generation of hybrid products are becoming the protagonists, and "policy-oriented products" are withdrawing. Correspondingly, in new energy used cars, as the proportion of good products increases, the overall retention rate will naturally go up.
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The basic logic has not changed
Of course, new energy is a major category, although the sales share is not high, the products are various.
According to the latest statistics of Autohome, there are more than 250 new energy products currently on sale. According to the calculation of September sales, it is about 1,000 vehicles per product, which shows the dispersion of the market. Of the more than 250 products, 120 have been on the market for less than a year, meaning that there are not enough used cars flowing into the market.
Even so, the remaining more than 130 products are enough to be complex. Looking at the average retention rate alone does not explain too many problems.
Specific to brands and products, from the perspective of large logic, the one that determines the retention rate cannot escape the relationship between supply and demand. The demand is large, and the retention rate is high. The demand is not so large, if the supply is relatively limited, the retention rate will not be bad.
For example, the overall retention rate of the current plug-in mix is higher than that of pure electricity, not necessarily because the demand for second-hand plug-in mixing is greater, and it is more likely to be because there are fewer cars.
After all, compared to pure electricity, the market concentration of plug-and-mix is much higher. In the second-hand market, pick and choose, there are only so many brands and products. Scarce ones, such as Porsche Paramela plugs, have a three-year retention rate of more than 90%. BMW 5 Series and Audi A6 plug-in hybrid, the three-year retention rate is also as high as 70% and 64%, respectively.
Under the big logic of supply and demand, Tesla's retention rate is high, which is not surprising.
According to September data from the Automobile Dealers Association, Tesla's three-year retention rate averaged 62%, lower than BBA and Japanese brands, but not inferior to most fuel car brands. In fact, Tesla could have been higher, but recently the continuous price adjustment of products has affected the price of used cars to some extent.
Weilai's three-year retention rate is 56%, which is placed in the two camps of luxury and autonomy, which are in the lower middle. Considering the problems in WEILAI's first-generation products, this achievement is not bad. At the same time, it also shows that in this high-end segment, supply and demand are generally stable and independent.
BYD's three-year retention rate is 57%, which is temporarily behind in the independent camp, but at present, the momentum of pure electricity and DM-i products is hot, and the retention rate in the later period is improved, and there is not much doubt.
The scope is relaxed to a one-year retention rate, and the logic of supply and demand is more obvious. The retention rate of popular products such as Mini EV and Han is around 80%; Weilai ES6, ES8, Tesla Model 3, Xiaopeng P7, etc., also have 75%. Overall, it is close to the level of fuel vehicles.
Dragging their feet (one-year retention rate of less than 65%, three-year retention rate of less than 50%), not surprisingly, basically are independent and joint venture brand oil to electricity products. These "road goods", the product force is average, and there is no unique positioning, most of them have no price in the new car market, not to mention the value preservation of second-hand cars.
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How to preserve more value
Therefore, from the perspective of supply and demand logic, with the alternation of new and old in the market, the retention rate of new energy is very bright.
However, it should be noted that the current new energy second-hand market is extremely small, and the circulation channels and trading methods are still relatively simple.
According to the data of Autohome, in the first half of this year, there were 8.43 million second-hand car transactions nationwide, of which only about 200,000 units of new energy, accounting for more than 2%.
From the perspective of second-hand car merchants, no more than 15% of the more than 100,000 merchants in the country are involved in new energy. Among them, there are only 60 companies specializing in new energy in the country.
In addition to this, it is the official used car platform. The main engine factory acts as an intermediary, buys the car from the user, and then sells the car. Even, in the early days when the new energy second-hand car transaction was difficult, including Tesla, WM, Euler, and Geometry, many manufacturers engaged in official value-preserving repurchases, which were used cars, and the retention rate was about 6-7% off in two years and 50% off in three years.
However, the game of value preservation and repurchase, in the final analysis, is only an equity measure, and it cannot be done in a large area and for a long time. The longer-term approach is to build a second-hand car trading system, but running through the chain from receiving cars to selling cars is also time-consuming and laborious.
Most importantly, the current market, the main engine factory involved in new energy second-hand cars, basically are paid to run, to promote new car sales. The used car business itself, commercially, is not established. Since the money is posted, how much can be posted and how long it can be pasted, it is difficult to have a spectrum.
In this case, even if more and more high-quality products flow into the second-hand market, how to digest it will be a problem.
The current channel model is more like piecemeal, each engaged in its own, there is no system. To cope with the current trading volume, barely. In the future, the amount of second-hand new energy is getting larger and larger, the products are more and more diverse, there is no relatively unified evaluation and trading system, even if it is a good product, it is difficult to fully realize the value.
How to make new energy more valuable, but also the main engine factory, industry agencies and competent departments together, do some homework.