At the beginning of January this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued [2022] No. 3 document, which is entitled "Notice on Strengthening the Production and Registration Management of Light Trucks and Small and Micro Passenger Vehicles". For the details of the rules, many consumers are a little confused, feeling that the impact on buying a car is not small, but it is not too big. For the light passenger industry, the trouble is obviously more than a little, which is not only a "small" problem of how to digest inventory during the buffer period, but also related to whether there are compliant products to sell in the second half of the year.
Which cars are the new rules for? What is the motivation behind it? And what will be the real impact on consumers? Brother VAN will talk to you today.
Subtitle 1: Lengthened luxury cars become 15 annual scraps? Non-existent!
Previously, there was a rumor that "after the car length of more than 5.5 meters will get a yellow card", which basically has no impact on the people, but the rich people are shocked. After all, the top luxury cars such as les Reese Phantom and Bentley Elegance are generally between 5.5-6 meters in length, if they are changed to the yellow card for medium and large cars that are scrapped in 15 years, will they not instantly depreciate by millions?
Don't worry, the scope of application of the new regulations is limited to the category of "small and micro passenger cars", and does not include familiar cars, SUVs, as well as special buses such as caravans and school buses. The so-called small and micro passenger cars refer to passenger cars with a length of less than 6000mm, a height of more than 1850mm, and a crew of less than 9 people, that is, the light passengers in everyone's mouth, such as Iveco, Jiangling, and the Chase V series, which has been gaining momentum in the past two years.
According to the new rules, the upper limit of the body length of this category is reduced from 6000mm to 5500mm, while the seat layout and fixing method are also more stringent regulations, such as the use of a single single row seat layout after the driver's seat; when there are only two rows of seats, the second row cannot be flipped; if there are three rows and above seats, only the last row can be flipped, and can only be folded back to the seat cushion after the overall forward flip; the longitudinal adjustment range of the second row of seats should be less than 600 mm. The third row should be less than 400mm, the seat spacing of the second row and later should be less than 1300mm, and the longitudinal length of the baggage area should be less than 30% of the total length and not more than 1500mm.
In fact, a considerable part of these rules is not the first time, and has already affected some high-body MPV models with excellent seat functionality. However, the regulatory authorities are also helpless, after all, the relatively loose management has caused concerns in the traffic management department.
Subtitle 2: Why did you suddenly make such a heavy punch?
The formulation of the new regulations is undoubtedly from the perspective of safety. In the past, cars within 6 meters of length belonged to small cars, and they could legally drive with a C1 driver's license, but drivers who were accustomed to driving small cars suddenly changed to large light passengers, and the difficulty of operation increased by more than one level. The new regulations are equivalent to increasing the license qualification of models over 5.5 meters to B1, which is equivalent to helping to reduce the hidden dangers of accidents.
The deeper motivation is that in recent years, the chaos of bus pulling goods has been repeatedly prohibited. Although in the past two years, many cities have loosened the policy of prohibiting the passage of urban logistics and distribution trucks, and there are more blind window boxes on the market that are homologous to light passengers, but in order to bypass the trouble of handling urban passes and the 15-year scrap policy of trucks, some urban distribution operators have moved the idea of blue-brand buses. Some light bus types with large sizes and large spaces soon became the hardest hit areas for illegal pulling.
In order to sell more cars, individual car companies do not hesitate to play a little clever in seat layout and fixing methods, and even "heavy-duty chassis" light passengers are not uncommon, which objectively promotes this bad trend. The introduction of the new regulations is to reduce the possibility of car owners changing their use without permission from the source and increase the cost of violating the law.
However, relying only on the efforts of the production link, it is difficult to completely eliminate the chaos of bus pulling goods. Next, we also need more work from the traffic management department, not only to block the light, but also to dredge, and guide the logistics vehicle to the blind window box category with a driving area isolation device and a higher safety factor.
In fact, this has long been the consensus of overseas mature markets, the head enterprises in the domestic light passenger field have also long been laid out, for example, SAIC Maxus not only has V80, V90 series of blind window versions and derivative products, even the smaller size of the G10 has blind window products, but the domestic market has a low acceptance of the latter, small demand, mainly for export to Overseas markets such as Australia and New Zealand, and has gained a firm foothold in the competition with Western veteran car companies.
Subtitle 3: Consumers are about to run out of cars to buy?
For real users who have never intended to pull goods in violation of the law, the impact of the new regulations is indeed there, but it is very limited. For blue passenger cars with 9 seats and below in 3-4 rows, reducing the upper limit of the length by 0.5 meters will hardly have a substantial impact on the seating space, and the impact here is mainly from the production level.
For example, some car companies that are not well prepared or have insufficient research and development strength will find it difficult to produce alternative models that comply with the new regulations in a short period of time, which will lead to product faults. However, for the head enterprises with healthy product layout, they only need to make a slight adjustment to deal with it calmly. The new regulations will even play a "catalyst" role and drive the benign development of the light passenger industry.
Here is still the above automobile Chase as an example, the company's light passenger products in January 2022 sales of 5273 units, the overall domestic market share of nearly 40%, its V90 long axle, V90 short shaft, V80 short shaft, V80 PLUS short shaft and other main models, has long met the requirements of the new regulations. In particular, it is worth mentioning the V90 long-axle model, which is 5498mm long, which is infinitely close to the new limit of 5500mm.
In addition, the V80 long-axle model, which is no longer compliant, has also been rapidly replaced by the V80 mid-axle model recently. Taking the mid-axle mid-roof model as an example, the cabin space reaches 9.5 cubic meters, which is second to none in the 2.4-meter model class with a height limit, and it also has the most cost-effective hand-integrated model in its kind. In terms of fuel consumption control and use costs, V80 also makes the owner very worry-free, calculated by 5 years of use cycle, can save nearly 60,000 yuan of costs, worthy of children's shoes to pay attention to a wave.
Of course, consumers who love 6-meter long-axis light passengers are not too late to start now. According to the requirements of the new regulations on the transition period, vehicles that do not meet the requirements should stop production on March 1, but after the manufacturer declares that the sale of inventory vehicles has been postponed, they can be sold until the end of August. In other words, as long as they are shot before the end of the buffer period at the end of August, the V80 long-axis type of over-gauge light passengers can still smoothly handle the car purchase and license procedures, and enjoy the treatment of blue license cars.
It is emphasized here that vehicles that complete the license plate before the big limit will also be managed according to the old method in the future, that is to say, not only can they enjoy the 6-year exemption treatment of the car, but also the second-hand car transfer link is not affected, and it is still a blue car.
For hesitant consumers, it is said that in order to go to the inventory, each brand has provided a strong terminal discount. Once this wave of opportunities is missed, there is really no more.
Subtitle 4: Accidentally lying guns in the caravan industry?
It stands to reason that the RV category has been explicitly excluded from the 5.5-meter length limit, but according to the new rules, the Class II chassis will be managed by light trucks, which is exactly the basic hardware required for the C-type RV.
It should be known that in addition to the "passenger car carrying cargo" chaos mentioned above, another governance focus of the new regulations is the "large ton and small standard" of light trucks. To make a long story short, the new regulations for light trucks are still within 6 meters in length and within 4.5 tons in weight, but in order to limit overload behavior, stricter regulations have been made for power and rear wheels, such as engine displacement is not more than 2.5 liters, rear wheel width is not more than 265mm, rear two-wheel models The single wheel width is not more than 195mm, etc., which affect most light truck manufacturers.
As for light passenger enterprises, whether it is an "accidental lying gun" or not, the second-class chassis for RVs will face certain supply difficulties in the near future. For example, in several second-class chassis with large shipments, nearly half of IVECO's products use 3.0T engines, and 2.0T models only match manual transmissions, and the prospect is afraid that it is somewhat difficult; Jiangling Teshun is even more miserable, and the whole series is equipped with 2.8 liters of diesel engines, which may not be able to slow down next year.
It is worth noting that the SAIC Maxus Class II chassis car equipped with the "SAIC π" 2.0T high-performance diesel engine has basically no pressure. For example, the V80 double rear tire version, the tire width is slightly exceeded, but it is easy to improve the approval process, and most of the products of the V90 series are "innate compliance" models, which are expected to become the main procurement models of caravan companies. Friends who plan to buy a B-type motorhome in the second half of this year are likely to be unable to hide from an auto chase chassis car.
summary:
The two problems of "bus loading" and "large tons and small standards" have little impact on private cars, but the impact on the urban logistics industry is obviously huge. In the short term, the new regulations may bring inconvenience to millions of logistics practitioners, but the root cause lies in the previous disregard for illegal use of vehicles. In the long run, the new policy will provide a more level playing field, which is more beneficial and harmless to promote the standardization of the transportation and logistics industry.