What else can the new energy automobile industry invest in?

Text | Financial Street Old Lee

In the past two years, many experts have said that the second half of the new energy automobile industry is intelligent, but many investors said that the aftermarket is the second half of the profitability of new energy vehicle companies.

Years later, BYD, Weilai and other companies have set up their own insurance brokerage companies, Weilai also explored used car subscription services, Xiaopeng Automobile launched an officially certified second-hand car, BYD also set up a second-hand car company, GAC Aian even opened a 90% discount repurchase model, behind a series of actions are indicated that the head car companies have been exploring the new energy vehicle aftermarket.

During the holidays, Lao Li and some fund managers discussed what else can be invested in the new energy automobile industry after investing in electrification and intelligence. The answer given by many people is the aftermarket, because under the technological change of the new four modernizations, the "aftermarket" of new energy vehicles has been completely different from the "aftermarket" of fuel vehicles.

The aftermarket involves the car life of each user, but due to the large scope of the aftermarket, today's old Li xuan a few points and everyone to briefly chat, what changes are there in the new energy vehicle aftermarket compared with the fuel vehicle aftermarket? Why are companies scrambling for "lifecycle management"? How should the new energy vehicle aftermarket find a breakthrough in innovation?

This "aftermarket" is not the other "aftermarket"

The aftermarket for new energy vehicles and the aftermarket for fuel vehicles are two completely different areas.

People from different perspectives have different understandings of the aftermarket, if you ask the traditional people in the automotive industry, many people understand that the aftermarket is a series of "conventional services" such as traditional repair, maintenance, modification, used cars, etc., plus a series of "derivative services" such as finance and insurance, this field is characterized by a large enough market, the scale is similar to the previous market, if you count the surrounding areas, the market is 2-3 times the former market.

In the past decade or so, such a large market has not been favored by investors, mainly because the threshold of the aftermarket industry is too low and the value distribution is very scattered. For example, the scale of the former market is mainly concentrated in more than a dozen car companies, as long as the car companies are grasped, the value of the upstream Tier 1 and Tier 2 is not a problem.

However, the aftermarket is not the same, just mentioned that the aftermarket can be divided into multiple unrelated modules, scattered point of view, the value is smaller. What investors love and hate is that the competition is also very fierce in the various unrelated modules.

To give two examples, in the car maintenance link, there are both leading players such as Tuhu and hundreds of thousands of maintenance "mom-and-pop shops"; in the second-hand car link, there are both leading players such as guazi and hundreds of thousands of second-hand car "mom-and-pop shops". Interestingly, even leading enterprises such as Tuhu and Guazi do not have a market share of more than 10%, and the market concentration of the head companies is not more than 30%.

This means that it is difficult for investors to invest in monopoly-type enterprises, because this market is too large, even if the market share is not high, many investors are still eager.

If we ask an industry person who is good at innovation, what is the aftermarket in his eyes? There may be another answer.

We often say that new energy vehicles subvert the physical structure, product performance and use experience of traditional fuel vehicles, and from a longer-term perspective, the development of new energy vehicles has also subverted the automotive aftermarket. At this stage, new energy vehicles have not yet reached a large enough scale, and the new pattern of the new energy vehicle aftermarket has not yet formed, and everyone's feeling of subversion of the aftermarket is relatively weak.

Even so, we have felt the changes from all aspects of the industrial chain, especially the front-end enterprises entering the market, such as a series of actions of vehicle companies, such as the entry of the Ningde era, such as the entry of Huayou Cobalt, etc., but the current changes are not the end.

For example, the weak maintenance of new energy vehicles, the inability to repair power batteries, the low residual value of second-hand cars, the variety of financial services, and unreasonable insurance pricing are all to solve a certain appearance problem. For users, the new energy vehicle aftermarket is a chain, in the face of new electrification, intelligence and networked parts, from vehicle purchase to vehicle sales or scrap, the aftermarket needs a series of management and guidance, but how to manage and guide, we are not clear.

The era of full lifecycle management

Winning in the chaos of the capital market is an opportunity, Lao Li and some investors discussed, what is the end of the new energy vehicle aftermarket? There are two different ways to judge:

The first is to speculate and judge around some of the corporate actions that have occurred so far, for example, in the field of insurance, while the Chinese Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has introduced exclusive clauses for new energy vehicles, car companies are not idle, Tesla proposed to accelerate the attempt of UBI car insurance, Weilai Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile, BYD and other enterprises to lay out insurance brokers, including NINGDE times and Chinese Insurance Property Insurance signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement, making a big fuss in battery insurance, in addition to insurance, in finance, maintenance, second-hand cars and other fields, Each enterprise also has its own exploration, which can be summed up as each link is independent and self-innovative.

The second is the concept of "full life cycle management" proposed by consulting investment and some enterprises, including the whole life cycle management of vehicle enterprises, the whole life cycle management of batteries proposed by battery companies, and the ecological life cycle management proposed by some parts and components companies.

Among them, the most relevant to everyone is the whole life cycle management of vehicles and batteries. The so-called full life cycle management, is the enterprise from the profit and operation of the starting point of the proposal, for the user, more is the experience and service in the use of the process, the enterprise to do a good job of the whole life cycle management, the user's experience and service will naturally improve.

All the aftermarket actions of the companies just mentioned can be attributed to the concept of vehicle life cycle management. In fact, the concept of vehicle life cycle management, car companies put forward five years ago, the background is that the future of the car towards the "digital" direction of development, become a high-value terminal, "digital" and "high-value" products will certainly appear value management, the car will become a dynamic evaluation of assets.

Therefore, the new energy vehicle aftermarket can also be understood as the asset evaluation of vehicles.

From the perspective of the dimension of vehicle asset evaluation, new energy vehicles will transform from the "one price" of vehicles in the era of fuel vehicles to multi-dimensional independent evaluation of vehicles + power batteries, vehicles + automatic driving systems, and even vehicles + ecology. The root cause of the recent price increases in major enterprises is the rise in the price of power batteries, which has promoted the vehicle from hardware to "assets". After the dynamic assessment of vehicle value, the model of the entire aftermarket will change dramatically.

From the perspective of battery life cycle value management, the use mode of the aftermarket is also changing, the most typical is the energy replenishment method. The essence of power exchange and charging is that the asset management method is different, because the power battery of the power exchange vehicle has achieved standardized management, its battery performance has a higher gold content and a higher asset value, while the rechargeable battery lacks standardized management, and its performance has a lower gold content.

In the era of fuel vehicles, the asset evaluation of vehicles is a single point of assessment at the time of transaction, and buyers and sellers get a relatively fair price point according to the historical situation of the vehicle, but the changes in the attributes of new energy vehicle products bring the possibility for vehicles to achieve real-time asset evaluation and asset trend prediction.

From the perspective of asset appraisal, the past asset value appraisal is based on hardware, basically will not consider the service, and the value appraisal of new energy vehicles will take into account the two dimensions of hardware and service, only in the case of assets can be evaluated, what the company said from selling hardware to selling hardware + software + service profit will become possible.

Therefore, the end-game essence of the new energy aftermarket is the value management and user services carried out around the whole life cycle of the vehicle, and the way and method of users using new energy vehicles will directly or indirectly affect the value assessment of the whole life cycle of the vehicle.

Where is the breakthrough in innovation?

Many friends will ask when they see this, talking about the whole life cycle value management of so many vehicles, so as ordinary users, what is the experience and service of the new aftermarket that we can feel? This is a good question, and many investors are looking for an answer to this question, but they have not yet found the answer.

At present, all the innovations in the new energy vehicle aftermarket are crossing the river by feeling the stones, and we can be divided into three major directions:

The first direction is the leading party of car companies, mainly Weilai Automobile. Whether it is NIO Energy or NIO services, they are carried out with enterprises as the main body, and without considering the cost, NIO's services are the ideal format for the aftermarket.

The second direction is the battery dominant party, mainly in the Ningde era. To do the aftermarket, THE NINGDE era must move from the backstage to the front end, so the NINGDE era has released the replacement brand as an important step in its aftermarket layout.

The third direction is the third-party service of the industry as the main body, and the integration and development mode of car companies, power batteries and enterprises in all aspects of the industrial chain.

For example, car companies and battery companies cooperate with third-party technical institutions to carry out battery performance and vehicle performance assessment, joint financial and insurance institutions to carry out innovative insurance development and sales, and joint second-hand car dealers to carry out second-hand car performance evaluation and certification, the premise of this model is that the third party must have a strong enough industry background and strength.

In the third direction, vehicle companies only need to establish a full-life cycle, real-time dynamic asset management, evaluation and disposal system to ensure the profitability and sustainability of each link, and the main engine factory can also establish a relevant residual value assessment system and second-hand car disposal channel capabilities through cooperation with various financial, insurance and residual value service providers.

In the new model, users will experience the "from point to line to surface" transformation of the aftermarket, and for a long time to come, the aftermarket and after-service will be like this:

Fund manager Lao Zhang took a fancy to a car, placed an order on the APP to manufacture, and the company delivered the car door-to-door. From the beginning of vehicle delivery, Lao Zhang began to manage his car like a management fund to maximize the value of his car.

In the car company or third-party APP, Lao Zhang registers his own car, APP can be based on Lao Zhang's vehicle history driving records and usage records and market conditions, real-time assessment of Lao Zhang's vehicle performance and price, and give different car use programs, before Lao Zhang felt that car companies often fool consumers, but because of the existence of a fair third party, Lao Zhang feels that the program is very perfect.

Lao Zhang's car battery has bumped, the APP system automatically gives a third-party disposal plan, Lao Zhang can choose the best cost-effective A plan, you can also choose the best use experience of the B plan, you can also choose the best economic C plan. Whenever there is an important service, the APP will automatically recommend the relevant car use program to Lao Zhang, when the old Zhang changes the car, both you can choose to replace, you can also auction with one click, the whole car process is calculated, lao Zhang no matter from which point of view, is the most convenient and worry-free.

This is probably the best state of the user experience of new energy vehicles, and this day is not far away. Compared with the ecology of the front-end market five years ago, the current aftermarket ecology seems to be a lot of silence, but the spark of stars can burn the plains.