All parties are competing for the "big opportunity" of the new energy vehicle aftermarket

Original title: All parties are chasing deer in the new energy vehicle aftermarket "big opportunity"

With the rapid popularization of the mobile Internet and the continuous increase in production and sales, the new energy vehicle aftermarket is showing great opportunities while also looking forward to a more perfect supporting support system.

"Aftermarket" shows "big opportunities"

Recently, BYD has begun to play the "insurance idea".

In March this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a notice on the declaration and registration of enterprise names, and "BYD Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd." was listed among them. Coincidentally, Weilai Automobile established Weilai Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd. in January this year, after Xiaopeng Automobile and Tesla were also involved in "insurance".

In the view of many industry insiders, with the digitization and intelligence of automobiles, car companies rely on data advantages to have strong advantages in the pricing, underwriting, risk prevention and control of automobile insurance. At present, it is difficult to obtain insurance company licenses, and many car companies choose to start from insurance brokerage licenses, and may cooperate with licensed insurance companies for product design and research and development to tap more market value.

This is the epitome of the great development of the mainland automotive aftermarket in the Internet era. Not only auto finance, but also online and offline auto service platforms are also developing at a high speed.

At the beginning of this year, Tuhu Yangche, which provides online reservations and offline auto repair services, officially submitted an application for listing on the Hong Kong stock market. According to the information disclosed in the prospectus, the operating income of Tuhu Car in 2019 and 2020 was 7.04 billion yuan and 8.753 billion yuan, respectively. From January to September 2021, the operating income was 8.442 billion yuan, an increase of 41.76% year-on-year.

"With the rapid growth of new energy vehicles, the number of cars in mainland China will be further increased, and it is expected to exceed 400 million in the next few years, further expanding the scale of the automotive aftermarket." Li Baohua, a professor at Tsinghua University's Shenzhen International Graduate School, said.

After Zheng Yanyan, a teacher at Shenzhen Senior High School, and her lover came to Shenzhen to work, an intuitive feeling of this innovative city is that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is high. Considering the convenience of licensing, the cost of car purchase, the use of car scenes and other factors, Zheng Yanyan bought a "Guangdong B" green brand new energy vehicle in Shenzhen and sold a gasoline car that had been driving for six years.

According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Public Security, there will be 302 million cars in the country in 2021, and 26.22 million newly registered cars in the country that year. Among them, the number of new energy vehicles reached 7.84 million, and the number of scrap cancellations increased by 2.92 million units compared with 2020, an increase of 59.25%.

"The business volume of at least 20,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan per vehicle per year will continue to grow rapidly in the automotive aftermarket." Yao Weibing, chairman of Guangzhou Mingluo Equipment Co., Ltd., said. Third-party institutions expect that the size of the mainland automotive aftermarket in 2026 will be close to 10 trillion yuan.

There are multiple hidden worries about imperfect supporting facilities

The industry believes that with the rising energy density of power batteries, the large-scale promotion of charging piles and the rapid application of automatic driving technology, automotive intelligence is showing a development speed similar to the integrated circuit "Moore's Law", promoting the "explosive growth" of the automotive aftermarket.

But at the same time, there are still multiple concerns in this market. For example, as an important part of the new energy automobile industry, the recycling of decommissioned batteries hides risks.

The reporter learned that many OEMs have established battery recycling business, but the traceability of digitalization is still lacking.

Under the action of multiple factors, many decommissioned power batteries in the industry have not flowed into formal channels, but have been "snapped up" by some unqualified and low environmental protection costs of small factories.

"Because of cost constraints, many regular car companies and battery processing companies have the dilemma of difficulty in recycling decommissioned power batteries." Zhang Zheming, an associate researcher at the Shenzhen Automotive Research Institute of Beijing Institute of Technology, said. At the same time, the supply of decommissioned power batteries is scattered, and a complete battery recycling system has not been established in China, and it is difficult to collect decommissioned batteries in a unified manner; the high cost of long-distance transportation also brings difficulties to car companies and recycling companies to recycle decommissioned batteries.

"Automobiles are transforming from mechanical products to intelligent and networked, which will directly promote business changes such as insurance services, maintenance accessories, recycling and dismantling, and emerging software data services such as automatic driving software, intelligent cockpit application software, and vehicle usage data are also developing rapidly." Yao Weibing said that the demand for talents in software programming, new materials and manufacturing process research and development, and digitalization is also growing.

At present, the industry has shown a shortage of talents to a certain extent. Statistics from the China Auto Repair Industry Association show that the proportion of senior technicians engaged in the auto repair industry in China in 2020 will be 5.7%, far lower than the level of some developed countries.

Automotive aftermarket changes are accelerating

Various new car-making forces have been involved in "insurance", Tencent, JD.com and other Internet companies layout car rental, second-hand car platform enterprises develop rapidly... In the Internet era, while the automotive aftermarket is "growing bigger and bigger", it is also facing increasingly fierce brand competition and market games.

In the view of many people in the industry, Internet technology will reduce the asymmetry of information, with the marketing market continues to standardize, the industry will pay more attention to the user's consumer experience, and gradually enter the era of low profits.

At the same time, the gradual improvement of autonomous driving technology will bring about continuous changes in the automotive aftermarket. For example, the terms of the insurance industry policy that are compatible with automatic driving may change, the role of automobile repair shops may be weakened, and the upgrade and maintenance of automatic driving systems may be more important.

In the epidemic prevention and control work in Shenzhen in February this year, several self-driving light trucks began to "take up their posts", and a single vehicle can transport more than 500 boxes of materials a day, and more than 10,000 pieces of anti-epidemic materials.

According to the relevant person in charge of the self-driving start-up enterprise Yuanrong Qixing Company, the automatic driving light truck integrates laser radar, cameras, combined navigation and other sensors, and is responsible for the distribution of epidemic prevention materials in the delineation control area of Shatou Street in Futian District, Shenzhen during the epidemic period, serving 12 epidemic prevention work sites.

In addition, the power battery recycling system needs to be improved and improved. For the recycling of power batteries, it is necessary to strengthen the extended producer responsibility system. At the same time, strengthen the crackdown on illegal assembly and simple assembly of power batteries, and clarify the high-voltage line for the safety and environmental protection of power battery recycling.

Relevant people suggest that the traceability supervision of decommissioned batteries should be improved, starting from battery production, along the end of the car, battery decommissioning and recycling, cascade utilization, cascade battery recycling, and final recycling.

Li Baohua said that it is necessary to implement policy documents such as the "Implementation Plan on Accelerating the Comprehensive Utilization of Industrial Resources" as soon as possible, improve the recycling system of waste power batteries, accelerate the promotion of upstream and downstream cooperation in the industrial chain to build recycling channels, and build a cross-regional recycling system. (Reporting by Sun Fei, Yin Peng, Shenzhen)