"I can't hold back, please understand."
This is the message of Li Bin, founder and CEO of Weilai Automobile, under the "price increase instructions" of the official App.
Just on April 10, WEILAI officially announced that the price of ES8, ES6 and EC6 models was raised by 10,000 yuan. Under the double blow of subsidy decline and raw material price increases, more and more new energy vehicle companies cannot withstand the pressure and increase prices. The price increase of Weilai announced the collective "fall" of mainstream new energy vehicle companies.
However, the price increase of new energy vehicle companies has unexpectedly become a carnival of another group of people.
Big Sheep 丨 Author
Yi Meng 丨 Editor
Fruit shell hard technology 丨 planning
Tram prices rose and sales suffered
According to the statistics of Gestapo Automobile, since the beginning of 2022, more than 20 car companies have announced price increases of more than 40 models, ranging from thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan. Among them, Brands such as Xiaopeng, WM, and Tesla have even increased prices many times, and the cumulative increase of Model Y high-performance version has reached 48,000 yuan. [1]
Car companies have raised prices, and sales have mixed feelings.
Car sales, which are still in the price increase window, are enjoying the last dividend. Lantu car sales in a first-tier city told Guohu Hard Technology (ID: guokr233): "Recently, the prices of various brands have increased, we have not risen, we can feel that there are more people coming to see the car, and the single volume has also risen." ”
However, he also expressed concern about the future - the price increase of electric vehicles is the trend, and the price increase of his own brand is also a matter of time, and then it will not be sold. Sure enough, on March 31, Lantu Automobile announced that its pure electric models would increase their prices by 10,000 yuan, which officially took effect on May 1.
The sales of Lantu Automobile still have a month to earn another profit, but those new energy vehicle brands that have already increased their prices are not so good.
GAC Aean announced on March 4 that the price of many of its models has increased from now on, which has caught its own car sales by surprise.
"After the price increase, the orders of single stores in first-tier cities have almost halved," a gac Aean salesman told Guohu Hard Technology, "Usually it can become about 10 orders per day, and now there are only 4 to 5 orders per day." ”
"Fortunately, the overall increase of GAC Aean is not high, and the impact on sales is limited." The sales said that brands such as Xiaopeng and Zero Run had higher gains and hit sales harder.
Sales have deteriorated, but market demand has not weakened, but has only flowed to some "unofficial" booking channels.
Scalpers' single business is very happy
The so-called unofficial channel is to let the "prospective car owner" who has placed an order (paid a deposit) before change the order into the information of the new buyer, which is called "transfer order" in the industry.
Before the price of electric vehicles rises, the transfer order can allow the regretful old buyer to get the deposit back, and the new buyer can also save the waiting period for the car, which is the best of both worlds for both sides of the transaction.
After the recent increase in the price of electric vehicles, the transfer order is still a way to make money.
According to the trading rules, as long as the buyer has paid a deposit before the car company raises the price, he can buy a new energy vehicle at the original price. Some prospective owners who do not just need it will increase the price by thousands of yuan on the basis of the original price and transfer the order to other interested new buyers. Old buyers earned the difference, and new buyers bought cars below market prices.
In the autohome forum, the keyword "transfer order" was searched, and there were 287 related search results in the past month. Among them, there are both buying posts and demand for orders, involving brands including Zero Run, Extreme Kr, Tesla, Xiaopeng, Geometry, BYD and so on. In addition, idle fish is also a distribution center for transfer information, as long as the car brand + transfer order for keywords to search, you can find the transfer information of each brand.
Some of the owners of these orders sold on the online platform were over budget, and some were because they chose other brands, which happened to meet the price increase and were happy to make a small profit.
But a person has at most one or two orders in his hand, and the money is finished. In order not to miss this good opportunity to make money, some people choose to become scalpers, pimping buyers and sellers, and continuously earning "commissions".
A new energy vehicle scalper told Guohu Hard Technology that as early as February this year, he set up a "small gang" with a few friends to sell new energy vehicle orders.
The core daily activity of these electric vehicle scalpers is "collecting", there are several people who are themselves in the automotive industry, usually often mixed car friends, they are specifically responsible for collecting, as long as someone wants to transfer orders, we will immediately contact to negotiate the price, and then contact the buyer. Their main channels for releasing information are circle of friends and WeChat groups, and occasionally they will pretend to be individual sellers and send them to idle fish, "but if you send more information, others will see that you are a scalper, it is not easy to sell." ”
When the market is good, they can trade three or five orders a day, and when they are small, they only have one or two orders a week. As for how much money can be earned, the scalper said it is related to the brand and model of electric vehicles.
Different brands and models have different price increases, and some brands have risen more, and they have more room to make money, and vice versa. "For example, the zero-run T03 only rose by 6,000 yuan, we cut off the share to the single owner, we may earn about 1,000 yuan, if it is a zero-run C11, Xiaopeng P7, this high price increase model, we can also earn 5,000 yuan."
In addition, the price of the transfer order is also related to the supply and demand of the brand, like tesla all models are in short supply of brands, even if they are sold according to the increased guidance price. Some Tesla orders that pick up cars that month, on the basis of the price increase, add three or five thousand yuan, and some people are rushing to get them.
However, they did not want to make a lot of money by reselling electric vehicle orders, "I took this opportunity to make extra money, and finally had to return to my job." The electric car scalper said that his official job is a partner in an auto beauty studio, and the rest of the team also has serious jobs.
They know that the business of electric vehicle scalpers will not be done soon, after all, there are so many orders before the price increase, and selling one order is less than one order, which cannot nourish an industry.
What's more, what electric vehicle scalpers do, electric vehicle sales have long been doing.
"Fake orders" for car sales, really make money
The reason why "transfer orders" and scalpers appear is mainly to take advantage of the loopholes in the system of new energy vehicle reservation.
Now the new energy vehicles must be booked in real names, in principle, there is no refund or exchange after the deposit is paid, and it is not allowed to resell orders, but in actual operation, there is always room for transfer.
Car sales of many brands, including Tesla, said that if the owner of the order really does not want it, or can contact other buyers to take over the order, the sales staff can also modify the order information in the sales system background.
This was originally a "convenient door" for sales staff to deal with difficult orders, but in the context of the price increase of new energy vehicles, it has become a shortcut for a small number of people to make profits.
Since scalpers can resell orders, car salespeople can naturally do the same.
Some salespeople will use the identity information of relatives and friends to order cars, and then resell them to other customers later, which is called "fake orders" in the industry. Compared with the model of electric vehicle scalpers earning the difference, there are more ways to make profits for fake orders, mainly three -
Like scalpers, orders before price increases are transferred out at the current price after the price increase, earning the spread;
The region will assign each store a pick-up task, and the sales staff who complete the task can get more commission;
The manufacturer's irregular activities will give the owner additional configuration, such as automatic parking, etc., and the sales will charge normally when transferring orders, and they can also earn the difference.
With the improvement of the sales system, the second situation has become less and less, and the current "extra money" of sales personnel is mainly based on the other two situations.
Lantu's sales staff said that fake orders are common among brands. Several new energy brands he has worked for, sales staff have more or less done fake orders, but the brand with a long delivery period can do more than a few orders, and the brand with a short delivery period is risky, so as to do fewer orders to prevent fake orders from going out and smashing in the hand.
"With fake orders, cars from normal channels are not easy to sell, but in order to survive we can only do this." The salesperson believes that the use of rule loopholes is the norm in the sales industry, fake orders have long been no secret in the industry, and the store manager has turned a blind eye to this situation.
What's more, the fake orders resold by the sales staff are still the official sales channels, and will not leave a negative record on the transfer orders and the people who accept the orders, and the rights and interests of new energy vehicles and after-sales service are the same.
But those scalpers alone are difficult to say.
Tempting single, pits everywhere
The "transfer order" in the mouth of many scalpers is actually a new car transfer, that is, let the owner of the original order pick up the car, and directly transfer the car to the new owner after picking up the car.
Even if a new car is transferred, it is actually a second-hand car. On the one hand, the after-sales service of the vehicle will be greatly reduced, not only the lifetime warranty will be invalid, but the power exchange and maintenance rights donated by the car company will only apply to the first car owner[2]; on the other hand, the retention rate of the second-hand car of the new energy vehicle is lower than that of the traditional car, and the new car has been devalued when the new car is transferred, which is also a loss for the new owner.
Moreover, there are many precautions when using new energy vehicles, and scalpers are not professional sales personnel, and it is difficult to provide perfect after-sales service.
Some car owners have been unable to settle claims because of improper use of the vehicle. GAC Aeon sales told The fruit shell hard technology, electric vehicles are generally maintained once a year or 10,000 kilometers, but scalpers sometimes try to save trouble, directly telling customers that there is no maintenance. The car's system has no maintenance record, and the manufacturer cannot settle the claim.
In addition, the degree of intelligence of new energy vehicles is generally high, and there will be a remote upgrade (OTA) in an average of several months. "Some customers have not received professional explanations from the sales, the vehicle has been upgraded and they have not made a mistake, and it is likely to break down halfway, bringing safety risks."
True and false orders, are the joy of yesterday
The hot new energy vehicle market is related to many factors such as policies, prices, and car experience. One of the most influential is the price.
The first is the comparison between oil prices and electricity prices.
On March 17 this year, the price of No. 95 gasoline "broke 9", and the owner of the fuel vehicle directly called "can't afford to drive". Shen Hui, CEO of WM Motor, also took the opportunity to promote electric vehicles on Weibo, saying that "if calculated according to 100,000 kilometers in 5 years, the electricity consumption of new energy vehicles is more than 80,000 yuan cheaper than the fuel cost of fuel vehicles", which is equivalent to 4 LV packages.
The second is the price of the new energy vehicle itself.
From a macro point of view, the price of new energy vehicles is falling every year. According to the new energy automobile industry index released by the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, in February 2021, the price index of pure electric vehicles fell by 8.2% compared with October 2019[3].
Pure electric market and pure electric cars, pure electric SUV price index trend
Source: China Electric Vehicle 100[3]
The main factor driving the price decline of electric vehicles is the power battery.
The price per watt-hour of power batteries in the Ningde era has dropped rapidly from 2.28 yuan in 2015 to 0.89 yuan in 2020, a drop of more than 60%[4]. Although the short-term due to the rise in raw material costs has rebounded, but recently battery companies have gone abroad to grab lithium ore, expand production capacity, in the long run battery prices will still show a downward trend.
On March 23, Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Association, said in an interview with AutoMotive Zongheng that the government has detected the trend of the market to raise the price of raw materials for power batteries and is studying measures to combat related behaviors. [5]
The price of new energy vehicles will continue to fall.
At that time, whether it is the electric vehicle scalper that disrupts the market or the real sales of fake orders, it will all become the joy of yesterday.
References：
[1] Gestapo Motors. More than 40 models piled up in price, the highest rise of more than 30,000 yuan, new energy vehicle companies are too fat? 2022.3.23 https://auto.gasgoo.com/news/202203/23I70294906C501.shtml
[2] CCTV Finance Weibo https://weibo.com/2258727970/LkNZoCwxU?refer_flag=1001030103_
Electric vehicle network. New energy vehicle price index: due to the clear and limited withdrawal of subsidies, the price index in February did not fluctuate much in February 2021.4.15 https://news.ddc.net.cn/newsview_84028.html
Tianfeng Securities. The wave of electric intelligence has spawned an upward breakthrough for independent brands, and is expected to share the high-profit market for luxury cars 2021.8.8 https://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202108091508980441_1.pdf?1628535214000.pdf
[5] Automobile vertical and horizontal. Exclusive | Authoritative voice of the China Automobile Association: pouring cold water on this wave of raw material price increases 2022.3.22 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gKW5TRODQmCZCz525khLnA
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