Price increases, price increases, and re-price increases are the themes of this year's new energy vehicles.
According to incomplete statistics, this year there have been more than 50 electric vehicles of more than 20 car companies, as little as three or four thousand, as high as 20,000 or 30,000, including many popular models, such as BYD Ocean series price increase of 3000 ~ 6000 yuan, cost-effective artifact Wuling Hongguang MINI EV price increase of 4000 yuan, Tesla Model Y price increase of 21,000 yuan.... In addition, Xiaopeng, Ideal, Nezha, Zero Run, Extreme Krypton, and Aian have all been included. The specific situation of the price increase, you can click to read "After the car price soared, should I buy a car this year?" 》。
Originally planned to buy a car this year, hesitated for a while and then refreshed the page, found that the order rose again, and the car was late.
At the same moment, the owner of the order suddenly found that the new car had not yet arrived as a "wealth management product".
Some people were happy and some people were sad, so the scalper came out to break the siege.
Supply outstrips demand, and there will be scalpers
Because of the shortage of chip supply, the increase in battery costs, and the shutdown caused by the epidemic. The electric vehicle market is in short supply, the price is getting higher and higher, and the pick-up time is getting later and later.
Supply outstrips demand, and there will be scalpers.
Recently, idle fish, Little Red Book and major automobile forums have seen a large number of transfer transactions of popular models such as Tesla, Xiaopeng and BYD. These transfers are not simply used cars, they are either brand new cars that have just left the factory or orders for new cars ready to be picked up.
Where do these orders come from?
Due to the production capacity relationship, each company has placed orders still waiting for delivery, and after the price increase, these orders will become a backward resource. The lows are set, and the highs change hands.
There are scalpers and prospective owners.
Scalpers recover these orders from the hands of prospective car owners, increase prices, and then sell them at a higher price to users who now want to order cars; or, individual buyers intend to buy cars for their own use, but because the price of the booked models has increased, they see the difference in price, and then they have the idea of turning orders: if you can transfer out, you should make a profit in vain, and if you can't go out, you can pick up the car as usual.
A cursory glance at idle fish: transfer a Tesla order, you can earn a difference of 3,000 ~ 20,000 yuan; WEIO ET7, each single can be increased by 5,000 ~ 10,000 yuan; Xiaopeng P7 is also more than 8,000 yuan in the price of the previous year, which also includes the interest of 3,000 degrees of free charging, which is still cheaper than the official; the order is still in line with Kr 001, depending on the time, there are also 50 million to 100 million yuan of markup; and even BYD Qin PLUS DM-i also has a price increase of more than 3,000 yuan transfer, which is cheaper than the official price increase of 6,000 yuan.
In short, according to the model transfer method, order price, pick-up time, optional configuration, etc., the price increase of the transfer order is also different, ranging from 1,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan, but the principle is: the price increase will not exceed the price after the official price increase.
We found that the model with the largest official price increase, the more information was transferred, such as Tesla, a "ready to deliver" Model Y order, the transfer price started at 5,000 yuan, and the seller said that he would not accept any counteroffer.
In fact, if you spend 5,000 yuan, you can save 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, and you can skip 4 to 6 months of waiting for delivery, and you can directly pick up the car, which is quite cost-effective. This is a rare "scalper earns, the seller makes money" transaction.
Lower prices and faster pick-ups
Why is there a market for scalpers?
Imagine buying a car now and waiting half a year for it to pick it up. But you find that on second-hand platforms, someone spends less money and mentions the car faster than you do, and the car is still brand new and unused. Can you not be impressed?
Scalpers grasp these two points: (1) the price is lower than the official; (2) the car is picked up faster than the official.
For example, Tesla's 2022 Model Y after-drive version: when it was ordered in November 2021, the price was 280,700 yuan, and now the official price has risen to 316,900 yuan. Even if you spend 10,000 yuan to transfer orders from scalpers, you can still be 26,000 yuan cheaper than the official price.
Not only that, but it will take 10 to 14 weeks to deliver the Model Y now, and the order in November last year is almost delivery time.
Buy the same goods, cheaper than you, and faster than you. This is the scalper.
Vulnerabilities in the new sales model
Transferring orders and adding to the queue at a higher price is actually nothing new. Fuel vehicles have long been playing like this.
Toyota Alpha, Lexus ES, and the recent BMW 4 Series and Tank 300 have all been ordered at a price increase of tens of thousands of yuan to hundreds of thousands of yuan.
But the loopholes of the new forces are not much the same as those of fuel vehicles.
Under the traditional dealer system, the depot is responsible for production, and the dealer is responsible for sales. The depot will set an official guidance price, and the dealer will have a small range of independent pricing power on the basis of the guided price according to the market response.
But electric vehicle companies are different, especially the new forces that focus on new sales models.
First of all, they advocate a direct sales model, the price is completely transparent, and the sooner the decision can get more priority rights, which is usually a good thing, but once the price fluctuates sharply, the previous order will become a value preservation product in the eyes of the scalper; secondly, the new sales model to reduce costs, try to avoid inventory, production and delivery in order of order, if the production capacity can not keep up with the growth rate of terminal orders, it will greatly lengthen the delivery cycle, so that the queue to pick up the car has become a new opportunity.
This time, the collective price increase of electric vehicles is not only wide in scope and large in amplitude, but also has been constrained by production capacity, and the market is in short supply. All of this has led consumers to turn to unconventional channels to buy cars.
Officials, of course, are against it
The emergence of scalpers has broken the brand's control over pricing power. Especially for the new forces, a big factor in their insistence on self-operation is to regard pricing power as a symbol of brand power.
Cracking down on scalpers is not a question of whether manufacturers are willing to sell cars, but the persistence of the pricing system to protect brand image, service quality, market reputation, etc. In August 2020, Pinduoduo had news of subsidizing the purchase of Model 3, but it was directly forcibly removed by Tesla.
In the face of scalpers, Weilai said: There is a possibility of scams in scalper trading, and the company's policy does not support the purchase of third-party orders, not through Flolaw or APP orders, and subsequent problems may occur.
Xiaopeng said: Xiaopeng Automobile's product orders are all associated with the real name of the ID card, and the identity information needs to be verified before the contract can enter the delivery link. If a customer cancels a reservation, the vehicle order will be reintroduced into unified management. If the consumer has any dispute or damage to his or her rights and interests due to private transactions, Xiaopeng Motors will not be liable.
In addition, tesla, BYD and zero run and other brand customer service have said that once the order is determined, unless it is an immediate family member or spouse, it is impossible to change the owner information of the model, so as to limit the phenomenon of order resale.
In order to restrict scalper resale, Tesla also requires the owner of multiple vehicles to sign the "Letter of Commitment not to resell", requiring the owner to promise that within 365 days after picking up the car, no vehicle can be transferred or actually transferred to any third party, if the default must pay a penalty of 20% of the vehicle invoice price, otherwise Tesla has the right to restrict the default vehicle binding account change and supercharging and other services.
However, this practice has been controversial, and some lawyers have said that Tesla's "Letter of Commitment not to resell" is legally invalid, the vehicle is delivered to the owner, the ownership of the property has been transferred, and consumers can freely dispose of their property.
In short, the official use of all means to restrain the scalper scalper is very limited.
Several methods of scalper turning orders
Although it is explicitly prohibited, there are always people who are willing to take risks under the benefits.
Scalpers in the new energy market turn orders are roughly in the following ways:
Some scalpers revealed that although the brand officially emphasizes that it cannot be transferred, in practice, the brand's Fellow (sales consultant) can be operated in the dark. "In fact, Fallow will not care so much, there are many users who regret paying the deposit, or there is no money to pay the full amount." Who buys it and doesn't buy it? Someone can pick up the car, the more orders, the higher the commission. The scalper said.
There are also individual buyers who complete the transfer by renting the purchase order indicator in name. "It's equivalent to having an indicator usage agreement between us, I don't have an indicator, but place an order in the name of the buyer's indicator. When applying, you only need to provide the relevant information such as the indicator use agreement, the indicator confirmation, the watchmaker's ID card signed by both parties," said a certain seller, "This is not what I came up with, it was told to me by the customer commissioner." ”
Even some car companies that have launched the rights and interests of "first car owners" cannot stop the transfer order in actual operation. A scalper said: "The identification of the first owner relies on the car purchase invoice and the motor vehicle registration certificate to prove it, but before the car purchase invoice is issued, the transfer order will only be known to the first-line sales, and the order and rights and interests will not be affected before the lock order becomes a big order." ”
In addition to direct transfer orders, another way is to take a second-hand transaction, that is, a new car transfer. The owner of the original order gets the car, finishes the license, and then transfers the driving license and registration certificate to the buyer, in this process, the vehicle will not be used, so there are scalpers who claim to be able to "hand in hand transfer, the whole process does not touch the car", "unsuccessful, no money".
It can be said that in the scalper market of new energy, the original owners, scalpers, manufacturer sales, and new buyers are all involved.
Risk of scalper trading
Because of the lack of legal constraints, scalper trading can basically only rely on personal credibility of "you like me". Can you find scalpers? Should I look for scalpers? Before making a decision, please understand the risks of trading with scalpers.
As mentioned above, there are two main ways to transfer this wave of scalpers: (1) transfer orders; (2) new car transfers.
The former is that the seller changes the information when the order is placed, transfers the order directly to the buyer, and the buyer finally completes the transaction with the manufacturer. The advantage of this method is that the buyer is the fulfillment of the order and the first owner. There is a risk that the order may be cancelled directly after being discovered by the official transfer.
The latter is the transfer of an unused new car to a buyer, who is the second owner. The risk is that the rights and interests of the first car owner will be lost, and the transfer will reduce the value preservation. And in the process of the transaction, the vehicle is in the name of the seller, if the seller and the buyer can not go through the procedures together offline, you need to mail the information, then the seller may suddenly regret or temporarily ask for a price increase. There is a risk of fraud here.
Although some buyers will ask for it to be stated in the contract: if the seller fails to cooperate with the transfer within the time limit, it is necessary to compensate Party B for liquidated damages according to the new car rental market. However, the seller really defaults, and the cost of the buyer's protection of rights is also very high, and it is often impossible.
All in all, scalper trading carries considerable risk and is often borne by the buyer. Careful consideration is required before a decision. Of course, it will be much more convenient if there is an acquaintance to trade.
How to solve the scalper problem
In the short term, the scalpers of the new energy market will continue to exist. Even if costs, supply and demand return to stability, there will be a final subsidy decline by the end of this year, when there will be at least a wave of price increases.
Transfer orders, pros and cons, vicious competition between scalpers, will seize order resources, disrupt market pricing, because can not get market supervision, many people use the name of scalpers, fraud. There is a great deal of risk.
But saving money and not having to wait is the basic demand of consumers, as long as these needs are there, scalpers will not disappear.
From another point of view, in which industry and stage of scalpers appear, the market heat and price increase of scalpers can actually be used as a reference for manufacturers, so as to observe market supply and demand, price fluctuations and other issues.
In the final analysis, compared with the official order, the size of the scalper is a small fight, and the scalper is in a big fight, and it is reluctant to treat the symptoms rather than the root cause. The fundamental way is for manufacturers to increase production capacity and maintain a stable selling price in order not to give scalpers an opportunity.