Visit the car "graveyard": disappeared ride-hailing and shared cars, and sell them here

Author | Chen Fashan

Edit | Xing Yun

Every "zombie car" waiting for the "end" in the car cemetery is a footnote to the development of the industry, telling other stories behind the vent.

In the past few years, the explosion of online car hailing and car sharing has led to a number of car sales waves, especially domestic new energy vehicles. However, as the tide of capital recedes and the industry tends to be saturated, the cars that were concentrated in use may become a burden with nowhere to place, and eventually evolve into a frequent automobile "graveyard" in many areas.

These "cemeteries" are usually parked with hundreds, if not thousands, of abandoned cars, some of which have been surrounded by hood-high weeds, cracked paint, severely corroded bodies, and even spontaneously combusted, burning to the point that only skeletons remain, fending for themselves in the grass.

In the "cemetery", in addition to seeing "zombie cars" waiting for death, you can also glimpse the subtle details of the automotive industry: some Internet celebrity new energy vehicles that had to wait for months were stored here, reflecting the current trend of slowing down in tram terminal sales; Japanese cars, known for their fuel efficiency and driving resistance, are accumulating more and more, and behind them is the story of the decline in sales of traditional oil vehicles due to the impact of trams.

For these "zombie cars", is there any other way out than waiting for death?

1. The "graveyard" of the car

Car "graveyards" are nothing new, but there are always new stories about the "zombie cars" parked inside.

In an open lot near the Longxia Road subway station in Wenzhou's Ouhai District, hundreds of cars are quietly "lying", many of them have been "lying" for several years.

The southern side of this vacant land is close to the Jinwen railway line, because there are trains passing through, it has been difficult to develop for a long time; To the north is Wenzhou Avenue Auto Street, where 4S stores are dense; Not far away is the used car market. Under the influence of multiple factors, it gradually developed into a Wenzhou automobile "cemetery".

Inside the car "cemetery", densely parked "zombie cars" / leopard changes

Recently, "Leopard Change" visited this car "graveyard", of which the largest number is Dongfeng Fengxing Jingyi S50, Geely and other new energy models, the number of about 200, the car condition is poor. Judging from the advertisements of Didi and Wanshun on the bodies of some cars, these are the operating vehicles eliminated by ride-hailing companies. Around the Qingming Festival, it rained in Wenzhou for several days, but the doors and windows of many cars were wide open, allowing the rain to get wet, and cars, especially trams, because of the large number of electronic components, were most afraid of being soaked in water. Obviously, after these cars were abandoned here, no one cared.

On rainy days, the doors are wide open/leopards change

On some car insurance policies scattered in the car, it can be seen that the insured is a new energy ride-hailing company in Wenzhou, which was insured from September 2020 to September 2021, according to which it is speculated that these cars have been here for more than a year. Surrounding merchants said they did not know who the cars were, and they did not usually see the staff to look after them.

The company's website address displayed on Qichacha is no longer accessible, and the phone number is also empty and cannot be contacted. On April 10, "Leopard Change" came to the company's registered address and found that the scene was a housekeeping company, the door was locked, and from the on-site furnishings, it seemed that the building had been empty for a long time.

In a car, "Leopard Change" found the contact information of an online car driver, who said that he rented the company's car two years ago and ran for a period of time online car, and then left, and did not know how to deal with the car next.

Due to long-term parking, many car brake pads have rusted, paint cracked, weeds have grown in the gaps in the doors, and the seats have become moldy and bulging because they have been soaked by rain for a long time.

Spontaneously combusted car/leopard change

These cars are not worthless, and some act as "organ donors": more valuable parts such as lights, tires, motors, steering wheels, and even front and rear bumpers are removed. Surrounding second-hand car dealers speculate that some of the same models may still be in operation, and after a failure, they will disassemble and replace them from these cars to reduce maintenance costs.

In this "car graveyard", in addition to scrap cars, there are many new faces: more than 100 new BYD cars, more than 20 Changan navy SL03, more than 10 Ora and other popular new energy vehicles.

The identification card affixed on the front windshield shows that some Changan navy left the factory in August 2022 and has been unsold for 8 months, according to industry practice, cars that have not been sold for 6 months are inventory cars.

In July 2022, Changan Deep Blue SL03 was officially launched, which is Changan Automobile's new energy flagship model and was once regarded as a strong competitor to Tesla Model 3. However, under the pressure of Tesla, BYD Seal and other competing products to reduce prices, the sales of Changan Deep Blue SL03 were not satisfactory.

Data shows that in January 2023, the delivery volume of the navy SL03 fell to 6,137 units, down nearly 50% from the previous month; It continued to fall to 4103 in February. In March 2023, the auto market began a "price war", and Changan Deep Blue SL03 was also forced to join, with a maximum price reduction of 42,000 yuan, which eventually led to a recovery in sales in March.

The slow-selling Changan navy SL03/leopard change

The BYD parked on site is mainly Song PLUS, Dolphin and other models, and some of them are shipped in January 2023. Two consumers who had just purchased Song PLUS and Dolphin in mid-2022 told "Leopard Change" that they waited for three or four months from paying the deposit to picking up the car, and there were no discounts. In the case of the gradual increase in inventory, on April 7, "Leopard Change" contacted Wenzhou BYD Ocean Network store, the other party said that there are now existing cars, there is no need to wait to pick up the car, and the Song PLUS model can be discounted by more than 6,800 yuan.

BYD is the hottest domestic new energy vehicle brand in recent years, surpassing FAW-Volkswagen's sales in 2022, and it is the first time that its own brand has won the annual sales championship in the domestic auto market. However, under the background of the intensification of the car market and the trend of price reduction this year, BYD's sales pressure has also increased significantly.

Another force in the "graveyard" is Toyota Leiling, Corolla and other Japanese cars, the number is about 100, and it is also the only supervised model. The staff said that these cars are all eliminated company cars, which were licensed in 2019, but the mileage is relatively long, driving hundreds of thousands of kilometers.

"The better one can be sold as a second-hand car for 40,000 or 50,000 yuan, and the brand new landing price is 1560,000, and now the price can't be raised." If the car is in poor condition, the motor and other accessories will be removed and replaced with other cars. The staff member said.

Previously, Toyota Leiling and Corolla were known for their fuel saving, low failure rate and high value retention rate, and were known as the "financial products" of the automotive industry. However, under the impact of new energy vehicles, the sales of Japanese cars have fallen sharply in recent years, and the retention rate has been greatly reduced, and they have also become new customers in the "graveyard" of automobiles.

2. Where did the "zombie car" come from?

How high the pig on the vent flies, how heavy it falls.

Most of the cars in the car "graveyard" come from ride-hailing and car-sharing companies, and many years ago, with the blessing of capital, these two industries took advantage of the wind.

The development of the mobile Internet has promoted ride-hailing to become an inseparable part of people's travel, the rapid development of the ride-hailing market, and the scale of ride-hailing drivers and operating vehicles are also expanding. According to the basic operation situation of the ride-hailing industry released by the Ministry of Transport in February 2023, a total of 303 ride-hailing platform companies across the country have obtained the operation license of the ride-hailing platform, and a total of 5.177 million ride-hailing driver licenses and 2.191 million vehicle transportation licenses have been issued in various places, an increase of 15.2%, 27.7% and 34.3% respectively year-on-year.

According to the regulations, vehicles engaged in ride-hailing operations that have traveled 600,000 kilometers or 8 years need to be compulsorily scrapped. From the actual situation, the cars in the car "graveyard" are mainly not these retired vehicles, but from problem companies and faulty vehicles.

Wang Fang, a staff member of the head ride-hailing platform, told "Leopard Change" that as long as the car can be driven safely, the operating company will generally continue to rent it out. Only if the company is not well run, the car cannot be rented, or goes bankrupt, the car can be abandoned.

"The general model of the ride-hailing industry is that the platform is responsible for matchmaking, and the asset company operating offline is responsible for managing drivers and rental vehicles. How the car is disposed of mainly depends on the arrangement of the asset company. Wang Fang said.

Once such asset companies are not well managed, the vehicles they operate are likely to be abandoned to the car "graveyard" because they are not easy to dispose of and cannot be sold at a price.

According to data compiled by the Ministry of Transport, 67 ride-hailing platforms did not upload company data for more than 180 days in February this year. According to relevant industry regulations, those engaged in the ride-hailing industry must upload basic static data such as vehicles and drivers, as well as dynamic data such as order information and positioning information, on time.

67 ride-hailing platforms have "lost contact", and many have actually become "zombie" platforms. According to data from Qichcha, up to now, 2,793 ride-hailing platforms have been cancelled or revoked. These "zombie cars" caused by platform problems are probably not few.

In addition to ride-hailing, the once popular car-sharing has also contributed a lot of "zombie cars" to the car "graveyard". Up to now, nearly 2,400 shared mobility companies across the country are in the state of deregistration. This has resulted in a large number of car-sharing cars being abandoned on the outskirts of cities.

In Shuangpu Town, Hangzhou, about 2,000 abandoned shared cars have been "lying flat" in the local area for nearly four years, which not only caused inconvenience to villagers, but also seriously damaged the local ecology.

On the other hand, ride-hailing and shared cars usually purchase low-end models, or even low-end models of "small factories", with a high vehicle failure rate, and after-sales maintenance cannot keep up, unable to continue to operate, and can only be forced to idle.

According to Zhejiang Economic Television, in 2018, a person engaged in car leasing in Hangzhou purchased more than 330 Changan Benben mini new energy vehicles at a unit price of about 50,000 yuan. After the vehicle was put into use for half a year, circuit failures began to occur one after another, and the vehicle suddenly cut off and stalled during driving. Nearly 300 vehicles were almost completely destroyed.

The docked Changan Automobile after-sales service can only repair two or three cars per month, which means that it takes 10 years to repair all these cars. In desperation, the cars sat idle in an open space on the outskirts of Hangzhou for three or four years. Due to the long parking time, many cars have been crawling with vines, and even if they are eventually repaired, it may be difficult to adapt to the current operational needs, and perhaps only "death" awaits them.

3. Change scrapped cars and sell them on pounds

Since it has been idle for a long time, why are the "zombie cars" in the car "graveyard" not sold second-hand cars and turned waste into treasure?

A number of second-hand car dealers told "Leopard Change" that although second-hand cars have one price per car and cannot give a unified recycling price, normal use of vehicles can be sold for 100,000 yuan or 20,000 yuan after driving for several years and about 100,000 kilometers.

And the long-idle new energy vehicles in the automobile "cemetery" even if the price is 2,000 yuan / car, which is cheaper than two-wheeled battery cars, and few people care. Lin Feng, an observer of the automotive industry, said that the reason why these cars have fallen through the floor price is that they have been parked for too long, the power supply system may have aged or failed, and the battery is the core component of new energy vehicles, and the car is likely to be affordable and repaired.

According to his observations, the cars purchased by ride-hailing companies and car-sharing companies are not high in configuration, and many cars before 2018 are immature, with an official range of less than 300 kilometers, and the actual range may only be about 100 kilometers. Coupled with the rapid iterative upgrading of new energy vehicles every year, these cars are no longer competitive today, and they have lost their circulation capacity.

Whether it is an online car or a shared car, it is a commercial vehicle and cannot be directly sold as a second-hand car. A person engaged in second-hand car business in Zhejiang told "Leopard Change" that commercial vehicles can only enter the second-hand car market circulation if they are changed to non-operating vehicles at the vehicle management office first.

In fact, after many ride-hailing and car-sharing companies explode, the daily operation of the company tends to be chaotic, and even the boss runs away, whether he has the spare power to complete the change of the nature of the vehicle, and the resale of second-hand cars is also marked with questions.

After staying in the car "graveyard" for a long time, the end result is likely to be a scrapped car. This is also the cheapest ending for cars.

On April 8, in the name of the owner, "Leopard Change" consulted two scrapped car recycling companies in Zhejiang about the recovery price of the 2008 Volkswagen Passat model, and the other party said that after the owner canceled the vehicle, the estimated value was based on the curb weight marked on the car nameplate, that is, according to the weight of the steel used in the body.

"The recycling price is about 2,000 yuan a ton, and the weight of the car is about 1.5 tons, which is about 3,000-3,500 yuan." Look specifically at the weight of the nameplate note. The above-mentioned scrapped car source said. The recycling price of the same car in second-hand car dealers is about 6500-7000 yuan.

The reason why the value of scrapped cars is much lower than that of second-hand cars is that the car has lost its function, and the most valuable thing is the metal used in the body, and scrapped car recycling companies usually need to pay towing fees, dismantling fees, etc., so it has become an industry practice to convert the scrapped price according to the quality of the car.

Large parts such as automobile engines and gearboxes will be dismantled and damaged during the scrap stage to avoid re-entering the market, which reduces the profitable projects of dismantling enterprises and virtually reduces the value of scrap recycling.

For the "zombie cars" of the car "graveyard", being able to flow into the second-hand car market and return to the family is the most resource-less ending, but the vast majority of cars are not so lucky, and eventually cannot escape the fate of being scrapped.

The success in the vent is similar, and the misfortune of the "zombie cars" in the car "graveyard" is different.

(At the request of interviewees, Wang Fang, Hu Zheng, and Lin Feng are pseudonyms in the text)