Can't keep ride-hailing drivers
Author/ IT Times reporter Shen Yibin
Editor/ Hao Junhui Sun Yan
On April 16, Jinan suspended the issuance of online car-hailing vehicle transportation certificates, becoming the first city to press the "pause button" for online car-hailing in 2024......
The ride-hailing market is undergoing a "big reshuffle". In order not to be eliminated, the major online car-hailing platforms have participated in the "price war", and the "cannon fodder" is naturally the online car-hailing drivers at the lowest end of the "food chain", and many of them have left this job that once "earned more than 10,000 yuan a month".
Caught between the platform and the driver, ride-hailing companies are in a dilemma.
Recently, a reporter from "IT Times" visited a number of online car-hailing rental companies in Shanghai and found that reducing car rentals, paying deposits after running, and providing free accommodation do not seem to be able to keep drivers from leaving. Large leasing companies are also making a profit in the market "new to old" trade-in, while some smaller leasing companies have already started selling their cars.
Rental income shrank by 15%
On the afternoon of April 16, a reporter from IT Times took an online car-hailing car at Nanxiang subway station to the 777 Automobile Intelligent Technology Park, 2.94 kilometers away, where many online car-hailing rental companies gathered. "This distance is very embarrassing, the price starts at 15 yuan, and the platform deducts about 20% of the fee, and it is only 11 or 2 yuan when it arrives, but the platform can't help but accept the order. Along the way, the driver, Master Wang, complained to reporters.
This is the 9th order he received today, and it is also the 8th hour of work, but it is still 300 yuan short of the daily target of 800 yuan. "The platform draws 200, the leasing company deducts 200, and the charging food costs another 200, and it will be 200 a day. In the face of shrinking wages, Master Wang plans to change jobs after working for half a year.
After arriving at the destination, the reporter found an online car-hailing rental company. As far as the eye can see, seventy or eighty new energy vehicles labeled "Didi Chuxing" are neatly arranged in front of the charging pile, among which there are several empty parking spaces, and the two-story building on the left is the driver's lounge and dormitory.
The first room on the first floor of the small building is the online car-hailing rental office, and Xu Tian (pseudonym), the head of the company who has been in the industry for nearly 10 years, is looking at the computer with a sad face, because he has recently had to recruit drivers. He told the "IT Times" reporter that the company currently has more than 300 cars, most of which come from large car rental companies in Shanghai such as Johnson & Johnson new energy taxis, and the rent ranges from 5,500 yuan ~ 6,800 yuan according to different models, and he subleases them to other drivers, "We are middlemen to make a difference of three or five hundred." ”
In October last year, the ride-hailing rental industry began to decline, and some veteran drivers chose to leave. Xu Tian's rent for drivers has also dropped from 7,000~7,500 yuan per month to 6,000~7,000 yuan, and the average profit has shrunk by 15%. With such a discount and a wide network of drivers, Xu Tian was able to guarantee that all the vehicles were rented out at that time, and at the same time found seven or eight drivers as "substitutes".
Since the beginning of this year, the occupancy rate has begun to decline, which can be seen in the parking situation in the company's parking lot. The afternoon was supposed to be a good time to take orders, and in addition to the vehicles that came back to recharge and rest, there were more than a dozen vehicles that were idle, and the roof was already covered with dust.
Blindly reducing the rent, the leasing company also took on more pressure, for which Xu Tian took "Plan B" - the original deposit of 5,000 yuan, the driver paid 2,000 yuan to run first, and then made up the difference of 3,000 yuan after the capital turnover. "The deposit we paid to the family was 10,000 yuan per car, and I only collected 5,000 yuan. ”
Not only that, Xu Tian also arranged a free four-person dormitory for drivers with difficult conditions, and the free water and drinks in the freezer were also prepared for drivers. However, when the constantly discounted income does not meet the daily needs, these "small profits" are not very attractive to drivers.
Stop for a day and lose a thousand yuan
In the highly mobile ride-hailing industry, recruiting and retaining people seems to be an eternal theme.
According to a 2021 survey by the School of Social Sciences at Tsinghua University, the average length of time a group of ride-hailing drivers has been in the industry for 3.91 years, 33% of drivers have been in the industry for less than one year, and nearly a quarter of drivers are part-time.
This is only the data of 2021, in Xu Tian's eyes, he can be regarded as an old driver after working for a year now.
The biggest headache for Xu Tian is not only people, but also the idle online car-hailing is a bottomless pit of "blood sucking".
"Depreciation costs money, insurance costs money, car washing, licensing, maintenance, annual inspection and other expenses are all costs. Xu Tian gave the "IT Times" reporter a calculation, after the online car-hailing is idle, the biggest loss cost item is depreciation, accounting for nearly 50%, especially new energy vehicles, the battery life will always be degraded; insurance includes the operation of the car compulsory insurance, commercial insurance, etc., accounting for about 15% of the cost, with the rise of the operating life and accident rate, the insurance cost of new energy vehicles will rise every year; vehicle maintenance, repair, management and other service costs, accounting for about 30% of the cost.
"With all these things added to the rent for the previous family, a brand-new energy online car-hailing car will lose six or seven hundred yuan in fixed costs for one day of idleness, and if you count the profit income that can be run every day, it will lose almost a thousand yuan. Xu Tian said.
The "IT Times" reporter saw an online car-hailing car with a damaged tail in the 777 Automobile Intelligent Science and Technology Park, which was slowly driving into the after-sales service center for maintenance. Xu Tian once recruited a driver with many violations and accidents, "I remember that when he drove the new car, it cost 16,000 yuan to deal with the violations, plus accident maintenance, it cost nearly 30,000 yuan a year." ”
Renting out may not make money, but idling must not make money, Xu Tian is still trying to recruit people.
If you can't rent it, you can only sell the car
Compared with Xu Tian, who has 300 cars, another small online car-hailing company on Cao'an Highway has started a car sales business. Sandwiched between a noodle restaurant and a daily necessities store, the five big words "online car-hailing rental" are the door, and the words "online car-hailing for sale" are printed underneath, and in the 20-square-meter shop, the company's head Chen Hai (pseudonym) is also at a loss.
"We have 70 or 80 ride-hailing vehicles, some of which we have rented from our families and some of whom have bought new cars. Chen Hai told the "IT Times" reporter that the rented car costs six or seven thousand yuan a month, and the monthly loan repayment of the self-purchased car is about the same.
Selling a car is a helpless move to "survive with a broken arm". Chen Hai said that the purchase price of these new cars is about 1670,000 yuan, and most of the models are Buick Micro Blue 6, and the selling price will be reduced by an average of 10,000 yuan or 20,000 yuan.
According to the statistics of the China Statistical Yearbook, there are 1.39 million taxis in the country, and the total sales of new rental online car-hailing cars in 2016~2023 are 4.23 million units, and in eight years, the total number of new rental online car-hailing cars has reached 304% of the rental holdings, and there will be 850,000 online car-hailing vehicles in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 18%, which does not include the huge scale of private non-operating vehicles joining the online car-hailing industry.
In Shanghai alone, 50,000 taxis, 72,000 compliant online car-hailing, plus some non-compliant online car-hailing vehicles that are still taking orders on the travel platform, the total taxi passenger capacity in Shanghai has exceeded 120,000. The situation of "more monks and less porridge" is becoming more and more obvious.
Yang Guoping, a deputy to the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress and chairman of the public transportation group, once said that the total surplus has led to insufficient taxis, online car-hailing and online car-hailing, drivers cannot make money, and the industry is no longer attractive. Therefore, total volume control is an important aspect of the healthy development of the online car-hailing industry. He called for the establishment of a long-term mechanism for the regulation and control of the total number of taxis, to achieve unified standards in compliance supervision, to link the interests of the main operator and the driver in the operation mode, and to share the responsibility of the freight rate mechanism.
As for how to control the total amount, online car-hailing rental companies, which are plagued by many negative news such as contract traps, rent-to-purchase risks, and vehicle legality issues, have naturally become "the target of public criticism". Tightening the "belt" to get by is the status quo of most ride-hailing rental companies.
Typesetting / Ji Jiaying
Photo/ IT Times
Source/"IT Times" official account vittimes
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