It is better to charge a few yuan a day for a car than to leave it vacant. Car rental platforms offer heavy discounts for attracting customers.

Under the influence of the epidemic, some car rental platforms have even lowered the daily rental prices of some models to single digits in order to attract customers.

“7 yuan a day is really available.” Ms. Zhang, who was on vacation in Lijiang, posted a car rental price list on the evening of February 23. On the Shenzhou Car Rental platform, weekly rental packages for a variety of models, including the Chevrolet New Cruze, Buick Encore and Buick Encore, are available for as low as 7 yuan per day.

Ms. Zhang told a reporter from the First Auto Channel that she and her family went to Lijiang for vacation. Years ago, she tried to rent a car on the above-mentioned platform for transportation. However, at that time, the daily rental price of the above-mentioned model of the same level was the lowest. About 300 yuan. With the development of the domestic epidemic, car rental prices have slowly declined after the holidays, starting from more than 100 yuan and gradually reducing to dozens of yuan. On February 23, she found that the price on the platform had been further adjusted, and finally rented a Buick Encore in China last week at a price of 7 yuan per day. The daily rent plus insurance and other basic service fees, the final one-week price was only It’s 395 yuan.

Car rental platform orders fell sharply

Such prices are not limited to tourist cities like Lijiang, nor are they limited to car rental platforms like Shenzhou. The reporter then rented a car from another car rental platform, Wukong. It is understood that the platform is currently cooperating with leasing companies to launch preferential car rental programs in multiple cities, with daily car rentals starting from as low as 4 yuan on weekdays.

According to the reporter’s understanding, under normal circumstances, holidays such as the Spring Festival are the peak season for car rentals, and rents can generally rise to 1.5-2 times the normal price. Even after the Spring Festival, although market demand has declined, daily rents as low as single digits have almost never been seen.

“All price strategies are formulated based on the occupancy rate.” A public relations person from China Car Rental responded to reporters that on the one hand, the off-season for car rentals is already after the new year, and this year’s epidemic has had an impact on the car rental market. So the company is trying to launch weekday packages to attract people returning to work.

“The epidemic has a great impact on the car rental industry.” Hu Xianhe, CEO of Wukong Car Rental, told a reporter from the First Auto Channel that according to data from the Wukong platform, compared with the same period last year, the order volume this year has dropped by at least 8%. into about.

“The impact is indeed very large.” An insider from another travel company told reporters that because the large-scale outbreak of the new crown epidemic occurred during the Spring Festival, relatively speaking, although there are still some orders that last until the Spring Festival, The impact of chargebacks is not particularly big. The real impact is that after the Spring Festival, there are almost no orders coming in.

“The cars of leasing companies are also parked there. Many car rental companies purchase vehicles with financing. There are pressures to repay loans and depreciation losses. After all, some costs can be recovered by renting them out at a low price. Okay." Hu Xianhe told reporters.

How big of an impact does the vacancy of vehicles have on leasing companies? Xu Jialin, a partner of Wukong Car Rental Investment and Financing, calculated an account. For example, for a car worth 100,000 yuan, according to the experience of the leasing industry, it usually takes three years to recover the cost, and then the residual value of the old car is about 40,000 yuan. In other words, from purchase to sale, a car can basically bring 40,000 yuan in income to the leasing company in three years. "Then it can be about 3,000 yuan per month." Xu Jialin told reporters that there are a large number of small and medium-sized rental companies on the Wukong car rental platform. "The larger ones may have a fleet of thousands of vehicles, and the smaller ones may have a fleet of thousands of vehicles." A mom-and-pop shop may only have more than 10 cars.” If it is a rental company with more than 30 vehicles, the epidemic may cause them a loss of about 100,000 yuan. He said that although some leasing companies mostly rent long-term leases, due to the impact of the epidemic, lessees may also delay payments, which will also affect the cash flow of leasing companies. In addition, more than 90% of the cars of leasing companies are obtained through loans or other financial services. The purchase of means involves capital costs, venue rent, etc. which are also a large expense.

“Some leasing companies rent out vehicles to others for use as online car-hailing services. However, due to the impact of the epidemic on the online car-hailing market, some leasing companies have also experienced chargebacks. So many vehicles have been returned, or Sell ??the cars in poor condition as second-hand cars, or go to the long-term rental market." Yang Yang, CEO of Weichai, told reporters that for some small rental companies, if they cannot come up with solutions in the short term, they may face survival problems.

“In response to the current situation, we have not only launched special work packages and weekly rental packages, but also launched 0 yuan rental on the first day for new users. This not only meets the daily travel needs of office workers, expands the overall user scale, and at the same time improves work efficiency. The daily occupancy rate, coupled with the larger-scale contactless self-service exchange application, can further improve the overall operational efficiency," the public relations person in charge of China Car Rental told reporters.

In order to reduce the impact of the epidemic, eHI has also launched a series of response plans. For example, "commuting packages are launched in first- and second-tier cities, with lower prices and come with COVID-19 insurance; the booking cycle is liberalized. In the past, car rentals could be booked up to two months in advance, but now bookings are directly opened for six months. This will attract some people who plan to go on self-driving trips after the epidemic is over; increase communication with corporate users, let their companies promote the model of renting cars to work by themselves, and provide preferential group purchase prices

The trend of the car rental market. Diversification

Travel companies are taking measures to help themselves. In the long term, the travel industry still has great opportunities. “Currently, there are more than 400 million people in my country with driver’s licenses, but the number of private cars is only 2. Billion, the market demand is still huge, especially with the rise of young consumers, the proportion of driving license holders will continue to increase in the future. However, due to the impact of urban capacity and traffic, car ownership cannot grow without limit. This contradiction It depends on the car rental market to solve this problem. "Xu Jialin believes.

Xu Jialin also said that although there are currently about 25,000 car rental companies in the country, the rental market is not mature and cannot fully meet market demand. Compared with developed countries such as the United States, The price of domestic car rental is still relatively high. For example, in the United States, the daily rental price of a car may be as low as about 10 US dollars, which is equivalent to the price of a hamburger. However, in the Chinese market, due to the relatively high price of new cars, the rental market is based on Asset prices are priced, so rents are relatively high. But as the price of new cars decreases and income levels continue to grow, once the gap between the two narrows to a reasonable range, demand in this market will eventually explode.

It will take time for this market to mature. The gross profit margin of the car rental market will drop significantly, and more and more attention will be paid to the differentiation of services. In the future, the car rental market may develop in the direction of "subscription" services. Currently, there are more than 1 million vehicles for leasing in the entire market, of which the two major leasing companies, China and eHi, own about 200,000 vehicles, accounting for 20% of the total. As automobile manufacturers join the travel market, these companies with assets will provide travel services, which may squeeze the former's market. As the Internet matures, platform providers like Wukong Car Rental will also develop rapidly. "Although most of the platforms are small and medium-sized leasing companies, their outlets can be spread to counties or villages, and their services are more personalized and diversified. Through platform e-commerce, they can get greater traffic import. Safety and standardization have also been improved, and there will be greater room for development in the future," Xu Jialin said.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.