Youth Economic Theory
A new round of "Rainbow Wars" hits shared motorcycles, don't go the same way
A new "Rainbow War" is being staged, and many Internet giants are ambitious about sharing motorcycles.
In different cities, the game between management departments and operating companies has formed different regulatory strategies.
Experts look forward to learning the lessons of the brutal growth of shared bicycles in the early stage, and the capacity of the city should be considered when launching.
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At around 8:40 in the morning, Li Chao (pseudonym) will appear at the Changsha subway station, along with a group of power exchange operation and maintenance personnel.
Every day, he takes this group of colleagues to replace the batteries and clean up the mud of the shared motorcycles. If they are not placed in place, they must be removed in time...
Shared motorcycles once swarmed and disappeared in some cities, and recently ushered in the "second spring."
According to the "National Shared Motorcycle Industry Development Report" released by the China Urban Public Transport Association, there are currently more than 200 shared motorbike operating companies across the country, and two or three years ago, there were only dozens of shared bike companies.
At present, nearly 5 million shared motorcycles have been put into use nationwide.
However, motorcycle sharing is not welcome in all places, and first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have not yet explicitly allowed access.
Since the beginning of this year, some cities have "showed red cards" to clean up and rectify shared motorcycles that have been put into operation.
The lessons learned from shared bicycles such as disorderly competition and random parking are also reminding the future of shared motorcycles: Have those "old problems" been solved?
Borrowing the "new national standard" Dongfeng, shared motorcycles "come back"
There are more cars on the street, and the icons on the phone have become denser.
But no one can tell exactly when the "second spring" of shared motorcycles began.
In Li Chao's impression, the change probably began in mid-2019, when a large number of shared motorcycle brands entered the Changsha market intensively.
Today, Changsha has a total of 14 shared motorcycle brands, of which two or three are large and top-ranked.
He was originally engaged in the sales of building materials, and is now the head of a group of shared bicycles in Hunan.
The change Li Chao felt began with an adjustment in the motorcycle industry.
On April 15, 2019, the mandatory national standard of "E-bike Safety Technical Specifications" was officially implemented.
The “new national standard” requirements for electric bicycles, which can be called the “most stringent” in history, require that the maximum speed of electric bicycles is 25km/h, the vehicle mass (including battery) is adjusted to 55kg, and the motor power is adjusted to 400W. If you use electric bicycles that do not meet the old standards or the new standards, set a transition period, issue temporary license plates, fail to receive temporary license plates in accordance with local regulations, and pass on the road after the transition period expires, the public security organs will strictly punish .
In order to meet the requirements of the "new national standard", the output of electric bicycles in the whole industry fell sharply in 2018, and then the output resumed in 2019, an increase of 6.1% year-on-year.
And this year, the output of electric bicycles has increased rapidly.
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the national output of electric bicycles was 15.501 million from January to July this year, an increase of 18.7% year-on-year, and a year-on-year increase of 49.5% in July.
Behind the rapid increase in sales of shared motorcycles, a new "Rainbow War" is being staged.
In April of this year, Xingheng Power, an electric vehicle battery manufacturer, announced that it provided 1 million sets of lithium batteries for Didi’s Qingju bikes, and the two sides signed a new strategic cooperation agreement.
Earlier, Didi announced the "0188" plan, with the goal of achieving 100 million orders per day globally in three years, of which shared motorcycles are regarded as an important business direction.
The person in charge of Qingju Bicycle said that in the future, large-battery and high-endurance motorcycles will be introduced in low-tier cities, and some small-battery electric scooters will be deployed in second- and third-tier cities as a supplement to bus connections and short-to-medium distance travel.
Another Internet giant, Meituan, is also ambitious about sharing motorcycles.
Meituan co-founder Wang Huiwen said in an interview that the focus of Meituan Bikes in 2020 is to increase investment in vehicles, "no matter how many cities, all increase investment."
Since then, there have been media reports that Meituan has ordered millions of shared motorcycles from motorcycle manufacturers such as Fujitec and Xinri.
Haro, who came from behind in the "Rainbow War" of shared bicycles, has been operating shared mopeds for 3 years, and has sunk to second and third tier cities and below.
On October 9th, Harbin Travel announced its presence in Urumqi, Aksu, Xinjiang and other places. So far, it has covered more than 400 cities across the country.
"The whole sinking city is very welcome to motorcycles." According to Liu Qun (a pseudonym), the person in charge of shared motorcycles, public transportation in cities with second and third tiers and below is lacking, and the scale of the launch and use of shared motorcycles this year is not good. Called "Blowout", in Changsha alone, "there may be more than 10 colors and brands in operation".
But he judged that the last round of "Rainbow War" and "cash-burning subsidy" for shared bicycles will not recur.
"After all, there is a round of precedents ahead, and I believe that they will move forward on this track with a relatively more rational attitude."
Problems such as random parking and release recur, and management policies are tightening
While related companies continue to increase the launch of shared motorcycles, some "old problems" that have appeared in the era of shared bicycles have appeared in some places.
In early October, Liu Fang, a citizen of Nanchang, found on the way to work that there were many shared motorcycles on some non-motorized vehicle lanes.
The originally crowded road to work has been narrowed by these randomly parked shared motorcycles.
And this kind of situation has existed for a long time, and no one has cleared it for a long time.
This reminded her that a similar situation had occurred in shared bicycles in previous years.
Gai Jindong, Dean of the People's Travel Research Institute, believes that shared electric vehicle companies can use more scientific and technological power to achieve orderly parking management of shared electric vehicles.
People Travel is a shared travel platform developed by Jintai Travel (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. It is currently in operation in more than 100 cities across the country.
Gai Jindong said that the needs of urban residents for shared motorcycles must be resolved, but issues such as urban construction planning and layout must also be considered.
As an enterprise, it must legally and compliantly obtain access qualifications, implement the "one vehicle, one license, one license" regulations, and delineate the operating area and the number of products based on population distribution and urban characteristics.
In terms of parking management, GPS and Beidou positioning systems can be used to play the role of electronic fences to achieve orderly parking and guide safe travel.
At the same time, some cities have also tightened their policies on the operation and management of shared motorcycles, and have even been suspended.
Earlier, the Transportation Bureau of Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province issued a document requiring four shared electric bicycle companies to take back the shared electric bicycles that have been placed within a time limit. Those that have not been recycled will be cleaned up.
Previously, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Foshan and other places in Guangdong Province also introduced similar policies, requiring the removal of shared motorcycles.
It is worth noting that some operating companies have launched shared motorcycles on a large scale in some cities without obtaining relevant permits.
Since April this year, the Nanning Traffic Police Department has carried out a number of clean-up and rectifications on shared motorcycles parked in disorder and without license plates.
In August, Dongguan's urban management department also interviewed 4 companies that had put vehicles on the market without permission and asked them to clear them within a time limit.
Zhang Bin (pseudonym) is the operation manager of a shared motorcycle company.
According to their research, many cities have a large demand for shared motorcycles, but different local management departments often have different attitudes towards this.
For example, in some places, the transportation department considers that it can share the pressure of public transportation and gives the shared motorcycle a "green light", while the traffic police or urban management department may "light up a red light" due to concerns about traffic accidents, parking management, and battery safety. ".
Under the "total control", will usher in a round of reshuffle?
In different cities, the game between management departments and operating companies has formed different regulatory strategies.
First-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai clearly discourage the development of shared electric bicycles, while small and medium-sized cities adopt the idea of "total amount control" and make corresponding regulations on quotas and operation management.
For example, Zhejiang has issued special local regulations for motorcycles, clearly stipulating the scope, quantity and related management requirements of shared motorcycles; Nantong, Jiangsu adopts the management model of "franchising" and sets up entry barriers.
Liu Qun agrees with the management idea of "total control".
"I hope that this industry can learn from some of the lessons encountered in the early development of shared bicycles, and the investment must take into account the capacity of the city." According to him, the company has established a set of models based on the GDP, population distribution, unit population density, Factors such as travel distance calculate the number of shared motorcycles.
In Liu Qun’s view, although shared motorcycles have higher unit costs but better profitability than shared bicycles, there are more companies entering the competition. However, “the situation of so many players in the same industry is not It will last a long time."
He judged that the shared motorcycle industry will usher in a round of reshuffling process. Compared with the reshuffling process of shared bicycles in the previous two years, the difference is that it will be slower.
The above-mentioned person in charge of Qingju Bicycle also said that the capital market and users' perceptions of sharing two-round products are different from a few years ago, and they cannot rely solely on launching and low prices to seize the market.
At the same time, more and more local governments have also issued specific management measures, and most of them are total volume control, dynamic control, real-time linkage, and deadline evaluation.
Gai Jindong also noticed that different cities have formulated different regulatory policies and set entry thresholds to approve the amount and method of delivery of shared bicycles.
As a practitioner, he also looks forward to the "new national standard" of electric bicycles to play a more effective role.
In his view, since the implementation of the "new national standard" for electric vehicles, many places have set a transition period of 1-3 years for electric vehicles on the road. It is expected that the transition period will end by the end of next year, and the operation and management of shared motorcycles will also be There are more consistent specifications.
Prior to this, industry associations have tried to establish group standards.
In August, the series of standards for shared electric mopeds (draft for comments) led by the China Urban Public Transport Association was formally released, setting out technical or constructive specifications for operational services, lithium batteries, and public charging stations.
Yang Xinmiao, deputy director of the Transportation Research Institute of Tsinghua University, believes that in terms of parking management, "we have done a good job, but not good enough. The supply of public parking facilities must keep up."
He suggested that the operation and management of shared motorcycles can learn from foreign experience.
He has inspected some cities in the Netherlands, and local rail transit companies cooperated with the municipal government to build underground garages for cycling users.
He believes that this type of approach can be referred to and "try it" in places where there is a huge travel demand and the problem of random parking.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Wang Lin, trainee reporter Li Ruoyi Source: China Youth Daily