Travel+：Get married with Daimler. Where is the special car for Cao Cao？
[car home News] After going to Stuttgart to sign cooperation with Daimler,Liu Jinliang, President of Geely Group Co., Ltd. and Chairman of Cao Cao Special Vehicle.Cao Cao’s special car led by him entered a highlight moment. Many people want to know why Geely and Daimler jointly promote high-end travel services at this time, why Liu Jinliang signed a contract with Daimler on behalf of Geely Automobile, what the Cao Cao special car means to Geely, and what is the intersection of the Cao Cao special car in charge of Liu Jinliang and Daimler Group in the future?With these questions, Editor car home recently came to Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in Hangzhou and had a dialogue with Liu Jinliang on "Travel+Phase IV".
● Foreword
When more and more automobile manufacturers transform to travel service providers; When the money-burning war of the network car came to an end, Didi traveled alone; When the parties of the time-sharing leasing enterprise are still ignited, the trend of starting a prairie fire has not yet formed; When bike-sharing began to show signs of decline in its rapid rise and cleared the field in a calm way … We are increasingly convinced that the domestic shared travel field has entered the second half. Then, how to adjust their strategies and meet the challenges in the second half in the competitive changes is the frontier issue that we are concerned about. For this reason, car home New Energy Team specially launched a series of special topics of "Travel+",and through in-depth dialogue with domestic shared travel enterprises, it presented the most authentic shared travel map for you.
Read the full text in 60 seconds:
● Geely’s travel business can be traced back to 2013. After acquiring the shares of London Taxi Company in the hands of British Manganese Copper Holding Company, Li Shufu began to target public travel.
● As of mid-November, 29,000 new energy vehicles have been put into operation in 28 cities across the country, with (|) as the main new energy vehicle. However, in order to improve the high-end level of Cao Cao’s special vehicle, a small number of fuel vehicles such as Buick GL8 and Volvo S90 have also started to go online in Beijing and other cities.
● Regarding the relationship between Cao Cao Special Car and Geely Daimler Travel Joint Venture, Liu Jinliang said that they have different positioning and are independent, but business cooperation is possible, which is conducive to Daimler’s travel layout entering China and Cao Cao Special Car going international.
● The business model of public buses and hiring special drivers has brought huge cost pressure. The Cao Cao special car, which has been in operation for three and a half years, has not yet achieved profitability. In the future, Liu Jinliang will promote profitability through more efficient dispatching algorithm, customized models and driverless driving.
● Since the completion of the A round of 1 billion yuan financing in January this year, Cao Cao has been doing roadshows and contacting new investors since July this year. At present, the intended investors have been basically established, and it is expected that the B round of financing will be announced before the end of 2018.
"Liu Jinliang, President of Geely Group Co., Ltd. and Chairman of Cao Cao Special Vehicle, accepts car home Dialogue"
This is the 23rd year that Liu Jinliang joined Geely Automobile. As the "top five old people" of Geely Automobile, Liu Jinliang has sold motorcycles and automobiles, and accumulated enough "traditional" experience in automobile manufacturing. In 2015, Liu Jinliang’s job content changed a little. In addition to Geely’s existing business, he was sent by Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Group, to explore a new path-travel. This is an important export for Geely and Liu Jinliang to transform from tradition to new model.
From May 21st, 2015 to October 24th, 2018, Liu Jinliang was regarded as the vanguard representative of Geely’s travel business. In his view, travel was the inevitable transformation of traditional car companies from manufacturing to travel service providers and content providers, and Geely had set its sights on this direction as early as 2013.
★Why did Geely launch the Cao Cao special car?
Liu Jinliang told editor car home: "It is the idea of Chairman Shufu that enterprises should participate in travel during their transformation.". When he bought a London taxi in 2013, Li Shufu was inspired by the advanced functions of the latter, such as the seat can be rotated out of the carriage to facilitate people in wheelchairs to get on the bus, and the car has a seat belt for fixing wheelchairs. For this reason, he mentioned in the two sessions that there should be about 10% barrier-free taxis in the taxi industry in China, that is, how to get on taxis for people with crutches and how to get on taxis for people in wheelchairs. He thinks this is also a progress of urban civilization. It was also from this time that "public travel" began to sprout in Li Shufu’s heart.
London taxi
However, due to the premature time, it was not until 2015 that Geely officially launched the new energy vehicle sharing travel service platform-Cao Cao Special Car, which adopted the B2C model of "new energy vehicle+public bus+certified driver" and started its official operation from Ningbo.By mid-November, 29,000 new energy vehicles have been launched in 28 cities across the country, most of which are Geely Emgrand New Energy.
Since Cao Cao’s special car was operated with new energy vehicles from the very beginning, there are many voices that Cao Cao’s special car is "Geely’s new energy import platform", but in this conversation, Liu Jinliang directly denied this statement: "We are not trying to promote and sell new energy vehicles, but we totally want to consider it from the perspective of making a move, because there was no electric car at the beginning of 2015, and Geely had an electric car at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016, when we first launched in Ningbo.However, through the test in Ningbo, we finally decided to use all pure electric vehicles and turn the Cao Cao special car into a new energy travel platform."As for the reason, Liu Jinliang gave the following four points:"First, we feel that the fuel cost is getting more and more expensive, but electric vehicles have the characteristics of low energy consumption cost and low maintenance cost; Secondly, electric vehicles also have advantages in riding experience; In addition, electric vehicles are a trend. I believe that every city will have a group of passengers who pursue green and low-carbon travel like us. Finally, on the positive side, because it is new to use electric vehicles in 2015, we think the media will also compete for reports and the government will give them promotion support."
★The bus is public and employs drivers. Why did Cao Cao choose to "carry the load"?
As a member of the online car travel platform, the difference between Cao Cao special car and the well-known Didi platform is that in addition to fully adopting new energy vehicles, there are also public buses and hiring drivers who meet the policy requirements. Due to the need to give drivers regular training and pay social insurance, these "re-operation" methods put Cao Cao’s special car under greater pressure on cost. Liu Jinliang also knows that their B2C model is not developing as fast as Didi’s C2C model, because vehicles need to be purchased, licensed, docked with government departments, vehicles need to have operating licenses and transportation licenses, and drivers need to obtain online taxi driver’s licenses and so on.
Not only that, editor car home also learned in this conversation that Cao Cao special car is talking with the planning and government about a piece of land to build a new building, specifically for the driver of Cao Cao special car as a dormitory, because Liu Jinliang believes that only by ensuring that the driver has a good living and working environment can the driver provide quality services to the users of Cao Cao special car. Although it is nothing new for car companies to provide dormitories for employees,However, the network car platform that provides accommodation environment for its drivers is the first in the industry.
Perhaps these energies "outside the main business" have slowed down the full-speed development of Cao Cao’s special car to a certain extent, but Liu Jinliang thinks that this is in line with the original intention of Cao Cao’s special car and is more stable: "Who doesn’t want to develop faster and have a larger scale? However, the travel market is related to people’s lives and is a livelihood project. Safety is very important, and the government will put the interests of passengers first, so this aspect will definitely move towards continuous standardization, which is also in line with our judgment on the trend. "
At present, the state’s supervision of the network car industry is indeed getting stricter and stricter. Since September 5 this year, the safety special inspection team of network car and ride platform companies composed of 10 departments including the Ministry of Transport has been stationed in various network car platform companies to carry out special inspections, and the Didi ride business is still in a state of being removed due to unfinished safety hazard rectification. Liu Jinliang believes that since Cao Cao’s special car has chosen a more standardized operation mode from the very beginning, it will not be affected strategically. However, since the enforcement of laws and regulations and the attitude of local governments are all variables, Cao Cao’s special car also needs to "do it while watching".
★Cao Cao special car VS Geely Daimler travel joint venture company
On October 24th, Geely Group (New Business) Co., Ltd. and Daimler Travel Service Co., Ltd. announced that they would set up a joint venture company in China to provide high-end special car travel services. The headquarters of the joint venture company will be located in Hangzhou, and the shareholding ratio of the two parties will be 50:50. The high-end models to be put into use in the future will include but not limited to Mercedes-Benz brand. The initial models include Mercedes-Benz S-class cars, E-class cars, V-class luxury utility vehicles and Mercedes-Maibakh cars, and high-end pure electric vehicles under Geely Group will be used in the future.
"Geely and Daimler sign the contract site"
As a representative of Geely, Liu Jinliang signed a contract with Daimler on the spot.Regarding the weight of the cooperation between the two parties, Liu Jinliang told editor car home: "We are destined to use a joint venture company to do this. Both parties have the same share ratio and the same number of directors on the board of directors. We will work together through consultation in the future. At present, the letter of intent has just been signed, and the two sides are still talking about the details. It is expected that the formal agreement will be signed around the end of the year. "Regarding the relationship between Cao Cao’s special car and the joint venture company, Liu Jinliang said that the two sides are independent, but business cooperation is possible: "Cao Cao’s current task is to develop, expand and grow, positioning economic travel and green travel, rather than expanding more new businesses; Daimler has to do high-end travel, and its market space is different from that of Cao Cao’s special car, which is still blank in China.. In the future, consumers can also take a high-end trip to the joint venture company’s car on the Cao Cao special car, and they can also take the Cao Cao special car on the platform of the joint venture company to meet the needs of different users in a complementary way. In addition, there is an extension. For example, users of Cao Cao’s special car can use Daimler’s travel platform after arriving in Europe and North America. Daimler’s passengers in Europe and North America can use the Cao Cao special car or the high-end travel of the joint venture company when they arrive in China, which is beneficial to Daimler’s travel into China and the internationalization of Cao Cao special car. "
Not only that, but in view of Daimler’s existing time-sharing rental platform car2go, with the deepening of cooperation between the two parties, perhaps in the future, users of Cao Cao’s special car platform can also use Daimler’s car2go if they want to drive by themselves, and this mode of getting through is also established in turn.
In fact, it is not difficult for us to see that since the registered place of the joint venture company is Geely’s base camp in Hangzhou, and Cao Cao has accumulated a lot of special car experience, its basic data will be helpful to Daimler and its joint venture company, and Daimler may also find a new way to lay out its travel business in China through the path of cooperation with Geely.
★There is no profit in the city at present, and Cao Cao’s special car will complete the B round of financing before the end of the year.
For any shared travel platform, profit is one of the unavoidable topics.Liu Jinliang said frankly: "We are not profitable yet, and every city is in a state of unprofitable".Although there is profit pressure, he believes that the most important task of Cao Cao’s special car at present is not to make profit, but to deepen the market, increase the number of users and ensure the interests of drivers. The completion of these three aspects means occupying a higher market share, and it is more suitable to consider profit at that time.
Liu Jinliang thinks that there are many ways to make profits, including more efficient single dispatching algorithm, more suitable models,To this end, Cao Cao will also launch customized vehicles specially designed for shared travel, and promote the application of driverless cars.Liu Jinliang said optimistically: "We hope to apply unmanned online car rental as soon as possible. In fact, Geely Automobile has already sold L2 cars in 4S stores, and there may be more models by the end of this year. As for driverless driving, I don’t think it will take many years as many people think.In three to five years, vehicles above L3 level will be applied to the network car platform."
"Geely officially said that Geely Binyue has L2 intelligent assisted driving function."
In order to ensure the normal operation at this stage, Cao Cao has been doing roadshows and contacting new investors since January this year, after completing the A round of 1 billion yuan financing. At present, the intended investors have been basically established, and it is expected that the financing news will be announced before the end of 2018.
Full text summaryIn order to experience the pricing and service of Cao Cao’s special car, car home experienced it in Hangzhou, Beijing and other places, and felt that its advantages and disadvantages were obvious. On the advantage, the drivers of Cao Cao’s special car are almost all locals and have online taxi driver’s license, and their service attitude is good. Because Cao Cao’s special car provides social security, regular training and vehicles, it can basically meet their requirements for life and career and urge drivers to provide better services for passengers. After the order is confirmed, passengers will immediately receive a phone call from the driver to determine the location and estimated arrival time. In terms of price, car home tried to compare the prices of Cao Cao’s special car, Didi Express and taxi at the same time, place and distance (57.79 yuan, 65.4 yuan and 78 yuan respectively). Due to the dynamic price adjustment mechanism and preferential reduction, the price of Cao Cao’s special car positioned as "special car travel" is lower than that of Didi Express. Of course, this undoubtedly increases the cost pressure for Cao Cao’s special car, which is a public bus and employs drivers.
At the same time, Cao Cao’s special car needs to be upgraded in some aspects. For example, the Emgrand New Energy Series, the main operating vehicle at present, is not a real "special car" in terms of level. The driver of Cao Cao’s special car also said that compared with Didi Li Orange Special Car and Shenzhou Special Car, the vehicles operated by Cao Cao still need to be upgraded. In order to improve the current vehicle level, Cao Cao also introduced Buick GL8 and other fuel vehicles. On November 23rd, Volvo S90 was also put into operation in Beijing. On the other hand, unlike Hangzhou, Ningbo and other places, the number of Cao Cao cars in Beijing and other cities is still scarce. A Beijing Cao Cao car driver told car home that there are no more than 300 cars in Beijing, which can’t meet the taxi needs of many passengers. In many orders, the distance between drivers and passengers is more than 3 kilometers. Liu Jinliang also mentioned in the dialogue that when entering other cities, "the disadvantage is that we don’t have enough now". After obtaining a new financing, Cao Cao’s special car will speed up the layout in urban promotion and the number of vehicles. (Text/car home Cai Liyuan)