The winter of the "limousine": The Dilemma of Chinese innovators

In the cold north-east Shenyang, thousands of taxi Masters chose to greet the first working day of 2015 with a temporary strike. Let them bad mood is a big reason, that is, a Shanghai leader thrown the famous drop car "is a black car, operating illegal" direct appearance: Because drip, fast and so on taxi software launched a car service, Divide up the car market. After a honeymoon period, the software was instantly alienated from the alliance of taxi drivers as a sort of competitor.

The mood is far more than the Northeast master. The other side of the ocean, the originator of the software Uber is also not peaceful, regardless of the United States or camping around the world, but also frequently caught in taxi drivers protest, operating qualification and other problems. In the Chinese market for more than a year, Uber has also been detained on the "black Cars" hat.

Well, someone saw the sun, and since someone saw the shadow. Perhaps many years later, people will find this bizarre anomaly: a car, a demand, there is a market, the application of technical content is ill-fated. You can call it the "Innovator's Dilemma", especially in a relatively closed market such as the taxi industry.

Embarrassing game

There is no doubt that the profit model of the limousine is clearer than the "Uber" taxi service, which has earned 10.7 million of dollars in a day, depending on the commission. For a drop of 1.5 billion yuan burned in two years, the car is undoubtedly the market that it attaches great importance to.

But now they are in a somewhat awkward situation. As a matter of fact, the vehicles of the drop car are from the rental company, and there are private cars to join the leasing companies to participate in the drip business. The reasons for the local governments to call them "black cars" are: The drop trains belong to social vehicles and private car rental passenger transport, no taxi operating license.

At present, the basis for determining the illegality of car rental business is: the vehicle engaged in passenger service must have the operation qualification. Private cars are not operating vehicles, as long as the provision of paid operating services in violation of the relevant regulations, car rental companies can taxi, but can not provide driving services to the lessee. In this regard, the drop has repeatedly claimed that drop car is a mobile travel information platform, only with the legal operation of rental companies and labor companies contract, will not contract with the private car-car by leasing companies to provide, the driver with Third-party Labor Dispatch, the platform itself to avoid the risk. Only under the current regulations, vehicles used for leasing need to be recorded by vehicles, that is, even if the private car is linked to the leasing company, as long as the record, still can not wipe off a wisp of black.

And in the global market, Uber is also completing its own "wash white."

At the end of 2012, faced with peer competition, Uber launched a relatively inexpensive uberx, allowing private car owners to register as Uber drivers, UberX has become quite cheap after many price hikes. This is a natural cause of discontent and unease among regulators and the taxi industry: as early as 2011, when the company was named Ubercab, the taxi service provider was found to be operating illegally in San Francisco, followed by severe regulation in many parts of the world, including London, France, Madrid, Taxi drivers in Europe's central city, including Berlin, have also met to protest and even strike directly. But bans and protests have failed to stem the Uber expansion, with Uber now covering 250 cities in 50 countries and becoming the most overvalued unlisted company in the US by the end of 2014.

Needless to said, from the superficial sense, the current domestic taxi supply is far below the demand (see the real "black car" so popular to know), there is no doubt that the car has a broad market prospects. In the more essential sense, the future transport industry mainly by technology and data driven seems to be the trend. The fragmentation of demand and fragmentation of the remaining capacity of the free docking-in other words, the large number of individuals in the city from one point to another point, this is the computer's best.

Drop COO Liu has said that the drip every day to do the data processing and matching is very large, a day deal order volume has millions of, the order is a lot of data real-time analysis and matching. "For example, the drop will be for all drivers to do portrait analysis, according to the driver's use of drops when the behavior, such as the time of shift, place, like what to live, in which case will refuse a single and so on." With these analyses, the appropriate order can be recommended to the appropriate driver when the order is distributed. ”

Uber Shanghai general manager Wang to "timeline" revealed: "Uber technology and algorithm is relatively unique, we have tried to use Google technology, but later still set up their own algorithm to do the engineering team. Also in other areas of continuous improvement, such as familiar with different cities, so that the vehicle's ' turnover rate ' as high as possible, this can also reduce the price of services, can allow more people to use. ”

Drop in the "timeline" to express their own future traffic "ambition": "The future drip will strive to build mobile internet travel Platform, what we do now, also belong to the construction of travel ecological chain part." Drip will not be limited to taxi call company, we hope to become a cover taxi, car, intelligent bus, logistics, retail and other services platform-oriented companies. ”

Shouldn't be a "turtle and Rabbit Race".

However, future achievement needs to be redistributed by the reality of cheese. "The mode of special car has undoubtedly harmed the monopoly interests of some traditional taxi industry, and the relevant interest groups also have sufficient motives to curb the development of special trains." One obvious evidence is that the more traditional taxis develop earlier, or the more concentrated the city, the more aggressive the attitude towards the car, because the city's taxi-related industry interest groups more powerful. "The National Development and Reform Commission urban Center Comprehensive Transport Research Institute Dean Zhang to the timeline reporter."

Moreover, in the world, the huge uncertainty that the taxi software--the "go-to-center" service brings to each other's needs – extends beyond the reach of a certain instinctive "fear" of the government and the legislature, which will undoubtedly lead to a legal lag. "including some developed countries, the leasing of car-related business laws and regulations for decades, or at least more than 10 years ago, the emergence of new technologies will naturally accompany resistance." Uber Shanghai general manager Wang said.

But it shouldn't be a "turtle and Rabbit Race". As Zhang said: "Technological progress allows the Government to effectively regulate under very low regulatory costs, the Government should work more with the limousine service providers, and use the regulatory facilities brought by new technologies to develop appropriate regulatory mechanisms, such as requiring limousine service providers to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of data records for each service, Require strict verification of driver identity and quality of service assurance, etc. Need to emphasize that, based on the administrative examination and approval, qualification access and other means to achieve quantitative control has been proved more harm than good, manufacturing monopolies also breed corruption, in the current innovation-led development, order is ' pipe ' out, innovation is ' put ' out. ”

Wang, which has dealt with many of the city's regulatory authorities, is rather optimistic. "Frankly, I understand the idea of the head of the department, they need a lot of consideration, and every city is different," he said. I also had a talk with a leader of the Department of Management, he said that our city taxis are even chengguan, all taxis are personal, and he is going to balance many interests. But at the same time, we will find that many of the leaders of the management department are very open-minded and he cares more about how to serve the people's travel, which is the most important factor in his decision-making. The public in the eyes of the government is the user in our eyes. ”

Sharing economy begins with trust

"The new economy begins with technology and finally trusts"-a classic judgment of Kelly in the new economic era.

Now represents the infinite good sharing economy, the development is far from plain sailing, including Airbnb inside all have the vicious event occurrence, behind it is undoubtedly the trust safeguard system to be perfected. In fact, many people have a car model of credit and security issues, and Taobao just on the line when the fakes rampant, the transaction between the two sides of mutual distrust. Well, from distrust to the "11" Chop-hands party, this is not too long road may also be left to now in the embarrassment of a car.

In Zhang's view, if the car model to mature in China, first, the regulatory level needs time to improve the system, the second is the current car market is still in the early stages of relatively chaotic, "a large influx of hot money distorted the normal development of the car business (most of the car services are now still in the high subsidy to attract users), and this is unsustainable." Let the development of the car business return to normal, let the market fittest out of the best car service provider, still need a certain amount of time, estimated 3-5 years or so. ”

So the question comes, in a "subversive" word often hanging on the mouth of the times, the car will be the rental industry overturned it? Easy to use car founder Zhou Ai said: "I think every car running on the road should be in a reasonable way to join the easy to, to build a huge car-sharing society, everyone can be in a reasonable situation by another person to share or service, everyone because of the mobile phone, feel that the whole world can be your car. ”

"Private car large area ' legal ' operation, in the long run is not impossible, but the legal issues will be more, the obstacles will be greater, from the point of view of the sharing of the economy, is also a trend, the key to standardize, not too extensive, after all, the car is not real estate." "The vice president of Beijing Leasing Industry Association, executive director of China Taxi and Leasing Association Fan Yongyao to the" timeline "reporter," in the future, the sharing model and the traditional taxi will coexist for a long time. ”

Zhang also expressed a similar view: "The drop and Uber such a special train will provide the public with different service experience and price choice." Whether the taxi industry is overturned still need practice and time to prove, after all, taxis in most cities still in short supply, even if some of the price is not sensitive, but the service-sensitive people turn to the car, not necessarily to the taxi market caused too much impact. In addition, the taxi industry itself must embrace the new technology, by improving the quality of service to provide more attractive prices to attract passengers. Therefore, taxis and special trains are more likely to be in a larger public travel market benign competition, create greater value in the relationship, rather than a 0 in the existing market and competitive relationship. ”