At present, under the joint role of policy guidance and market demand, the promotion process of new energy heavy trucks in China has accelerated, market penetration has steadily increased, and monthly sales have repeatedly reached new highs. At the same time, the new energy heavy truck operation model is also constantly innovating. Among them, the leasing model is particularly hot, not only becoming an important driver of new car sales, but also regarded as the core driving force to accelerate the popularization and application of new energy heavy trucks.

 

The rental model is on the rise

 

Since the beginning of this year, the structural adjustment of the domestic heavy truck industry has continued to advance, and new energy heavy trucks have shown a strong alternative trend. At the same time, the introduction of the old operation truck scrap renewal subsidy policy has added a "fire" to the new energy heavy truck market. According to the terminal registration data, from January to October this year, the cumulative sales of domestic new energy heavy trucks were 56,800 vehicles (excluding exports), an increase of 142.4% year-on-year, outperforming the overall heavy truck market.

 

With the continuous rise of market heat and rapid growth of sales, new energy heavy trucks are accelerating the promotion and popularization across the country, and the application scenarios are increasingly diversified. In terms of operation mode, new energy heavy trucks also show diversified characteristics, including a variety of modes such as the operator's car purchase and self-management, leasing business and rental vehicle cooperative operation. Among them, the leasing model is being recognized and favored by more and more transportation practitioners because of its high flexibility and significant cost effectiveness.

 

It is undeniable that the purchase cost of new energy heavy trucks is much higher than that of fuel vehicles, which is a heavy asset investment. After the purchase of a car, if the vehicle is used less frequently and the operating mileage is insufficient, its energy consumption cost advantage is difficult to effectively transform into actual economic benefits. Therefore, usually only those enterprises with sufficient cash flow, stable supply and profitability will consider the batch purchase of new energy heavy trucks.

 

"Users who buy new energy heavy trucks mainly value the advantages of their use costs, but in the face of high acquisition costs and unstable freight markets, most users are unwilling to invest a large amount of working capital in fixed assets." In this context, leasing electric heavy trucks is the ideal choice for users who need to respond to environmental requirements, but do not want to bear the high acquisition costs and heavy asset pressure." Shi Qiangdong, a new energy vehicle leasing salesman of a brand, said that leasing electric heavy trucks can not only allow users to enjoy policy benefits without significantly increasing fixed assets, promote the green upgrade of transportation business, but also effectively reduce operating costs. More importantly, in the face of market fluctuations, users can choose to return the rental vehicle and avoid losses in time, so as to respond more flexibly to the changing market environment.

 

"Unstable supply, low end-user confidence, and relatively high prices of new energy heavy truck bicycles have contributed to the rise of the new energy heavy truck rental market." Logistics industry expert Kong Zhen told reporters that under the leasing operation mode, logistics enterprises and individual users can enjoy the three major advantages of reduced asset burden, effective cost control and flexible operation. At present, in the logistics market of many places in the country, a variety of operational leasing models such as time-sharing leasing, long-term leasing, short-term leasing, as well as financial leasing models have emerged and become a new bright spot in the market.

 

Boost sales

 

As an innovative business model, new energy heavy truck leasing not only greatly enriches the choice of zero-carbon vehicles for transport practitioners, but also effectively reduces the initial threshold for enterprises and individual users to adopt new energy heavy trucks. At the same time, it has also become an important driving force to promote the rapid growth of new energy heavy truck sales.

 

"In the field of electric heavy trucks, the rental model is very feasible. With the gradual unification of the standard of electric heavy trucks in various regions, logistics companies can lease vehicles (naked cars) at the same time, but also according to their own needs, from the battery bank to lease different specifications of power batteries, so that the operating cost is' light '." Shi Qiangdong said that at present, small and medium-sized logistics enterprises are the main force of leasing electric heavy trucks. At the same time, some large logistics enterprises are also inclined to choose short-term leasing as a preliminary exploration in order to evaluate the performance and operational feasibility of electric heavy trucks. "The leasing model has built a low-cost and efficient platform for logistics enterprises, so that they can deeply understand the advantages of new energy heavy trucks, and effectively eliminate their concerns about the maturity of new energy heavy trucks, the completeness of charging facilities and safety." After tasting the "sweetness" of leasing, many enterprises have decided to purchase new energy heavy trucks, which undoubtedly injected strong impetus into the sales growth of new energy heavy trucks." He elaborated further.

 

Based on the positive expectations of the rapid growth of the new energy heavy truck market, as well as the growing demand for leasing models in the market, the industry generally believes that the new energy heavy truck leasing market has a broad space for development.

 

"Financial service innovation plays an important role in solving problems such as the high initial investment cost of new energy heavy trucks and the mismatch between technology and financial services." In order to reduce the cost of using new energy heavy trucks, financial leasing business represented by financial leasing and operational leasing has become the focus of the layout of all parties." A person in charge of a financial company said that the current new energy heavy truck field has begun to "homogenization" competition trend, in such a competitive environment, the new energy heavy truck can achieve large-scale growth, to a large extent depends on the improvement and optimization of financial programs. Therefore, more and more vehicle manufacturers are focusing on strengthening the construction of financial services and vehicle leasing solutions. At the same time, dealers, leasing platforms and financial investment enterprises have also entered the field of new energy heavy truck leasing, continue to deepen cooperation, and are committed to exploring more innovative new energy heavy truck leasing service solutions.

 

In addition, the policy level has also provided strong support for the new energy heavy truck rental market. For example, in order to promote the development of electric heavy trucks, Yibin City encourages state-owned enterprises to join hands with upstream and downstream industry chain enterprises to establish battery banks, and promote battery interexchange within the city; The Shenzhen Municipal Development and Reform Commission issued the "Shenzhen to build a heavy truck power replacement service network pilot work plan" clearly pointed out that it will support all kinds of enterprises to invest in heavy asset projects such as power replacement batteries and power replacement heavy trucks, and provide diversified financial solutions including naked car financial leasing and consumer credit for power replacement heavy trucks; The recently issued "Several Policies of Tangshan City to Support the construction of a new energy System (Revised version in 2024)" also proposes to provide up to 50 million yuan of financial support for qualified new energy heavy truck enterprises in accordance with market-oriented principles through financial leasing. At the same time, the policy also encourages new energy financial leasing platform companies to carry out the financial leasing and sales business of new energy vehicles, and gives appropriate financial support to the operation of financial leasing platform companies. In addition, the policy also advocates that the rental and sales platform launch a service package with low down payment, low monthly rent and long lease term to further promote the development of the new energy heavy truck rental market.

 

"With the continuous strengthening of policy support, the new energy heavy truck rental market is expected to usher in greater development space and become an important path to promote the development of the new energy heavy truck market." That's the judgment of the financial executives.

 

Innovative model to achieve win-win results

 

The rise of the new energy heavy truck rental market not only accelerates the popularization and application of new energy heavy trucks, but also opens up new profit channels for vehicle manufacturers, dealers and third-party leasing platforms to achieve win-win results for enterprises and consumers.

 

However, it cannot be ignored that the high acquisition cost and wide application scenarios of new energy heavy trucks undoubtedly bring greater tests to the risk management and comprehensive resource allocation capabilities of leasing operators. For example, the current domestic road logistics market is dominated by small and micro enterprises and individual drivers, who are usually difficult to provide a complete credit history, which may lead to multiple risks such as fraud, default and forced vehicle recovery for new energy heavy truck rental companies. At the same time, due to the lack of risk control model and big data empowerment, the asset value of leasing enterprises is still at risk of shrinking. These problems have hindered the development of the new energy heavy truck rental market to a certain extent.

 

In addition, although the current leasing model can solve the problem of idle vehicles or low frequency of use caused by unstable business for some users, it does not fully demonstrate the core advantages of new energy heavy trucks in energy consumption.

 

In Kong Zhen's view, the new energy heavy truck rental market needs to attract more participants and experience, build a closed-loop ecosystem closely connected with cargo transportation, so that transportation practitioners can truly "eat" the operating dividend, so as to expand the scale of new energy heavy truck operations, and promote the sales growth of the electric heavy truck market. Therefore, whether it is a vehicle enterprise or a financial institution, it is necessary to constantly explore and innovate the leasing business model to provide more flexible and diversified solutions to adapt to different needs. For example, by building a sharing platform to serve diversified customers and scenarios, to achieve effective connection and complementarity in time, and to change the limited use of new energy heavy trucks from low frequency to high frequency and efficient use, so as to help users achieve double improvement of economic benefits and environmental benefits.

 

Originally published by China Automotive News, November 28, 2024