Baoan district traditional car body panel repair and painting hezuo workshop

Source | Automotive Service World (ID: ID:asworld 168)

Tesla has made new moves recently.

It is understood that Tesla plans to change the channel mode and return to the traditional 4S shop "front shop and back factory" mode, that is, the new car experience store is in front and the after-sales business factory is behind.

Under the direct selling gene, these 4S stores will be directly managed by Tesla, and they will adopt the direct selling mode in sales, but they will not undertake the delivery function. More importantly, in the after-sales business, based on the 4S shop model, Tesla can take all the after-sales business in its own hands, including sheet metal painting, electromechanical maintenance and even car washing and beauty.

We often say that companies such as Tesla and Weilai are new forces in building cars. Contrary to this "new" is the traditional OEM. The most typical performance is to abandon the 4S shop model, set up an experience store or an image store instead, and hand over some after-sales business to a third-party repair shop in an independent after-sales market.

Tesla's original practice is to split the thinking, divide and conquer the experience and delivery of new car sales, as well as the body painting and electromechanical maintenance in after-sales business into several parts.

However, from the current situation, Tesla will return to the integration mode of 4S stores. Moreover, this behavior is likely to be passed on to other new forces that build cars.

Originally, for repair shops, new energy vehicles are new outlets and entrances after sale, which have advantages over 4S shops. But when Tesla's new action comes out, does it mean that this exit will be taken away by 4S stores?

1. Why did Tesla return to the 4S store mode?

In response to this news, Auto Service World communicated with the person in charge of a luxury car maintenance company, and the other party cooperated with Tesla, Weilai and Tucki in after-sales business. He said that this news is not unexpected, and Tesla has both subjective and objective reasons to do so.

Subjective factors.

First, the output of the early new car-making forces was extremely limited. There is no need to build a physical store like a 4S shop. Instead, we should quickly build brand power by establishing an experience store in the core business district. Now that Tesla has been made in China, the output has been greatly improved and the education process has been basically completed, so it is possible to gradually reduce the number of experience stores.

Second, Tesla has always had a direct gene. The purpose behind it is to hold products and services in its own hands, directly face customers and skip middlemen, which can not only directly operate customers, but also earn more profits.

Third, Tesla tasted the sweetness of direct sales. Tesla handed over the body painting business to the authorized center in the early days and found nearly 100 partners in the country. But in the past two years, Tesla even wants to recycle the car body painting business, and has established four direct car body painting centers. The latest one was established in Guangzhou in June this year. 1. Obviously, I took a fancy to the high profit of this business.

On the objective factors.

First, the cost of setting up the original experience store is too high. For example, in Shang Chao, Xujiahui District, the daily rent is as high as 20 yuan/Ping. It is understood that Tesla has reduced about 20 experience stores in Shanghai to about 10, which shows its determination to cut costs.

Second, the operating conditions of car dealers are worrying now, and many smaller 4S stores are struggling for survival. Tesla can take this opportunity to cooperate with investors in these 4S stores, lease their venues, and build their own 4S systems at a lower cost.

Thirdly, the 4S system has been proved to be a mature and successful model. In the past 20 years, it has firmly controlled the market discourse power. The reason for its current decline is that both new car sales and profits have declined, but this reason does not apply to the newly emerging field of new energy vehicles.

Based on the above analysis, we will find that Tesla's store layout in 4S is a reasonable result. However, it is uncertain how many direct stores Tesla will have in the future and how many outlets it will open to intermediate investors.

Second, the after-sales system of new energy vehicles is more closed.

We often say that the 4S store is a closed system. The upstream OEM controls a series of resources and capabilities such as new car resources, accessory channels and maintenance technology, and reaches customers through the 4S shop model to complete pre-sales and after-sales services.

In the early 4S system, the original parts and maintenance technology only circulated in the system, which led to the natural disadvantage of independent after-sales market and the monopoly of after-sales market. Closure and monopoly make the maintenance price of 4S stores artificially high, which is one of the reasons why 4S stores have been repeatedly criticized.

Tesla, Weilai and other new car-making forces adopt the mode of direct operation and authorized cooperation. Authorized cooperation means that the new forces entrust the after-sales business to their partners through authorization, and they only need to establish a set of standards and rules.

Under the cooperative mode, the new forces tend to cooperate with repair shops instead of 4S shops because the repair shops in the independent after-sales market have cost advantages.

On the surface, the new forces are building a more open after-sales system than 4S. However, is this really the case?

At present, among the businesses released by new forces to repair shops, sheet metal spraying business accounts for about 70%, and electromechanical maintenance business accounts for about 30%.

Take the car body body painting center authorized by Tesla as an example. According to a related person, Tesla's spare parts procurement channels were not easy to control in the early days. Due to the high unit price of customers, the profits were also considerable. However, after Tesla mastered the gross profit margin of accessories in the later period, the overall profitability declined, and the net profit margin was around 20%.

The head of a luxury car maintenance company that cooperates with Weilai and Tucki also said that the gross profit margin of the after-sales business of new energy vehicles is only about 30%, which is lower than that of traditional fuel vehicles.

In essence, in the after-sales system of the new forces, the repair shop is doing toB business, not toC business. The advantage lies in the stable business volume, but the disadvantage is also obvious, except that the profit rate is relatively low and there are many restrictions.

First, the new force is different from the traditional OEM, and it can directly operate customers, so it has the right to distribute after-sales business traffic and can independently distribute customers to maintenance outlets;

Second, the supply channels and pricing power of accessories are completely in the hands of new forces;

Third, the new forces have very high requirements for services. Every year, cooperative stores are graded and eliminated.

Fourth, the technology of Sandian is still immature, and it is in the hands of upstream OEMs or battery suppliers, and the right to speak in repair shops is very low;

Fifth, electric vehicles are highly intelligent, and many faults can be solved through remote software upgrades, directly skipping intermediate service providers.

For various reasons, new energy vehicles have become a more closed system after sale, and new forces have more powerful control over this system.

Third, 4S stores regain new energy after-sales outlets?

At present, the after-sales pattern of new energy vehicles is that the new forces operate their own electromechanical business, leaving the body parts and painting business to repair shops, while traditional OEMs such as BAIC New Energy and SAIC New Energy still operate within their own 4S system.

It is often said in the industry that the after-sales outlets of new energy vehicles are independent after-sales, because the new forces have developed faster, and they have shown a cooperative attitude from the beginning, choosing high-quality repair shops for cooperation, thus giving greater opportunities for independent after-sales.

However, some insiders also said that the after-sales outlet of new energy vehicles has passed, and a large part of the reason is attributed to the after-sales closure of new energy vehicles, which led players who entered the system to seize the bonus period, while players who did not enter the system could hardly squeeze in again. This phenomenon is particularly obvious in first-and second-tier cities, because in these markets, Tesla and Weilai have considerable holdings.

In this case, in retrospect, compared with the traditional OEMs, one of the most striking factors of closed new energy vehicles after sale is that the high intelligence of electric vehicles enables the upstream OEMs to directly operate the owners online and realize the sinking of service from the beginning of sales.

In this cooperative mode, the repair shop only plays the role of executor rather than service provider, and has no brand power in the eyes of the owner, in other words, it is highly replaceable.

The potential danger of this logic is that once the early education stage has passed, the OEM has established a strong brand power, and the number of new energy vehicles has been increasing. Because the profit of after-sales business is too rich, the new forces are fully capable of recycling after-sales business by using the right to speak.

The information revealed by Tesla's behavior is already obvious. First of all, pilot direct car body painting business in four regions. With the business model running smoothly, the business form is further integrated, and the pre-sale new car display function and all after-sales business are integrated into a 4S shop model, which is obviously a step-by-step and planned layout.

If the self-operated 4S store model is feasible, Tesla can attract and attract investors through strong control in the future and establish its own 4S system.

From the OEM's point of view, their ultimate goal is of course to aggregate all services, especially for the new forces who attach importance to service experience, the advantages of aggregation can reduce the complexity of management and thus enhance the customer experience.

It is worth noting that Tesla also announced a national unified maintenance price list this year. Most of the projects are only about 50% of traditional luxury cars such as Benbaoao, indicating that its price control is relatively strong.

Once Tesla's direct 4S system is proved to be feasible, with the increase of its ownership, it is likely that new forces such as Weilai and Tucki will follow suit. The new energy vehicle system under the traditional OEM may also usher in a transformation and always follow.

4S stores that have declined in the era of traditional fuel vehicles may become popular again in the era of new energy vehicles.

Fourth, how to deal with the repair shop?

In the independent after-sales system, for the after-sales business of new energy vehicles, the repair shop can be roughly divided into two States.

The first state is the store that has started the after-sales business of new energy vehicles, some of which cooperate with new forces such as Tesla and Weilai, some with battery manufacturers, and some with teams. This group has seized the first wave of dividends to earn profits.

A major feature of these enterprises is that they have large-scale stores, and generally have body panels and painting centers, which can undertake more business forms.

The second state, of course, is the store that has not yet launched the after-sales business of new energy vehicles. Most of these shops are small in scale and it is difficult to enter this field.

Of course, in the second group, there are also several forms. First, this business doesn't look so good. The second is in a wait-and-see attitude. Third, it wants to enter, but there are not many ways.

Under the current industry situation and future trend, are there any countermeasures for the repair shops that have not yet entered?

As mentioned above, the new forces tend to hand over low-tech businesses such as sheet metal spraying to cooperative repair shops, which will lead to a decrease in the right to speak of repair shops. However, it is worth noting that, at the technical level, the upstream OEM has not fully mastered the three power technologies, and most of these technologies are in the hands of battery manufacturers.

Therefore, in order to improve the core competitiveness of repair shops, stores can choose to contact upstream battery suppliers. Due to the different battery models in the market and the lack of uniform standards, battery manufacturers also have after-sales maintenance needs. In fact, battery manufacturers are already laying out after-sales service networks, and a city may authorize more than a dozen enterprises.

If the repair shop is authorized by the battery manufacturer to invest in a battery workshop and battery station in the early stage, the total cost only needs tens of thousands of yuan, but it can handle the models of many OEMs such as Guangzhou Automobile and BAIC, which is more technical and more difficult to be replaced and subverted. This may be a better choice.

At the same time, the new forces also launched a lower-priced tourism model and set up a tourism company. 4S stores don't like this kind of business very much, because high premiums lead to low maintenance. For the weaker repair shops, the new energy vehicle travel business is also an option.

The automobile service world put forward the phenomenon of station occupation in the article "After-sale occupation war of new energy vehicles: no entry now, no chance in the future". For long-distance stores, now is the best time to prepare and lay out.

It can be predicted that the competition between 4S system and independent after-sales system will be a long-term theme in the future era of new energy vehicles.