买辆车不如借辆豪车

Once every teenagers’ dream was to have their own car. Now they have an app for that.

拥有自己的汽车曾经是每个青少年的梦想。现在他们有了一个应用程序来实现这个梦。

Volvo, Cadillac and Porsche are among brands that have launched subscription deals this year, as the industry dips its toe in the water of a world of selling services rather than cars.

汽车行业开始尝试销售服务而非汽车，沃尔沃(Volvo)、凯迪拉克(Cadillac)和保时捷(Porsche)等汽车品牌在2017年都推出了“订用”服务。

As car ownership begins to wane in some major cities, manufacturers are experimenting with ways of providing transport ranging from car-sharing schemes to on-demand booking through smartphone apps.

随着一些大城市的汽车保有量开始减少，制造商正在尝试提供各种交通方案——从汽车共享计划到通过智能手机应用按需订车。

“We’re making the change from selling cars to selling mobility,” says Alain Visser, chief executive of Lynk & Co, a new brand co-owned by Volvo and its Chinese parent Geely.

Lynk&Co首席执行官阿兰•维瑟(Alain Visser)表示：“我们正在从销售汽车转变成销售交通方案。”Lynk&Co是沃尔沃与其中国母公司吉利(Geely)共同拥有的新品牌。

“Subscription is a key ingredient because globally there are young consumers who really want to buy ‘mobility’ but not necessarily a car.”

“订用是一个关键因素，因为全球有一些年轻的消费者真的想购买‘交通方案’，但不一定是一辆汽车。”

By bundling insurance, road tax and maintenance costs into a single monthly sum, carmakers hope to take the hassle out of running a car, as well as attract new customers to their brands.

通过将保险、道路税和养护成本整合到一个月度费用内，汽车制造商希望能够让开车变得不再麻烦，并为自己的品牌吸引到新客户。

Lynk & Co, which will launch its electric car subscription offer in China next year and Europe in 2019, plans to allow motorists to change vehicles every month, and dip in and out of the contract as often as they like.

Lynk&Co的电动汽车订用服务将于明年在中国推出，2019年在欧洲推出。它允许驾车者每月更换车辆，并且可以随时签署合同和退订。

“The key is flexibility,” says Mr Visser, adding that consumers, which Lynk expects to be younger than traditional buyers, may decide not to have a car in the summer months if they travel, or may want to take the bus for a short while to save money.

维瑟表示：“关键是灵活性。”他补充说，客户们——Lynk预计他们会比传统汽车买家年轻一些——夏天外出旅游那段时间可能会决定退订，或者可能想搭一段时间巴士来省钱。

Volvo, which co-owns Lynk & Co, and its super-premium performance brand Polestar, both also offer subscription services that allow customers to switch between vehicles.

沃尔沃及其高性能品牌北极星(Polestar)都提供订用服务，客户可换开不同的车辆。

But this comes at a price. Porsche’s Passport service, unveiled earlier this year, is twice as expensive as buying one of its cars on pay-monthly finance because consumers can flit between different cars in its range.

但这不是免费的。保时捷今年早些时候推出的“护照”(Passport)服务，比分期购买一辆保时捷汽车要贵一倍，因为消费者可以换开保时捷的其他款汽车。

This flexibility, being able to swap a small family SUV for the school run for a sports car at the weekend, raises a fresh potential problem.

能够平日用一辆小型家庭SUV接送孩子上学、周末换成跑车是非常灵活，但这也引发了一个新的潜在问题。

“The difficulty in those schemes will be managing the supply, because everyone wants an SUV in winter and a convertible on summer weekends,” says Philippe Houchois, an analyst at Jefferies.

杰富瑞(Jefferies)分析师菲利普•霍乔斯(Philippe Houchois)表示：“这些项目的困难将在于管理供应，因为所有人都想在冬天要一辆SUV，在夏天的周末要一辆敞篷车。”

That is one reason current schemes are so expensive he believes — because carmakers need to set aside additional vehicles for when demand for a particular segment is high.

当前项目之所以如此昂贵，他认为原因之一就在这里——因为汽车制造商需要预留额外的车辆，以便应对特殊情况下的高需求。

“You have to build in a fairly low utilisation rate, otherwise you’re going to have unhappy customers because they can never get the car they want,” he says.

他说：“你必须维持相当低的利用率，否则就会让客户不满，因为他们永远拿不到想要的车子。”

Carmakers, which are accustomed to manufacturing and selling the vehicles through dealerships, will also have to take ownership of the cars under subscription schemes — meaning they have to pay for maintenance as well as accounting for depreciation.

习惯于制造车辆、而通过经销商来销售车辆的汽车制造商，也将不得不拥有订用项目下的汽车——这意味着他们必须支付养护费用并计算折旧。

“It makes the business more capital intensive because you’re selling the car to yourself,” says Mr Houchois — though carmakers may have an advantage over third parties in accounting for the rate that cars depreciate.

霍乔斯表示：“这让汽车企业的资本密集度更高，因为你把汽车卖给了你自己。”——虽然汽车制造商在计算汽车折旧率方面可能比第三方有优势。

“The risk is we underestimated how much the carmakers know about the fundamental values of their vehicles,” he adds.

他补充说：“我们可能低估了汽车制造商对汽车基本价值的了解程度。”

Early indications suggest that subscriptions are successfully winning over new customers. Cadillac, General Motors’ luxury marque, says that 90 per cent of those who use its BOOK service in New York have never owned a Cadillac before.

早期迹象表明，订用项目成功地赢得了新客户。通用汽车(General Motors)旗下豪车品牌凯迪拉克表示，在纽约使用其BOOK服务的人群当中，90%以前从未拥有过凯迪拉克轿车。

“We’ve seen widespread enthusiasm,” says Melody Lee, head of BOOK.

BOOK业务主管Melody Lee表示：“就我们所见，这项服务广受欢迎。”

The service, which is also in Munich and being expanded into Dallas and Los Angeles, costs $1,800 a month.

这项服务每个月花费1800美元;凯迪拉克还在慕尼黑推出了该服务，并将在达拉斯和洛杉矶推出。

Lincoln, rival Ford’s premium brand, followed suit by announcing late last month that it would soon introduce a subscription service.

竞争对手福特(Ford)旗下高端品牌林肯(Lincoln)紧随其后，11月末宣布将会很快推出订用服务。

“Premium vehicles attract a specific type of customer prepared to spend that amount to have the flexibility,” says Ian Fletcher, an analyst at IHS, who predicts challenges will come when mass-market brands try to launch such schemes.

IHS分析师伊恩•弗莱彻(Ian Fletcher)表示：“高档汽车吸引了特定类型的客户，他们愿意花这笔钱来获得灵活性。”弗莱彻预计，当大众市场品牌尝试推出此类计划时，挑战就会来临。

“When you come to Ford Fiestas, how do you run a service that isn’t just a rental fleet?”

“就福特嘉年华(Ford Fiestas)来说，你如何经营一项不仅仅是租赁车队的服务?”

Part of the answer is already coming through peer-to-peer car lending platforms, which again represent another way that ownership in the car market is fragmenting.

部分答案已经通过个人对个人(P2P)的汽车出借平台体现，这同样代表了汽车市场中所有权分裂的另一种方式。

A number of start-ups have aimed to fill the need for the occasional car ride, with slightly varying models: from car clubs that own their own vehicles such as Zipcar and electric car-sharing service BlueSG, firms that offer other people’s cars to use such as Drivy and easyCar Club, and shared journey car schemes like BlaBlaCar.

许多初创公司通过一些大同小异的模式来满足人们偶尔开车的需要：Zipcar等拥有自有车辆的汽车俱乐部，电动汽车共享服务BlueSG，Drivy和easyCar Club等让你可以使用别人的汽车的公司，以及像BlaBlaCar这样的共享旅程汽车项目。

Such schemes also offer a new market for carmakers to sell into — although are still dwarfed by the potential market opened up by car-booking services such as Uber. Last month, Uber agreed to purchase up to 24,000 XC90 vehicles between 2019 and 2021 in a deal worth potentially $1.4bn for Volvo.

此类项目也为汽车制造商提供了一个新的市场——虽然这个市场与优步(Uber)等汽车预订服务开启的潜在市场相比仍然相形见绌。11月，优步同意在2019年至2021年间购买多达2.4万辆沃尔沃XC90汽车，交易价值可能达到14亿美元。