Imagine that you have just waved off an online car hailing and are looking forward to an easy and pleasant journey. However, The moment you open the car door, a smell of "long history" hits your face It is like the smell of Gulong water lost in the space-time tunnel, or the smell of steamed buns left by the previous passenger in a hurry. You can't help frowning, but the car has already moved, so you can only open the window silently Let the fresh air come to "smell redemption".
This journey not only tests your sense of smell, but also gives you a new understanding of "fresh air in the car".
Online car hailing is becoming more and more smelly, which seems to have become a recognized fact. What is the reason? Is online car hailing still smelly in summer?
Like the modern version of "Aladdin's lamp", Online car hailing has captured the hearts of countless people with its special skill of "one click calling". From urban white-collar workers to small town residents, no one does not enjoy this way of traveling at any time.
The number of online car hailing users is also growing. From June 2021 to June 2023, the number of online car hailing users has increased by nearly 20% in two years. By December 2023, the number of online car hailing users in China has reached 528 million, a year-on-year increase of 90.57 million, accounting for 48.3% of all Internet users. Almost half of Internet users use online car hailing.
But if there is a good thing, there must be a bad thing. With the growing market of online car hailing, related problems are gradually emerging. The most important one is the driver.
The online car hailing platform once voted on "Top 10 uncivilized behaviors of online car hailing", and the results show that, Nearly 30% of users believe that the most common problem of uncivilized behavior of online taxi hailing drivers is the interior environment, in which the problem of odor in the car tops the list with 16.2% 13.7% of the users said that the online car hailing car was untidy/with garbage.
The smell of wanton pervasion in the online car hailing makes people complain incessantly, especially in winter when the doors and windows are closed and air conditioning is needed No matter how conscious you are in the cold wind, you will feel dizzy and dizzy as soon as you get into the online car hailing. If you pay attention to the cost performance and choose carpooling, you will also face the "danger" of various tastes of peers, which is unbearable. Complaining is "spending money and suffering".
The figure number room selected and counted 1889 microblog discussions with the keyword of "the stink of online car hailing". It was found that the complaints about the "stink of online car hailing" were mainly reflected in: The smell inside the car makes people carsick, and taking a taxi is like getting into the driver's bed. The frequency of hitting the smelly car is high, and the platform access is urgently needed And so on. It is worth mentioning that female online taxi drivers have been recognized by many netizens Others shouted, "I hope to meet more female drivers in the future".
Where does the stench of online car hailing come from?
In fact, there are many sources of "odor" in the car, One of the most common is the smell of the car interior. Plastic, rubber and leather products are widely used in seats, ceilings, instrument panels, etc. The organic solvents, additives and other components in these materials will gradually evaporate into the air.
People often say that "new car smell" to a large extent refers to this smell, which also leads to the situation of "carsickness after smelling the smell". If the driver is a person who likes to dress up and love the car, and puts car perfume and various pendants on the car, the smell will be more complex. Especially in winter, when the windows are closed and the warm wind blows, the smell is really high.
The on-board air conditioner is also the culprit. The cooling of automobile air conditioning system will produce water drops in the ventilation duct, which will cause mildew when mixed with dust and dirt for a long time. So some people say that the number of smelly cars will decrease after winter, but it may be the opposite. Many online car hailing do not want to spend energy, time and money to clean the air conditioner It is common for you to open the car door with sweat and want to bathe in cool air, but what greets you is a sour smell.
The higher the temperature, the more intense the movement of molecules. When the temperature in the car rises due to the sun exposure in summer and the air conditioner is turned on in winter, the smell in the car will become complex and unpleasant. An investigation has found that when the temperature rises from 25 ℃ to 35 ℃, the formaldehyde concentration in the car increases by 1.5 times.
Car sharing, express and economical are the most popular online car hailing types for consumers, Most of these cars are compact cars of about 100000 yuan. The space of the car itself is relatively small, the riding experience is uncomfortable, and the air is not easy to circulate. Data shows that the standard size of vehicle width is between 1600mm and 1800mm, and the vehicle height is generally between 1400mm and 1600mm. Taking BYD Qin as an example, its width and height just exceed the standard.
The freight rate of online car hailing has also continued to decline in recent years, and the operation time of single car has continued to grow. Director of the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology once investigated that about 50% of drivers' hourly daily income is between 30 and 45 yuan. If the median is 38 yuan, the 10 hour income is 380 yuan, after deducting various related costs, This income belongs to the middle and low income. To get a relatively high income, you must have a relatively long driving time.
Both the driver and the vehicle are overloaded. Some online car hailing work in two shifts, and the bus stops without stopping; Some online car hailing drivers can be said to eat, live and travel in the car, and the smell is complex and unpleasant.
The charging time of the tram is quite long. Many people take off their shoes and smoke a cigarette when charging.
Taking 2018 as the node, online car hailing rental companies get on board in large quantities, with an annual delivery of about 600000 units. According to industry estimates, at least 40% of online car hailing running on the streets now are old cars that have been more than 4 years old and have traveled more than 200000 kilometers. After years of use, the smell has penetrated into every gap.
In fact, there are clear specifications in the industry to solve the problem of "smelly cars".
For example, "600000 km" and "8 years" are the barriers that all online car hailing cannot bypass. As early as 2016, the Interim Measures for the Management of Online Taxi Booking Business Services stipulated that online taxi hailing was forced to be scrapped when the mileage reached 600000 km; When the driving mileage does not reach 600000 km but the service life reaches 8 years, the online car hailing business will be withdrawn.
In June last year, the Hangzhou Transportation Bureau issued the Technical Standards for Online Taxi Reservation in Hangzhou, It is required that the newly registered online car hailing must be a new pure electric vehicle, or a non new energy pure electric vehicle with a taxable price of more than 150000 yuan It also sets limits on the wheelbase and other parameters of the new car to improve the passenger experience.
In this way, it can at least ensure that the conditions for passengers to get a taxi will not be too bad, but it will increase the cost of buying/renting a car, which will put all the pressure on the driver.
As we all know, online car hailing is regarded as the first choice for flexible employment by more and more people due to its relatively low threshold. However In recent years, the growth rate of drivers is far higher than the number of passengers, and the industry capacity and demand have become saturated.
According to the national online car hailing data released by the Ministry of Transport in recent years, as of March 2024, the number of online car hailing drivers has reached 6.791 million. In just one year, China added 1.562 million registered online taxi hailing drivers, an increase of nearly 30%, while the number of passengers in the same period increased by about 20%.
The online car hailing market has been diluted as a whole, giving drivers the intuitive feeling of "fewer orders" and "declining revenue". In order to maintain their income, they have to extend their working hours. According to media reports, the daily flow of online taxi hailing drivers has gone from five or six hundred yuan to at least twelve or three hours to 500 yuan.
In order to maintain the health of the industry, many cities have issued an early warning of capacity saturation and suspended the handling of relevant certificates.
As a result, the online car hailing industry has formed a siege dilemma: people outside can't get in, and people inside can't get out. Drivers are not as free as people think. Their entry into the industry means that they have hit two mountains. In addition to the car purchase/rental fees mentioned above, one is the platform deduction, and they have to pay off debts every day when they open their eyes.
The excessive platform premium has always been criticized by the public. In April 2023, the Ministry of Transport issued the Work Plan for Promoting Platform Enterprises in the New Business Type of Transport to Reduce Excessive Premium Premium in 2023, requiring all platforms to rectify the excessive premium premium and ensure driver income. By the end of last year, the official information said that each platform of online car hailing had reduced the proportion of car hailing by 1-3 percentage points on average, and the main platform companies had set the upper limit of the proportion of car hailing at 18% - 30% Since then, 30% has become the "red line" in the industry.
However, in practice, the calculation formula of each platform is not clear, and the proportion is always black box. More reporters found that there may be "yin and yang bills" between drivers and passengers on some platforms.
Shangguan News once mentioned such a case in its report: the driver was paid 86.79 yuan, and from the driver's perspective, the passenger paid 116.92 yuan, with a percentage of less than 30%. This bill is OK. The trick is that the actual fare paid by passengers is greater than the "actual amount paid by passengers" seen by the driver. If the passenger pays 140.13 yuan, nearly 40% of the fare will be taken away by the platform.
Industry insiders pointed out that the "yin and yang bill" may be caused by the subcontracting of the aggregation platform layer by layer. After passengers place an order on the aggregation platform, the order is sent to the small and medium-sized platform, which is then matched to the carrier driver. In this way, every round of "middlemen" has gone too far, pushing up the actual proportion.
The root cause of the existence of smelly cars is the helplessness of drivers trapped in the car.
You may not make money by rolling, but you cannot make money by rolling. With the rising cost of hardware and the increasing working hours, the living space of drivers is constantly eroded, In order to make a living, they have no respect for decency and can only make a living by car.
Will online car hailing smell worse when summer comes?
Published in: Beijing
