Ride-hailing services, as an essential option for daily travel, are undergoing the growing pains of industry transformation. While the speed of passenger travel may have increased, a decline in experience has become increasingly evident. For ride-hailing drivers, despite longer working hours, their income has seen a shrinkage. Meanwhile, internet platforms, though relying on big data for order matching and real-time safety supervision, these high costs often fail to gain public recognition.

The regulatory authorities are facing a challenge: how to balance flexible employment with market regulation. According to documents from the National Development and Reform Commission, jobs such as ride-hailing drivers have become an important "reservoir" for employment absorption. To prevent people from becoming hard-to-monitor illegal operators, known as "black cars," all parties need to work together to find a suitable solution.

In fact, regulatory departments across the country have recently issued risk warnings for the ride-hailing industry, cautioning those who intend to enter the industry to proceed with caution. These warnings indicate that in some areas, the capacity of ride-hailing vehicles has reached or exceeded actual demand. For instance, official data shows that in regions like Chongqing and Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, the number of ride-hailing vehicles is seriously excessive.

Given the current state of the industry, some cities have chosen to take direct measures, such as suspending the acceptance of new business for ride-hailing transport permits, in order to restrict new market capacity. While this may seem to alleviate the problem of oversupply on the surface, its impact on the local job market is unknown. The challenges faced by the ride-hailing sector should not be overlooked, and the industry urgently needs to undergo an effective transformation and upgrade to adapt to the ever-changing market environment.

Signs of industry risk often hide in the daily minutiae. Take Ms. Li as an example, a regular client who enjoys the privilege of a black gold user on multiple ride-hailing platforms in Shanghai, yet she has recently perceptibly noticed a significant decline in the riding experience. Particularly uncomfortable are the odors in the car interior; whether it's cigarette smoke, body odor, or strong perfume, these all easily trigger her motion sickness symptoms. Faced with such situations, even when traveling with children or on long journeys, she feels compelled to spend more money to choose a higher-class vehicle to ensure comfort for the trip.

Drivers are also facing their own difficulties. Mr. Zhang from Anhui, a long-distance ride-hailing driver, talks of his increasingly long work hours and congested roads, while high-quality long-distance ride opportunities are diminishing. After six years in his career, he feels his income has sharply decreased. To earn a better income, he must constantly accept rides, squeezing his eating and resting time to the limit, often only able to hurriedly smoke a cigarette and check his phone during the brief intervals of "charging" the vehicle. Among those drivers who choose to make a living in big cities, some even opt to spend the night in their cars to save costs. Mr. Zhang reveals that long hours of driving cause him backache and soreness, yet not placing perfumes in the car cannot mask the various odors, and even doing so, some passengers may complain about the overpowering scent, leaving them in a dilemma.

Facing such customer complaints, internal staff at ride-hailing companies feel very troubled, as they can understand from the customer's perspective the aspiration for a comfortable ride experience, and also empathize with the drivers' hard work in taking orders. Certain detailed requirements, such as the smell inside the vehicle, have also become aspects that are difficult to enforce strictly in service standards. Therefore, they are more inclined to treat this issue as a motivational factor to improve the driver's "service score", which not only affects the driver's income share, but also determines their chances of obtaining high-quality orders, thus encouraging drivers to be more attentive in the service they provide.

When consumers pay more and more for their rides, but the actual income of drivers declines, one can't help but ask: where is all this money going? Well-known ride-hailing platforms such as Didi Chuxing, Caocao Travel, Shenzhou Zhuanche, T3 Travel, Meituan Taxi, Gaode Taxi, etc., are just the tip of the iceberg among numerous ride-hailing companies. According to data released by the Ministry of Transport in March 2024, by the end of that month, 345 ride-hailing platform companies nationwide had obtained business permits, and 6.791 million ride-hailing driver licenses and 2.847 million vehicle transport certificates had been issued. With so many ride-hailing platforms and limited consumer attention, how these 345 companies can gain customer favor has become a major challenge.

In response to this problem, the ride-hailing market's solution is to establish aggregator platforms. In China's ride-hailing industry, there are mainly three operational models: pure proprietary model, combination of proprietary and aggregator models, and pure aggregator model. Most platforms do not opt for pure proprietary because this model incurs high market coverage costs and is difficult to sustain in the long run. Therefore, many companies have chosen a combination of proprietary and aggregator models, like Caocao Travel and Didi Chuxing are examples of such, and some have only ventured into the aggregator field, like Gaode Maps and Baidu Maps. Taking Gaode Taxi as an example, when consumers set their destination, Gaode will transfer the order to one of its affiliated ride-hailing companies. For consumers, they usually choose the type of car based on price and in a short time, it is difficult to recognize or notice which specific brand's ride-hailing company is undertaking the order. The advantage of the aggregator model is obvious; consumers don't need to download multiple apps and can hail a nearby vehicle in the shortest time. At the same time, drivers can also gain more order opportunities through platform advantages.

The issue of commission fees taken by ride-hailing platforms has become a key factor in the reduction of drivers' actual income, and this mechanism seems to create a seemingly insoluble paradox. Whether it is a fully independently operated platform or one that solely acts as an intermediary aggregator, they all need to invest heavily in improving passenger safety, fulfilling travel needs, establishing an evaluation system, and adjusting operational rules according to market demands. Although these investments are essential to the overall service quality, their value is often not easily recognized by the general public, including the drivers and passengers who use the service, and therefore the platform's commission ratio is always facing public scrutiny.

Recently, the issue of "resale of orders" on online ride-hailing platforms has sparked public concern. This issue highlights the abnormal commission ratios present in the payment and collection processes. Gu Dasong, the executive director of the Center for Transportation Law and Development at Southeast University, noticed at the end of 2023 that when passengers paid a fare of 98.11 yuan, the driver's actual income was only 52.17 yuan, which is equivalent to an overall commission rate of 46.8%. It is noteworthy that in this model, an example shows that the aggregator platform initially took 26.25 yuan, the platform to which the driver belonged then took 19.28 yuan at a rate of 26.99%, leaving the driver with a final income of only 52.17 yuan.

In response to this issue, the Ministry of Transport has begun to take measures to protect the rights and interests of drivers, such as promoting the transparency of pricing rules on online ride-hailing platforms through the "Sunshine Action" and setting and disclosing the upper limit of the commission rate for each platform, while also ensuring that the commission data for each order is displayed in real-time on the driver's end. 30% is currently the default commission cap for the entire industry, and some regions have already started seeking ways to further lower this cap.

However, at the legal level, there is still a lack of clear regulations regarding the division of commissions for online ride-hailing platforms. Attorney Liu Xinyuan of Shanghai Qin Bing (Beijing) Law Firm pointed out that the mention of ride-hailing unions, together with industry associations, publicly disclosing the commission rates in the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of the Rights and Interests of New Employment Form Workers" is an important step. To establish a fair and just relationship between platforms and drivers, Gu Dasong recommends optimizing drivers' working and living conditions, providing satisfactory vehicle rental and housing support, and improving vehicle designs to assist in the drivers' work. At the same time, more experienced drivers should also be encouraged to provide guidance and support to novices.

Although ride-hailing companies have been receiving more and more applications from new drivers, some regions have already started to freeze any additional registration applications, leading to some drivers being unable to register in compliance, and consequently, they migrate to smaller companies at the edge of the market to take orders through those platforms, which exacerbates the phenomena of market involution and also brings certain risks. Of course, the future of driver services should not merely be confined to the leasing and operation of vehicles, as drivers often face various "schemes," including opaque charges and lagging ancillary services. The National Development and Reform Commission once pointed out that the flexible employment model, including ride-hailing drivers, has some issues, such as unclear labor relations leading to a lack of protection of workers' rights, and the necessity to resolve issues such as unreasonable commission rates set by platforms.

According to the agreement, the newly established battery swapping joint venture will fully leverage both parties' technological advantages and operational strength to engage in close cooperation. By focusing on the ride-hailing market, the joint enterprise will provide efficient battery swapping services for many new energy vehicles. This cooperative strategy aims to create an important layout in the public supplementary energy domain, to lead in industrial service and technology standards, and to strive to improve resource utilization efficiency and overall societal operational effectiveness.

This year, three ride-hailing companies have submitted IPO applications to the Hong Kong stock market, including Caocao Travel, Dida Travel, and Ruqi Travel, which submitted their applications on March 19, March 25, and April 29, respectively. Gong Xin, CEO of Caocao Travel, has stated that although subsidies can bring in orders, they are not a long-term solution. He also believes that businesses should look beyond short-term subsidy strategies to consider how to maintain customer loyalty, with the core competitiveness lying in providing excellent customer experiences and efficiency.

As part of Geely Group, Cao Cao Mobility has displayed its competitive advantages in cost control, procurement, and supply chain management through customized vehicle manufacturing. Customers can easily identify vehicles with the Cao Cao Mobility branding and perform simple ventilation operations before boarding. After scanning a code, passengers can control the internal temperature, connect to WiFi and play music, further enhancing the riding experience.

An early executive in the ride-hailing industry pointed out that if car manufacturers ignore the transportation market, they are overlooking future opportunities. By interacting more with end consumers, car manufacturers can gain valuable consumer feedback, which is crucial for upgrading and iterating vehicle models. The ride-hailing industry possesses a wealth of data resources; if coupled with autonomous driving technology, this could significantly promote the upgrading of intelligent driving systems.

Many institutions believe that the future trend of the automotive travel industry will shift from private car use to shared vehicle use and from manual driving to high-level autonomous driving. This trend will change the core focus of both the vehicle product itself and the entire industry chain. In particular, whoever masters the core technology and operates a fleet efficiently to meet consumer demands will be key in future competition. These require not only investment but also the accumulation of time. Automobile manufacturers hoping to transform into mobility service providers prefer flexible cooperation models, aiming for resource optimization and value maximization through partnerships.