[Industry] Another option for RV manufacturing: rental version

Today, the domestic RV market is underdeveloped, and the exclusive customization of rental RVs has become a new option for RV manufacturers.

Zesi “rent”

After nearly ten years of stumbling development in China, RV has not achieved the expected “blowout” and “explosion”. Poverty leads to change, so all brands are looking for ways to survive in this “severe winter”. “RV rental”, a “warming stone” that can not only solve the immediate problems, but also pave the way for the future market, is naturally adopted by many RV businesses. was unearthed.

For the RV market, the widespread emergence of RV rentals has to some extent made up for the shortcomings of the public’s lack of awareness and experience of RVs. Because the commonly used experience methods such as test rides and test drives when purchasing passenger cars are not completely applicable to the purchase of RVs, the reason is that RVs have the attributes of houses in addition to the attributes of cars. It is difficult to have an intuitive experience of the properties of housing only by a test drive for a few minutes. Only after driving the RV for a period of time will you know which functions you need in the RV and which brands of RV are more suitable for you. .

For RV companies, at the current stage of low sales volume, if they can have a good market profit and promotion plan, the company is undoubtedly willing to do this work. Also because of so many favorable factors, production-oriented RV companies such as Chase, Brilliance, and Lanzhong have also chosen to join the RV rental market. In addition, many RV dealers and website platforms also entered it to seek new profit points.

The difference between “rent”

In order to meet the rental needs of the market, various RV models specially designed for rental are constantly emerging on the market. These rental models generally have the characteristics of less functions, low configuration and low price. For example, the Dream Tour Chopper R RV selected by a RV rental company in Beijing is a C-type RV with these characteristics.

The Niu Knife R RV uses the Huanghai pickup truck as the RV chassis. The non-load-bearing body and durable features add a lot of points to this model in rental use. The front face and cockpit of the vehicle retain the style of the original model, focusing on simplicity and practicality. Although the power of the 2.4L engine is acceptable, the manual transmission prevents many family members who can only drive the automatic transmission from experiencing the difference between driving a RV and an ordinary car. The widened body makes the rearview mirrors on both sides of the original car slightly insufficient. At the same time, the change in the center of gravity also makes the handling feeling of the vehicle different from that of the prototype car.

The appearance of this RV is not much different from ordinary RVs, but if you analyze it carefully, you can still find some differences. First of all, the reversing camera system, which is generally an option in RVs, is directly installed on the body, and the external kitchen, which is common in domestic RVs, does not appear in this model, and is replaced by numerous storage compartments. Moreover, almost all the interfaces, door locks, storage compartments and even the awning are posted with operation prompts, which can be regarded as the characteristics of rental cars. Even so, RV chiefs say customers are still making mistakes while using them. In addition, the painting of the car body should also be sprayed with the LOGO of the rental company at the request of the rental company.

Inside the RV, based on the size of the original pickup truck, the space inside the RV is also very limited. The cockpit is also the same as that of the original model, without the large-screen navigation system commonly seen in family cars today, and only an MP3 radio as the driving entertainment system. The layout of the cabin adopts a typical C-type pickup truck RV layout. The top of the cockpit is a sleeping cabin, the front is a booth sofa area, and the rear is a layout of a kitchen and bathroom. Since the card seat sofa area can be turned into a super large sleeping area at night, the sleeping cabin on the top of the cockpit is sufficient to meet the needs of family travel. Different from ordinary RVs, the bathroom at the rear is only used for bathing, and there is no toilet installed, which is to avoid improper use and facilitate cleaning. The kitchen area is equipped with range hood, induction cooker and 70L refrigerator, which can make simple meals when camping.

In terms of entertainment, it is only equipped with an LCD TV and a stereo. It is very interesting that a stereo is also equipped outside the car to increase the experience of outdoor camping. However, the RV is not equipped with a satellite receiving antenna that is popular with ordinary users. If you plan to watch TV programs while camping, you can only carry a USB flash drive.

Less due to “rent”

After learning about the rental version of the RV, you will find that when the RV becomes the rental version, many luxury configurations such as electric pedals and satellite antennas are also given up, and equipment that may cause improper use such as external kitchens and toilets are also deleted. . This not only maintains the reliability of the caravan, but also reduces the difficulty of using the caravan, and at the same time reduces the manufacturing cost of the caravan. Such a design concept helps to quickly recover the cost of the caravan.

Although these missing devices reduce the manufacturing cost of the RV, they are also slightly lacking in the user experience. For example, the outdoor kitchen mentioned above, if you plan to cook Chinese food while camping, the outdoor kitchen is almost the only choice because of the oil fume problem. However, due to various reasons, this design is not available on the rental version of the RV, which may to a certain extent affect the perception of new RV players on the use of RVs, and even have a certain impact on users’ future purchases of RVs.

RV rental is still dwarfed by mature car rental in operation, but it provides a platform for users to experience, understand and feel RV. Let those users who are very yearning for the life of the RV, but temporarily inconvenient to buy, have a place to experience the RV. The establishment of the RV rental platform has played a certain role in promoting the development of Chinese RV culture.

The right way to “rent”

With the widespread appearance of rental RVs, it can be seen that RV practitioners are gradually waking up from the fantasy of getting rich overnight, and are beginning to face the “severe winter” of the RV market in a down-to-earth manner. Survival in the harsh winter is the first priority, so many companies have also made great efforts in the RV rental sector, and many production-oriented companies are engaged in RV rental. The RV rental market is extremely beneficial whether it is used as a choice for RV promotion or business survival. However, we have seen that the leasing system is still not perfect when the RV rental market has just emerged. It is necessary for enterprises to find problems in the rental process while engaging in RV rental, and to improve the corresponding rental system in a targeted manner.

“Rent” carefully

In terms of manufacturing process, there is not much difference between the RV rental version and the ordinary version, but how to balance cost and benefit, experience and evaluation has become the first problem to be solved for rental RVs. As mentioned above, the rental version of the RV tends to be more simple, stable, and low-priced, but in order to improve the satisfaction of the user experience to form a second lease, or even form a purchase, it takes effort.

When leasing, you can’t rent it all at once, and you need to sort out and analyze the feedback of experience users in a timely manner. The analysis results can be used to improve the rental service quality, and provide effective suggestions for the upgrading of RV products. Such a move can not only improve the competitiveness of product leasing, but also allow the limited cost of RV manufacturing to be used on a knife-edge to produce products that users really need, so that enterprises can have longer vitality.

In addition, we can learn more from mature foreign cases. Foreign RVs have formed a complete industrial chain from production to rental to route recommendation. Domestic enterprises can create a RV rental industry suitable for China based on these mature cases and combined with the unique domestic conditions.

epilogue

RV rental is now in the exploration stage of “crossing the river by feeling the stones”. In today’s unsatisfactory RV industry market, how to make good use of this “heating stone” to survive the “cold winter” requires the unremitting efforts of practitioners. Quoting Shelley’s poem “After winter, comes spring.” In winter, you need to accumulate strength, and when spring comes, you can accumulate strength and quickly occupy the market.