A model for an auto show in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, uses the Didi Chuxing car-hailing service to commute from her college to the auto show. (Photo/China Daily)
Experts are divided over whether car-hailing will supplant auto ownership
With the car-hailing industry gaining in popularity, many are wondering if they need to buy their own cars.
Liu Qing, president of Didi Chuxing, China's largest car-hailing service provider, said one-third of car owners drive to and from work in the country, with that ratio likely to fall as new forms of transportation emerge.
By the end of 2015, China was home to 172 million cars. Among 40 major cities in the country, each had an average of more than a million cars.
"Previous generations had a compulsion to own a car. Today, it is different. Those born in the 1990s do not talk about buying cars or even houses, and it is cool to not have a car," said Liu at a forum on June 21 in Beijing.
She said Didi offered 1.43 billion rides in 2015 across the country, or 14 million rides a day.
"Didi will try to provide better services so that people will abandon the idea of buying their own cars. It is no fun to sit in traffic jams," Liu said.
William Li, founder of electric carmaker NextEV, does not agree.
He said car ownership has grown by about 40 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area since Uber was invented in the region in 2012. In 2015, 350,000 cars were sold in the region.
In Beijing, where car-hailing services are prevalent, people who registered to win a license reached 3.65 million by the end of 2015, about three times the figure in 2012.
Li said the clashing of statistical fact to the general perception of cars is the simplistic definition that a car is simply a means of transportation.
"I have more than one car, and some cars are not entirely used as a transportation tool."
He said the logic of smartphones also applies to the car industry.
"If we had seen a mobile phone as only a phone, smartphones would not have emerged and dominated."
Li said customer experience will decide the future development of the car industry.
"If our cars are autonomous, that means we have a professional driver who does not rest, and cars will become a real mobile, private and free space for us.
"That experience, I am sure, will be a reason for people to own a car, because owning such a car means more freedom."
