People's Livelihood Investigation Bureau｜Special car discounts and one-price prices drive "crazy" online ride-hailing drivers

China News Service, November 13 (Zhong Xingzhen) Recently, Wang Lei (pseudonym), an online ride-hailing driver in Jinan City, Shandong Province, is worried about taking orders. As the evening rush hour approached, he only received one order 3.5 hours after driving on the Didi platform without the option of special discounts for taking orders, and he incurred a turnover of 5.8 yuan.

In Wang Lei's view, online ride-hailing drivers are trapped in an "unsolvable cycle": "If you don't offer special offers, orders will be lost; but if you offer special offers, you will continue to receive low-price orders."

Recently, the China News Network's "People's Livelihood Investigation Bureau" interviewed many online ride-hailing drivers in many places. Forced acceptance of low-price orders has become a common feedback issue among drivers. In this regard, some experts pointed out that if the platform's low prices are mainly maintained by squeezing the driver's income, this is essentially a kind of "involution" competition.

“Specials change from appetizers to entrees”

Wang Lei has been running an online ride-hailing service for three years. According to his observation, based on average mileage, the unit price earned by online ride-hailing drivers is becoming cheaper and cheaper. “When I first started running online ride-hailing services, the average price was about 1.8 yuan/km, and I could earn up to 2 yuan/km. Now the average has dropped to 1.3 yuan/km, and the maximum I can earn is only 1.5-1.6 yuan/km.”

Although the price of online car-hailing will vary depending on the city, online car-hailing drivers in many cities have reported to reporters the problem of "unit price decline".

A driver who had driven an online ride-hailing service in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province for eight years had similar feelings. He told reporters that the current Hangzhou Express orders are about 1.8 yuan/km, compared with an average of 2.3 yuan/km six years ago. "Except express trains, other types of orders are mostly 1.6-1.7 yuan/km, fixed-price orders are about 1.4 yuan/km, and the lowest-priced orders can't even earn 1 yuan per kilometer."

Master Bai, who has been operating an online ride-hailing service in Beijing for 10 years, has a deeper feeling about the changes in unit prices. In his words, during the years of the "subsidy war" for domestic online ride-hailing, he really "got something to eat." During peak periods, the unit price offered by the platform to drivers will double. "For an order with a starting price, the driver may earn fifty or sixty yuan after doubling, while the passenger may only spend a few yuan or even nothing."

After the subsidy subsided, the unit price received by drivers has gradually dropped from 2-3 yuan/km that year to 1.2-1.3 yuan/km now, while the unit price of special discount orders is only about 1.2 yuan/km in Beijing.

Nowadays, when aggregation platforms bring various online ride-hailing platforms together to compare prices, low-price special orders have changed from "appetizers" to supplement the order quantity to "main courses and home dishes."

"Turn off the special car and orders have dropped significantly"

If we count from around 2010, the domestic online ride-hailing ecosystem has developed for more than ten years. It has experienced initial exploration and "subsidy wars". Today, the aggregation platform of "one-click multi-platform ride-hailing" has become mainstream.

For example, in the prospectus of Xiangdao Travel, this domestic ride-hailing platform ranked sixth in terms of GTV in 2025, the total transaction volume (GTV) from the aggregation platform from 2023 to 2025 will exceed 90%, and is growing year by year.

However, in the eyes of drivers, the centralized bidding operation model of the aggregation platform is the main reason for the reduction in unit prices on the driver side: consumers can easily compare prices and choose the cheapest order through the aggregation platform. If online ride-hailing drivers want to obtain customers, they have to accept low-priced orders, which also leads to a further reduction in the actual income of drivers.

Under the centralized bidding mode of the aggregation platform, special car discounts and fixed-price vehicles have become traffic portals that drivers cannot avoid - if they are turned off, there will be no orders left; if they are turned on, low-price orders will continue to flow.

"The combined price of a special discount order is less than 2 yuan/km, and the price of a special discount order for more than 10 kilometers is only 18-19 yuan." A driver who drives an online car-hailing service in Beijing told reporters that, especially for novice drivers, if they do not set up a master to receive special discount orders, they will face the situation of having no rides for a long time.

Many online ride-hailing drivers told reporters that after turning off options such as "special car" and "fixed price", orders will be significantly reduced, and most of the orders received are "bad orders" that are relatively close or have remote destinations.

Because they think the income from orders such as special discounts and fixed-price orders is too low, some drivers will negotiate with passengers to cancel platform orders and switch to private transactions after passengers get on the bus. An online ride-hailing driver in Yibin City, Sichuan Province told reporters that during the summer vacation this year, he asked a passenger who booked a "surprise special offer" on the Didi platform to cancel the order and transfer the money to him after arriving at the destination. "For a distance of more than 20 kilometers, the normal price is more than 40 yuan, but for this fixed-price order, the passenger paid 32 yuan, and the platform took a commission. I can only earn 25 yuan. There is no way."

The reporter noticed that this method of online ride-hailing drivers evading platform commissions also caused conflicts between drivers and passengers. Some netizens said on social platforms that they had experienced similar experiences and expressed concerns about drivers circumventing platform supervision.

Some online ride-hailing drivers believe that the increase in low-price orders has formed a vicious cycle: "Low-price competition will only make the relationship between drivers and passengers more tense. Drivers have worked hard but cannot earn a reasonable income, and services will only get worse and worse."

Guo Quanzhong, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Minzu University of China and director of the Internet Platform Enterprise Development and Governance Research Center, pointed out that as long as a small service provider dares to set long-term breakeven pricing on the aggregation traffic side, the entire industry will be forced to follow suit; even if a platform wants to stabilize freight rates and passengers jump to low-price channels with one click, leading platforms will be passively involved.

“Commission-free cards and guaranteed rewards are hidden tricks”

Against this background, in order to attract drivers and seize market share, online ride-hailing platforms have also introduced measures such as "commission-free cards" and "guaranteed rewards".

For example, many platforms such as Didi and Caocao Travel have launched “commission-free cards” that can reduce or reduce platform commissions within a specific time and geographical range. Online ride-hailing drivers can choose and purchase according to different pricing levels.

But can a “commission-free card” really be “commission-free”? Some drivers expressed doubts.

"For example, if you buy a 'commission-free card' for a discounted car, you may only be able to receive long-distance orders for express trains." And these orders cannot enjoy the "commission-free card" service for a discounted car.

Wang Lei said that this means that drivers who want to run long-distance orders can only take other car models that are commission-free, and let the platform participate in the commission.

Many online ride-hailing drivers reported to reporters that after purchasing a "commission-free card", the weight of orders dispatched by the platform will be adjusted, and orders with long distances and high unit prices will be allocated more to order types that are not included in the commission-free range.

On the other hand, the "guaranteed rewards" launched by some platforms force drivers to extend their online time and take more low-price orders in order to get orders. Some drivers reported that in order to encourage drivers to take more orders, small platforms on the aggregation platform often set up guaranteed turnover or order recharge rewards calculated based on ideal road conditions and full load dispatch. Aggregation platforms such as AutoNavi will also launch similar guaranteed rewards during the off-season for taxi hailing.

Some drivers also showed T3's "guaranteed reward" to reporters. In order to obtain the guaranteed reward of 260 yuan, the driver must meet the three conditions of "taking orders ≥ 20 orders", "turnover of orders ≥ 85% of the guaranteed amount" and "online time ≥ 8 hours". However, in actual operation, this condition is almost impossible to be satisfied simultaneously. In order to reach the minimum threshold, drivers had to extend their online time and accept more low-price orders. In the end, the rewards failed and the unit price was further diluted.

"Even if the odd figure is completed, the turnover amount is almost impossible to complete. It is very 'routine'." Wang Lei told reporters.

The reporter also asked online ride-hailing platforms such as Didi Chuxing, AutoNavi, Caocao Travel, and T3 Travel about issues such as the drop in unit prices for drivers and “having to accept low-priced orders.” However, no response was received as of press time.

“Low-price competition is unsustainable”

“In the long run, this kind of low-price competition at the expense of supply-side stability is unsustainable.”

Sun Jin, professor at Wuhan University Law School and director of Wuhan University Competition Law and Policy Research Center, pointed out that low prices themselves are not a problem, the key lies in their formation mechanism: if low prices are due to technological innovation or improvement in dispatch efficiency, it is a normal dividend released by competition; if it is mainly maintained by squeezing driver income and compressing safety service investment, it is essentially a kind of "involution" competition.

Sun Jin believes that for drivers, the most direct impact of low-price competition is a decrease in income. As the income per unit time decreases, drivers have to extend their working hours to maintain their total income, and the working environment deteriorates.

For small platforms, low-price involution will compress their profit margins and increase their dependence on aggregation portals. Small platforms that lack pricing power under the centralized bidding model will gradually degenerate from independent competitors into "capacity providers" for traffic entrances, thus weakening the competitiveness of the market.

And for consumers who seem to be the "beneficiaries" of low-priced taxis, long-term low-priced taxis are not a good thing. When drivers' income is pushed to a critical point, phenomena such as refusal to turn on the air conditioner, reduced vehicle condition, reduced service willingness, and bypassing platform charges will gradually increase, directly affecting the consumer experience.

In recent years, regulatory authorities have taken many actions to regulate low-price competition on online ride-hailing platforms through interviewing platforms and signing industry conventions.

In addition, the "Internet Platform Price Behavior Rules" have been officially implemented on April 10, 2026. The rules clarify that platform operators are not allowed to take measures such as restricting traffic and reducing algorithm power, forcing or disguised efforts to force operators on the platform to reduce prices or conduct promotions in the form of profit transfers, cash rebates, etc.

In Sun Jin's view, when price becomes the only competitive dimension, platforms will lack the motivation to invest in safety management and quality improvement, and high-quality transportation capacity will gradually be lost; after low-price "involution" evolves into a zero-sum game, small and medium-sized platforms and high-quality transportation capacity are forced to clear out, which may pave the way for monopoly pricing.