Have you noticed that recently ordered food packaging is getting more exquisite, delivery times are getting shorter, and even the included wet wipes are printed with brand IPs? Behind this familiar formula is the replay of the car industry internal competition script—when tech iteration becomes an arms race, when user experience becomes a data game, this life-and-death sprint of "faster, more, flashier" is brewing a new storm in the food delivery industry.
Parameter Race: From 0-100 km/h Acceleration to 30-Minute Guaranteed Delivery
The auto industry once built technical moats with autonomous driving and 5G connectivity. Now food delivery platforms stack competitive barriers with algorithms and subsidies. Just as car companies ramped range from 500km to 1000km, Meituan and Ele.me compressed "average delivery time" from 45 minutes to 28 minutes; just as LiDAR became an unspoken rule for new energy vehicles, cutlery sets in delivery orders have evolved to "care packages" including dental floss and mints. But does this upgrade really stem from user needs? Data shows 72% of consumers care more about food temperature than packaging design—how similar to the auto industry's pseudo-demand of "in-car AI emotion recognition."
A deeper similarity lies in industry chain pressure. Auto OEMs squeeze suppliers by renegotiating prices monthly. Food delivery platforms transfer costs through parallel systems like "Fengniao Express" and "Meituan Special Delivery." A certain delivery station manager revealed: "Now riders need to take 8 orders simultaneously to qualify, but timeout penalty standards shortened from 3 minutes to 90 seconds." This mirrors the "cut prices or we stop payment" threat that Bosch China President Xu Daquan faced. When competition becomes a zero-sum game, the front-line workers are always the buffer.
996-Style Delivery: Labor Exhaustion Under Internet Thinking
Auto engineers won't forget that high salaries from NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto came with 007 shadows. Now the food delivery industry is similarly caught in a "high incentive trap"—lunch rush top earners can reach 150 yuan/hour, but at the cost of 14 hours online daily. More残酷的是，算法正在复制汽车行业的"开发周期压缩"逻辑——去年某平台将骑手路径规划系统迭代速度提升3倍，背后是程序员们用"行军床驻厂"换来的。正如那位年薪70万的小米汽车员工，光环之下是产业链每个环节的透支。
This internal competition's most deadly side effect is diverting innovation from its essence. Car companies pile up autonomous driving features but can't solve city traffic jams; food delivery platforms chase delivery speed but ignore food safety. When a brand creates marketing buzz with drone delivery, what consumers might care more about is the missing rice in their meal box. Just like the truth revealed in the materials: "Consumers aren't buying the need itself, but the anxiety artificially marketed to them."
Path to Break Through: Returning to the True Essence of User Value Competition
History always repeats itself. The auto industry has begun reflecting on the "configuration race" fire. Li Auto's case of cutting redundant features is worth contemplating. Perhaps the food delivery industry should pause and think: when delivery speed exceeds physiological limits, when gift costs shift to dish prices, what's left of this狂欢?
What's worth vigilance is that the "price bubble" mentioned in the materials is replaying—some merchants reduce food portions to cover platform commissions and packaging costs.
Industry progress shouldn't just be a data狂欢. Just as cars must return to the essence of transportation, the core of food delivery service has always been "making eating simpler." Perhaps one day, consumers will choose to forgive 30-minute delivery of hot food instead of ice-cold 18-minute extreme deliveries. This internal competition storm spreading from factory workshops to street corners deserves a re-examination of competition's original intention.
Also, please give a like to Xiaoming's Xiaohongshu account below~! I don't want to work hard anymore, I want to marry someone rich.
Programmer Wanfeng focuses on AI programming training. Beginners can start making AI projects after watching his tutorial 《30 Lessons · AI Programming Training Camp》 co-produced with Turing Community.
