Author/ Author of "Finance and Economics" Weekly Hong Hanqi Han Ling
Edited / Mao Shiyang
Photo/Visual China
"Wei Xiaoli" seat secondary change, Xiao Peng temporarily lead
After entering 2022, the annual report cards of the new car-making forces have been issued.
From the data point of view, there are four car companies with a single sales volume of 10,000 in December, including Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Nezha.
In the whole of 2021, Xiaopeng occupied the top spot with an annual sales volume of 98,000 vehicles, followed by Weilai and Ideal, with cumulative annual sales of 91,000 vehicles and 90,000 vehicles respectively, becoming the only three new car manufacturers with an annual sales scale of more than 90,000 vehicles in 2021. At this point, Weilai has led the new forces of car manufacturing into the past, and "Xiaopeng, Weilai, and Ideal" have temporarily formed a new pattern.
In fact, in the high-growth market environment, changes in the field of new car manufacturing are happening every moment.
Judging from the current delivery volume, Xiaopeng has temporarily run to the front of the team from the catch-up in the head enterprise. In December 2021, the monthly delivery volume of 4 new car-making enterprises exceeded 10,000 vehicles, namely Xiaopeng, Ideal, Weilai and Nezha. Among them, Xiaopeng's monthly delivery volume climbed to 16,000 vehicles, a direct increase of 3 times compared with more than 5,200 vehicles at the beginning of the year, and the monthly delivery scale of new car-making forces was raised to more than 15,000 vehicles.
In September 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile achieved monthly sales of more than 10,000 units for the first time, and since then, for four consecutive months, Xiaopeng has delivered more than 10,000 vehicles per month, and in November and December, it has "full firepower", with deliveries reaching 15,000 units and 16,000 units respectively. In the fourth quarter alone, Xiaopeng's cumulative deliveries reached 41,751 vehicles, accounting for 40% of the total sales of the year.
Ideal, with the ideal ONE model, in 2021 stable output, especially in the fourth quarter, following november sales exceeded 10,000 vehicles, ideal December delivery increased to 14,087 vehicles, monthly delivery volume exceeded Weilai ranked second; finally with a yearly performance of 90,491 vehicles, standing firmly in the first echelon of new car-making forces.
In fact, in the first half of 2021, Xiaopeng and the ideal sales volume are still in a state of stalemate - competing for the second place. The monthly delivery volume of both sides remained at around 5,000 vehicles. At that time, the champion of the market still belonged to Weilai.
Official data show that in 2021, WEILAI delivered a total of 91,429 new cars, an increase of 109.1% year-on-year, and a year-on-year growth rate of more than 100% for two consecutive years. However, the doubling of sales is no longer "prominent" for new car manufacturers and the new energy vehicle market in 2021. This year, the sales growth rate of Xiaopeng and Ideal reached 263% and 177.4% respectively. Looking at the overall new energy vehicle market, the year-on-year growth rate also remained at a level of 1.7 times.
For Weilai, 2021 may be a year to intuitively feel the impact and ambition of competitors. Especially in the second half of the year, Weilai's monthly delivery volume bottomed out in October, so it pulled down the performance of the whole year and was overtaken by Xiaopeng and Ideal.
In August 2021, Nezha's sales exceeded that of Weilai, and in December, Nezha's monthly delivery also exceeded 10,000 to 10,127 vehicles, only 300 less than Weilai. However, the stable performance at the end of the year that exceeded expectations still held the ranking of the first camp for Weilai, retreating to the second place in the list with annual sales of 91429 vehicles.
How to stand out in the fiercely competitive market is an important issue for the second camp of enterprises in the new car-making forces. On the basis of the relatively limited reserve funds, it is particularly crucial to find the right track.
There is no shortage of dark horses in the new cars in 2021.
Nezha became the fastest horse in the field of new cars in the past year. In November last year, Nezha's monthly delivery volume exceeded 10,000 units for the first time. Driven by this, Nezha Automobile delivered a total of 69,674 new cars in 2021, an increase of 362% year-on-year.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the key to Nezha's "prosperity" is due to the main cost-effective new energy vehicle market in the range of 100,000 yuan. This is an area that Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal have not paid attention to before.
The other dark horse is Zero Run. In the December sales rankings, Zero Run ranked fifth with monthly deliveries of 7807, and at the beginning of 2021, this figure was only 1700 units. At present, the models on sale include T03, S01 and C11, but the sales of S01, which is positioned as a high-end supercar, have long been announced. In fact, abandoning the former high-end route, the more people-friendly zero-run began to gain the favor of the market: the T03 model positioned as a micro-electric vehicle became the main sales force, delivering 38,463 units throughout the year, accounting for about 89%.
WM has performed steadily in the past year, delivering 5,062 new vehicles in December, ranking sixth in the sales list, and in 2021, it delivered 44,157 units, an increase of 96.3% year-on-year. But in the field of new cars, "stability" often means crisis, especially the growth rate of competitors has reached 2 times or 3 times, and the M7, which will be delivered in 2022, is seen as the key to WM's turnaround.
In 2022, "Wei Xiaoli" suffered an enemy on his belly and back
In 2022, for the head new car manufacturers represented by Wei Xiaoli, the competition will only become more and more intense, especially the overlap of the product market coverage of Wei Xiaoli is obviously greater.
Since its inception, although the outside world often compares the financing and sales volume of "Wei Xiaoli", the main new car manufacturers have actually found their own market segments to start, and there is no direct competition between them.
Taking Weilai as an example, ES6 is the best-selling model of Weilai, the official price is 358,000 yuan, and the price of ES8 is as high as 476,000 yuan, in the domestic high-end new energy vehicle market, Weilai is almost thriving. However, the share of the high-end market is limited after all, and Weilai has also begun to lay down in 2021.
However, this will change in 2022.
In December 2021, NIO released the ET5, the cheapest model under NIO, with a starting price of 328,000 yuan. According to the official announcement of Weilai, if consumers adopt the leasing policy, they spend 980 yuan per month on battery rental fees, and only need 258,000 yuan to start.
In fact, the market space that Weilai explored this year is exactly the market that Xiaopeng is ready to attack. At last year's Guangzhou Auto Show, Xiaopeng released the latest SUV Xiaopeng G9, which is another move of Xiaopeng's brand upward strategy after the previous release of P5. G9 positioned as a medium and large SUV, the official has not yet revealed the specific price, industry insiders speculate that the final price may be between 300,000 and 400,000 yuan. Whether it is model positioning or price range, then the G9 will compete head-on with Weilai and Ideal.
As the most affordable Xiaopeng in Wei Xiaoli, it has also expanded its product line since last year and made efforts to make high-end products. Before the P5 was launched, Xiaopeng Motors' sales consisted of only two models, namely the Compact SUV Xiaopeng G3 and the mid-size sedan Xiaopeng P7. As a mid-range model launched by Xiaopeng, the price is between G3 and P7, and He Xiaopeng hopes to break into the high-end market occupied by ideal and Weilai with a very cost-effective advantage.
Under the pressure of Weilai and Xiaopeng step by step, Ideal has not sat still, knowing that relying on ideal ONE models will not work in the world, ideal is ready to launch its second mass production model X01 this year. Similar to the ideal ONE, the X01 is positioned as a full-size SUV that is still a range extender and will likely be priced between 400,000 and 450,000. This price range will compete head-on with the NIO ES8.
It is not difficult to see that this year, the competition of the Wei Xiaoli brand market segment will usher in a white-hot stage, in order to further expand the market share, Xiaopeng and Ideal impact the high-end market, while Weilai is from the high-end to the high-end market.
In addition to expanding the product line, Wei Xiaoli's production capacity competition speed is also accelerating. Li Bin, the founder of Weilai, revealed that the second production base in Hefei Xinqiao Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industrial Park is expected to be put into operation in the third quarter of this year, when the company's total maximum production capacity is expected to reach 600,000 vehicles / year. He Xiaopeng said that Xiaopeng Automobile's Zhaoqing plant is implementing double shifts of 20 hours a day, and the total design capacity of the Guangzhou and Wuhan plants under construction is 400,000 vehicles, which can support the annual output of 600,000 vehicles.
Shen Yanan, co-founder of Weilai, also revealed in the Q3 earnings call that it is expected that by the end of 2023, the annual production capacity can reach 500,000 vehicles, and if two shifts of production are adopted, the total production capacity will reach nearly 700,000 vehicles per year.
At a time when Wei Xiaoli is fighting each other for production capacity and sales, the new forces of the second echelon of car manufacturing are struggling to catch up. Taking Nezha Automobile as an example, sales have exceeded 10,000 units for two consecutive months, with annual deliveries reaching 69,000 vehicles, an increase of 361.7% year-on-year, and the growth rate exceeds That of Wei Xiaoli; zero-run sales in December reached a new high, with cumulative deliveries reaching 43,000 vehicles for the whole year; WM's deliveries in 2021 have increased significantly, which is the sum of its cumulative deliveries in the past three years.
In addition to the new forces of car manufacturing, new energy vehicles built by traditional car companies and Internet companies have also been launched on the market last year. Statistics show that in the December 2021 delivery ranking, Geely's Extreme Kr and Dongfeng's Lantu have reached 3,000 vehicles in a single month, and the price of the brand's products just covers the market share of Weilai and the ideal market range.
In 2021, Wei Xiaoli's annual delivery volume has approached 100,000 vehicles, and for these new forces in the head car, this year will be the year when they really face a "big test" after completing the watershed of 100,000 vehicles.
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