China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Zhai Yanan reported in Beijing
In the first month of the first month of the new year, the new forces showed a new competitive pattern under the high-speed growth trend. Xiaopeng and Ideal ranked in the top two, and Nezha squeezed into the top three with a sales growth rate of more than 400% year-on-year. As the "big brother" of the new forces, Weilai's sales in January did not exceed 10,000 vehicles, ranking only fourth.
In fact, this is not the first time that Weilai has fallen behind, in the past year, Nezha Automobile has achieved a single month sales of more than Weilai. For NIO, the challenges now are no less than those of the crisis in 2019. In the eyes of many people in the industry, the monthly sales of more than 10,000 vehicles have become the passing line of the first echelon of new forces. Supply chain shortages, declining sales, secondary listings on hold... If NIO cannot successfully solve the above problems in 2022, its prospects will be marked with question marks.
Insufficient replenishment leads to stalls
Judging from the sales data of the top five new forces in January, Xiaopeng's sales volume was 12,922 vehicles, an increase of 114.8% year-on-year, which is also Xiaopeng's sales of more than 10,000 vehicles for five consecutive months; the ideal January sales reached 12,268 vehicles, an increase of 128.1% year-on-year; Nezha sales reached 11,009 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 401.5%; Weilai's sales volume was 9,652 new cars, an increase of 33.6% year-on-year; zero-run sales reached 8,085 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 434%.
It can be said that Weilai's situation is very embarrassing. As the leader of the new forces, the rapid rise in sales scale has also made Weilai quickly feel the constraints from the manufacturing link. Since the emergence of a production capacity crisis in 2021, after Weilai first slipped off the throne in August of that year, since then, single-month sales have fallen out of the top three many times; among them, in October 2021, due to production line adjustments, sales once slipped to 3667 vehicles, and the delivery of many models had to be postponed, and some owners had to wait 10 weeks to pick up the car after exposing the lock order. To this end, Weilai's reply is caused by some irresistible external factors such as chip shortages and factory upgrades. An automotive industry analyst believes that this is closely related to the supply chain management of Niolai, which lacks foresight, and its current assets are not used to prepare the supply chain system supply, resulting in a very passive situation, which has a lot to do with the procurement team and the financial leader.
"The market opportunities are there every day, and we don't catch more opportunities, which also makes us think about this (capacity) thing." Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of WEIO, said frankly. The reporter learned that at present, Weilai has begun to step up the expansion of production capacity, last October, Weilai announced that the production line of Jianghuai Weilai Hefei Base has completed a phased upgrade, which will be completed in the first half of this year, and the production capacity will reach 240,000 vehicles from 120,000 vehicles after the upgrade is completed. Weilai said that by working overtime or increasing the frequency of shifts, the annual production capacity can be increased to 300,000 vehicles, which will alleviate the problem of insufficient production capacity of Weilai automobiles. It should be noted that unlike Weilai, Ideal and Nezha chose the road of self-built factories at the beginning, and Xiaopeng also started the investment of self-built factories after being oem by Haima in the early days. In fact, NIO had a plan to build its own factory at the beginning of its establishment, but it was eventually stalled for various reasons.
In addition to the problem of vehicle production capacity, the power exchange model that has been respected by Weilai is not as good as imagined. Some Owners of Weilai in Beijing told the "China Times" reporter that during the Spring Festival trip, due to the increase in the number of owners of power exchangers, the only 6 batteries in the replacement power station could not meet the demand at all, and it was necessary to wait for the backup battery to be fully charged before the power can be replaced, which greatly extended the power exchange time. Different from other brands, Weilai's main power exchange model makes its demand for battery packs greater, and in actual operation, it is not only necessary to provide battery packs for order users, but also to reserve multiple substations.
"High-end" is not cold
As we all know, NIO started with a high profile positioning as a first-class model. In 2016, NIO launched the EP9 Supercar, setting a record for the lap time of the Nürburgring Nordschleife all-electric vehicle, becoming the fastest lap keeper for a mass-produced car. After that, the first car, ES8, directly benchmarked against the traditional luxury car brand BBA, laying the foundation for the high-end brand image, and the launch of ES6 and EC6 further strengthened its high-end positioning. According to Chejia data, as of May 2021, the average selling price of WEILAI was 433,000 yuan, second only to Mercedes-Benz (436,000 yuan), and even higher than Lexus (393,000 yuan), BMW (391,000 yuan), Lincoln (372,000 yuan), Audi (322,000 yuan) and so on.
But high-end models are never a weapon of volume, from the tesla example can be seen, if there is no Model 3 to carry the responsibility of expanding the mainstream automobile market, I am afraid it is difficult to get out of the financial crisis, it is impossible to become the hegemony of the new energy market with the high-end model Model X. Similarly, NIO urgently needs to find a second growth engine, that is, a model that can go high and is more profitable.
Barclays analyst Jiong Shao said in a recent research report to investors that Niolai's target price is $34 / share, and both give "overweight" ratings. But Jiong Shao also pointed out that the launch of mass-market related products in the next two years is crucial for NIO, and NIO may face two major risks in the medium term: one is that NIO may not be able to successfully transform into a Volkswagen electric vehicle manufacturer; the other major risk is that if competitors can get more driving data and develop better advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), NIO may lag behind in autonomous driving technology. In his view, to become a volkswagen electric vehicle manufacturer, Weilai needs to have a different thinking and strategy from high-end electric vehicle manufacturers, and Weilai needs to do this transformation, not only from the perspective of product positioning, but also from the perspective of customer service and operation.
At the end of last year, WEILAI opened reservations immediately after the release of ET5 models, and the scene was so hot that the WEILAI APP was paralyzed. The ET5 starts at 328,000 yuan, and the BaaS solution starts at about 258,000 yuan, making it the lowest-priced model in NIO. But the expected delivery date of NIO ET5 is also as early as September this year, and in the industry's view, relying on ET5 to save NIO's profits in 2022 may be a little late. At the same time, compared with ET5, the first-mover advantage of competitor models Xiaopeng P7 or Tesla Model 3 cannot be ignored. Compared with the competition between the new forces, Qin Lihong emphasized the trade-offs between different camps. "The premise for us to further expand our achievements in the future is not the ideal, Xiaopeng sells less, it should be BBA selling less." Qin Lihong thinks.
For Weilai, the expansion of production increments, new car delivery, research and development investment all require a large amount of money, and the second listing is imminent. According to Reuters' media IFR recently reported, WEILAI is considering a second listing in Singapore, this transaction may raise about 1.9 billion US dollars, but NIO will not completely abandon the plan to go public in Hong Kong. In this regard, Weilai said that "for market rumors, the company does not respond." In the view of Zhang Junyi, managing partner of OliverVita Consulting, it is a natural thing for a company to contact different markets in the process of seeking an IPO, and it is not impossible to turn to Singapore for listing. As early as March last year, NIO submitted a second listing application in Hong Kong, even earlier than Xiaopeng Motors. However, until July 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile quickly completed the second listing in Hong Kong, and a month later, Ideal Automobile also successfully landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but Weilai was delayed in obtaining approval.
Will Weilai fall into the strange circle of "one step late, one step late"? 2022 will be the final window period, before the joint venture brand power, Weilai may still have a chance.