Author 丨 Song Doudou
Editor 丨 Zhang Ruosi
Figure Source 丨 Figure worm
On March 1, the January sales competition of new car manufacturers was staged again, and the pattern changed again.
Compared with the opening of sales in January, none of the new car-making forces delivered in February exceeded 10,000, and all of them fell sharply from the previous month.
In February, with the ideal car that went the world with a single model, it delivered 8414 ideal ONE, which won the single-month sales crown of the new car-making force again after five months; Xiaopeng Automobile, which reached the top of the monthly sales throne for four consecutive months, saw a waist cut in February, which was 6225 units, down 51.8% from January, ranking third; Weilai delivered 6131 new cars, which was once again squeezed out of the Top 3 camp.
Nezha Automobile, which is located in the second echelon, surpassed Xiaopeng Automobile in February sales, opening a gap of nearly 1,000 vehicles, delivering 7117 units, an increase of 255% year-on-year, second only to ideal; the first zero-run car to release the report card in February delivered 447% year-on-year to 3435 units.
Standing at a new starting point in 2022, the new car-making forces have rules in terms of products, sales, strategies, etc., but in the face of multiple factors such as chip shortages, rising raw material prices and subsidies, it is very likely that the newly built parking spaces in 2022 will be rearranged again, and the fierce battle under the test has begun.
Ideal to climb to the top, Xiaopeng "waist chop", Weilai slid to the fourth
Affected by the Spring Festival holiday, the new car-making forces in February failed to continue the previous performance of breaking 10,000, and the delivery volume fell by more than 30% month-on-month, of which Xiaopeng Automobile had the most obvious decline. Compared with the 12,922 vehicles in January, Xiaopeng Automobile only delivered 6,225 vehicles in February, a decline of 51.8%, losing the monthly sales crown occupied for four months and slipping to third.
"During the Spring Festival holiday from the end of January to February, Xiaopeng Automobile carried out a technical transformation of the Zhaoqing base, and now it has fully resumed production in mid-February as planned. Higher production efficiency will further facilitate the accelerated delivery of a large number of orders in hand. Xiaopeng Automobile explained this.
In fact, the technical transformation of the production base will have a certain fluctuation in the delivery volume of car companies, and in October last year, Weilai fell by more than 60% month-on-month due to the transformation of production lines, and sales once slipped to 3667 vehicles.
While other new car-making forces have achieved triple-digit year-on-year growth, Weilai performed mediocrely in February, delivering 6,131 vehicles, an increase of less than 10% year-on-year, and fell to fourth place again.
"The factory was shut down during the Spring Festival holiday, and in February, some ET7 prototypes, show cars and test drives were produced." The head of public relations of WEILAI Automobile said that the first product of the NT2.0 platform, WEILAI ET7, will be delivered on March 28. "The user experience of ET7 has begun this month, and everyone can expect the performance of ET7."
Under pressure on the supply chain due to chip shortages and the epidemic, WEILAI has lost the Iron Throne since August 2021, and its sales volume has fallen out of the top three many times. This has a certain relationship with the product and brand positioning of NIO. Compared with Xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile, Weilai Automobile's brand positioning is high-end, the unit price of products is higher, and the market plate of high-end cars is indeed smaller than that of the mass mainstream market.
However, compared with the new car-making forces, Weilai is more concerned about competition with the BBA. The top brass of Weilai Automobile has repeatedly declared that it hopes to turn the luxury car pattern of "BBA" (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi) into "NBA".
In contrast, the ideal growth performance in "Wei Xiaoli" was more stable, with 8414 vehicles delivered in a single month in February, and once again topped the single-month delivery list after a gap of five months. "The shortage of parts and components has affected production, and we are taking more measures to ensure the supply of parts, as far as possible to ensure production, shorten the waiting period for users to pick up the car." Shen Yanan, co-founder and president of Ideal Auto, said.
On February 25, Ideal Auto released its fourth quarter and annual financial report for 2021: it achieved revenue of 27.01 billion yuan and a net loss of 321.5 million yuan for the whole year of 2021. Among them, the total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 10.62 billion yuan, and the net profit was 295.5 million yuan, an increase of 174.9% year-on-year. This is the second time that the ideal car has achieved a single quarter profit after its launch. In the short term, Ideal Auto is the first new car-making force that is expected to get rid of losses, and has also achieved single-quarter profitability.
According to the performance guidelines, ideally, 30,000 to 32,000 vehicles are expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2022.
Nezha surpassed Xiaopeng and Weilai, and the zero run fell by nearly 60% month-on-month
Although there is still a big gap between the sound volume and Wei Xiaoli, Nezha Automobile, which is currently focusing on the market below 100,000 yuan, has continued its dark horse posture.
Previously, with the hot sale of A00-class car Nezha V, Nezha Automobile has repeatedly "broken into" the top three monthly sales of newly built cars, and Wei Xiaoli has been surpassed by it. In February this year, Nezha's car sales once again surpassed Xiaopeng and Weilai, delivering 7117 vehicles, second only to ideal to win the runner-up.
It is worth noting that it is reported that Nezha Automobile's main body, United Automobile, has officially launched a Hong Kong stock listing plan and plans to raise US$1 billion, and the sponsors are CITIC, CICC and Morgan Stanley.
However, United Automobile did not comment on the IPO matter, saying that it would be announced as soon as there was clear news. It has been reported that United Automobile has recently completed a new round of financing of more than 2 billion yuan, and the main investment institutions include CRRC Fund under CRRC Group and Shenzhen Venture Capital with a state-owned background in Shenzhen.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter asked Nezha Automobile for verification, and the other party said that "there is no relevant news at present, and all follow-up information is subject to official information." ”
In fact, as the head enterprise in the second echelon of the new car-making forces, Nezha Automobile not only strives to catch up with first-line enterprises such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal in terms of sales, but also hopes to gain more recognition in the capital market, thereby increasing the chips to survive in the "marathon" of new car manufacturing.
Zero-run vehicles, which also focus on the A00-level market, delivered 3,435 units in February, down 57.5% month-on-month. Zero-run cars attributed it to "being affected by the Spring Festival holiday and the tight supply chain of chips and batteries."
In addition to the above five new car-making forces, Geely Automobile's high-end smart brand Extreme Kr also announced the february delivery data. According to the data, the delivery volume of The Krypton 001 in February was 2916 units, and the cumulative delivery volume was 12453 units; GAC Aeon sold 8526 units in February, an increase of 163% year-on-year.
Get together on the new, Guild Wars 2022
According to the forecast of the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the sales volume of new energy vehicles is expected to exceed 6 million units in 2022, with a penetration rate of about 22%.
To the present, the new forces of car manufacturing have crossed the line of life and death, gradually gained a foothold in the market, and the labels of each family have become more and more distinct, just as Weilai is good at user service, Xiaopeng focuses on full-stack self-developed automatic driving, and ideally pays attention to operational efficiency.
However, as traditional companies such as Toyota and Volkswagen increase the launch of electric vehicle models, and new car manufacturers with more and more abundant products enter the same market segment, the competition will become more intense.
Subject to higher market positioning, short-term supply chain shortages and other factors, although the once most popular Weilai is absolutely leading in sales, but in the long run, Weilai must touch more people, the launch of ET7 and ET5 will make up for Weilai's absence in the car market, and Weilai is expected to expand its basic disk. In 2022, in addition to the ET7 delivered in the first quarter, NIO will release two other new models based on the NT2.0 technology platform, and the ET5 is the cheapest model under NIO.
ET5 to Weilai, just like Model 3 to Tesla, Weilai founder, chairman and CEO Li Bin bluntly said that the current Weilai is equivalent to Tesla in 2017 from the sales point of view, when the Model 3 has not been listed, and after the delivery of ET5, sales in 2022 "double is no problem".
Thanks to the hot sales of Xiaopeng P7, Xiaopeng Automobile won the crown of the new car-making force in 2021. In 2022, Xiaopeng Motors aims at the medium and large SUV market and will deliver its fourth model, the G9, in the third quarter of 2022, with the main competitors being the NIO ES8 and the Ideal ONE. The model is expected to sell around 300,000, which highly overlaps with the ideal ONE.
With the ideal of a car to go to the world, we have tasted the sweetness of "making cars for families" and will continue to focus on the family market. "We will continue to focus on the home user market. This segment is positive, where we can achieve a better experience for our users and maintain healthy gross margins. "Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang said on a recent earnings call that in the current home user market of more than 200,000, Ideal Auto accounts for 2.5% of the market share (the data is based on the entire passenger car market), and there is still a lot of space." To achieve a share of 20% to 25%, it is considered to be completed from 1 to 10.
It is understood that the second model of large-scale extender electric SUV Ideal X01 will be released in the second quarter of this year, delivered in the third quarter, and 2 ultra-fast charging pure models with high-voltage platforms will be launched in 2023. However, although the X01 and the ideal ONE are different in model size, there is also a certain degree of user overlap.
It is worth noting that in order to reverse the low-end positioning, Nezha Automobile and Zero-run Automobile will seek an upward breakthrough in 2022. Zero Run recently announced the first announcement of the medium and large pure electric sedan Zero Run C01, becoming the first mass production model equipped with CTC battery technology, the official said that the car is nearly 5 meters long, with a 3-second zero hundred acceleration, and a battery life of 700km. Nezha Automobile officially launched Nezha S, entered the 200,000 yuan level market, and pulled up the brand. In terms of R&D investment, at present, Nezha Automobile is expected to invest 8-1 billion yuan per year in the research and development of intelligent driving, and the total investment in the entire intelligent aspect will reach 10 billion yuan.
This issue is edited by Jiang Peipei