The author | Mei Xukang
Editor| Hao Qiuhui
Core ideas
At present, the new forces of second-line car manufacturing such as Nezha and Zero Run have shown a trend of catching up or even surpassing, the momentum of development is rapid, and the pressure of Wei Xiaoli has increased sharply;
The market is in a period of rapid growth, under the influence of many uncertainties, it is not surprising that it will catch up later;
Although the market size of new energy vehicles is large enough to accommodate more new players, it is not a wise move to blindly enter the car-making track.
On the first day of March, new car-making forces have released their February report cards.
The spring breeze in February is like scissors, and the sales of car companies cut off their waists. Due to factors such as the Spring Festival holiday and factory production, the month-on-month sales of many new car-making forces in February were almost "waist cut".
Nevertheless, it cannot hide the fiery situation of the new energy vehicle market. In the new forces of car manufacturing, Wei Xiaoli is still strong, but Nezha, Zero Run and other companies are catching up, and the sales list is particularly exciting.
In December 2001, sales fell sharply month-on-month, and Ideal Auto returned to the top of the list
According to the data released by a number of new car-making forces, in February, Ideal Automobile delivered 8414 new cars, an increase of 265.8% year-on-year. After 5 months, Ideal Auto has returned to the top of the sales list of new car-making forces.
At ideal cars 2021 earnings conference, ideal cars expect vehicle deliveries to be 30,000-32,000 units in the first quarter of 2022, an increase of 138.5% to 154.4% from the first quarter of 2021.
Based on current achievements, it is not difficult to ideally achieve this goal.
Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 6,225 new vehicles in February, an increase of 180% year-on-year. Xiaopeng said that the decline in deliveries in February was mainly affected by the technical transformation of Xiaopeng Zhaoqing base during the Spring Festival. Full production has now resumed in mid-February as planned, which will help accelerate the delivery of orders.
Weilai, which is also a new force in front-line car manufacturing, delivered 6131 vehicles in February, an increase of only 9.9% year-on-year, which is particularly conspicuous in the scene of the year-on-year growth of many peers.
Weilai's february sales were also overtaken by Ideal, Xiaopeng and latecomer Nezha Automobile.
It is worth noting that THE STAR PRODUCT ET7 of Weilai's "unaired fire" will be delivered on March 28.
On the February report card, Nezha car sales were 7117 units, an increase of 255% year-on-year, surpassing Weilai and Xiaopeng to become the runner-up.
Due to the impact of the Spring Festival holiday and the tight supply chain of chips and batteries, the sales volume of zero-running cars in February was almost waist-high, with deliveries of 3435 vehicles, but an increase of 447% year-on-year.
As a new car-making force under Geely, Extreme Krypton Automobile delivered 2,916 vehicles in February, with a total of 12,453 vehicles delivered, and the delivery performance gradually climbed.
According to the data of the Association, in the sales ranking of the new forces of Chinese car manufacturing in 2021, the ideal ONE and Xiaopeng P7 ranked in the top two, and the sales of Nezha V, Zero Run T03 and WM EX5 ranked in the top ten.
The new energy vehicle market is changing from "dumbbell shape" to "spindle shape" has become the consensus of the industry, and the main models in the market will gradually move closer to the low-end models, which also means that there is a lot of room for enterprises such as Nezha and Zero Run.
In the face of this trend, Weilai is also prepared. Last year, there was news that Weilai will establish a new brand, positioning and price will be further explored, and a new battlefield will be opened up within the market range of 150,000-250,000 yuan.
Yiou Automobile believes that although the month-on-month sales growth of the new car-making forces in February was relatively dismal, the overall growth trend is still moving towards a growth trend. At present, the new forces of second-line car manufacturing such as Nezha and Zero Run have shown a trend of catching up or even surpassing, with a rapid development momentum and a sharp increase in the pressure of Wei Xiaoli.
02 The second line broke through, and Wei Xiaoli was under pressure
With the further development of the new energy vehicle market, the market cake has gradually revealed its scale.
From 2021 to now, second-tier new forces such as Weima, Zero Run, and Nezha have all received key financing. Many manufacturers have also launched listing plans.
In October 2021, Nezha completed a D1 round of financing of 4 billion yuan, two months later, CATL, 360, BAIC Production and Investment participated in the D++ round of financing, and recently Hezhong New Energy, a subsidiary of the Nezha Automobile brand, also completed a new round of financing of more than 2 billion yuan, the main investment institutions include CRRC Fund under CRRC Group, and Shenzhen Venture Capital with state-owned background.
After completing a large amount of financing, Nezha Automobile was valued at more than 25 billion yuan. It is reported that Nezha has now opened a Pre-IPO round with a target valuation of about US$7 billion, and plans to launch an IPO in Hong Kong this year.
In January, the CSRC's website announced the progress of the "Approval of Overseas Initial Public Offering of Shares (Including Ordinary Shares, Preferred Shares and Other Stocks and Derivative Forms of Stocks)" of Zero Run Technology Co., Ltd., and the progress has reached the stage of receiving materials.
Zero run to Hong Kong listing is already on the way.
According to Tianyancha data, in August 2021, Zero Run completed a new round of financing of 4.5 billion yuan, led by CICC Capital, Hangzhou State-owned Investment, CITIC Construction Investment and CITIC Dicastal, etc., plus the B round of financing completed in January 2021, zero run annual financing has exceeded 8.8 billion yuan.
Focusing on the zero run of the full stack self-development, the battle line will be further extended, and the requirements for funds, technology and other aspects will be higher. In 2020, the annual delivery volume of zero-running cars was 11,391 units, and by 2021, zero-run sales have reached 43,121 units, an increase of 96.8% year-on-year, with a significant increase.
WM Motor completed D+ and D++ rounds of financing in October and December 2021, accumulating more than $400 million.
The influx of capital has led to further fierce market competition, and Wei Xiaoli, as the leading players in the early stage, also felt the pressure from the rising stars at this time.
In the capital market, last year, Ideal and Xiaopeng have successfully completed their return to Hong Kong for listing. Recently, NIO has also made some moves, according to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange documents disclosed on February 28, NIO Group applied for listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the joint sponsors were Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and CICC.
In the fierce competition of new energy vehicles, Wei Xiaoli has also put its own new product planning on the agenda.
In terms of product innovation, the ideal CAR that only relies on the ideal ONE to hit the world, its new car X01 will be launched in the second half of this year, positioned as a large range extender SUV; Weilai ET5 debuted on NIO Day and is scheduled to be delivered in September; and the Xiaopeng G9 unveiled at last year's Guangzhou Auto Show may start pre-sale in April.
Nezha and Zero Run also made some moves. In February, the first model Nezha S, built on the Shanhai platform, has completed the winter calibration test and operation test, and its listing will also enter the countdown. Zero-run cars will launch its flagship product, the Zero-Run C01, in the second quarter of this year, which will become the first mass-produced model equipped with CTC battery technology.
Yiou Automobile believes that in today's new energy is popular, although the new car-making forces that take the lead in starting have a first-mover advantage, they are not stable.
The market is in a period of rapid growth, and under the influence of many uncertainties, it is not surprising that it will catch up later. How car-making players can stand out in the car-making storm still needs to rely on the product to speak.
03How many new car-making forces does China still need
The rapid development of China's new energy vehicle market is enough to amaze the world and create a prosperous scene.
Caucus has released an analysis report on the trend of China's auto market in 2022. According to the report, China's total automobile sales are expected to reach 27.5 million units in 2022, an increase of about 5% year-on-year. Including passenger cars, 23 million units will increase by 7% year-on-year, and commercial vehicles will increase by 7% year-on-year to 4.5 million units, down 6% year-on-year.
Among them, new energy vehicles will reach 5 million, an increase of 42% year-on-year, the market share is expected to exceed 18%, the growth trend is obvious, it can be seen that the current new energy vehicle market is far from saturated.
According to the sales data of today's manufacturers, it is difficult to fill the market demand for a while, and it seems that the market is welcoming more players.
Some time ago, Li wanted to shell the tuanche to become a hot spot, and after the tuanche announced the construction of the car, Li wanted to comment on Weibo that those entrepreneurs who hoped to find a super savior, those who hoped to be incompetent by opening the second pulse of Ren Dou, and finally found that they were generally liars, or there was a high probability that they were also liars.
"There are still people who can openly speak out this point of view without shame, which really refreshes the bottom line of entrepreneurs." The views are fierce.
The emergence of new energy vehicles will lower the threshold for car manufacturing, but for laymen, car manufacturing is still full of barriers.
The first thing to face is the huge investment and persistent losses in the early stage.
According to the financial report, the ideal operating loss for the whole year of 2021 was 1.02 billion yuan, an increase of 52% year-on-year; the net loss reached 321.5 million yuan, an increase of 111.9% year-on-year.
Weilai and Xiaopeng have not achieved profitability, as are Weima, Zero Run, Nezha, etc.
Public data shows that in the first half of 2021, Nezha's revenue was 1.632 billion yuan and a loss of 693 million yuan. In the first quarter of 2021, the zero run loss was 860 million yuan.
Wei Xiaoli has been jokingly called just out of the "ICU", not to mention the new players who join the track later.
Facing losses is only the first level of pressure on the new car-making forces.
New car-making players also need to face the siege and interception of old car companies and new forces of head car-making, and it is not easy to grab meat in the mouths of bydirection, Great Wall, Tesla and other head companies.
According to the latest news on March 2, GAC Aean released its February sales data, and it delivered 8,526 new cars in February, surpassing many new car-making forces in one fell swoop.
Last November, bydir sold a dozen and ten scenes vividly. Byd's sales figures for February are presumably even better, crushing.
Even if the new car-making forces develop smoothly in the front, they will face many difficulties at the first stage of listing. Nowadays, there is a lot of resistance for Chinese OEMs to go public in the United States, no main engine factory in China's science and technology innovation board has been successfully listed, and Hong Kong stocks have become a choice for the time being, but whether Hong Kong stocks can accommodate so many car companies listing remains to be discussed.
After crossing mountains and mountains, it is not necessary to obtain the true scriptures.
Yiou Automobile believes that the prosperity of China's new energy vehicle market is beyond doubt, which is the result of a large cake made by a group of industrial players.
Although the market size of new energy vehicles can accommodate more new players to join, it is not a wise move to blindly join the car-making track, because sooner or later the outlet will stop, and the bubble will always burst.