In 2021, we wrote 62 originals involving 34 brands. In this article, we will review the major car-making events in 2021 according to different car-making entities.
According to the estimates of the Association, retail sales for the full year of 2021 are expected to be 20.090 million units, an increase of 4.1% year-on-year. However, this base is obtained in 2020 when the epidemic shock is experienced and the base is low. In 2022, the domestic car market will not have rapid growth, and the roll in the car market will only become more and more intense. In 2021, with the support of policies and the pursuit of investors, electric vehicles have become the undoubted protagonists of the domestic automobile market. Tesla and BYD's continued climb in market capitalization, and Elon Musk's becoming Time Magazine's Person of the Year, are the best annotations to the future of electric vehicles.
From the network
Tesla & Wei Xiaoli
The new power car companies are the biggest highlight of the domestic electric vehicle market in 2021, and even the entire Chinese car market.
Tesla is still riding in the domestic market, if it is not necessary to bear the heavy export task, its sales in China are expected to go to a higher level. In the short term, the advantages built by the combination of Model 3 + Model Y are difficult to shake. However, for Tesla, its biggest storm in 2021 is not the so-called "brake door" at the Shanghai Auto Show, nor the arrogance in the crisis public relations event, but its extreme hunger for data, triggered by national security-related problems. Unlike other brands that use lidar + vision more, Tesla takes a purely visual technology route, so it needs more scene data to train its controller. Previously, this data was transmitted directly to servers in the United States, which may also include a large number of pictures of government agencies, which triggered regulators' relatively large concerns about Tesla. Later, although Tesla announced that it would build local servers in China, its core algorithm team was abroad, so how to avoid large-scale data cross-border problems in the future was a problem for Tesla.
As for Wei Xiaoli, in 2022, they all ushered in a bumper harvest year, but the situation of the three companies was different. Weilai's relatively stable championship position is basically no longer guaranteed, and the situation of three companies taking turns to compete for the championship has been formed. In the second-tier camp, Nezha and Zero Run have a good momentum. However, other brands such as WM, Skyrim, and Aichi are gradually showing signs of falling behind. As the competition in the domestic electric vehicle market has become fierce, new power brands will inevitably diverge, and in 2022, there may be another batch of brands such as Sailin, Byton and Bo County that fade out of our sight.
As for Baidu, it accelerated its own car-making process in 2021. Compared with other companies, we are actually more optimistic about Baidu. Because Baidu successfully persuaded Geely to do OEM work, it also obtained Geely's SEA vast platform. With the support of Geely's mature platform and system capabilities, Jidu Automobile can also take many detours in the early stage to ensure that the project is delivered and put into production on time. And unlike Ali in Zhiji, Didi and BYD in the joint venture company are only small shareholders, Baidu is the majority shareholder of Jidu, with the last veto power, can ensure that its will to build cars is implemented to the greatest extent.
As for Huawei, although it is not a big Internet manufacturer, it is the most concerned enterprise in the domestic auto market in 2021. On the one hand, Huawei is actively expanding the circle of friends in China, BAIC, Changan, and GAC have officially announced cooperation projects with Huawei, and Huawei's HI system and intelligent cockpit have become the focus of attention of all parties; on the other hand, Huawei has successfully released the AITO Q&A M5 on the basis of the initial cooperation with Cyrus to introduce relevant technologies to Cyrus SF5. In the body of the M5, Xilis has been greatly diluted, and what is visible everywhere is Huawei DNA. Q&A M5, not Huawei Cars, more like Huawei Cars.
2021 is not a friendly year for foreign brands. The lack of cores throughout the year, the continuous upward trend of independent brands, and the less successful electric vehicle strategy have made foreign brands no longer have the momentum of the past in China. Whether it is the luxury car camp that ABB is in, or the global giants such as Volkswagen and Toyota, they were facing a situation where there were no electric vehicles to sell, and now they are not good at selling electric vehicles. Taking Volkswagen MEB as an example, five electric vehicles have been launched in China, and the overall sales volume has just been equaled with Wei Xiaoli. This is still based on the fact that Volkswagen will give priority to the chip to supply the ID series, while Wei Xiaoli does not have the volume of Volkswagen and has been plagued by the lack of cores. In terms of the three-electric system and intelligent network connection, whether it is an independent brand or a new force to build a car, even when it comes to PK with Volkswagen, there is no obvious shortcoming, and even in terms of such as automatic driving, it is still a lot ahead of Volkswagen. In addition to Volkswagen, Toyota and GM have also given their own solutions on electric vehicles. As for whether the current unfavorable situation can be reversed in 2022, we will wait and see.
However, in 2021, there is another batch of real estate capital that deserves our attention, they do not build cars, but they have the idea of selling cars. Wanda joined hands with Hongqi to not only introduce Hongqi into Wanda Plaza throughout the country for display, but also seek to open up members with Hongqi. In order to run a good car sales business, Li Hongpeng, who has served as the head of marketing in Both Mercedes-Benz and Ford, has also been recruited to operate the entire Wanda car sales business. Another real estate company, Agile Ju, participated in a new round of financing for WM. Among them, in addition to investing real money and silver in WM, the use of Aloft's residential and commercial properties in China to show WM Motors has also become the focus of cooperation between the two sides. And this alone can bring thousands of contacts to WM that interact directly with users.
The new pattern behind the new, who has choked the lifeblood
Intelligent network technology is the lifeblood of the current new travel, and behind this is the two core technologies of automatic driving and intelligent cockpit.
In the field of automatic driving, there is a consensus that it is difficult to achieve the full deployment of L4 in the short term, and it may be feasible to continuously upgrade L4 in limited scenarios and combined with V2X technology to continuously approach L4. At the technical level, the current domestic automatic driving has risen to the lidar + visual recognition scheme. Autonomous driving has also begun to evolve from highways to the pilot function of urban roads. At the chip level, OEMs have also gradually shifted from purchasing general-purpose chips to self-developed exclusive chips. International and domestic chip design companies such as Nvidia and Horizon have repeatedly become guests of major OEMs in the past two years, and Tesla's self-developed driverless exclusive chips have left Nvidia far behind at the level of computing power, and Weilai, Xiaopeng, etc. have also embarked on the road of self-developed chips. Former chip upstart Mobileye also struggled to withstand the pressure, forcing Intel to list it as a separate IPO to raise more money for its new business.
The intelligent cockpit is also the focus of the major OEMs. Whether it is Huawei AITO's Q&I M5 or NIO's ET5 just released, it has applied its most forward-looking technology to the smart cockpit. Taking ar/VR as an example, technologies such as AR/VR have been mass-produced on ET5, in the future, drivers and passengers will be provided with seamless connection with daily entertainment, office, rest, etc., and more artificial intelligence technology and the Internet ecology of large factories will make the smart cockpit have stronger vitality.
As a leading enterprise in fuel cell technology in the world, Toyota has shown a completely different attitude from the previous hybrid in the field of fuel cells, and has formed alliances with many mainstream commercial vehicle companies in China, including FAW, Dongfeng, GAC, Beiqi Foton and so on, through technology output. In the field of fuel cells, Toyota does not want to repeat the mistakes of hybrid power. Higher technical barriers will only make related technologies face more restrictions in the process of promotion, rather than this, it is better to be more open and occupy a place in the huge fuel cell commercial vehicle market in China. As for fuel cell passenger vehicles, limited by the layout of hydrogen refueling stations, it is difficult for us to see the possibility of promotion in a short period of time, and more may only be applied in some demonstration parks or demonstration routes.
In 2022, with a large number of new cars on the market, the competition in the domestic electric vehicle market will only become more and more intense. No matter how vigorous the early publicity is, when the delivery is made, the terminal sales will become a big test for every brand. However, we also want to remind traditional car companies: although electric vehicles represent the future and affect their stocks and market value, for you, fuel vehicles are the basic disk that cannot be abandoned. The sales volume contributed by fuel vehicles and the scale effect formed are the foundation of the current survival. Don't be deflected by new car companies, after the electric vehicle boom has passed, fuel vehicles or engine-based hybrid models will still have their own place.