2021, which was hailed by investors as the "first year of new energy vehicles", has finally come to an end, and new power car companies have announced the report card of last year. In this year, the head brands of the new forces, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal, have all reaped full harvests, and the delivery volume has been running forward, maintaining a very high growth rate.
Since Xiaopeng Automobile sat at the top of the delivery list of new forces in October, it has not moved like a mountain, with a cumulative delivery volume of 41,800 units in the fourth quarter, an increase of 63% month-on-month, and finally won the annual championship with a delivery volume of 98,000, subverting the "Wei Xiaoli" pattern.
And weilai automobile, which used to be the first of the three fools, was trapped in production capacity fluctuations, and the follow-up was slightly weak, delivering 25,000 units in the fourth quarter, an increase of less than 600 units over the third quarter, but in 12 months a year, Weilai won the first place in the 7-month delivery list, the strength should not be underestimated, from the annual point of view, Weilai ranked second in the new force with 91,000 deliveries.
After Nio, the third ideal car has not been pulled apart too much, and the annual delivery volume is only less than 1,000 units less than THATO. In the fourth quarter of this year, the ideal "only son" ideal ONE delivered a total of 35,000 units, an increase of 40.2% month-on-month, and the delivery volume in December alone exceeded 14,000 units, once again setting a record high.
In addition to the successful defense of the top three in the head, the performance of the second echelon this year is also worthy of attention, Nezha Automobile has squeezed into the top three several times this year, and even once ranked second high in the month, with a single fourth quarter delivery volume of up to 36,000 units, an increase of 76.9% month-on-month, and sales reached 10,127 units in December, successfully joining the "Ten Thousand Vehicles Club". In addition, zero-run cars and WM Motors also performed well, ranking 5th and 6th in annual deliveries respectively, opening up a large gap with other new forces.
Traditional car companies are not far behind, and GAC's Eian sold 16,675 vehicles in December, with cumulative sales of 123,600 vehicles in the whole year. Volkswagen ID. series delivered 13,787 vehicles in December, compared with the new force head car companies, the cumulative delivery of more than 70,000 units from March to December, exceeding the annual delivery of the second echelon leader Nezha Automobile.
01
The road ahead is bumpy
Behind the continuously high delivery volume of new energy vehicle companies, one is that car companies benefit from the multiple concerns of carbon-neutral countries for the new energy vehicle market, and the other is that consumers prefer new energy vehicles far below the cost of using oil vehicles.
But in 2022, there are variables in these two important logics.
According to the notice, in the last year of new energy vehicle subsidies in 2022, the subsidy standard will be reduced by 30% on the basis of 2021. For vehicles that meet the requirements in the field of urban buses, road passenger transport, taxis (including online car-hailing), sanitation, urban logistics and distribution, postal express delivery, civil aviation airports, and party and government organs, the subsidy standard will be reduced by 20% on the basis of 2021.
Although for the new energy vehicle market, more commercial competition is conducive to the overall healthy and long-term development of the industry, from the perspective of consumers, the subsidy decline falls on their heads, which is a loss, which will inevitably dampen consumers' willingness to buy trams to a certain extent.
Moreover, while the subsidy is declining, the price of new energy vehicle insurance has also increased. There are reports that the premium of some models has risen as much as 80%, and more car owners have joked that the remaining fuel costs of driving a tram have been used to pay insurance.
For car companies, in addition to worrying about the negative impact of the reduction in the cost performance of new energy vehicles, they should also worry about production capacity.
According to AutoForecast Solutions statistics, in 2021, the global production due to lack of cores in 2021 was reduced by a full 10.23 million vehicles, of which China's production reduction accounted for 19.4% to 1.982 million vehicles.
Although the lack of cores that is raging around the world has slowed down at the end of 2020, many analysts believe that the haze of chip shortage may not dissipate until the second half of 2022, during which the delivery and profit of new energy vehicles are bound to be affected.
In addition, there are also expensive raw materials that limit the profits of car companies. This year's rapid growth in new energy vehicle sales, coupled with the epidemic on production capacity restrictions, many new energy vehicle raw materials appear in short supply, the price soared, to the mainstream power battery raw material lithium iron phosphate battery main raw material lithium iron phosphate as an example, the price of the bulk commodity from the beginning of the year 37,000 yuan / ton to the end of the year 99,000 yuan / ton, an increase of nearly 168%, a new high in the past three years, greatly improving the production costs of car companies.
Although many phosphorus chemical companies have switched production and expanded production, according to the current strong demand, the price of lithium iron phosphate may fall next year but it is difficult to return to the low level.
(Lithium iron phosphate price, source: Tianfeng Securities)
02
Tram Roll King
In recent years, with the increase in car ownership and the weakness of consumption, China's automobile sales have obviously gone downhill, and new energy vehicles can maintain contrarian growth in this context, obviously devouring the market of traditional oil vehicles, so can new energy vehicles maintain a high growth rate in 2021 in the future?
(National automobile sales and growth rate, source: Shanghai Securities)
It is undeniable that in the context of carbon neutrality, new energy vehicles will sooner or later fully replace oil vehicles, but it is only a matter of the speed of replacement, which will drag down this progress In addition to the subsidy decline and the increase in car costs analyzed above, the frustration of consumption willingness is also a very important influencing factor.
Now the biggest worry of consumers to buy new energy vehicles is the endurance, and the endurance anxiety and the construction of urban charging facilities are closely related, in the new first-tier cities with complete charging facilities, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles generally exceeds 20%, more than 80% of the new first-tier cities have completed the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China in 2025, and in cities with purchase restrictions and restrictions, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is more than 30%, which is at a high level in the world, and the follow-up growth rate is likely to slow down.
From the perspective of consumers in second- and third-tier cities, the purchase of new energy vehicles has a big gap with oil vehicles, whether from the concept of consumption or from the perspective of convenience of endurance.
And China's vast territory, there are a variety of climate and geomorphological conditions, in the northern winter, the new energy vehicle battery is greatly affected by the extreme cold, the mileage will be reduced with the temperature drop, in the mountainous areas, rugged roads and a large number of climbing sections, the power and endurance of new energy vehicles have great challenges, not to mention in the sparsely populated northwest, the distance is long, the mileage of ordinary new energy vehicles is not even enough to run back and forth.
In the two endurance modes of charging and power exchange, charging takes a long time, and although the UHV supercharge station is much faster, it is obviously slower than refueling. Nowadays, the fuel truck endurance experience may only be the power exchange mode, but at present, only Weilai can change the power, and Weilai has invested heavily in 2021, but it has built less than 900 replacement power stations around the world, compared with the 119,000 gas stations enjoyed by China's oil trucks, it can be described as drinking and quenching thirst, and it is difficult to catch up.
However, when we have determination, none of the above problems are problems. At present, the infrastructure construction of China's charging piles is accelerating, the oil giant Sinopec has also entered the power exchange business, in December 2021, it is through industrial and commercial changes, the motor vehicle charging, battery, new energy vehicle power exchange facilities into the company's business scope, if China unifies the power battery style, gas stations to change the power station transformation, then, the endurance anxiety of new energy vehicles will really leave us.
03
End
In the past 2021, new energy vehicles can be said to be the top stars in the capital market, whether it is A-shares, Hong Kong stocks or the US stock market, doubling targets abound, and there are signs of copying the apple myth of that year.
If last year's heavy warehouse of new energy vehicles was a winner, but if this year is still heavy warehouse new energy vehicles, it may be a different scenery.
The reason is very simple, it is precisely because 2021 is too crazy, many people have a little more reservations about 2022, because the stock market is different from the industry, capital speculation is easy to go up, and valuation is not uncommon. Take the speculation of innovative drugs, a few years ago it was also a hot mess, the stock price blindfolded rushed to the extreme, but in 2021 it was a large area of fire, some people felt sudden, but in fact reasonable, resulting in such a result In addition to endless medical insurance bargaining, collection of clouds, more importantly, or before the rise is too high, too crazy things, sooner or later will be the average return.
From this point of view, new energy vehicles, in fact, there is also a little bit of taste. Realistically speaking, the snow for new energy vehicles is thick enough, but the slope is also long enough. From the perspective of capital speculation, long slopes and thick snow do not necessarily mean opportunities, and in case of a big correction after the stock price overheats, it is an extremely painful experience to be covered. Most investors do not have the calm and leisure of Mr. Ba, nor the financial strength of his old man, it is difficult to hold a high-quality ticket for a long time, and the stock price is enough to shock many people.
Even without considering the art of valuation, the delivery growth rate alone can probably see a bit of a doorway.
After all, 2022 is different from previous years, in addition to the constraints described above, the high base in 2021 also makes it difficult for new energy vehicles to reproduce the miraculous delivery growth rate, at present, although China's major new energy vehicle companies are still buried in the sprint to roll oil vehicles, but looking to the future, the industry has emerged in the inner coil, and the final real final of the new energy vehicle industry is believed to come in the next one or two years.