Shentucar original
Author | Zhou Jifeng
Edit | dawn
For the Chinese auto market, 2021 is a key year for Chinese car companies to accelerate their "curve overtaking" in the field of new energy.
Whether it is core technology, supply chain or sales, relying on the outlet of new energy, today's Chinese car companies have achieved leadership on the road of the world's automobile powers.
Under the great changes, there are many stories, many golden sentences worth singing repeatedly, and many news of mutual ridicule. The joys and sorrows of the new car-making forces are not the same. Some car companies rely on products to break through the user's mind, some quickly rise to become the top stream, and some do not catch up with the wind and have to sell at half price...
Fast forward to 2022, Shentu selected the most representative 8 new car-making forces in 2021, and gave them 8 keywords to try to see the highlights and troughs of the new energy vehicle market in 2021 from them.
The blackest trick - Tesla
In terms of recruiting blacks, no one can compare with Tesla.
People are afraid of being famous pigs are afraid of strong, as the head role of the car manufacturing industry, Tesla has been hanging on the "black and red list" for many years. There are also many "riot operations" in this company, including but not limited to cutting leeks at a reduced price, the boss Musk jumping tickets several times, and a mouth full of cannon trains...
In 2021, Tesla will play the black physique to the extreme.
In April, Shanghai was surprised by the Tesla owners' auto show rights protection incident. The female owner climbed on the roof of the Tesla exhibition car and shouted to defend her rights. In the face of such rights protection incidents, the general public relations of car companies is basically three consecutive actions: apology, confession of mistakes, and compensation.
Unexpectedly, Tesla chose to be tough, and even responded to the media: "The recent negatives are all contributed by her", "We can't compromise, it is a necessary process for the development of a new product".
Whether Tesla can brake the car in the end, all the auto media have popularized science. But with Tesla's suicidal public relations, the originally pure car quality problem has become a negative public opinion and legal issue.
Source / pexels
Tesla was scolded on the hot search. The whole people even shouted to the 315 Organizing Committee: "Let Tesla go to the party." Suddenly, Tesla crossed the street, and everyone shouted and beat.
Tesla did not concede defeat, but the backhand was a defamation lawsuit: Tesla felt that its reputation was damaged, and angrily sued two defenders, including the auto show rights defenders, to demand compensation of 5 million yuan or more for the sky-high reputation loss fee.
Since entering China, Tesla has had a number of safety accidents in China, basically "throwing the pot" to the owner and third parties. It's hard to say whether Tesla's arrogance is because of a boss like Musk, or because of Tesla's own corporate culture, or because the two achieve each other. It was not until after the Shanghai Auto Show female car owner rights protection incident that Tesla suffered and had to relearn how to face the Chinese market.
But the most innocent may still be Tesla owners, buying a Tesla in previous years, the biggest trouble is nothing more than "the car just bought yesterday, today xi to raise the price reduction." But this year, anyone passing by will whisper a greeting: "It's Tesla, be careful not to step on the brakes!" ”
The most ethereal - Weilai
Weilai founder Li Bin, the most miserable man in 2019, is now full of pride, and even issued a soul golden sentence at the end of 2021 - "Completely unable to understand why anyone still buys a gas truck now?" What good is the gas truck except that it can smell a little gasoline? ”
It's too floaty.
Not to mention that the "endurance anxiety" has not been solved, once the holiday comes, there are consumers who complain that charging is difficult, can not find the charging pile, and the retention rate of electric vehicles and second-hand cars is extremely low, which hinders consumers from turning their attention to new energy vehicles.
Judging from the performance of this year, Weilai has not been as smooth as Li Bin said.
Although it survived the darkest moment of multiple tests of sales and funds, Weilai lost the top spot. As a representative of China's new car-making forces, Weilai has been the boss in the past few years, but in the second half of 2021, Weilai's sales for several consecutive months have been overtaken by Xiaopeng and Ideal.
Source / Visual China
In addition, in less than a month, Weilai had two safety accidents in a row.
On July 30, 2021, a serious traffic accident occurred on Lingang Avenue in Pudong New Area, Shanghai. A WEILAI EC6 was seriously damaged after hitting the isolation stone pier at high speed, and it caught fire and burned, and the owner of the car was unfortunately killed.
On the afternoon of August 12, Lin Wenqin, a 31-year-old entrepreneur and founder of Shangshan Ruoshui Investment Management Company, died in a traffic accident in the Hanjiang section of shenhai expressway after driving the NIO ES8 car to enable automatic assisted driving function (NOP pilot status). Weilai responded that the NOP pilot assistance is not automatic driving, and the user should always hold the steering wheel and look ahead, and said that this is a traffic accident and is waiting for the traffic police department to investigate.
Two consecutive accidents have pushed Weilai into an unprecedented crisis. This is not the end, Weilai, which has always been known for its user service, frequently overturns on user services in 2021. For example, after the owner of the car refueled the service (valet charging), it was found that the power commissioner left vomit in the car.
In the past few years, NIO has invested a lot of manpower and material resources into user services without hesitation, thus establishing a unique moat belonging to NIO, but with the rapid growth of user scale, this moat is not stable.
Weilai also decided not to be decency, and recently issued a new car ET5, starting at 328,000 yuan, which is the cheapest car in Weilai - go to his high-end, grab the market first.
The fastest punch in the face – ideal
Using a key word to describe the ideal of 2021 , "punching the face", seems to be the most appropriate.
At the end of 2021, Ideal CEO Li Xiang posted such a Weibo post, which read, "Thank you for the encouragement, continue to work hard." It is accompanied by a comparison of the sales volume of the ideal ONE with Volkswagen's medium and large SUV in the three years since its delivery in December 2019.
Screenshot of Weibo
An avenger-faced posture.
This move was interpreted by the market as a sneer back to the public.
A few years ago, when the outside world was questioning the technology of extended range electric vehicles, the ideal was to pick up the range extender. The market is constantly spitting, and some people think that the extender is a dead end, and the four are not like it. In 2020, Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan directly complained at the Volkswagen media communication meeting: "Extended range electric vehicles are nonsense from the perspective of the whole country and the earth, and it is the worst solution." ”
Now, more than a year has passed, and in November 2021, the sales of the Ideal ONE successfully exceeded 13,000 units, surpassing the sales of Volkswagen ID6, Lanjing, Tuon, Touareg and other models of the same level combined, and solidly hit the "face" of Volkswagen and all the people who complained about the extended range electric vehicle.
The market proves Li Xiang's vision and the ability to create a blockbuster. Pure electricity is the future, but on the road to pure electricity, the extender will be a long-term springboard. After the ideal ONE became a hit, more and more car companies turned the bow and began to develop range-extended electric vehicles. The range-extending market is getting lively again.
The most cross-border - Xiaopeng
In the year of 2021, Xiaopeng has done a lot.
In May 2021, Xiaopeng launched the redesigned G3i, and in October, released the new car Xiaopeng P5. The new car P5 was not released for a long time, and Xiaopeng unveiled the medium and large SUV G9 at the Guangdong Auto Show. Finally, Xiaopeng also delivered a total of 98,150 electric vehicles throughout the year, becoming the top seller of new car-making forces.
Other families are still struggling in the hell of production capacity, Xiaopeng turned his head and opened a variety of complicated side businesses:
On September 7, a smart machine horse that children can ride was launched, code-named "Little White Dragon".
On October 24, the sixth generation of flying cars was launched, and the overall structure of the planned mass production of flying vehicles in 2024 was determined.
On November 23, it was decided to march into Robotaxi.
At the 1024 Technology Day, Xiaopeng also released China's first mass-produced 800V high-voltage SiC platform, with a peak charging current of more than 600A and a maximum range of 200 kilometers for 5 minutes of charging.
Source / Xiaopeng Automobile Official Micro
To sum up, crazy showmanship.
In a fledgling market, it is normal for everyone to show muscles and engage in gimmicks to attract attention. But Xiaopeng has been trying to establish technology as his own person. For now, this person has been set up quite successfully.
For example, when the Xiaopeng P5 was listed, Xiaopeng's slogan was that the world's first lidar mass production car rolled off the production line, which was very intimidating. Although after the P5, there are also many car companies that have launched cars equipped with lidar, but it is indeed not as famous as the Xiaopeng P5.
For another example, Xiaopeng claims to be the only car company in China with full-stack self-developed mass production capabilities. Now when it comes to self-driving technology, in addition to Tesla, everyone can always think of Xiaopeng.
In 2022, it is recommended that Xiaopeng launch some more products that can swim in the water.
The most controversial – extreme krypton
Extreme Kr, geely's high-end brand personally led by Geely chairman Li Shufu, has attracted much attention as soon as it was listed.
In April 2021, the first product of Extreme Kr 001 was officially unveiled. As the first car developed by SEA Haohan Architecture, the Extreme Kr 001 quickly jumped into a new generation of Internet celebrity cars. Less than two months after its launch, The 2021 deliverable order for the Extreme Kr 001 was sold out.
Unexpectedly, people are not much. The "buy explosion" of the extreme Krypton has been caught in "false propaganda, goods are not on the board, the allocation of price increases, car software bugs" and other many rights protection, statement incidents.
Source / Extreme Krypton Official Micro
For example, in order to meet the personalized needs of users, Extreme Kr officially provides a lot of configuration options, of which the most popular is the EC light-sensitive canopy with a price increase of 10,000 yuan. However, many car owners have reported that the "buyer show" of delivering products is very different from the "seller show" in the official publicity map. The color in the EC light-sensitive canopy display and animation display is black, and the owner who got the real car found that the sky curtain is blue.
As a new car that only started deliveries in October 2021, the Krypton 001 delivered more than 6,000 units in just three months. This delivery is quite impressive.
But as a young brand, there are still many lessons to be made up for.
The reason why the new car-making forces are called new forces is not only because they are building new energy vehicles, but also because their emergence has subverted the sales model, marketing methods and operational logic of traditional fuel vehicles. In the new energy era, manufacturers need to face consumers directly, and the communication channels are realized by the original one-way service to achieve two-way interaction.
In addition to car manufacturing, how to interact with consumers in a benign and two-way way is the biggest challenge facing Krypton, who is born in traditional car companies.
The most grounded - Nezha
In 2021, Nezha's delivery volume continued to grow, and even delivered more than 10,000 for two consecutive months.
The delivery data is so good, many people wonder: I have never seen Nezha's car on the road, where did Nezha sell the car?
At present, Nezha Automobile has 4 models on sale, namely Nezha V, Nezha U Pro, Nezha N01 and the new car Nezha V pro just released in November 2021, with a price range of 60,000-180,000 yuan.
The Nezha V sold for 59,900 yuan is the pillar model of Nezha. In line with pricing is positioning, Nezha initially focused on the concept of "small town youth", and then changed to "building cars for the people". Enough to be "grounded".
Source / Nezha Auto Official Micro
With such a cheap price, it's not hard to guess where Nezha sold the car. For a long time, third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, especially the B-end and G-end, were the important sales channels of Nezha.
For example, Nezha U once became a car used by the Nanning police and Nanning Wuxu Airport, and Tongxiang City, Jiaxing City, has purchased Nezha cars as official cars for many times. In 2020, Nezha N01 was successfully selected as the only new car-making force in the first batch of lists of new energy vehicles going to the countryside.
In 2021, Nezha focused on the C-end market, and in July, Nezha announced that C-end delivery accounted for up to 90%. Even so, the third-, fourth- and fifth-tier markets are still the main battlefield of Nezha.
By 2022, Nezha, which has been shuttling through the sinking market, is ready to "surround the city from the countryside".
CEO Daniel Zhang pointed out to the media: "We are preparing to enter the city, Wei Xiaoli holds the golden key, starting in the central market, we are grassroots, starting from the sinking market." In the north, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, the 2022 full-scale attack will begin. And his weapon is the Nezha S, which will be listed in 2022.
The most discountable - Pole Star
Polar Star, you may not even know this brand, to be honest, even Shentu did not pay too much attention to this brand.
But it is such an almost "transparent" new car-making force that has mass-produced two cars, namely polestar 1 and polestar 2.
Polestar 1 is limited to 1,500 units worldwide, the official price is 1.45 million yuan, and has been discontinued. Polestar 2, known as "Tesla's strongest competitor", is currently selling at half price on platforms such as Autohome and Idle Fish, according to these merchants, the vehicles sold are brand new vehicles. Phoenix WEEKlY Automobile also reported that the Polestar 2 sold on platforms such as Idle Fish is an inventory car, which is sold at a low price after being transferred to secondary channels such as auto trading companies in large quantities by 4S stores.
In the first 11 months of 2021, Polestar's insurance coverage in the Chinese market was only 915 vehicles.
Source / PoleStar Auto Official Micro
Shouting the fiercest slogans, playing the fiercest folds, what is the origin of the pole star?
Polestar is actually a high-performance electric vehicle brand jointly owned by Volvo and Geely Holding Group, founded in 2017 and headquartered in Sweden.
Even with the "golden father" and "born with a golden spoon", Polar Star's brand recognition in China is too low and has not been able to open the market.
This shows that even if there is money and resources, it is difficult to open the market without core competitiveness.
Still, Volvo and Geely don't seem to have given up on the high-end brand. Recently, Polar Star announced that it plans to launch a new model every year for the next three years. In addition, in the first half of 2022, Polestar plans to achieve a backdoor listing on the NASDAQ through a merger with the US special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Gores Guggenheim.
The most Buddhist lineage - niu chuang
At the end of 2021, Li Yinan came with his own brand, Niu Chuangxin Energy.
Li Yinan, who is late in coming, not only has no anxiety in the face of the crazy new energy vehicle market, but is very calm, and even some Buddhist.
For example, the car brand launched by Niuchuang is called "Self-Traveling Home". The brand name reveals a free energy.
For example, at the press conference, Li Yinan faced the media and could not even find the advantages of his own brand compared to other new car brands.
For another example, Niu Chuangxin Energy was established in November 2018, and the mass production car was only rolled off the production line in 2022, which was later than the establishment and mass production of Weilai Ideal Xiaopeng. But Li Yinan does not think that he is late, nor does he think that he missed the car-making window, he took Japan's Toyota, Nissan as an example, in the process of japanese companies growing, Honda entered the automotive industry is a full 30 years later than Toyota and Nissan. But Honda has still become a big car company.
Source / Since Youjia Guanwei
And "self-traveler" has no positioning, the original words are like this: "I don't want to define our crowd, I don't want to define our age group, and we don't want to compare with anyone." Most importantly, after buying our self-touring NV car, can you feel proud of yourself. ”
Of course, the brand may also be calm enough because "in the whole [car-building] process, there has not been a day of lack of money." "At present, Ziyoujia has completed a round of 500 million US dollars of financing, and the investors include IDG Capital and COATUE. According to many media reports, Li Yinan made a car, many investors lined up to send money, and investors chose Li Yinan because they valued his rich entrepreneurial experience.
Before Buddhism, having money was the last word.
The 2021 war is on fire, and the war in 2022 is even fiercer. Nezha, Weima, Zero Run, etc. have successively reported the news of IPO. High-volume new cars will also be available in 2022. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Passenger Car Market Information Joint Committee, estimates that the sales of new energy vehicles will reach more than 5.5 million units in 2022, and even expected to exceed 6 million units.
Next, the new car-making forces compete not only in capital or technology, but in terms of capital, technology, talents, operations, including supply chain management and other comprehensive strengths.
*Caption image from pexels.