Core lithium talk and new energy group original/production
Author | Lin Xiaochen
In the past 2021, new energy electric vehicles ushered in a full-scale outbreak.
According to the data released by the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the wholesale number of new energy passenger cars from January to November was 2.807 million units, an increase of 190.2% year-on-year, and the shipment volume was almost three times that of the same period last year. If we shorten the statistical time to a single month, it is easy to find that the sales of new energy vehicles in any month of 2021 are the best in history in the same period.
New energy vehicles are like a hurricane, changing people's perception of cars from the bottom.
Based on the popularity of new energy vehicle sales, the valuation of companies in the entire electric vehicle industry chain has risen, whether it is the non-ferrous resources in the upstream of the industry, the power battery in the midstream, or the downstream new energy vehicle, the valuation of related leading companies has been quite considerable.
In China, where policy subsidies are constantly declining, new energy vehicles can have such a performance, indicating that the Chinese market has achieved a switch from policy-driven to product-driven form. With the improvement of the competitiveness of car companies and the increase of optional new energy products and brands, consumers buy new energy vehicles no longer simply because of subsidies, but more out of market-oriented considerations.
This means that China's new energy vehicles have begun to mature.
Looking to the future, the launch of more and more new energy vehicle products will not only make consumers have more choices, but also make the competition in the entire market more intense.
2022 will be the most critical year for the development of new energy vehicles in China, and even the industrial pattern in the next few decades may begin to show an outline in this year.
/ 01 /
Fading new "new forces of car building"
The expected reversal of Weilai Automobile in June 2020 is considered to be the beginning of the rise of this round of new energy electric vehicles, and then Ideal Automobile and Xiaopeng Automobile have been listed successively, which has amplified the momentum of new energy vehicles to the extreme.
For a time, Weilai, Ideal and Xiaopeng became the vane of China's new energy vehicles, and the valuation level was significantly ahead of traditional car companies, and was crowned by the market as "new car-making force".
The three companies have distinct characteristics and represent different schools of new energy vehicle companies.
Weilai takes a high-end route and pays more attention to service, which can be described as a model for all car companies.
Its biggest advantage is to fully promote the power exchange mode, in order to improve the user experience, so that car owners can avoid the trouble of queuing up to charge during peak hours.
Weilai Automobile official micro show that as of January 3, 2022, WEILAI has built 780 substations across the country, with a total of 4582 new supercharge piles and destination charging piles, and has established a complete power exchange network. NIO plans to expand the number of substations to 1,300 by the end of 2022.
At the same time, NIO also pays special attention to brand marketing and fan services, with a total of 38 NIO Houses and 321 NIO Space, and NIO Service has laid a total of 236 service outlets around the world, including 55 NIO service centers and 181 authorized service centers.
Excellent service and exclusive power exchange mode give Weilai a lot of points, but with the advent of more low-end models, can Weilai still stick to the high-end strategy for a long time?
Compared with the service-oriented Weilai, Xiaopeng Automobile's route is more inclined to the scientific and technological wind, and at the same time, it also makes him unable to use a simple traditional car company to define.
Xiaopeng Automobile has always been regarded as the most Tesla-like car company in China, but its imagination is far richer than Tesla. In addition to Tesla's long-term layout of automatic driving, Xiaopeng Motors has even begun to plan the mass production of flying cars.
For the layout of flying cars, He Xiaopeng, CEO of the company, has clearly stated: "The goal is to achieve mass production of flying cars in 2024, and the price is controlled within 1 million." "Becoming the world's number one manufacturer of low-altitude manned flight equipment may be the ultimate vision of Xiaopeng Motors."
Dare to think is a good thing, but in China's capital market has never lacked imagination, how to put what you think on the ground, is what Xiaopeng needs to solve, after all, it is difficult to get financing by relying on PPT alone.
The last "new car-making force" ideal car is not as radical as the name, but is the most down-to-earth of the three.
In the early stage of the development of new energy vehicles, there are pain points with short mileage, for this problem, the ideal car chooses "curve to save the country", and uses a hybrid range extender route to temporarily solve the endurance problem.
However, with the gradual maturity of the pure electric route, the range extension route of the ideal car is gradually becoming redundant, and the ideal has begun to develop a new generation of high-voltage pure electric platforms Whale and Shark, which are expected to launch new models in 2023. Whether the pure electric route can replicate the success of the range-extender route may be a problem that the ideal car needs to solve in the future.
Overall, the advantages and disadvantages of the three companies are equally obvious, but after precipitation in 2021, they have actually completed the "fading".
For the whole of 2021, the sales of Ideal Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile and NIO Automobile were 90,500 units, 98,200 units and 91,400 units, respectively, and the gap between the three is not large.
Although the data of nearly 100,000 vehicles is not enough to compare with BYD's 593,800 vehicles, this performance is enough to support them to rank in the first echelon of new energy vehicles.
On the basis of stable sales volumes, the three companies invariably chose financing to reserve subsequent competitiveness. In June, Xiaopeng raised HK$14 billion from its secondary listing in Hong Kong, HK$11.6 billion from its secondary listing in Hong Kong in August, and RAISED BILLION DOLLARs in three additional offerings during the year.
It can be seen that the ammunition of Ideal, Xiaopeng and Weilai has been well stocked and is expected to further consolidate their competitive advantages.
Recently, the views of THE CEO of NIO in an interview are very representative of the mentality of the three companies. Li Bin believes that before 2019 is only a stage of team training, and the final stage of the automotive industry will begin in 2024.
There is no doubt that the new car-making forces that have completed the "fading" have already received tickets for the final stage.
/ 02 /
New players follow
Of course, it is not only Ideal, Xiaopeng and Weilai that get tickets for the final stage, such as BYD, Great Wall Motor, and SAIC Motor, which are doing well in new energy, have also won final tickets
With the gradual improvement of the entire new energy system, more and more players have begun to try to enter this high-speed growth track. Overall, these players can be roughly divided into three factions.
The first camp is the "second-tier new force" brand formed by Nezha, Weima and the leader.
In terms of sales, Nezha, Weima and Leading sold 69,700, 44,200 and 43,100 vehicles respectively in 2021, which is a significant gap with 100,000 vehicles. Strategic analysis, the "second-tier new forces" brand lacks differentiation, and more focus on low-grade models.
2022 will be a crucial year for the "second-tier new forces", who can successfully go public in this year, it is expected to get funds to meet the competition in the final round, and once the sand is broken, then it is very likely to fall.
The second camp is a latecomer from traditional car companies.
Prior to this, traditional car companies did not pay enough attention to new energy vehicles, which was mainly due to the rigid corporate physique. In the traditional automobile group, it is the traditional fuel vehicle that occupies the absolute right to speak, and the new energy vehicle is often regarded as a department, which causes both resources and strategy to be seriously constrained.
This is also why the "new car-making forces" can rise rapidly, while traditional car companies are slow to respond.
As traditional car companies began to realize this problem and gradually split up independent new energy brands, they also regained the opportunity to fight for the finals. Geely's Extreme Kr, Changan's Avita, GAC's Eian, etc., their performance in 2022 will likely determine the future life and death of traditional car companies.
The third camp comes from cross-border enterprises, such as Xiaomi, Evergrande, Huawei, OPPO and so on.
For these companies, the core key to their 2022 is whether they can see the actual model in the market. These companies have undoubtedly achieved good results in their respective traditional fields, but how to translate this achievement into a real product is still not so simple.
Whether it is a gimmick or a real strength, 2022 or will be known.
/ 03 /
Subsidy concentration after the decline
When the subsidies receded, the future of new energy vehicles was already determined by the market.
At the beginning of 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice that the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles will be reduced by 30% on the basis of 2021. In this regard, including Tesla, Volkswagen and other car companies have raised the price of vehicles.
In addition to the subsidy decline, there are also a number of new energy vehicles that will be officially implemented in 2022.
For example, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology requires the implementation of the "Technical Conditions for the Safety of Motor Vehicle Operation", which clearly states that newly produced passenger cars need to be compulsorily installed with EDR (Automobile Event Data Recording System) or equipped with DVR (Vehicle Video Driving Recording System) that meets the regulations. This is designed to eliminate the problem of car brakes being ridiculed.
For another example, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce issued the Special Administrative Measures for Foreign Investment Access (Negative List) (2021 Edition), which officially abolished the restriction on foreign ownership in passenger car manufacturing and the restriction that the same foreign investor can establish two or fewer joint ventures in China to produce similar vehicle products.
These policies seem to involve different contents, but in the final analysis, they all point to making new energy vehicles more "market-oriented" and "liberal", which is also consistent with the trend of china's new energy vehicle development.
Focus on 2022, after the subsidy declines, consumer demand for new energy vehicles or will be more concentrated, in the past many car companies that relied on subsidies will begin to withdraw, leaving are excellent brands with core competitiveness.
If 2024 is really going to be the year of the car showdown as Li Bin said, then 2022 is most likely to be a year of big waves. For all players, we not only need to gain a certain market share, but also accumulate enough capital, which is actually not low.
Car companies that have already won tickets for the finals can further consolidate their market share by virtue of their first-mover advantage, and for players who want to catch up, only by coming up with really good products can they grab the market from other car companies. What determines the height of a business is nothing else, but the product that ultimately wins consumer recognition.
Based on this, after the subsidy decline in 2022, the new energy vehicle market will gradually begin to differentiate, and enterprises with market competitiveness will gain more market share, while gimmick companies may gradually lose the trust of consumers.