Sales volume, lack of core set off the "internal and external troubles" of automakers, the top ten keywords of the automotive circle in 2021

Looking back at 2021, under the guidance of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality", China's auto market has achieved explosive growth of new energy vehicles, and the penetration rate has also increased. According to the statistics of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, by November 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 3.023 million units and 2.99 million units, respectively, an increase of 1.7 times year-on-year, and the market penetration rate reached 12.7%.

At the same time, problems such as core shortage and shortage of parts are also continuing, new concepts and technologies such as hydrogen energy and lidar continue to penetrate into the automotive industry, and the innovative cooperation model between Huawei and Cialis has triggered industry thinking. With the advent of the intelligent era, how do automakers grasp the "soul" of car manufacturing? Cross-border car manufacturing, autonomous soaring, electric vehicle manufacturing has no "boundary"? Financing, going to sea, talent reconstruction, how can new forces break through the "siege"?

Keyword one: financing

Riding on the fast train of the new energy vehicle market, new energy vehicle companies have sprung up. According to the data of Tianyancha, there are currently about 400,000 new energy vehicle-related enterprises in China. Among them, nearly 4,000 are high-tech enterprises.

According to the incomplete statistics of the Tianyancha Data Research Institute, between 2006 and 2021, there were about 550 financing incidents in the field of new energy vehicles, with a total amount of more than 320 billion yuan. Among them, more than 70% of the financing time occurred in 2015-2020, and the total amount of financing exceeded 250 billion yuan. Since last year, the "gold absorption" of new energy has continued to rise. As of December 2021, there have been more than 110 financing events in the field of new energy vehicles in 2021, with a total financing amount of more than 80 billion yuan.

As the protagonist of the capital competition, the new forces are financing. In 2021, WM Motors, the second echelon of the new forces, completed the D1 and D2 rounds of financing, with a total financing of US$457 million, or about RMB 2.9 billion. Therefore, WM Automobile has become the new car-making force with the largest amount of financing in the past year.

Up to now, WM has completed 11 rounds of financing, with a total financing amount of more than 35 billion yuan. The shareholders include Shun Tak Group, PCCW, Agile Group, Far East Horizon, Envision Energy, SAIC, Minmetals Group, Hongta Group, Shandong Expressway and other well-known strategic investment institutions.

In addition, the new force Nezha Automobile also completed a D1 round of financing of 4 billion yuan at the end of October last year, with 360 Group leading the investment of 2 billion yuan. On November 8 last year, Nezha Automobile released the news that ningde times, a leading power battery company, will participate in the company's D2 round of financing and become a strategic investor. It is worth mentioning that this is the first time that the Ningde era has publicly participated in the financing of new car-making forces.

Zero-run auto also completed a new round of financing of 4.5 billion yuan in August last year, of which Hangzhou state-owned investment of 3 billion yuan. Whether it is WM, Nezha or zero-run investors, all of them are state-owned capital to join. New energy automobile enterprises have not only received the attention of well-known investment institutions, Internet giants and top fund institutions at home and abroad, but also received the support of state-owned capital and local industrial institutions.

In addition to Weima, Nezha and Zero Run in the second echelon of new forces, the head new forces have also been favored by the capital market. In 2021, Xiaopeng and Ideal completed their second IPO in Hong Kong. On July 7, Xiaopeng Motors was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with an issue price of HK$165. As of the close of Hong Kong stocks on the same day, the market value of Xiaopeng Automobile reached HK$279.1 billion. On August 12, Ideal Auto successfully landed on the Hong Kong stock market, with a market value of more than HK$230 billion on that day.

Industry insiders said that the reason why new energy companies can continue to be sought after by the capital market is related to the rapid development of new forces in the head, on the other hand, the automotive industry is transforming to electrification and intelligence, and new energy vehicles will continue to grow rapidly.

Keyword two: brand high-end

When Tesla and the new forces of the head took root in the high-end new energy market, independent brands also established a high-end cognition and established a high-end new brand that was reborn. ARCFOX, Lantu, Zhiji... Emerged.

On April 15, 2021, Geely Automobile released its high-end brand, Extreme Kr, which is positioned as a "new high-end pure electric vehicle brand", and the first production model based on SEA Haohan's intelligent evolutionary experience architecture, zeekr 001, has been delivered since October last year.

The first owner of Extreme Krypton attacked the segment of large and medium-sized cars, ZEEKR 001 has an endurance of 526-712 kilometers and a guided price of 299,000-360,000 yuan. According to traffic insurance data, as of November, ZEEKR 001 sales of less than 2,000 vehicles, December delivery achieved a breakthrough, delivery has been close to 4,000 vehicles.

Independent brands are eager to rush higher, resulting in many problems. As a high-end brand that has not been established for a long time, in addition to the low sales volume, the extreme krypton brand has also had many rights protection problems. Previously, Extreme Krypton had announced that the 800V high-voltage charging had become 400V in the end, and the rear privacy glass, the sky curtain, the ventilation of the passenger seat, the fender camera and other configurations were also different from the propaganda and were protected.

Rushing high is too hasty, resulting in problems in the manufacturer's lax quality control, insufficient publicity, channels, etc., causing serious harm to the new brand.

In addition to extreme krypton, the hottest high-end brand in 2021 is the tank and salon under the Great Wall. In July 2020, the Great Wall WEY brand released a new car - Tank 300, because of the hot sales of Tank 300, Great Wall Motors will be independent of the tank brand. On November 20, 2020, the pre-sale was opened at the Guangzhou Auto Show, and the pre-sale order exceeded 10,000 in 20 days.

Adhering to the principle of having more children, on November 19, 2021, Great Wall Motors released a high-end brand salon, and its first model, the Mech Dragon, was released at the same time. In addition to the high-end shape, the Mech Dragon is also equipped with "four lidars", which is the only model in the world to achieve 360-degree full-angle coverage of lidar. The mecha dragon guide retail price of 488,000 yuan, the global limited edition of 101 units has been sold out.

In the future, salon brand products will focus on the range of 400,000-800,000 yuan, and the positioning of the salon brand is to do more than 400,000 luxury intelligent pure electric vehicles.

Can be seen, medium and large cars, SUVs, long endurance, automatic driving, lidar ... etc. are the core competitiveness of high-end brands at present.

Keyword three: sales volume

When independent car companies vigorously develop new energy vehicles, they have opened the "sales volume". From the beginning of delivery, the new forces have scrambled to release the sales list at the beginning of each month, "monthly sales of more than 10,000" seems to be the first criterion to test whether the new forces are mature, but they do not know that the monthly sales of traditional car companies are ten times or even twenty times that of the new forces.

Sales volume is the first criterion for testing the ranking of new forces, and the pattern of new forces in the head in 2021 will also change from "Wei Xiaoli" to "Xiao Wei Li". According to official data, as of December 31, 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile's total deliveries for the whole year reached 98,155 units, an increase of 263% year-on-year.

Weilai's cumulative delivery volume in 2021 ranks second in the camp of new car-making forces. According to the data, NIO delivered 10,489 vehicles in December, an increase of 49.7% year-on-year; NIO delivered a total of 25,034 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of 44.3% year-on-year; and delivered 91,429 vehicles in the whole year, an increase of 109.10% year-on-year.

It is followed by Ideal Car, with a gap of only 938 vehicles between cumulative deliveries in 2021 and NIO, between winning and losing. Ideal Cars delivered 14,087 Ideal ONE units in December 2021, an increase of 130.0%, and hit a new high in deliveries. In 2021, the Ideal ONE delivered a total of 90,491 units, an increase of 177.4% over 2020. Since delivery, the cumulative delivery volume of Ideal ONE has reached 124088 units.

It is worth mentioning that the traditional car company GAC Aean, in 2021, the cumulative sales volume of 123,660 units, an increase of 119% year-on-year; BYD passenger car sales in 2021 reached 730,100 units, an increase of 75.4% year-on-year, of which the annual sales of new energy passenger cars was 593,700 units, an increase of 231.6%. Compared with the new forces, the achievements of traditional independent car companies are more eye-catching.

Keyword four: lack of core

Chip shortages have been running through the auto industry in 2021 and have led to a series of chain reactions. Car companies around the world have stopped production due to chip shortages, and even Tesla, which uses a large number of self-developed chips, has not been spared. The Volkswagen Group will reduce production by 100,000 vehicles in the first two months of 2021 due to lack of cores, and global sales will fall to less than 9 million vehicles in 2021. First-tier manufacturers such as GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota, and Great Wall have also been affected by the lack of cores, and production has been reduced to varying degrees.

Due to the reduction in production of new cars, hot-selling models and luxury models have been difficult to find. Dealers across the country have a shortage of mainstream models, the discount is narrowed, and the delivery cycle is extended. Previously, the Audi Q5L cash discount was reduced from 50,000 to 70,000 to 20,000; the ideal ONE car pick-up cycle had to wait 2 months.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi have also launched a "fare buyback" policy due to the shortage of existing cars. In September last year, BMW dealer Chengdu Baoyue Automobile Co., Ltd. released the news: "As long as it is the BMW 3 Series and X3 (excluding new energy vehicles) that are licensed after October 1, 2020, the mileage does not exceed 15,000 kilometers, which is in line with the condition of the quasi-new car, and we will recycle your car at the time of the opening fare." ”

In addition, Mercedes-Benz and Audi dealers also buy back vehicles at open fares. The models repurchased by Mercedes-Benz dealers include Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Mercedes-Benz GLC and Maybach. The number of kilometers required is not more than 20,000 kilometers, no accidents, no structural damage. The billing period is January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, and the deadline is September 30, 2021.

Some Audi dealers also launched the September official certification car "high-price recovery, value preservation repurchase" activity, the Audi A4L, A6L, Q5L and other models of the "original price" repurchase. Second-tier luxury brand Lexus has also repurchased its ES200, ES300h and RX300. Industry insiders said that the shortage of chips, the difficulty of mass production of new cars, luxury brands recycle "quasi-new cars" to solve the urgent need.

Due to the lack of cores, the "strange appearance" of the car circle is frequent, and the second-hand car market has also experienced crazy price increases. According to used car dealers, the new car with a price of 430,000 Mercedes-Benz 2020 E300L can be sold for 440,000 used cars; the second-hand audi A6L on the 2020 license plate can be sold for 378,000 yuan. The used car market is also booming. Data show that from January to November 2021, China's cumulative transaction of used cars was 15.9669 million, an increase of 26.38% year-on-year.

Not only that, new forces such as Ideal and Xiaopeng have adopted the model of "first delivery and then reloading" due to chip shortages, and Tesla is also reducing delivery. Car increase, allocation reduction delivery, used car price increase... The chain reaction caused by the core shortage continues, but the shortage of chips has not been alleviated.

Keyword five: cross-border car manufacturing

New energy vehicles are the trend of the times, and real estate, home appliances, digital and other enterprises have also entered the electric vehicle market. In 2021, Internet giants such as Baidu, Xiaomi, and 360 will open the road of cross-border car building.

On January 11, 2021, Baidu announced the formal establishment of a smart car company to enter the automotive industry as a vehicle manufacturer and carry out strategic cooperation with Geely Holding Group. In March, Geely and Baidu established a new joint venture company, which is called "Jidu Automobile Co., Ltd.", with a registered capital of 2 billion yuan, and Xia Yiping is also the legal representative, chairman and general manager.

Then, on December 27, at the Baidu AI Developer Conference, Baidu founder Robin Li once again explained the time node of car building, and in the first half of 2022, Jidu will announce the first concept car, and mass production and delivery of the first car robot in 2023.

On March 29, 2021, Xiaomi Lei Jun announced that Xiaomi will officially enter the smart electric vehicle industry, and the first mass-produced model will be off the production line in the first half of 2024. Until November 27, the Administrative Committee of Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone and Xiaomi officially signed a cooperation agreement, officially announcing that Xiaomi Automobile settled in Beijing Economic development zone. Xiaomi Automobile will build a vehicle plant with a cumulative annual output of 300,000 units in two phases in Beijing's Jingkai District, of which the first and second phases have a production capacity of 150,000 units respectively.

In October 2021, Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai Technology officially released the pure electric vehicle brand Foxtron and three pure electric vehicles. Previously, Foxconn reached cooperation agreements with domestic and foreign car companies such as Byton Automobile, Geely Holdings, Fisker, Stellantis, etc., and entered the automotive industry mainly based on OEM.

At the end of 2021, Niuchuang Technology once again broke into the field of car manufacturing. On December 15th, the Niutron brand under Jiangsu Niu Innovative Energy Technology Co., Ltd. was officially released, Chinese "Self-Traveling Home", which is a new brand for Li Yinan, the founder of Xiaoniu Electric, to start a business again. Positioned as a mid-sized high-end SUV with pure electric and range extender systems, youjia's first model will be available and pre-ordered in the first half of this year, and is expected to be delivered in September this year.

After the technology giants joined the car- building, they have announced the strategy and planning, and the progress of the car-making is faster than that of the new forces before, but the car-making model and the cooperation model have their own advantages, and the cooperation mode of Jidu, Huawei and Xilisi is different, which has triggered the "soul theory".

Write at the end

Although the keywords of lack of core and sales volume sound like a crisis in the automotive circle, from the perspective of industry development, the benign competition brought about by "internal and external troubles" has prompted the rapid development of independent brands, especially after Tesla and joint venture import brands have re-entered the Chinese auto market, the product strength and brand value of domestic brands have become more and more prominent, and at the same time, products going overseas and talent competition have also become an important battlefield in the automotive circle in 2021 with the development of enterprises, so the next part of the "Top Ten Keywords of the AutoMotive Circle in 2021" will be interpreted one by one for everyone.