After several years of ups and downs, the smart electric vehicle market officially entered an explosive period in 2021 - the cumulative increase of the whole year was as high as 43.87%, and the sales volume and penetration rate were also rising. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, in the first 11 months, the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles in China increased by 1.78 times year-on-year, and the penetration rate increased from 5.8% in 2020 at the beginning of the year to 13.9%, ushering in the inflection point of rapid industrial growth.
Among them, the popularity of high-end new energy vehicles is particularly prominent. From January to November 2021, among the top eight new energy model sales rankings, high-end models with a starting price of more than 300,000 yuan occupied half of the country, and in the two major areas of cars and SUVs, it showed a trend of accelerating the erosion of the market share of BBA fuel vehicles.
In this head-on competition with the BBA, high-end players represented by Tesla, Weilai, Lantu, etc. rushed to the forefront. The delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" in 2021 will exceed 90,000 vehicles, approaching the mark of 100,000 vehicles per year. Among them, the impact of Weilai on the BBA is the most obvious. According to the statistics of Jelan Road Consulting, from January to November this year, the transaction price of Weilai has surpassed Audi and BMW, ranking fourth, second only to Mercedes-Benz. At the same time, Lei Xin, CBO of Lantu Automobile, also revealed in a previous interview, "81% of the users delivered now come from the increase and exchange of luxury brands, of which 61% are BBA users." ”
Cannibalize the BBA market and grab the big cake of the high-end market. Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of WEILAI, once said in an interview with the media, "One word we often say internally is 'NBA'. As we enter the high-end, for the replacement of high-end mainstream luxury fuel vehicles, we also hope that we should join that rank in the future and turn the BBA pattern into an 'NBA' pattern. ”
Growth, the electric market needs a "high-end" new battlefield
"High-end" is not a new word, according to the definition of the association, the market guidance price of more than 300,000 models is a high-end car. However, "high-end" has become the key word in the automotive market in 2021 and even in the next five to ten years.
In the past 2021, "high-end" has been mentioned many times by domestic brands, Dongfeng Lantu, SAIC Zhiji and Feifan Automobile, Changan Avita, Geely Extreme Kr, Great Wall Salon... A series of domestic high-end brands followed. With the delivery of Lantu and Extreme Kr exceeding 3,000 units in December, traditional car companies are beginning to show their strength in the electric high-end market.
In contrast, electric vehicle brands such as Weilai and Xiaopeng, which entered the market earlier, have made a more obvious contribution to the rapid growth of new energy vehicles in 2021. Electric vehicle brands represented by Tesla and Weilai have even begun to encroach on the BBA fuel vehicle market, and the penetration rate in the high-end market, including fuel vehicles, has been continuously improved, and it has gradually gained a foothold.
Overall, Tesla delivered 936,000 vehicles in 2021, of which Model 3 and Model Y sales accounted for 96%. Nio delivered 91,429 new cars in 2021, an increase of 109.1% year-on-year, doubling for two consecutive years. In fact, if it is not a supply chain supply problem, WEIlai is likely to rush to the threshold of 100,000 vehicles sold annually.
According to shanghai insurance data, from January to November 2021, China's high-end market, including fuel vehicles, increased by 14.6% year-on-year, and in the price range of more than 300,000 models, the penetration rate of pure electric vehicles reached 3.99%, an increase of 2.07% year-on-year; the penetration rate of new energy vehicles reached 8.47%, an increase of 3.97%.
Unlike GAC E-An, BYD, etc. shouldering the heavy responsibility of sales in the 100,000-200,000 yuan electric market, Tesla, Xiaopeng, etc. have supported the world of the 200,000-300,000 yuan electric market; Weilai has become a force that cannot be ignored in models of more than 300,000 yuan.
In the sales ranking of high-end brands in China, WEILAI has always ranked in the top ten. The data shows that from January to November 2021, NIO ES8 ranked seventh in the sales volume of 400,000+ medium and large SUV in the domestic MSRP (official guidance price), and WEIN ES6 and EC6 ranked seventh and eighth in the domestic MSRP 300,000 + medium-sized SUV sales ranking.
Indeed, people prefer price to size to measure whether a brand has a place in the high-end market by price size.
Here is a data that can intuitively reflect the market's recognition of NIO's high-end positioning. In November 2021, the average transaction price of Weilai was 440,000 yuan, which was only lower than Mercedes-Benz, and there were Porsche and Land Rover in front. According to the statistics of the world's authoritative data agency, in the global high-end electric vehicle (more than 50,000 US dollars) sales ranking, Weilai ranks in the top two.
It can be said that whether it is sales or transaction prices, pure electric models have begun to leverage this market dominated by traditional luxury car brands, and Chinese cars rely on confident intelligent technology innovation to begin to share the big cake of the high-end automobile market.
Catching up, what are high-end electric brands doing right?
Consumers are willing to take a budget of 300,000 yuan, do not choose BBA traditional luxury car brands, and choose pure electric brands such as Weilai, which must be because the latter has done something right?
First of all, the new car-making force camp, BYD, GAC Aean, they seized the policy benefits of the new energy car earlier, one step ahead of other traditional car companies, entered the new energy vehicle market, seized the opportunity, achieved a breakthrough in the number of products and product strength, and matured day by day.
Lang Xuehong, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, once said, "From the participation of traditional independent brands, to the participation of joint venture brands, and then to the swarming of new car-making forces in recent years, China's new energy market has shown a pattern of a hundred flowers, the number of products, the matrix is unprecedentedly rich, and the overall product strength has been significantly improved." ”
Secondly, differentiation and labeling are more obvious, so as to realize that people have no self and people have me. For example, the ideal label is Zengcheng, Weilai's label is high-end, Xiaopeng's label is technology, and they have built their own moat in the whole torrent of electrification and intelligence.
Among them, in the face of long charging queues and winter battery life discounts, Weilai has built a leading power-up system through the rechargeable and replaceable NIO Power. In 2021, NIO added 606 new substations; 505 overcharging stations and 2,598 overcharge piles; 359 destination charging stations and 1984 destination charging piles, consolidating the power-up system and achieving greater coverage.
In fact, when more and more technology is applied to products, when more and more products are brought to the market, in the end, the fight is service. A big reason why BBA has been able to dominate for so many years is its huge dealer system and the quality service experience it provides. Of course, with the progress of the times, the drawbacks of the dealer model have gradually emerged, so it is particularly important to make up for shortcomings with the help of direct operation and digitalization, price transparency and link users.
These are precisely the advantages of new car-making forces such as Weilai and domestic high-end sub-brands.
On the strategic "compass", NIO has fully blossomed around the fields of cars, digital experiences, full-life cycle services, and lifestyles beyond cars, building a system competitiveness, and also outputting a set of full-process experiences to users to create a pleasant lifestyle for users. As of December 31, NIO has 38 NIO Houses and 321 NIO Spaces worldwide.
"Systematic experience, we call the whole experience, this is my goal. At a certain point, other families may do better than Weilai, but combining technology, services, NIO Life and user communities, who is currently doing better than us around the comprehensive experience of smart electric vehicles? I think it's still a little hard to get ahead of us. Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, said.
Going to sea, domestic smart cars take the lead in expanding the market to Europe
After brand building and market occupancy in China, what needs to be considered is how the future value enhancement and market expansion of high-end brands will be carried out, and how will domestic brands achieve from domestic opportunities to global leadership? In 2021, the sea of brands such as Weilai and Hongqi may give the answer.
In 2021, not only China, but also the world's new energy vehicles are developing at a high speed. According to Shanghai insurance data, from January to November, the sales volume of pure electric vehicles in Europe was 985,000 units, an increase of 77.6% year-on-year. This provides strong conditions for domestic electric brands to export overseas.
According to incomplete statistics, in 2021 alone, there will be Xiaopeng P7, Weilai ES8, BYD Tang EV, SAIC MARVEL R, Hongqi E-HS9 five models with Norway as a springboard, exported to the European market.
Norway was chosen because it is the country that is most friendly to electric vehicles and the first country to sell new pure electric vehicles more than gasoline, diesel and hybrid models combined. Statista data shows that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles (BEV+PHEV) in Norway reached 91.2% in 2021, an increase of 16.5% year-on-year, while its penetration rate of new energy vehicles in 2015 was 21.1%.
Different from the sales and service model of most car companies in overseas and local dealers, NIO has adopted a system-wide direct service model in Norway, taking the car as the starting point, in-depth operation and service of Norwegian users, and building a complete operating system composed of cars, services, digital experiences and lifestyles. In 2021, NIO's sales and service system entered Norway and began to be delivered.
At present, NIO has established R&D, production, sales and service agencies in Shanghai, Hefei, Beijing, San Jose, Munich, Oxford and Oslo. As of December 31, 2021, NIO has 778 substations in the world, including 205 highway substations, 605 supercharge stations, 626 destination charging stations, and 450,000+ third-party charging piles. Weilai users change electricity 20,000+ times a day, with a total of 5,810,000+ power exchanges.
It is reported that in 2022, WEILAI's products and system-wide services will be officially landed in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. NIO plans to provide services to users in more than 25 countries and regions around the world in 2025. According to the NIO Power 2025 substation layout plan, from 2022 to 2025, 600 new substations will be added in China every year; by the end of 2025, the total number of substations worldwide will exceed 4,000. By 2025, 90% of NIO's housing will become "electric district housing".
For domestic brands, it is not easy to enter the mature European and American automobile markets, especially to enter the high-end market. Li Bin once said bluntly, "If you want to do it, the challenge is quite big." But it is undeniable that this is an opportunity to take Norway as a starting point and deliver a new business card of "Made in China" and "Made in China" to Europe and even the world. The high-end electric market will boost domestic brands to open up a broader world on the world stage and realize the transformation from Chinese opportunities to China's leadership.
Text/Wen Chong
Editor/Chen Zhengzhong