The illustrations are from Canva Paintable
After two years of big waves, a number of new energy vehicle companies have been eliminated, and the surviving new car-making forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal have grown day by day, and have successfully entered the forefront of the industry with "hard technology" and "soft power", and have also ushered in a new round of comprehensive competition among these head new energy vehicle companies.
Because Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal have invested almost equally in software barriers, infrastructure improvement, market expansion, etc., the gap between these three car companies in terms of technology and market advantages has not really opened, and the transcript delivered by the new car brand in 2021 is a good illustration of this.
"Wei Xiaoli" into "Xiao Wei Li"
Not long ago, the head enterprises of the new domestic car-making forces, Weilai, Ideal and Xiaopeng, have successively announced the delivery data for 2021. The data shows that these three car companies have doubled their growth in 2021, and their annual sales are close to 100,000. Among them, WEILAI delivered 91,429 vehicles, an increase of 109% year-on-year; the ideal cumulative delivery of 90,491 vehicles, an increase of 177% year-on-year; Xiaopeng delivered 98,155 vehicles, an increase of 260% year-on-year, becoming the domestic new power car company with the highest cumulative delivery volume in 2021.
As we all know, among the representatives of the new domestic car-making forces, Weilai once occupied the top spot for a long time by virtue of its first-mover advantage, and the car circle also used "Wei Xiaoli" to describe the status of the three car companies in the first echelon of the new car-making forces. However, with the announcement of the annual delivery volume of the new car-making forces in 2021, Xiaopeng has become the "bellwether" of the cumulative delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" throughout the year, and Weilai has lost the "hegemonic position" of the new car-making forces. In fact, the evolution of the new power pattern of car-making from "Wei Xiaoli" to "Xiao Wei Li" is traceable.
Since the beginning of this year, the new energy vehicle supply chain crisis caused by the "chip shortage" has brought great impact to "Wei Xiaoli", in order to eliminate the adverse consequences caused by this impact, "Wei Xiaoli" can be described as a sufficient effort on the chip.
Xiaopeng minimizes the impact of "missing cores" through production line switching and "over-compensation". In the face of the problem of insufficient chip supply, Xiaopeng switched the production line of G3 to the mid-term revamped version of G3i, and transitioned the G3i production base to The Zhaoqing factory of Xiaopeng Automobile, and with the completion of the production line, Xiaopeng's sales have also achieved steady growth; coupled with the fact that Xiaopeng has also launched a compensation strategy for free XPILOT (3.0/3.5) software, which has captured the hearts of more users at once, so Xiaopeng has not been affected by too much "lack of core".
Although the recovery of WEILAI's supply chain has lifted the direct pressure and allowed it to quickly recover, the pressure is still there. Although NIO encountered a chip crisis in August last year, after it reorganized and upgraded its own supply chain and production lines and strategic adjustments, WEILAI resumed production of part of its supply chain in only one month, and the direct pressure on ES6 and EC6 production was eliminated. At the same time, NIO continues to openly seek chip resources in the market and make strategic stockpiling to solve chip supply problems for other relevant supply chain teams.
Although the ideal is to deal with it through the way of "first hand over and then make up", it is also difficult to solve the crisis of serious shortage of goods. Affected by the epidemic in Malaysia, the chip required by the ideal millimeter wave radar supplier has been seriously reduced, and the "lack of core" has caused the ideal to fall out of the top three positions of the new force delivery volume in September 2021. Although the ideal later through the "first delivery of the car, then supplement the chip" approach, lock in the user in advance, so that it retained the third place position, but this practice did not greatly alleviate its own chip crisis, chip supply recovery is still less than expected, but also let its regrets fall behind.
"Three Kingdoms Kill" upgrade
In fact, it is not difficult to see from the annual delivery ranking that a more fierce market battle has begun in the new car-making power track, and the competition between "Wei Xiaoli" has further intensified. In order to stand out in the domestic new energy vehicle market, "Wei Xiaoli" has begun to carry out a new round of competition around product research and development, charging layout, market occupancy and other aspects while ensuring sales growth.
1 product competes on the same stage
In order to pursue higher sales, "Wei Xiaoli" began to continuously introduce new models to "fill the gap", and it is not difficult to see from its model layout that the positioning of new models and competitors' main models is extremely similar, which also shows that "Wei Xiaoli" has begun to invade each other's territory.
For example, Xiaopeng's upcoming large-scale SUV Xiaopeng G9, the model layout is gradually advancing from cars to medium-sized and large SUVs; NIO will also deliver medium- and large-sized sedans ET7 and medium-sized sedan ET5, and its models will begin to expand from SUVs to cars; Ideal also intends to copy THE SUCCESSFUL MODEL OF ONE to other medium-sized cars, medium-sized SUVs and other fields to launch the second product Ideal X01.
2 Infrastructure is inseparable
In addition to expanding the product matrix, the layout of "Wei Xiaoli" in expanding stores and charging networks is also comparable.
In terms of charging pile layout and sales network laying, in 2021, WEILAI built 778 substations around the world, a total of 4582 new supercharging piles and destination charging piles, as well as 15 NIO Houses and 72 service centers; Xiaopeng has also laid 661 brand supercharging stations in 228 cities across the country, operating 311 sales stores in 121 cities across the country; Ideal has also established 206 retail centers covering 102 cities. As well as 278 after-sales maintenance centers and authorized sheet metal spray centers in 204 cities.
In terms of the construction of new energy vehicle production bases, NIO's second factory in Hefei Xinqiao Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industrial Park will be officially put into use in the third quarter of 2022; Xiaopeng will also build the "Wuhan Intelligent Manufacturing Base" project, after the Zhaoqing production base, ushering in the second self-built factory; the intelligent factory project that ideally uses the foundation of Beijing Hyundai No. 1 Factory for renovation and expansion has also started, and is scheduled to be put into operation at the end of 2023.
3 sinking to seize the opportunity
With the rising penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the sinking market is continuously releasing new potential, so "Wei Xiaoli" has begun to actively expand to the third- and fourth-tier markets, trying to compete for more incremental users in the sinking market.
For example, Weilai has quietly sunk to third- and fourth-tier cities such as Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang; Xiaopeng has already launched a layout in Ma'anshan, Putian, Baotou, Luoyang, Zhangjiakou, Wenzhou and other third- and fourth-tier cities; and as one of the "three musketeers" of new car-making forces, it is naturally unwilling to give up the vast space of the sinking market, and even more unwilling to miss the opportunity to occupy the sinking market, and is also adopting a new strategy to extend to the sinking market.
4 going to sea does not give in to each other
In addition to the layout of the sinking market, going to sea is also one of the ways for new car-making forces to expand product sales. Since last year, "Wei Xiaoli" has also begun to actively layout overseas, trying to make a reputation overseas, increase sales, and occupy a place in the European market.
Specifically, WEILAI announced the "Norwegian Strategy" as early as May 2021 and shipped the first batch of ES8s planned to be delivered to the Norwegian market in the same month; Xiaopeng also said in the prospectus that it would spend 5% of the funds to enter the European market, in addition to expanding into Norway, it also set Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands as the next overseas target; Ideal is also seeking to explore overseas markets, and has formed a team to accelerate the improvement of the layout of overseas markets.
Thanks to the simultaneous efforts in many aspects, the delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" in 2021 is close to the goal of 100,000 mark. However, it is not difficult to carefully look at the past financial reports of "Wei Xiaoli" and find that under the advanced expenditure of R&D investment and sales expenses, losses have always been a realistic problem in front of "Wei Xiaoli".
Therefore, even if the annual sales volume is close to 100,000, "Wei Xiaoli" still does not have hematopoietic ability. However, it is undeniable that after the annual sales of new car-making forces exceed 100,000 units, the operation situation will gradually get on the right track. So next, whoever can achieve profitability first will be the first to gain a foothold in the market. It's just that it is not easy for "Wei Xiaoli" to successfully pass the profit barrier, and the stumbling blocks on the road to profitability cannot be ignored.
It is difficult for Xiaopeng to mention the gross profit margin
Compared with Weilai and ideals that travel in the high-end market, Xiaopeng is much "close to the people", and the reason why it can occupy the top of the delivery volume in 2021 is also related to its high cost performance.
For example, the average price of Weilai is about 430,000, and the price of the ideal ONE is nearly 330,000, while the starting price of Xiaopeng's cheapest G3 is only 149,800 yuan, and the starting price of the most expensive main model P7 is only 219,900 yuan.
However, Xiaopeng, who has been working in the low-price range for many years, although it has captured the hearts of users in the sinking market, its profits are still very small. According to the financial report, in the third quarter of 2021, Xiaopeng was the most loss-making in "Wei Xiaoli", and Xiaopeng's gross profit margin was only 14.1%, more than 6 percentage points lower than Weilai and Ideal; the net loss was as high as 1.595 billion yuan, nearly double that of Weilai and more than 15 times more than the ideal.
Weilai is trapped in high-end
Contrary to Xiaopeng, who advocates cost-effectiveness and focuses on sinking, Weilai has been active in the high-end market.
Although WEILAI has also won the recognition of many users in the high-end market, its positioning in the relatively niche market has also made its sales growth increasingly weak. Many of WEILAI's models are basically based on the high-end market, and the lowest priced models also exceed 350,000 yuan. The high price once made it extremely passive in the market competition, so no model has sold more than 5,000 a month so far. With the effectiveness of Xiaopeng's low-price sinking strategy, the market share pressure of Weilai has become more and more heavy.
Although Weilai has also begun to lay out in the sinking market, it is not easy to win back the hearts of users. It is reported that in December 2021, Weilai released a new model ET5, with a purchase price of 328,000 yuan; the use of BaaS battery rental is only 258,000 yuan, directly playing the label of "low price". But the price is still much higher than the price of Xiaopeng's most expensive model. What's more, the price is expensive, and weilai has not launched more explosive models, so it seems that Weilai's development in the sinking market seems to lack some "sincerity".
The ideal is shackled by a single bond
Among the three new car-making forces of "Wei Xiaoli", the ideal force is the latest, and it has embarked on a different range-extending route from Xiaopeng and Weilai.
Compared with Xiaopeng and Weilai, which have a rich product matrix, the ideal is only one model for individual combat. Xiaopeng launched a very rapid pace of new products, the first two years have successively launched P7, G3, this year will also be launched P5, G9 and other models. In addition to the three main models of ES6, ES8 and EC6, two new models of ET7 and ET5 will also be launched. It can be seen that Xiaopeng and Weilai have been constantly enriching the variety, but the ideal is still using one of the ONE models to go around the world.
Although Ideal has achieved more than 90,000 annual deliveries with one ONE model, a single product has also brought great constraints to Ideal. In the long run, for the ideal of only one main sales model, once the chip is affected, it will bring a "destructive blow", and there is only one product, whether in terms of price or performance, the choice is relatively small, can not meet the needs of different users.
epilogue
At present, losses are not the only problem facing "Wei Xiaoli" at present, and the duel between the new forces of car manufacturing will not only unfold between "Wei Xiaoli". Next, in addition to facing the second- and third-tier brands such as Nezha, Lingpao, and Lantu, "Wei Xiaoli" will also have to directly PK with more traditional car companies and Internet players.
Although "Wei Xiaoli" has great potential and full staying power, as the competitive environment becomes more and more complicated, it is still unknown who will spend the crown of the "king of new car-making forces". As the most promising seed player, "Wei Xiaoli" needs to do the most at present is to make up for his shortcomings as soon as possible, and only by successfully passing the profit barrier can he prepare more adequate capital for the next competition.
Text/Financial Reference, ID: Jrwaican