"Using the Internet and electric cars to fool around, I think it is very dangerous, and it is not easy for ordinary people to make that little money."
Li Shufu, the helmsman of Geely Automobile, who is so outspoken, has placed the new forces of car manufacturing that are in the limelight on the opposite side of traditional car companies.
Even if it is criticized by traditional car companies for "lacking the awe of car building", on the road of transformation from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles, it is indispensable to promote the new forces of car manufacturing. As a result of seizing the dividends of the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles, the new cutting-edge forces led by "Wei Xiaoli" turned out to be born.
It is true that the electric vehicles that have been ridiculed as "electric daddies" still have not completely solved the problem of "mileage anxiety", but the capitals who are the first to hear the wind and grass have long been eyeing the fat meat of new energy vehicles.
Weilai, the "brother" of the new domestic car-making forces, has risen all the way since the IPO in the United States in 2018, the market value has doubled and doubled, and the value of founder Li Bin has risen and risen. At present, WEILAI is approaching some traditional car companies with a market value of more than 50 billion US dollars.
Nowadays, traditional car companies that have been waiting for a long time have begun to gradually increase their energy investment in new energy vehicles, but compared with fuel vehicles, the new energy field is indeed not a subject that traditional car companies are good at.
So what are the chances of winning for traditional car companies that "fire cannons" in the comfort zone of new forces?
Volume is king?
Five-five-open? It may also be two or eight.
Although the current voice of the new forces is not small, in the automobile market, only sales are the last word.
2021 is the year of the outbreak of new energy vehicles, just after December 31, the new forces that are overjoyed will immediately announce the year-end results that are expected by everyone, Xiaopeng, Weilai, and Ideal three in turn ranked in the top three, and the annual sales have passed the 90,000 mark, while the second camp of Nezha, Weima, and Zero Run have also achieved a year-on-year surge, of which the most vigorous Nezha has exceeded 60,000 in annual sales.
In terms of year-on-year growth rate, the situation of new forces is very good, but in terms of market volume, these six new forces still cannot beat a BYD.
Public data show that the sales of new energy vehicles by the veteran car company BYD in 2021 is nearly 600,000 vehicles, more than 100,000 vehicles than the combined sales of the above six, you know, the current new car-making forces have not yet touched the benchmark line of 100,000 annual sales.
However, in the eyes of traditional car companies, it is not difficult for new energy vehicle sales to "break 10". In 2021, great wall, SAIC and other car companies without exception into the 100,000-vehicle club, even GAC Aeon, which officially became independent at the end of 2020, also exceeded 120,000 vehicles in annual sales.
| Image source: Multiplying Association
So what is the share of the entire market by today's new forces?
According to the data of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 were 3.521 million units, an increase of 157.5%, of which the retail sales of new energy passenger cars were 2.989 million units, an increase of 169.1% year-on-year.
A cruel reality is that the cumulative sales of the six new forces account for only a dozen percentage points of the total proportion of the new energy vehicle market, as far as the current market sales situation is concerned, in this "new and old war", the new forces of car manufacturing in the face of traditional car companies to force new energy vehicles, at most a younger brother.
Elephants are not easy to turn around, but the traditional car companies that have been entrenched in the market for many years still have the strength of absolute advantages, especially in the promotion of products, this advantage is vividly reflected.
At the end of 2020, Geely officially launched the Vast SEA Intelligent Evolution Experience Architecture. Geely said: "The architecture is the world's most efficient intelligent electric vehicle solution, redefining the development cycle of software vehicles and reducing the time of software development by more than 50%." At present, based on the vast structure, Geely has launched research and development of a total of more than 16 new models, and will lay out different market segments.
The manufacturing scale is larger, the R & D investment is more, the traditional car companies are better at product iteration and outbreak, and the new forces with 4 models of WM are already considered to be the product owners, it can be said that in the model to promote new, the new forces car companies still need a longer cycle.
I have to say that the "old cannons" still have two brushes, but the focus of traditional car companies is still on fuel vehicles, and they are still in the stage of "testing" the market on new energy vehicles. But once the time is ripe, when the traditional car companies are "undistracted", the greatest anxiety of the new forces will be revealed.
Starting from the great heat in the field of new energy car manufacturing, the voices of singing the decline of traditional car companies and catering to new car manufacturers are not in the minority, but compared with the new forces that are young and vigorous but lack of confidence, the traditional car companies that are slower than one shot and two beats may still be the protagonists of the new energy vehicle market.
Market segmentation for a living?
After the Yangtze River waves push forward waves, who will be photographed on the beach?
In the competition, neither of the two parties who are going against the grain wants to admit it, but the difference in playing style has shown some clues, such as the new forces that are born to "equip" the Internet thinking, which is facing the bottleneck of difficult category expansion, while the traditional car companies that pay more attention to market demand are more concerned about ecological competition.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show in November, Great Wall Motor's new energy brand Sharon Zhixing released the first car Mecha Dragon, with a price of 400,000-800,000 in the high-end market, while in 2018, the first new energy model, Great Wall Euler, focused on the low-line market below 150,000.
Dong Yudong, general manager of the Euler brand, said that Euler is accelerating the promotion of the product matrix, in addition to positioning the black cat, white cat and A0-level good cat in the A00-level market, it will also launch A+ SUV and sedan covering the B-class market.
In addition to the positioning of prices and models, the targeting of consumer groups is also a part of market refinement. After playing the banner of "car brand that loves women more", the Great Wall Euler quickly went out of the circle, and even some male netizens said on the social platform: "I dream of buying an Euler for my daughter-in-law." ”
High-end with low-end, pure electricity combined with hybrid, this traditional car company's usual way of playing is improving the subdivision layout in the field of new energy for it, compared to the traditional car companies that push high-end while they can engage in hybridization, creating a new force that sells a new force has obviously suffered from "no accumulation".
At present, the number of models on sale by new car-making forces in the market is generally small, and even if there is a heart to release multiple new cars at the same time, it is more than enough and insufficient. The ideal car of "one-handed entry into the world" has been supported by an ideal ONE for many years, and even if the same model is launched in 2021, it is still gnawing at the old bottom.
The new forces with insufficient strength and difficult to subdivide are subject to the shackles of a single product, and the single product has also spawned a new chain reaction - product homogenization.
Zhou Lei, a commentator on the automotive industry, once said: "The new forces of car manufacturing generally do not have the ability to system, and it is bound to require a large number of mature solutions from suppliers, and the homogeneous market performance caused by them is almost expected." ”
Looking around the list of new forces models, SUV models have become mainstream, and they are frequently piled up in the positioning range of 300,000-500,000, so it is inevitable that there is a suspicion of convergence. In addition, when words such as "fast charging", "intelligent network connection", and "high-level assisted automatic driving" have become the necessary labels for new forces to sell cars, users' memory points about brands are gradually blurred due to the convergence between brands.
For the problem of product homogeneity, Zhang Fan, vice president of the GAC Research Institute, is also conscious: "In terms of rhythm, we must grasp the competitive situation, grasp the scale, and neither fall into the 'entanglement' of homogenization, nor can it be too innovative." ”
What is moderate rebranding? What is the right thing to do? New forces and traditional car companies are groping for answers on the unknown road.
In 2022, the variables are repeated
In the time of the outbreak of new energy vehicles, all car companies are gambling.
Looking back at the sales list in 2021, it is not difficult to find that "full progress" in today's new energy vehicle market has become the norm, and all of this is inseparable from the continuous heating up of the market environment.
China's new energy vehicle sales ranked first in the world for seven consecutive years, new energy vehicles are speeding faster than the industry expected, and the sales ceiling will continue to be refreshed. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's new energy vehicle sales are expected to exceed 5 million in 2022, an increase of 47% over the 3.4 million in 2021.
The prospects seem to be bright, and the "vibration" of the new energy market has also followed.
"In 2022, there will be many new car-making forces selling more than 100,000 vehicles," for the New Year, Shen Hui, founder of WM Motors, said: "These new energy car companies are not only competitors, but also allies, but also show that 2022 is a good opportunity for China's automotive industry to change lanes and overtake." ”
As Shen Hui said, there may be some variables in the new energy market in 2022, such as the tilt of the core of the competition, the era of single models as the center is gradually fading, and the construction of the ecosystem is becoming the focus of decisive victory.
The so-called ecosystem refers to providing integrated solutions for consumers. Zheng Gang, general manager of BAIC New Energy Automobile Company, explained this as follows: "The ecosystem of new energy vehicles covers the production and manufacturing fields, the consumption field and the consumer's life field, which is a collective term for the three major circles. ”
At the ecological level, traditional car companies can be said to have made sufficient efforts. In the "Electric Future" plan in 2017, BYD took the lead in proposing the ecological ideal of "covering the daily life scenarios of new energy vehicle users through the integration, exchange and reassembly of superior resources".
After that, the idea of building a new energy vehicle ecosystem continues to penetrate. Following Changan's official announcement of joining hands with Huawei, Ningde Times and other enterprises to jointly build an intelligent electric networked vehicle platform CHN, Great Wall also officially established a coffee intelligent ecological alliance built with more than 100 partners in June 2021.
In fact, the new forces often put the word "ecology" on their lips, but in terms of practice, they also need an accumulation process from quantitative change to qualitative change.
In addition, in 2022, there is also a news that makes "old bones" and "small fresh meat" feel urgent - the circle of new energy vehicles is almost full.
Wang Rongjin, a partner at Jinbang Investment, pointed out: "It is difficult to have new players enter the game (in 2022). ”
Although the truth of "eating meat early and drinking soup late" is well known in the circle, in 2021, there are still giants such as Xiaomi, Baidu, and 360 officially announcing cross-border car manufacturing, and new car brands such as light orange era and self-touring home have also squeezed into the market before the end of the year.
Active or passive, from the Lantu and Aian released in 2020 to the appearance of Avita and Extreme Krypton in 2021, the emergence of independent sub-brands all highlights the change heart of traditional car companies, when the electrification transformation has become the "military order" of traditional car companies, the counterattack battle against new forces is already on the string.
In 2022, all players are ready to watch a new round of competition between new forces and traditional car companies.
epilogue
"Tradition" is not an absolute derogatory term, although the old traditional car companies in the transformation is difficult to achieve immediate results, but the market volume and rich experience it has are incomparable to the new forces, in 2022 this key time node, some people change their lives against the sky, some people are eliminated, the new energy market is changing, and finally it is about to begin.