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Author | dawn
Edit | Wei Jia
The vigorous car-making movement shows no signs of slowing down in the new year.
In the past month, Sony officially announced the car, the official map of The founder of Maverick Electric, Li Yinan, released the official map of the car, the Mercedes-Benz EQS, which cost more than 1 million yuan, began to be delivered, and even Evergrande Automobile's Hengchi 5 was taken off the production line from the factory.
There are many more companies that have announced car manufacturing than electric vehicle brands running on the road.
And in the coming months, there will be several important things to do. For example, Weilai ET7 is finally about to start delivery, Tesla's Berlin factory is about to start production, the ningde era of power exchange business is going to land, and the electric vehicles of some car companies are about to increase in price.
Building a car is really a day.
This may be the best era for companies that have entered the market to build cars, but it is also the era of the fastest change. One thing is certain, in 2022, the automotive industry is still in a state of great change. Moreover, the way to build cars has changed.
To spend more money, "no 40 billion may not be able to do"
Car building is an industry with a high financial threshold, and this threshold is getting higher and higher.
"Don't build a car without 20 billion", This sentence of Weilai founder Li Bin a few years ago dissuaded many entrepreneurs. Now, Li Bin has changed his mouth, raised the chips upwards, said that "there may not be 40 billion yuan without it", and then added a sentence, "I think the threshold of the automotive industry is much higher than we thought."
It's not just Li Bin who thinks so. Half a year ago, He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile, said that it is about 20 billion yuan to build cars from 0 to 1, and it will definitely exceed 30 billion yuan from 1 to 100. Now Xiaopeng is in the stage from 1 to 100.
Three years ago, He Xiaopeng also said another sentence, "The difficulty of building a car is really more than ten times higher than that of Internet entrepreneurship, I think it is a hundred times higher, it needs a lot of money, and it is impossible to survive by raising 5 billion yuan a year." ”
In 2021, the new car-making forces that have raised more than 5 billion yuan in the primary market have only zero running and Nezha, who are collectively known as the second echelon. There are also some new brands that want to raise funds, but there is no sensational action. And the newly established and financing of new car-making forces are even fewer.
Many investors in the deep way contact have said that they do not look at new car-making projects now, because "the overall situation has been determined".
Moreover, this threshold has been further raised because of the entry of technology giants.
When Xiaomi officially announced the car in March 2021, the "entrance fee" was 10 billion yuan, and it would spend 10 billion US dollars (about 65.6 billion yuan) in the next 10 years. A month later, Xia Yiping, CEO of Baidu's car-making project Jidu Automobile, said that Jidu would invest 50 billion yuan in the next five years to build cars. Before the Spring Festival in 2022, Jidu announced the completion of nearly $400 million in Series A financing.
Giants are not bad for money, dare to spend money. For them, since they are already a few beats slower than the new forces in terms of speed, they will exchange money for time and use money to smash out barriers.
Research and development, service system, infrastructure, team building and other aspects have become higher thresholds due to continuous and huge capital investment. The most typical is that last year, the new car industry set off a vigorous robbery war, some car companies hired headhunters with high salaries to dig people, car-related talents became scarce, and the corresponding salary and treatment also rose, which pushed up the employment cost of the entire industry.
In the past, the new forces dug people from traditional car companies, and now cross-border technology giants are digging people to "Wei Xiaoli" and robbing people from the entire technology circle. Without enough capital reserves, you can't grab excellent talents.
"It's not that there is no chance [for 40 billion yuan], but the risk will be much higher." Li Bin said.
Fu Jixun, global managing partner of GGV Jiyuan Capital, believes that the survival of too small car companies will be more difficult, because the investment in research and development on smart cars is very large, which means that it must be scaled up to each car to be effective.
The production cycle is shortening, and new models are getting faster and faster
Another change in the industry is that with the advancement of technology, the production speed of vehicles and the speed of introducing new models have increased significantly.
Fuel vehicles are usually five years of major changes, micro-upgrades every year, and electric vehicles are one to two years on the big changes, "Wei Xiaoli" these new forces, now even can launch a new model every year, software level upgrades are based on the day as a unit.
In 2021, Xiaopeng changed the old G3 to G3i, and the new models P7 and P5 began to be delivered at the same time in this year, and another new model G9 was released. Ideal ONE also underwent a facelift during the year.
Five years ago, the fuel car has not changed much from today's car, but yesterday's electric car may be completely two species compared with today. It is precisely because of this that many electric vehicle owners have just gotten the car, and the more mature new models are listed, and then "the leeks are cut".
The car supply chain is also accelerating its upgrade. Car companies and suppliers have tried everything to simplify the process of car manufacturing, reduce costs, and shorten the production cycle.
Previously, Volkswagen Group CEO Diess saw at the Berlin factory that a production line of Tesla is expected to produce only 10 hours per vehicle, and he went back to the task inside Volkswagen, asking to shorten the production time to 10 hours like Tesla, and the assembly time of the main model of the Volkswagen factory, golf and Tiguan, is currently more than 20 hours.
Tesla's one-piece die-cast body is a disruptive application. It changes the "stamping and welding total" process of traditional car manufacturing, and the original assembly of stamping and welding parts is die-cast at one time, thereby reducing 79 parts. The time of a die-casting process is only 80-90 seconds, and 40-45 castings can be completed per hour, so the manufacturing cost is reduced by 40%. This process is currently used in the production of Model Y. In the future, Tesla may even achieve a one-time die-cast molding of the body-in-white, thus completely eliminating the assembly line. The assembly line invented by Ford was about to be challenged by Tesla.
In 2022, more car companies will adopt the integrated casting process. The new model ET5 released by Weilai has already mentioned the one-piece casting process in the product introduction, and Xiaopeng executives attended the signing ceremony of a one-piece die casting machine company before the Spring Festival this year. Xiaopeng is expected to become the first brand among the new forces to use the ultra-large integrated die casting process.
Bigger changes occur in the car chassis, such as the recently very hot skateboard chassis, the motor, battery, electronic control, steering, braking, suspension and other systems, all integrated on the chassis, the main engine factory only needs to do the body part of the top, and can arbitrarily adjust the space layout.
Foreign companies such as Rivian, Canoo, PIX Robobus, and REE have bet on skateboard chassis, reducing the vehicle development time from 0 to 1 to less than 1 year. The domestic Yo-Pao Technology released the "UP Super Chassis", claiming that it can reduce the cost by 60%, and it may only take 100 million US dollars of funds and 1 year in the future to build a smart electric vehicle.
Autonomous driving iterations are accelerated, and more new features are unlocked
The hottest and fastest iteration of technology in the next year may be autonomous driving.
Tesla, Wei Xiaoli, as well as new car-making forces such as Weima and Zero Run, all take intelligence as one of the core selling points, and the intelligent gripper is automatic driving.
In 2021, Tesla will vigorously promote the 32,000 yuan EAP (Enhanced Automatic Assisted Driving Function) in China, including adaptive cruise, lane keeping, automatic assisted navigation driving, automatic assisted lane change, automatic parking, intelligent summoning and other functions.
However, after the in-depth experience, Shentu found that Tesla's EAP technology is not mature in China. For example, automatic parking, the parking space recognition rate is low, and the probability of successfully and accurately parking in the parking space is also very low. The intelligent summoning function is even more chicken ribs, basically do not "know the road", some obstacles can not be recognized, the most practical is to use mobile phone remote control vehicles to enter and exit the parking space.
In 2022, as Tesla continues to "self-learn", these technologies should be greatly improved. In addition, the FSD (fully autonomous driving) priced at 64,000 yuan may be able to truly land some functions.
Source / Visual China
In some specific scenarios of automatic assisted driving, China's new forces have the opportunity to overtake in curves.
For example, automatic parking. This technology has been relatively mature for car companies such as Xiaopeng and Weima, surpassing Tesla. Shentu has previously experienced Xiaopeng P7 in depth, and the automatic parking success rate and accuracy rate in the garage and parking spaces are very high, and it can achieve memory parking. WM W6 takes the unmanned autonomous parking system as the biggest selling point, claiming to be the first landing of the L4 driverless car in the parking scene.
Last year, the first production model equipped with lidar, the Xiaopeng P5, has begun to be delivered, the Same Lidar-equipped WEILAI ET7 will soon begin to be delivered, and the M7, a high-end model of WM, will also be equipped with LiDAR. In 2022, it is foreseeable that more models equipped with lidar will be launched.
"Lidar will become an option for some car companies to differentiate their layout and higher-end intelligent driving layout." Zhou Shengyan, founder of Smart Driving Technology MAXIEYE, told Shentu.
More automatic driving assistance functions are gradually unlocked, such as Xiaopeng is gradually opening up the city NGP (Intelligent Navigation Assisted Driving).
Zhou Shengyan believes that the integrated high-low speed integrated solution of the berth, as well as the advanced intelligent solution such as pilot assisted driving, will be implemented on a larger scale in 2022. In addition, he believes that he can expect more in the driving scene and experience.
"For example, in challenging curves, ramps, tunnel scenes, lane lines are not clear or no lane lines, the system remains stable, reduce takeovers, etc. are all problems that the industry needs to solve." He said that in addition, from the perspective of the layout of the technology chain, some car companies will choose to invest more resources in the definition of differentiated functions of the integrated control end and the application layer.
Suppliers and OEMs, the "soul" battle is more intense
Automakers and suppliers, who will control the "soul", has set off a fierce discussion in 2021. Behind the "soul debate" of saic motor chairman is that automakers have begun to increase their vigilance against suppliers.
Suppliers are increasing their penetration into the car-making industry chain, such as autonomous driving technology.
Huawei has mastered key technologies such as autonomous driving and intelligent cockpits, and has accelerated "getting on the bus" through cooperation with car companies. It is also launching new models with OEMs such as Xiaokang. These two technologies are believed by CICC to become the main battlefield for automakers to compete for differentiation and the main way to create core competitive advantages.
Whether Huawei is a partner or an enemy is difficult to conclude. For ambitious automakers, whether to use Huawei's system directly and hand over the "soul", or to spend money on self-research and master the "soul" is a choice. And then, they have to make a choice.
Zhou Shengyan believes that the possibility of car companies to fully independently develop auxiliary driving systems is still relatively small, but the full external procurement will also be relatively small. "We believe that in the future, the industry will tend to be more cooperative and co-creation."
A similar situation also occurs in the field of power batteries.
Power batteries are the heart of smart cars. CATL is China's largest power battery manufacturer, but the production capacity is limited, and many car companies not only have to grab orders when purchasing, but also pay a deposit in advance. There are rumors that He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, did not hesitate to go to the front line of the Ningde Times Factory for a week in order to get the goods.
With the growing wings of the new car-making forces and the acceleration of the transformation of traditional car companies, they began to look for alternatives. There have been rumors in the industry that Xiaopeng Motors wants to introduce new battery suppliers to replace the supply of the Ningde era. Gac New Energy Vehicles has replaced the Ningde era with China New Aviation last year.
While binding with these core suppliers, car companies are deliberately keeping a distance and seeking more voice.
In mid-January, CATL suddenly announced its entry into the field of power exchange, launching the power exchange brand EVOGO, which is aimed at all car companies. The world's largest battery factory is not willing to be only a battery manufacturer. If the car company wants to join the replacement power station of the Ningde era, it must follow the battery standard it formulated, so that the voice of the Ningde era in the entire automotive industry chain will be further improved.
Ding Rui, founder and chairman of Zhichong Technology, told Shentu, "Car companies are definitely not willing to accept binding, and no one wants to become a company that only makes shells." More realistically, whether it is a battery or an energy company, it is actually a supplier of car companies, and the hard bundling relationship will not be established. ”
Whether it is active bundling or passive bundling, the evolution of the relationship between car companies and suppliers will be an important theme next.
The second wave of listings began, and more new forces challenged "Wei Xiaoli"
Another trend in 2022 is that the new car-making forces have once again opened a wave of listing, this time the protagonists are Weima, Zero Run, Nezha, and Gaohe.
All four companies have previously reported that they are preparing for IPOs. At present, the fastest progress is Zero Run, and on January 26, the CSRC disclosed that it has received the approval materials for zero Run Technology's overseas initial public offering. An investor who is close to zero running confirmed to Shenzhen That Zero Is preparing for an IPO and is expected to land in Hong Kong stocks in 2022.
In addition, the industry has been waiting for more progress from WM, which had planned to be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, but later suspended. The last to hear the IPO was from Gaohe Motors, the company behind Gaohe called Huaren Express, which was reported in late January that Huaren Express was considering a $500 million Hong Kong IPO and was working with UBS and Morgan Stanley on the IPO.
At present, at least one new force will be successfully listed in 2022.
In the context of the cold Chinese stock market, the number of Overseas Listings of Chinese companies has decreased significantly, and the tide of listings by new car-making forces is particularly dazzling.
If these four new forces are successfully listed, they will have an impact on China's car-making pattern.
The "Wei Xiaoli" that has been listed is known as a first echelon in the industry, Weima, Zero Run, Nezha is the second echelon, and Gaohe has another way to fight the luxury car market. Wei Xiaoli started early, listed early, the brand voice is high, in the past has been firmly in the leading position, the second echelon is weaker in all aspects.
However, with the launch of new models of the second echelon, the company has obtained more financing, and then landed in the capital market to replenish capital ammunition, and the gap between them and the first echelon is gradually narrowing. The most obvious is sales, Nezha Automobile's monthly sales of new cars surpassed WEILAI for the first time in August last year, ranking among the top three new forces, and surpassed Weilai and Ideal in September and October, ranking second. Judging from the single indicator of monthly sales, the second echelon has launched a strong challenge to Wei Xiaoli.
In the luxury electric vehicle market of more than 500,000 yuan, Gaohe sold 919 vehicles in December last year, not only surpassing Tesla and BBA, but also surpassing Porsche, becoming the top seller in the second half of the year. In the past, WEILAI was considered the most expensive of the new forces to sell, and now Gaohe is not only more expensive, but also sells more.
After the second wave of listing tide, the financial strength and brand voice of the players in the second echelon will be greatly enhanced, which is a rush race, which will happen in 2022.
Subsidies receded, and fuel vehicles started a street battle head-on
Another big change this year is that the subsidy for new energy vehicles has receded.
According to the latest policy, the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles in 2022 will be reduced by 30% on the basis of 2021, and will be completely withdrawn by the end of 2022. In 2023, there will be no more state subsidies for the purchase of new energy vehicles.
The reduction of subsidies and the rise in the price of raw materials have the most direct impact on the price increase of new cars.
Since the beginning of this year, BYD's major models, Xiaopeng P7, Tesla Model 3, and even Wuling NanoEV have announced price increases.
In the past, the cost of new energy vehicles has remained high, relying on state subsidies to barely compete with fuel vehicles in price. Now that the state has abolished subsidies, if car companies still want to maintain the previous price, they can only bear the cost of subsidies for the time being.
New energy vehicles are in a critical stage of fighting head-on with fuel vehicles. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles reached 19.1% in December 2021, of which new energy passenger cars reached 20.6%, a record high. In the future, this data will continue to rise, and the upward process is the process of head-on competition between new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles.
Of course, there are many weapons that can be used in new energy models. In addition to price, self-driving technology, smart cockpits, and more user-friendly services are all its strengths. Even in terms of price, the price of new cars will continue to decline in the long run.
Because the scale effect of the car industry chain will increase, the cost will be reduced. For example, the power battery, which occupies the maximum cost of electric vehicles, the price has been falling. Zeng Yuqun, founder of CATL, expects that by 2025, the price of batteries will drop to $100 (about 647 yuan) /KWh, when the initial purchase cost of unsubsidized electric vehicles will be comparable to that of fuel vehicles.
Through the construction of factories in China and the localization of parts, the Tesla Model 3 has reduced the price to less than 300,000. Xiaopeng's new world-produced LiDAR model P5, launched last year, has lowered the price to the main range of 160,000 yuan, which is the most competitive price band for fuel vehicles in the past.
In addition, the hybrid model will start in 2022. BYD is the most thorough electrification transformation among traditional car companies, and since the second half of last year, hybrid models have accounted for half of the new energy vehicles it has sold. Not only BYD is grabbing this cake, Geely, Great Wall, Chery and other car companies have launched their own hybrid systems, and some of the corresponding hybrid models will be listed in 2022.
As for pure electric vehicles, there are some new cars worth looking forward to in 2022, such as the upcoming delivery of the NIO ET7, the ideal first pure tram X01 (code name), xiaopeng G9, great wall mech dragon and Hongguang MINIEV convertible version.
The above six changes will continue to occur in 2022, and if you seize these changes, you may be able to seize the opportunity of this golden track.
*The caption and the middle of the text are from unsplash.