Is the car market entering the seller's market and adding $10,000 to the value?
Text/Shanshan Xu
Tesla's Berlin factory is about to start production, and the model Y's production capacity in the first half of the year is almost a foregone conclusion. Other U.S. automakers have earlier announced "brutal" expansion plans for the electric vehicle market. Among them, volkswagen passenger car brands said that by 2023, they will be able to produce 1 million electric vehicles in China; Ford plans to increase global electric vehicle production capacity to 600,000 units in the same year, doubling from expectations.
The frequent expansion of production by global electric vehicle manufacturers has highlighted the imbalance between supply and demand in the car market at the stage of emergence. It is reported that tesla Model 3 basic model in the European market is facing short supply, and the delivery time is extended by at least nine months to November 2022.
It is worth noting that this phenomenon has become common and common in the U.S. auto market.
The car market is completely insane...
According to the Washington Post, from the outbreak of the epidemic to the present, the auto market has shifted from one extreme to the other.
At the beginning of the epidemic, many models fell into the dilemma of no one, and car manufacturers have cut production and reduced operating rates; in the later stage, factors such as the home economy and isolation policies have triggered the demand for the automobile market, but the speed of response and chip supply progress of car manufacturers have not been expected, resulting in more and more common car purchases.
And now, things seem to be getting more and more outrageous.
According to a set of data from the US auto trading website Edmunds, in January this year, more than 80% of U.S. car owners bought a car above the guidance price level. This compares to 2.8 percent in the same month last year and only 0.3 percent in the same period in 2020.
Although the price increase of hot-selling models and the addition of configurations to pick up cars are an unspoken rule of the industry, more than 80% of the proportion means that consumers basically have to pay additional fees to buy new cars, and it is doubtful whether the willingness to buy a car will be affected by this.
As can be seen from the following data, the price increase of the compact sedan produced by Hyundai in South Korea is close to 19,000 US dollars, and the price increase is more than 10,000 yuan, as well as porsche and Honda models, and other Japanese brands such as Toyota and Nissan also rank at the top.
This is not only the case in the new car market, but also in the US used car market. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average price in the used car market rose by 40% in January compared to the same period last year.
Some local car buyers in the United States say they may even pay an additional price of up to $10,000 or more for the hot-selling electric and hybrid cars.
If it were not for the epidemic situation, the fare increase would be more considered a "hunger marketing" means, but at present, this has obviously become a "one-man show" for dealers.
General Motors and Ford recently denounced dealers who ignored the guidance price and warned that if dealers do not immediately correct the wrong behavior, the inventory quota will be reconsidered next.
Dealer retail model in crisis?
Is the car supply insufficient or is the dealer retail model no longer applicable?
For dealers, when there are fewer models available for sale or demand is too strong, it is a good time to raise prices and increase revenue, but from the perspective of a car brand, the continuous price scuffle of dealers is not conducive to or may even damage the brand reputation. Especially for car companies that are eager to increase the production capacity and sales of electric vehicles, the impact of this aspect is more prominent.
With the development of the new energy track becoming increasingly hot, the direct retail model that Tesla adheres to is being adopted by more and more new car-making forces.
Image source: Weilai Automobile's official website
Including Weilai, Xiaopeng, Nezha Automobile, etc., they are constantly developing their own brand direct stores, but the sales models of these brands are also slightly different.
For example, WEILAI Automobile currently adopts the "official website + APP" fully self-operated booking sales model, while Xiaopeng Automobile adopts the model of "2S +2S, direct operation + authorization, online + offline" for multi-channel sales.
With the current market volume, the direct retail model is becoming more and more common, but with the continuous improvement of the productivity of car manufacturers and the gradual improvement of the market's acceptance of electric vehicles, it is still debatable whether the above direct sales model will be more durable than the traditional 4S store retail model.
What is clear is that traditional automakers are waiting to see this development model. In the context of increasing live broadcast and online sales weights, perhaps the old car companies with abundant cash flow are also waiting for an opportunity to overthrow the old system and completely solve the brand price chaos.
When traditional car companies and new car-making forces confront each other, the change in retail model may also produce a more profound result. At least now, the contradictions about the retail model have begun to emerge.