On the evening of February 14, Euler Automobile issued a temporary notice to dealers, asking dealers to stop accepting orders from Euler black and white cats from February 15, and clearly informing manufacturers that they no longer accept orders. In response to this matter, the relevant person in charge of the Euler brand responded: These two models have indeed been discontinued.
In addition, in response to the news that black cats and white cats have stopped production, Euler Automobile has also responded on Weibo: due to chip shortages, spare parts supply can not guarantee production and many other reasons, resulting in a large backlog of black and white cat models orders, the customer purchase cycle is too long, affecting the customer experience, in order to avoid trusting euler models of the car owners to bring more bad car buying feelings, manufacturers will coordinate internal resources to meet the existing order scheduling plan faster, to ensure that existing order customers pick up the car speed and car purchase interests.
Interestingly, in the automotive industry, "suspension" has two different meanings, and the "suspension" of Euler black cats and white cats may be a temporary suspension of production, or it may be a permanent suspension of production. Neither the person in charge of the Euler brand nor the Euler Weibo explained the definition of "discontinuation".
In Xiao Lei's view, whether it is a permanent cessation of production or a temporary cessation of production, the suspension of euler black cats and white cats will definitely have their own reasons. If we want to analyze the future fate of these two models without further official information, we must first find out the reasons for their discontinuation.
In order to hit the high end, the black and white cat must be discontinued
According to Euler Automobile on Weibo, the main reason for the suspension of production of black and white cats is "more order backlog, customer car purchase cycle is too long", but is this really the case? Little Ray thinks not. Euler's official sales data shows that the Euler brand sold 20,926 vehicles in December, an increase of 28.9% year-on-year.
At present, the Euler brand has a total of three models on sale, black cat, white cat and good cat, of which the sales of good cats are as high as 10685 vehicles, an increase of 333.4% year-on-year, and the sales volume of all models of the Euler brand accounts for 51.06%. Black cat sales were 8056 vehicles, accounting for 38.50% of sales. Euler white cat sales of 2185 vehicles, accounting for only 10.44% of sales. Obviously, Euler only relies on the good cat model to support half of the entire brand.
Source: Owner's Home
Usually, flagship models shoulder the task of supporting the brand image, while cheap models are the main models responsible for volume. However, the price range of Euler Good Cat is 103,900-143,900 yuan, but its sales have soared since its listing in December 2020, while the sales performance of black cats and white cats in the price range of 59,800-106,800 yuan has always been tepid.
From the perspective of sales, Euler Black Cat may also be due to too many backlogs of orders to lead to production, but the highest monthly sales of white cats last year were only 3011 vehicles, and the lowest sales volume was only 625 units in the month. Therefore, there is absolutely no possibility of white cats being forced to stop production due to order pressure.
In Xiao Lei's view, it is not so much that Euler stopped production of black cats and white cats because the customer purchase cycle is too long and does not want to affect the customer experience, but rather that the cost pressure caused Euler to be forced to stop the production of these two models. Previously, the sales of Euler's car had complained about the cost of Euler, saying that "the profits of black cats and white cats are too low, and the good cats will become the lowest-grade models in Euler."
Today, Euler's situation is summed up in a slang term by this salesman. According to Euler's 2022 product plan, the lowest-positioned black cat and white cat have been discontinued, and it will launch four new models this year, including ballet cat, lightning cat, punk cat and cherry cat.
Among them, the price range of ballet cats expected to be listed in March will be between 150,000 and 200,000 yuan, the lightning cat that is expected to be listed in the second quarter is expected to be priced at about 200,000 yuan, and the punk cat is the main market of more than 200,000 yuan.
From this point of view, Euler Automobile's suspension of black cats and white cats is not just to alleviate the pressure of orders, but to prepare for the high-end transformation of the brand. Euler automobile high-end is to make more money, and the black cat, white cat, two models that are originally difficult to make a profit, have become money-losing goods that are difficult to maintain costs in the context of subsidies.
After the subsidy declines, the black and white cat is no longer able to survive
As we all know, the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles in 2022 will decline by 30% on the basis of 2021. Among them, the subsidy for pure electric passenger cars with a cruising range between 300-400km has dropped to 9100 yuan; the subsidy for pure electric passenger cars over 400 kilometers has dropped to 12,600 yuan.
Interestingly, the long-endurance version of the Euler black cat and the white cat have a range of 401km and 405km respectively, and the minimum endurance version of the model has a range of 301km and 305km, respectively. It can be seen from the endurance of black cats and white cats that are just stuck on the subsidy standard that subsidies are crucial for these two cars.
On the other hand, this means that the 30% subsidy decline in 2022 will hit the cost of black cats and white cats quite fatally. In Xiao Lei's view, the subsidy decline has led to the further compression of the profit margins of black cats and white cats, which are not high profits, which is the fuse for the suspension of these two models.
The question is, since the subsidy decline has led to the forced suspension of black and white cats positioned at the low end, will the subsidy decline eliminate the entire low-end electric vehicle industry? In Xiao Lei's view, the suspension of black cats and white cats is only because it happens to be stuck in the subsidy line and is too dependent on subsidies.
Since it is a subsidy decline, then only black cats, white cats and other low-end electric vehicles that rely on subsidies to survive, such as Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, low-end electric vehicles that can not get subsidies at all will naturally not be affected, and Euler black cats, white cats, they earn new energy vehicle points, under the premise of cost control, each point is a profit.
It is worth mentioning that the credits of new energy vehicles are not exclusive to low-end new energy vehicles. This also means that Euler Motors can earn new energy vehicle points whether it sells black cats, white cats, or good cats. Since no matter which electric car you sell, you can earn points, so it is naturally more in euler's interest to sell a good cat with a higher positioning.
Black cats and white cats that are difficult to stop production and make profits, in addition to impacting the high-end market, in addition to helping to improve its profitability, can also free up more chip resources to make way for other "cats" that can make money. You know, the problem of chip shortage has affected the entire automotive industry, and almost all car companies are difficult to escape the spell of the chip crisis.
There is a shortage of chips, and Euler needs better cats
The data shows that as the global chip shortage continues to intensify, nearly 3 million cars have been shut down so far. In order to reduce the demand for chips, some car companies have even adopted this strategy of reducing allocation. BMW, for example, subtracts chipset-backed configurations such as digital keys, entertainment kits, wireless charging, and WiFi hotspots.
In Xiao Lei's view, compared with BMW's reduction of the demand for chips by reducing the symptoms and not the root causes, Euler directly discontinued the non-profitable models, and the chips originally used in black cats and white cats were used on higher profit models such as good cats.
The chip shortage in the automotive industry is different from the consumer electronics field, the latter lacking high-end chips based on 12-inch wafers, while the former lacking general-purpose chips based on 8-inch wafers. Although the 8-inch wafer is obsolete, the general-purpose chip built from it is an important part of the car.
In the era of electronically controlled cars, chips have long become the decision-making brain of cars and the nervous system throughout the car. The most basic driver assistance systems and navigation systems in cars require 50 to 150 chips and sensors to control. Among them, the ECU and ESP we know as well are built with the most scarce 8-inch wafers.
The root cause of the shortage of automotive chips is that 8-inch wafers are obsolete, and even fabs are not optimistic about chips of this size. Since the profitability of 8-inch wafers is far less than that of 12-inch wafers, and the equipment for producing 8-inch wafers has long been discontinued, many chip OEMs have stopped the production and sales of 8-inch wafers and switched to the production of 12-inch wafers.
In Xiao Lei's view, if car companies want to completely solve the dilemma of chip shortage, they must join hands with wafer manufacturers to launch a complete technological revolution, and such a revolution that can subvert the automotive chip industry is not an overnight thing. Before the revolution of automotive chips, blindly expanding the production of 8-inch wafers was only a palliative, not a cure for local drinking and thirst, and the problem of chip shortage could not be cured.
In the case that the problem of chip shortage cannot be cured in a short period of time, car companies can only choose to maximize the value of chips. For Euler Automobile, the difference in demand for black cats with a starting price of 59,800 yuan and a good cat with a starting price of 103,900 yuan is more reflected in high-end chips, and the demand for general-purpose chips with tight production capacity is almost the same.
However, there is a huge gap in profits between black cats and good cats. In order to free up chip shares for good cats that can make money, as well as ballet cats, lightning cats, and punk cats that will be mass-produced in the future. Therefore, the two models of black cat and white cat that may not have earned money must be discontinued, and before the chip production capacity is increased and the battery cost is reduced to a reasonable price, it is almost impossible for such loss-making models to resume production.
Note: The material for this article comes from the Internet