Recently, a piece of news about Xiaopeng's overseas store has attracted everyone's attention, and Xiaopeng Motors announced that it has reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the leading European distributors - Emil Frey NV Group in the Netherlands and Bilia Group in Sweden to promote the rapid introduction of Xiaopeng Motors into the local area.
This is Xiaopeng Motors' first direct-operated experience store in Europe, located in Stockholm, Sweden. At the same time, the new retail model of "direct operation + authorization" was introduced. And Xiaopeng has also set relevant targets, and 50% of future new car sales should come from overseas markets!
In fact, the official called the operation "Xiaopeng Go to Sea 2.0", after the Xiaopeng G3 had exported 100 and 209 vehicles to Norway in 2020 and 2021, respectively, and in October last year, the Xiaopeng P7 was officially launched in Norway, with a starting price of 439,900 NOK. With such an intensive layout of overseas markets, is Xiaopeng really ready? Will the European market accept these "Chinese faces"? Will friends follow suit?
Products ready for sea
Xiaopeng G9, a family flagship that has not yet been released, has done a lot of preparations for going to sea from the place of development, developed in accordance with the Chinese and EU vehicle dual certification standards, followed the C-NCAP and E-NCAP double five-star safety standards, and will also meet the strict EU WVTA full model type certification standards.
In the exterior part, the new car uses the latest family-style front face, split headlights and the lower through air intake, the overall look is quite technological. The body side lines are slender, in addition to the D-pillar shape, other design elements have been simplified a lot, hidden door handles and pneumatic wheels enhance the overall sense. In contrast, the design of the rear is much more restrained, just through the design of the through-type taillights to enhance the sense of technology of the rear. The shape of the lower part of the surrounding part echoes the front face, effectively increasing the layering of the rear of the car.
The most important thing is the equipment in terms of technology, Xiaopeng G9 is equipped with X-EEA 3.0 electronic and electrical architecture, based on this architecture, G9 can be equipped with a higher performance chip, support higher level of intelligent assisted driving and more powerful intelligent cockpit, which also makes Xiaopeng G9 the first production car to support XPILOT 4.0 intelligent auxiliary driving system.
In terms of power system, the Xpower 3.0 power system used by Xiaopeng G9 has all components in the 800V level. The Xiaopeng G9 will also become the first mass production car based on the 800V platform. The maximum charging power can reach 480kW, which can make the Xiaopeng G9 charge for 5 minutes and have a range of 200km.
At present, the official information about the Xiaopeng G9 is only that, and even the interior has not yet been confirmed, but the status of its family flagship is certain, and the strong body size to accommodate the 7-seat layout should not be a problem. Xiaopeng G9 is still the main technology, intelligence, in order to ensure the basic product strength at the same time, more perfect human interaction and higher level of assisted driving is the most expected, from the currently known scientific and technological equipment, the imagination space is indeed very large.
Whether it is the Chinese market or the European market, the intelligence of the car is a fresh and very differentiated theme, in the face of many traditional car brands, the advantage of the new forces lies in the ability to develop intelligence, the Internet from the scientific and technological talents in the intelligent car manufacturing has more say, but also compared to the traditional car companies have more advantages.
Current state of the European market
Norway is currently the country with the highest penetration and penetration of new energy models, and let's take a look at its performance in terms of new car sales in 2021. In 2021, The full year of electric vehicle sales in Norway was 113,751 units, an increase of 48%, and the market share was 64.5%,; the annual sales of hybrid models was 38,166 units, an increase of 32%, the market share was 21.7%, and the total sales volume of the whole year was 151,917, an increase of 44%, and the market share was 86.2%. This means that in 2021, Norwegian fuel vehicles will be marginalized to less than 14% of the market share. In individual months, the penetration rate of new energy models has exceeded 90%.
While it is not representative of the current state of the market in most European countries, it is enough to say that Europeans like electric vehicles as much as Chinese, and the actual numbers reflect this result. In 2021, 85% of all electric vehicles sold worldwide will be delivered to Chinese mainland and Europe, and the penetration rate of electric vehicles in the Chinese market is 15%, while Europe has reached 19%.
Let's take a look at who is the european favorite electric car, the best-selling pure electric model in Europe in 2021 is the Tesla Model 3, followed by the little guy Renault ZORE that cannot be seen in the Chinese market, and the Volkswagen ID.3/ID.4, which is performing better and better in the Chinese market, won the third and fourth places in Europe, which also made Volkswagen the champion brand of electric vehicle sales in Europe. Although Kia NIRO, Hyundai KONA, and Nissan LEAF have not yet been sold in China, the awareness of the Chinese people is relatively not low.
It can be said that the consumption enthusiasm of electric vehicles in Europe is still concentrated in small and medium-sized cars/SUVs, the price is relatively low, and the internal roll of the mileage does not seem to be as excessive as in the Chinese market. However, on the other hand, the product competitiveness of these models is not too outstanding highlights, the head of several models in the Chinese market performance is good, in addition, even if the introduction of the Chinese market may also be BYD, Aian and other brands "beaten".
It is important to note that there are not a few Chinese brand models that have "broken into" the European market, such as PoleStar 2 (14,720 units), MG ZS (11,821 units), MG MG5 (1,858 units), BYD Tang EV (1,069 units), AIWAYS U5 (555 units), MG MARVEL R (501 units), Xiaopeng G3 (438 units), NIO ES8 (200 units), BYD ETP3 (170 units), JAC IEV7S (100 vehicles), Xiaopeng P7 (40 vehicles), Xiaopeng P5 (8 vehicles), etc.
However, only the two brands of PoleStar and MG have a strong inherent recognition in Europe and have obtained relatively good sales figures, while other brands, as new faces, are only the beginning and have not yet reached the stage of focusing on sales.
What are the actions of friends?
Shortly before Xiaopeng opened its first European direct-operated store, NIO officially launched its first battery replacement station in Norway. The first OTA software update was also released in Norway (the first region outside of China). This is THE SECOND GENERATION OF WEILAI, LAUNCHED IN APRIL 2021, EQUIPPED WITH 14 BATTERY SLOTS, I.E. 13 BATTERY PACKS AND AN EMPTY SLOT.
In 2021, NIO House, the first overseas NIO center located on Karl Johann Straße, Oslo, Norway, also opened on October 1, and NIO exported brand concepts, management mechanisms, business models, etc. through direct operation. All the services that domestic users can enjoy, including energy replenishment, services, and after-sales systems, can also be enjoyed by Weilai car owners in Norway. To this end, NIO launched an exclusive Norwegian version of the NIO APP.
Combining shipping costs, local taxes and operating costs, the NIO ES8 is equipped with a standard battery pack (75kWh) starting at NOK 609,000. It is equipped with a long-endurance battery pack (100 kWh) and is priced at NOK 679,000. At the same time, NIO also brought the BaaS service with separate vehicle and electricity to Norway, and the specific plan was to reduce the price of the standard endurance version by NOK 90,000 and the monthly service fee by NOK 1399; the price of the long-endurance version was reduced by NOK 160,000 and the monthly service fee was NOK 1999.
In addition, as mentioned above, Aichi U5 sold 555 new cars in Europe last year, although the brand's performance in the domestic market is not good, and there is a certain gap with the new forces of second-tier car manufacturing such as Nezha and Weima, but the brand's overseas strategy is the earliest formulation, the brand was established at the beginning of the establishment of the domestic and overseas double strategy, and at the same time in 2020, it has won the order of 500 vehicles in the European Union.
On February 17, the new energy "national team" Lantu Automobile also announced its entry into the European market, the first stop landed in Norway, and it is expected that the delivery time of new cars will be in the fourth quarter of this year. In June 2022, LandoFRE will make its debut in Norway, and the first Landu Overseas Flagship Store will open in the heart of Oslo, the capital of Norway.
In addition, we need to remind everyone that BYD and MG will be two very potential players, the reasons are not the same, BYD brand as an "international supplier", in terms of brand awareness, at the same time, BYD's pure electric bus has also been exported many times, experience will not be bad. The MG brand originated in Europe and has an innate advantage in brand recognition, which has been reflected in the objective results, and the MG ZS EV sold a total of 11,821 vehicles in Europe last year.
Summary: In the matter of going to sea, the new forces seem to have shown collective enthusiasm, and invariably went to the European market, in addition to the reasons of market preferences, it is also because Chinese brands have gone far enough on the road of electrification, supplemented by the intelligent process, even for traditional car companies, there are not too many advantages. To be sure, this is just the beginning, opening the door to the European market and requiring more Chinese brands to participate.