Written by | dawn
The source | deep
Wei Xiaoli's February sales came later than usual, and they were also less.
On March 1, until the afternoon when Hong Kong stocks closed, Weilai, Ideal, and Xiaopeng concentrated at this time and released the February report card - Weilai 6131 units, Xiaopeng 6225 units, ideal 8414 units.
This performance is an increase from February last year, but it is a big decline from the previous month. Xiaopeng, in particular, fell 52% month-on-month from January, and in December last year, Xiaopeng just set a monthly delivery record of 16,000 units. Weilai has continued the downward trend in the past 4 months and continued to be at the bottom.
Of course, this is not because there is any big problem in the operation of these three companies. The first quarter was originally the off-season for automobile sales, and there was also a Spring Festival holiday in February, and the impact of the decline in subsidies for new energy vehicles in 2022 really began to play a role in February. Coupled with the lack of cells and batteries, production capacity can not keep up, the decline in delivery in February can be understood.
It is worth studying the change in the ranking of Wei Xiaoli's delivery volume. Why is the ideal to win the first place? Can Weilai return to the boss position? How long can Xiaopeng's potential energy last?
NIO urgently needs new models to "save the field"
Over the past six months, looking at monthly deliveries alone, Weilai has been "overtaking". First in July 2021, it was first surpassed by Xiaopeng, and then in August, it was surpassed by the ideal. For four consecutive months from November, Xiaopeng and his ideal results were better than Weilai's.
Of course, there are reasons for the pricing of the model, and there are also reasons why Xiaopeng and the ideal are stronger, but more is the reason for Weilai itself.
Nio has delivered three models - ES8, ES6, EC6, ES8 has been sold since 2018, and the youngest EC6 will be sold before 2021. In the past two years, NIO has not delivered new models.
The hardware configuration of these three models is not bad, can meet the needs of OTAs, and also realize the NOP pilot assistance function, but it is certainly not the most advanced.
Taking the automatic driving function as an example, the ES8, ES6, and EC6 are all based on Nio NT1.0, equipped with mobile EyeQ4 chips, which are slightly insufficient in scenarios such as up and down high-speed ramps, automatic lane changes, and automatic parking. The computing power of the Mobileye EyeQ4 chip is 2.5 TOPS, while the Nvidia Xavier chip equipped with xiaopeng P7 has a computing power of 30 TOPS, and the "Horizon Journey 3" chip equipped with the ideal ONE in 2021 also has 5TOPS.
And more critically, most of the models have switched or are switching from the Mobileye platform to NVIDIA, and it is difficult to maintain long-term competitiveness based on the "old three" of the Mobileye architecture.
WEILAI urgently needs new models to "save the field".
Many car owners are waiting for it – the FLAGSHIP CAR ET7, built on the NIO NT2.0 technology platform, is full of hardware and has more powerful features, which was released more than a year ago and is finally due to be delivered on March 28. For NIO, February is a transition between the old and new models. The delivery of ET7 may be able to reverse the unfavorable situation of Weilai to a certain extent.
There is also a new model ET5, which is also based on the NIO NT2.0 platform but has a cheaper price, has opened pre-sales and will begin delivery in the second half of the year. This car will be a good choice for many car owners who value value for money.
In addition, NIO also has a new SUV model on the road, positioned between the NIO ES8 and NIO ES6, and the ES7 of the BMW X5L will also begin to be delivered in the second half of the year.
Compared with the old three, these three cars have great upgrades in software and hardware, and their delivery will bring a new wave of increments to Weilai, determining Weilai's next report card. But before that, Weilai will have to hold out a little longer.
Production capacity began to become a headache for Xiaopeng
XiaoPeng, who loves to do things, has never lacked news, and it seems that there is no shortage of orders.
Just recently, many car owners have launched collective rights protection. They booked Xiaopeng P5 last year, waited for many months, Xiaopeng dragged on and could not hand over the car.
The P5 is a new model that Xiaopeng began to deliver last year, and the biggest highlight is the installation of lidar, which is said to be the world's first mass production. This wave of lack of production capacity, the main lack is equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries on the cheap model. Battery supply is tight and prices have been rising, limiting the delivery of the Xiaopeng P5. In February, only 2059 units were delivered, compared to 4029 units in January.
In addition, the factory renovation has also delayed the delivery of Xiaopeng's new car to a certain extent. During the Spring Festival holiday from the end of January to February, Xiaopeng carried out a technical transformation of the Zhaoqing base, and production resumed in mid-February. With the completed renovation of the factory put into use, Xiaopeng's deliveries are expected to return to normal levels in March.
Xiaopeng was the annual sales crown of the new forces last year, and the sales explosion was concentrated in the second half of last year. Since the first delivery of more than 10,000 yuan in September last year, the delivery volume has been more than 10,000 for five consecutive months, of which 4 months are ahead of Weilai and Ideal, but it only fell again in February this year.
Source / Xiaopeng Automobile official website
In the second half of last year, in the wave of serious lack of cores, Xiaopeng was not as seriously affected as Ideal and Weilai, but finally in February this year, it was affected by the supply chain.
This wave of potential energy of Xiaopeng is brought up by the two new cars of P7 and P5. The two cars are equipped with NVIDIA Xavier chips, which temporarily lead in automatic driver assistance functions. Xiaopeng's automatic parking function is currently the best experience among the new forces, and has achieved high-speed NGP pilot auxiliary function, and is expected to take the lead in officially landing urban NGP this year.
These elements with strong intelligent labels have added a fire to Xiaopeng's sales and raised user expectations. Although the delivery volume in February was not satisfactory, Xiaopeng's growth momentum continued. However, xiaopeng may need to pay more attention to the supply chain and production capacity. In the process of delivering from 10,000 to 20,000 a month, Xiaopeng still has a lot of homework to do.
Ideals need to make up for the shortcomings of intelligence
Ideal won the "Wei Xiaoli" delivery championship in February, and opened up a gap of more than 2,000 units with Weilai and Xiaopeng. This is the ideal third time to finish first, the first two being in July and August last year.
Unlike Weilai and Xiaopeng, the ideal has only one car - the ideal ONE. If you talk about bicycle sales, ideals have ranked ahead of Weilai and Xiaopeng for most of the past.
Ideal's sales explosion began in June last year, when there was a node - Ideal ONE underwent a mid-term overhaul in May, releasing the 2021 Ideal ONE. In addition to the upgrade of the autopilot chip, Ideal also added 4 millimeter wave radars, and then increased the price by 10,000 yuan.
The revamp boosted sales, but it also led to capacity constraints in September last year – a shortage of millimeter-wave radars. Later, the ideal survived through allocation reduction and delayed delivery, and the delivery volume returned to the right track. Judging from the February data, the ideal supply chain problem has been solved to a certain extent.
Source / Ideal Car Official Micro
Ideal ONE doesn't seem to be short of orders either. At the end of last year, Ideal founder Li wanted to say that at that time, consumers needed to wait 8 weeks to pick up the car, and Ideal did not need to carry out promotions. According to the 2021 financial report data released by the ideal, Shentu calculates that at the end of 2021, the ideal undelivered orders are 2052 units.
Shen Yanan, co-founder of Ideal Auto, said that the ideal factory could produce 14,000 cars per month a year, and the monthly output of the next year will exceed 15,000 units. In this way, the ideal monthly delivery in the short term should be guaranteed, so in February, the ideal delivery volume is the least declining in Wei Xiaoli.
Now the ideal is making efforts to be intelligent, trying to make up for the technical shortcomings of the past. In December last year, Ideal pushed OTA 3.0 to car owners, and the 2021 Ideal ONE realized Navigation Assisted Driving (NOA) and Visual Fusion Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB). Although it was a beat later than Weilai and Xiaopeng, it was not absent.
The Ideal X01, which will be released in the second quarter and delivered in the third quarter, is the ideal next-generation model. This car will be one level higher than the ideal ONE in terms of intelligence, and it will also be a new engine to drive ideal sales.
However, in the next few months, Ideal still has to rely on the ideal ONE car to fight with Weilai and Xiaopeng. In the short term, the delivery volume is determined by the order and capacity.
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