Lead
Introduction
Is it honey, or arsenic? Only you know.
Author 丨 Cui Liwen
Responsible editor 丨 Cui Liwen
Editor 丨Zhu Jinbin
In 2021, the blooming speed of China's new energy market will far exceed expectations.
According to the final data released by the Federation of Passenger Vehicles, the wholesale number of new energy passenger vehicles from January to December was 3.312 million units, an increase of 181.0% year-on-year, and the retail sales of new energy vehicles from January to December were 2.989 million units, an increase of 169.1% year-on-year.
At the same time, the wholesale penetration rate of new energy vehicle manufacturers reached 15.7% from January to December, and the domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles reached 14.8% from January to December, which was significantly higher than the penetration rate of 5.8% in 2020.
There is no doubt that with the blessing of such an excellent report card, and the endorsement of high growth rate, people can't help but start to look forward to and reverie, and in the 2022 that has arrived, China's new energy market will reach an unprecedented new height.
Target of 5 million units in total retail sales? Retail penetration crosses the 20% mark?
Of course, as an industry insight, you need to look deeper. In the past year, the rapid expansion of the entire Chinese new energy market and the outbreak of the pure electric car sector are one of the biggest incentives.
In the last December alone, for example, the wholesale sales of pure electric vehicles reached 423,000 units. Among them, the wholesale sales of A00-class were 139,000 units, accounting for 33% of the total share of pure electric vehicles; the wholesale sales of A0-class were 60,000 units, and the share also reached 14%.
The two add up, occupying almost half of the country.
Looking at the list of monthly segmented models, the top position is still firmly occupied by Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, and the total sales of this model in the whole year reached a staggering 395,451 units.
Behind it, it is followed by Chery eQ, Changan BenBEN EV, Euler Black Cat, Zero Run T03, Sihao E10X and even Reading Mango and many other similar products.
A collective carnival of their own, slowly opened the curtain. It will even bring an inexplicable illusion, "No matter who it is, no matter what kind of origin, whether there is brand power as a support, as long as a reasonable pure electric car is launched, it can be sold." ”
But the truth, is that really the case? Behind the slightly flashy, what "bubbles" are hidden?
Good, yes, yes
In July last year, in an interview session after the Zero Run 2.0 strategy conference, Zhu Jiangming was asked why he did not choose to be like several other new forces to build cars, adopting a development method of holding high and cutting from the SUV market segment.
He said frankly: "Do A00 market investment will be a little less, you want to sell even more than 200,000 cars, first of all need to get all the user's trust and recognition of you, T03 hot sale, to some extent, played such a role." ”
The implication is that in order to survive, in order to stand firm first, it is necessary to make trade-offs and exchange them for greater returns at the lowest possible cost.
Similarly, at the Guangzhou Auto Show held in November last year, when he was also interviewed, Daniel Zhang talked about Nezha's mental journey along the way, and also admitted: "If we had just started to go high-end, not to the mass market, and cut in with pure electric cars, I think the company would have gone out of business a long time ago." ”
Indeed, putting aside the flashiness, for new entrants, surviving is the most important thing. Amplifying the perspective again, the two very similar answers have been able to prove the "outlet" of the subdivision plate, and the real existence.
In contrast, the traditional independent brands represented by Wuling, Chery, Chang'an, and the Great Wall have launched A00-level related products, and the reasons are more concentrated in two aspects.
First, when the wave of electrification transformation rushes in, it is necessary to make an effective follow-up, but due to its own technology accumulation and strategic rhythm, it is not possible to go all out in the high-end market, and can only use this way to achieve an effective "transition".
Second, the country's regulations on emissions and double credits in the automotive industry are becoming more and more stringent, and in order to share the pressure generated by their traditional fuel vehicle business, they must continue to move. In this process, you can also harvest a certain amount of sound and dividends.
Seeing this, it can be said that for brands of different natures, the meaning of pure electric cars is different. Reflected in the terminal, after the development of the past year, it is obvious that such products can be found, and the main hot selling areas are still concentrated in many first-tier limited license cities, as well as third- and fourth-tier cities and counties.
However, combined with last year, Shanghai began to suspend the issuance of AO-level new energy licenses, as well as visits to terminal stores to learn about the situation, coupled with the momentum of continuous consumption upgrading of car buyers, the demand for pure electric cars in first-tier cities, especially in super-first-tier cities, has actually begun to shrink.
In sharp contrast, the third- and fourth-tier cities and counties that flooded the "old man's music" in the past have achieved a good upgrade under this wave of A00-level onslaught.
Thanks to the increasing prosperity of the market segment and the healthy competition between various car companies, township users are benefiting, and these products are gradually replacing low-speed electric vehicles with great safety risks.
More importantly, policymakers at the national level are also seeing this phenomenon. After the opening of the new round of "cars going to the countryside", the main target is precisely pure electric cars.
And this, may be the biggest good news that belongs to this group.
The environment is deteriorating
Not long ago, the latest issue of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's new car catalog was officially announced, and it is not difficult to find that there are several more A00-level products. Even if the market segment gradually becomes saturated, it still chooses to follow the situation of entering the game.
Seeing this, I can't help but ask, what kind of existence is the profit model and business logic that belongs to pure electric cars? After a moment of reflection, the answer may still need to be split into two parts.
First of all, for models with relatively high prices like zero-run T03 and Nezha V, the new car itself can obtain higher gross profit space. For products like Hongguang MINIEV, whose price has been compressed to the extreme, they rely on selling cars to make money, and the benefits are minimal.
As an argument, according to its official 2020 financial report, SAIC-GM-Wuling's total revenue reached 72.927 billion yuan, but the net profit attributable to the parent company was only 142 million yuan, which was apportioned to a single model, equivalent to only about 89 yuan for every one sold.
Obviously, it's not a good deal.
But from another perspective, continue to take the above-GM-Wuling as an example, in 2020, only with the Hongguang MINIEV successfully 440,000 new energy points, calculated at the transaction price of 3,000 yuan at that time, SAIC-GM-Wuling conservative profit of about 1.3 billion yuan.
If it were not for Hongguang MINIEV, the car company may also have to fill the consumption caused by the fuel vehicle business through "external procurement". But with the existence of the former, one in and one out, while achieving self-sufficiency, you can even sell excess new energy credits and profit from it.
And this just explains that most brands have the most fundamental purpose.
Since entering a new year, the deterioration rate of the entire new energy market environment is far beyond the imagination of participants. The epidemic is still intensifying, the lack of core is still not solved, and the soaring price of raw materials for power batteries has become the last "straw" that crushed the camel, making all car companies miserable.
How exaggerated is that? As an important raw material for power batteries, as early as January 2021, the average spot price of electrolytic cobalt was about 270,000 yuan / ton, and at this moment it has exceeded 540,000 yuan / ton, an increase of 100%.
In the same period, the price of lithium carbonate is in the range of 50,000 yuan / ton, as of March 1, 2022, the mainstream transaction price of domestic industrial-grade lithium carbonate in the market is between 480,000-485,000 yuan / ton, and the average price is 480,500 yuan / ton.
The mainstream quotation range of the battery-grade lithium carbonate market is between 495,000 and 506,000 yuan, and the average price has risen to 500,400 yuan / ton, and the price increase is more than 10 times.
And not only the prices of raw materials such as cobalt and lithium continue to rise, but also the prices of other metal raw materials such as manganese, nickel, zinc, copper, iron, chromium, platinum, and ruthenium that involve the manufacture of electric vehicles are also rising rapidly.
When the impact hits, the most affected must be the above-mentioned pure electric cars with small profits. Therefore, it can be seen that the Great Wall Euler was unable to bear its own profits and losses, and decided to stop the production of black cats and white cats.
"Although the Euler brand has the advantages of the Great Wall Automobile industry chain behind it, these fashionable and people-friendly cars still bring huge losses to the company." Taking black cat as an example, after the sharp rise in raw material prices in 2022, the loss of black cats alone exceeded 10,000 yuan. ”
Similar to Chang'an, Chery, Zero Run, Nezha and other A00-level "big households", they can only choose to seek self-protection through a large price increase.
In contrast, what is even worse is that in front of the pure electric car, there is a crisis that cannot be ignored, that is, the serious "shrinkage" of the price of new energy credits.
In fact, as early as this year's two sessions, Fang Yunzhou, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of United New Energy, mentioned in the proposal that it is expected that the price of NEV new energy vehicle credits in 2021 will be about 1,000 yuan per minute, which will be a larger drop than 2,000 yuan in 2020.
Dong Yudong, CEO of Great Wall Euler, also threw out a similar view, "Before the value of new energy points was about 2500 yuan per cent, the lowest was about 2350 yuan." However, because the total sales of new energy vehicles are growing rapidly, there are more and more points in circulation in the market, and the value of points may only be 500-800 yuan this year. ”
Seeing this, I can't help but sigh that with the two "financial roads" being blocked one after another, the good days belonging to the A00-level market ended more quickly than expected.
The fierce burning "virtual fire" had a feeling that it was about to be extinguished.
Don't, get caught up in it
"History proves that the method of relying on pure electric cars to support sales is not sustainable, and less than 100,000 yuan can only be called electric vehicles, not smart electric vehicles."
Such a slightly sharp point of view comes from Shen Hui, the founder of WM Motors. In 2021, after being surpassed by Nezha and Zero Run at the sales level, the remarks that the second-tier echelon new forces are falling behind for a while continue to ferment.
As a bystander, no matter what the actual performance and current situation of Weima are, only from a rational point of view, what Shen Hui said still has some truth.
It must be admitted that the A00 level has a huge limitation of product positioning from beginning to end. For various car companies, once too much focus is placed here, it is easy to fall into the quagmire of the main "low-end route", and the brand image wants to be renewed, and the difficulty will increase geometrically.
Just like SAIC-GM-Wuling, the phenomenon-level performance of Hongguang MINIEV can be called a delicious "honey" at present, but whether the time axis will be stretched will become the biggest "arsenic" that restricts the expansion of the former's new energy route, no one can guarantee.
In the short term, relying on the hot sales of pure electric cars can help many brands get out of the predicament and close the door of the new energy track, but the follow-up wants to continue to survive, run to a higher goal, and seek brand upwards, which is the only way out.
At the same time, limited by the constraints of the cost of bicycles, once the energy is too much tilted on the pure electric car, it is also unfavorable for the company's own self-research and experience accumulation related to assisted driving, intelligent cockpit and even three electric technology.
Moreover, combined with the current situation, the ceiling and bottleneck of the entire plate of the A00 level are visible to the naked eye.
Subsequently, with the gradual lifting of the crisis, the manufacturing cost, especially the price of power battery raw materials, has been reduced in another round, coupled with the continuous rise in the purchasing power of end consumers, the dissipation of the epidemic has opened retaliatory consumption, and the gradual shrinking share of pure electric car terminals has become a matter of certainty.
As a lesson for the past, please do not forget that many years ago in the field of traditional fuel vehicles, there was also a similar iteration and sudden change.
Among them, the most famous model that slowly disappeared in the long river of history is called "Chery QQ". Of course, in the era of electrification, it has been reborn as "QQ ice cream".
At the end of the article, I still want to say that past experience tells us that the more we look at the tempting "cake", the risks and opportunities often coexist, and the "bubble" contained in the A00-level market has reached the point of breaking at a touch.
Therefore, in order to win a breakthrough "ticket" in this increasingly cruel new energy elimination race, please start by getting rid of the dependence on "pure electric cars".
Fortunately, thankfully, in the end, who will be able to take a piece of it, and who will collapse on the road of competition? At this stage, the choice is still in their own hands.
| Cui Liwen |
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