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Wen | zhixing driving path
"Hesitated one night, the next day I wanted to book a car and found that the price increased" This should be the voice of most of the new energy prospective owners recently.
Recently, new energy and oil prices have risen at the same time, when the owners of fuel vehicles were persuaded by oil prices and wanted to buy new energy vehicles, they found that new energy vehicles are also rising in price, and the increase is not low.
Tesla has raised prices twice in a row since March, and the threshold price of Model 3 has reached 279,900 yuan; BYD has raised the price of 39 configurations of 10 models, ranging from 3,000 yuan to 6,000 yuan; Xiaopeng Automobile announced a price increase of 10,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan; zero-run C11 models as a whole have been raised by 20,000-30,000 yuan.
Judging from the Weibo remarks of Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang, more car companies are expected to join the price increase camp in the second quarter, due to the impact of war, politics and the epidemic, the increase in battery costs in the second quarter has reached a "very outrageous" level.
This is not the first price increase of new energy vehicles, since last year, new energy price increases have become the keyword, from the end of 2021 to March 2022, announced the price increase of its new energy models at least 16 car companies, from the initial Tesla announced price increases, to later new car-making forces, traditional independent brands, joint venture brands and foreign brands also participated in it, along with the trend of national replenishment, major car companies have launched price increase strategies, which can not help but worry, when will the car rise to the end? What is the impact of price increases on the market?
01, price increases are the only solution for new energy vehicle companies
In addition to the greater impact on consumers, the price increase is also difficult for new energy vehicle companies. If it was hard mode to build cars before, then starting this year, the automotive industry has undoubtedly opened up hellish difficulty. Since the beginning of this year, the price of upstream raw materials such as lithium and cobalt has risen sharply, and the lithium battery link has also been under obvious pressure. Judging from BYD's poster on "Han EV cancels Hainan discount", lithium has risen from the original 50,000 yuan a ton to 500,000 tons, a full 10 times, and it is no wonder that Li Xiang will use "outrageous" to describe this wave of price increases.
In addition, the market price of cobalt in East China has also risen from less than 300,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of last year to about 570,000 yuan / ton in March this year. The price increase of nickel in the past 60 days has also reached about 37%, leaving little cost space for car companies. The sharp rise in raw materials, obviously caught the car companies by surprise, in the past car companies should be relatively free to increase prices, either disguised to rise, or leave some time for consumers to buffer it, but from the perspective of this price increase, the car companies are extremely decisive, the last wave of price increases BYD still set aside a week for users to book, a week later to increase prices, and this time is the night 23:50 minutes to announce the price increase, the next day to execute, leaving the user only 10 minutes, an overnight loss of 6,000 yuan. From this point of view, the car companies seem to have broken the price increase a bit, and there is nothing they can do.
The relevant person in charge of a new energy vehicle company said in an interview with the first financial economy, "It is really impossible to withstand the rise in the price of raw materials such as batteries, since the second half of last year, the price of the power battery in the Ningde era has risen twice, according to the battery cost of a new energy vehicle, the last time it rose by 10,000 yuan, and not long ago it rose by 10,000 yuan." No way, we've only quietly raised prices twice in recent months. ”
What's more, under the pressure of raw material price increases, some models have suspended orders and production due to insufficient income, the most typical of which are the two hot-selling products of the Great Wall Euler brand, black cat and white cat. "In the environment of lack of core and lack of electricity, Euler stopped taking orders is a helpless move." Oula CEO Dong Yudong said that after the sharp increase in raw material prices in 2022, black cats lost more than 10,000 yuan per car.
"The more low-end models sell, the more manufacturers lose." The sales manager of a 4S store in Guangzhou told Xiao Daoge that the new energy vehicles under his own brand had just announced price increases before the Spring Festival and were officially implemented on March 1. As for the reason, it is also the price increase of battery fuel raw materials and the decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles.
However, the node and amplitude of the price increase are the most worrying thing for car companies, and the price increase of raw materials is related to the international situation, so the price will also change at any time. At present, the terminal price of new energy vehicles are raised by 6,000 ~ 12,000 yuan, once the chip, raw materials continue to rise in price, just raised prices and can not cover the cost, which will lead to a short period of time to adjust the price again, Tesla is an example, twice a week price increase, will inevitably affect the brand reputation, market credibility, and even trigger a lot of negative interpretation.
For this point, car companies are also helpless, even if the cost rises again, they can only knock out their teeth and swallow in the stomach. Therefore, manufacturers will only rationally optimize production capacity and invest limited resources in higher-priced and profitable end models. Euler discontinued the good cat Black Cat, also for this reason. There are really no profitable low-end cars, and car companies will no longer sell them. The helpless point of car companies is not only the cost rise, behind this wave of price increases, but also quietly born a deformed market, which makes car companies headaches.
02, the price increase prompted the market to sell
The deformed market mentioned earlier refers to the fact that some sales or users find that selling cars is not as profitable as selling orders, which in turn gives birth to a new market for scalping orders. Behind the scalping order is the market situation that is difficult to pick up the car and the price rises.
Imagine, when you spend the price after the price increase to buy a car, worked hard for half a year, and finally found that on the second-hand platform, someone sold the order before the price increase, and even faster time to pick up the car, how would you feel? According to tech planet march 22 news, affected by the rise in raw material prices, domestic new energy vehicles set off a "rising tide", of which, some brands use order-based production, in the next to wait for the gap period to pick up the car, coinciding with the collective price increase of new energy vehicles, which derives from the transfer of orders of some car owners to earn the difference.
From second-hand platforms such as Idle Fish, it can be found that in view of the different models, each transfer of a Tesla order can get a reward of 3,000-20,000 yuan, in addition, some sales staff of new power brands have said that there are transfer orders after the price increase. On the idle fish, a seller sold the BYD Qin PLUS DM-i premium edition order at a price of 3999 yuan Because it was a car ordered before the price increase last year, the price of the whole vehicle is still calculated before the price increase, which is 6000 cheaper than the current price, even if the purchase order is 3999 at the idle fish price increase, it is also lower than the price of the direct booking car now.
Not only car owners, but some sales also profit from the order transfer process. According to Blue Whale Motors, there are more users who transfer orders after the Spring Festival, and the first-line sales can seamlessly find a home for them, "Colleagues can earn more than 20,000 yuan a month with the transfer order, but we generally dare not, and the first-line sales are bolder." Due to the rise in oil prices, Mr. Wang, who has been considering buying new energy vehicles, finally made up his mind to sell the fuel car in his hand and buy a pure electric car.
However, what Mr. Wang did not expect was that he thought that the replacement could be completed in one or two weeks, but he was told by the store that he would have to wait more than 2 months before he could mention the new car. Just when Mr. Wang was considering whether to wait any longer, after being introduced by a friend, Mr. Wang spent 6,000 yuan on a second-hand platform to buy a new energy vehicle order and picked up the car in the same month. When talking about the purchase of transfer orders on the second-hand platform, Mr. Wang said bluntly: "It can pick up the car early and it can be cheap, although it is a few thousand yuan more transfer fees, but the overall is still cost-effective." ”
Due to the excessive income of the resale order, the scalper also found the business opportunities, on the second-hand platform and even the little red book, there are many users who take the initiative to collect the order transfer, some of which are real car owners, and some of them want to earn the difference by reselling the scalper after receiving the order, the same as the operation of the concert ticket, first recover at a high price, and then sell at a higher price. However, the profit of reselling car orders is often as low as 3,000 yuan, which is much more fragrant than any other industry.
Taking Model 3 as an example, some car owners have orders before the Model 3 standard version has not increased in price, the price is 265,900 yuan, and after the scalper receives this order, the price increase is about 6,000 yuan to 272,000 yuan sold to the user, and this profit is shared by the owner and the "scalper". Although the "scalper" made the difference as a middleman, the user's car purchase price is still about 8,000 yuan cheaper than the price of 279,900 yuan on the official website.
This leads to a very magical phenomenon, the order purchased from the scalper is cheaper than the official purchase order, and both the scalper and the user still have money to earn. Economist Song Qinghui believes that the reason behind these resale orders is mainly affected by a series of internal and external factors such as chip shortages and limited battery production capacity, resulting in greater uncertainty in the delivery cycle of new cars. Some consumers who are eager to buy a car retreat and choose "scalping orders".
According to Xiao Daoge's observation, the transfer order brands are mainly Tesla and BYD, and there are also some brands such as Ideal, Xiaopeng and Zero Run, while there are also some brands such as Weilai, Nezha, Feifan, Euler, Weima and Volkswagen ID. There is less information about brand-related transfers such as series, and basically the more popular the car, the more orders are resold. In the face of today's frequent "scalpers", some car companies have decisively intervened. A Tesla "non-resale commitment letter" has been circulated online, which requires the owner of a cumulative order to buy multiple Tesla vehicles to promise not to resell to a third party within one year, and the violator pays a penalty of 20% of the vehicle's fare.
The business of order resale seems to have a good future, but for companies, this resale has a big impact on the price system. Therefore, customer service of brands including Tesla, BYD and Zero Run said that once the order is decided, unless it is an immediate family member or spouse, it is impossible to change the owner information of the model to limit the phenomenon of order resale.
03, the price increase forced car companies to survive the survival of the fittest
The price increase, in the short term, is undoubtedly not a good thing for car companies and users, but in the long run, it is also the self-status feedback of the entire new energy market, no longer hidden under the subsidy policy. In fact, the impact of raw material price increases is not only the automotive industry, the impact on the home appliance industry is also quite large, in the last year the price increase of raw materials accelerated the integration of the refrigerator industry, Matthew effect highlighted, the market washed away those lack of technical support of the enterprise, for consumers is a good thing, because this time the enterprise will pay more and more attention to quality function.
The automotive industry is the same, the car is forced to achieve the high-end transformation brought about by the price increase of raw materials, once the price rises, the company's product quality must also keep up. Bringing consumers the products they really need and are really valuable, while ensuring their own profits, is the next problem that car companies need to focus on.
In fact, in the process of high-end, automobiles and even other industries can digest the pressure such as raw material price increases through some other factors such as brand and quality, which is an opportunity for enterprises to transform into high-end. At the same time, the price increase will also accelerate the market differentiation of the automotive industry, the industry price adjustment provides an opportunity for market differentiation, some new energy vehicle companies that hold pricing power, their price adjustment will not affect the market demand for their products; and low-end car companies that lack technology and brands will only fall into the price war and become the fate of being eventually eliminated.
After all, no matter what the price of raw materials, in the eyes of consumers, 200,000 cars still have to look like 200,000. In other words, the price of new energy vehicle products can be high, but it must make consumers "feel valued". Another impact is that the rising price of raw materials has prompted car companies to develop themselves, invest in a wide range and manufacture themselves. As early as October 2020, WEILAI Automobile was exposed to plan to independently develop autonomous driving computing chips, and has established an independent hardware team, and the project is led by Li Bin, chairman and CEO of WEILAI Automobile. Almost at the same time, Zero Run Auto released Lingxin 01, an AI intelligent driving chip with independent intellectual property rights, and the first model equipped with this chip was Zero Run C11, which was also delivered in October last year.
Since last year, many car companies have released layout plans in the chip field: Xiaopeng Automobile's autonomous driving hardware research and development has been involved in the chip field, and Wuling Motors unveiled Wuling chips at its brand conference. On the one hand, Geely Holdings' Yijiatong Technology announced that it has reached a cooperation with Arm China to jointly fund the establishment of Core Engine Technology. GAC Group passed the "Proposal on the Construction Project of Self-developed Battery Production Line" to accelerate the industrialization of self-developed battery technology.
Wu Zhixin, deputy general manager of China Automobile Research Institute, said: "Automobile enterprises should firmly grasp the initiative of industrial development in their own hands, through all aspects of research and development, production, circulation and consumption, break through the breakpoints and blockages of the industrial chain, and ensure the safety and stability of the industrial chain supply chain, in order to gain the right to speak in the global automobile industry division of labor system." "China has proposed to achieve a 70% chip self-sufficiency rate by 2025, and now the automotive chip industry is rapidly breaking with the large-scale intervention of car companies."
The recent price increase has accelerated the process of our urgent need for self-sufficiency, and only by taking the key materials and technologies into our own hands can we survive in this magical and realistic automobile market. In addition, from the current international situation, the head car company of the Chinese brand has developed its own self-made battery or chip, which is a precautionary move.
04. Wisdom and action
China's new energy vehicles are no longer a buyer's market and have entered a new stage of rapid popularization and development, so there is still a possibility of price increases in the short term. For consumers, if they have a crush on their liking, it may be a good choice to start early. Back to car companies, after the grinding of market elimination in recent years and the continuous revision of policies, today's China's new energy vehicle market is constantly promoting China's automobile industry to become stronger and stronger. For new energy vehicle companies in the new competitive landscape, price increases not only mean new market shocks and challenges, but also provide opportunities for the strong to continue to move forward under the market mechanism of survival of the fittest, and the only factor that determines who can laugh to the end is "self-improvement".