The new energy vehicle jianghu is heading for a big fight.
Author | The king from the planet Magnesia is full
March 2022 has come to an end, meaning that this year's spring is also gradually coming to an end.
In the first quarter of this disaster- and difficulty-ridden season, "Wei Xiaoli", as the head force of new energy car manufacturing, has successively released its annual financial report for 2021. In terms of delivery data, Xiaopeng's "counterattack" sat in the first position, but in fact, it did not open the gap with Weilai and the ideal, and all three were far from the "100,000 vehicle mark"; Weilai still ranked first in research and development investment, and the ideal was in the tail seat; although profitability was still a problem, the ideal was not far from "landing".
Overall, "Wei Xiaoli" has its own highlight side in this year, and it has not completely freed itself from the quagmire of loss. But between the changes, we can see that "Wei Xiaoli" is trying to maintain his head position in the "new car-making forces" this year, and trying to get out of his own way.
Xiaopeng delivered into a "dark horse", Weilai, the ideal gross profit margin has an advantage
Delivery is always the most intuitive market acceptance.
A year ago, Xiaopeng, who was still at the bottom of the delivery volume, completed a gorgeous curve overtaking with the fire of the Xiaopeng P7 model, ranking first with 98155 vehicles. And adhering to the ideal of "one trick to eat all over the sky", its ideal ONE model shows super product strength, although the annual delivery of 90491 vehicles slipped to the third, but it is not far behind the 91429 vehicles of Weilai. And Weilai's "being surpassed" and its "empty window period" of the product have certain reasons.
Of course, compared with the "Wei Xiaoli" facing different consumer markets, the delivery volume is only one of the reference factors. For the automotive market that pays attention to scale effects, gross profit margin is also an indicator that needs attention.
In 2021, the gross profit margin of the ideal and NIO vehicles was 20.6% and 20.1% respectively, behind the difficult points is the cost control ability of the ideal strong supply chain management, and the 2021 ideal ONE has promoted the increase in delivery volume after the launch, and WEILAI replaced the 75-degree ternary iron lithium battery in the fourth quarter and reduced the cost of the battery a lot.
The gross profit margin of Xiaopeng is affected by the overall low selling price and the rising cost of the supply chain, the gross profit margin of the whole vehicle is only 11.5%, although the growth rate is relatively fast (the gross profit margin of Xiaopeng in 2020 is 4.6%), there is still a large gap between Weilai and Ideal. He Xiaopeng has also said, "Xiaopeng Automobile's medium- and long-term goal is to increase the company's overall gross profit margin to more than 25%. But considering Xiaopeng's positioning and the overall situation of the supply chain, how long this "medium- and long-term" is still a question mark.
In the reporter's view, "sinking" will become a common keyword in the development process of "Wei Xiaoli" in the future period of time. On the one hand, for electric vehicle products such as Wuling Mini, the price of ideal and Nippon products is still relatively high, and some media have learned that WEILAI is ready to make a difference in the market priced at 150,000 yuan to 250,000 yuan, and its rumored "ALPS (Alps)" sub-brand may be launched this year; on the other hand, three car companies are gradually "sinking" to third- and fourth-tier cities, which is imperative for "Wei Xiaoli" who is eager to obtain more markets.
Profitability is a dream that must be realized
But it is undeniable that the loss that cannot be stopped is still the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the three families.
Unlike pure Internet companies, although new energy vehicles have their own network aura since birth, this is a real industry after all, and the brand value ultimately falls on the real profit, rather than the number of illusory users and other indicators.
Looking back on the past, Tesla has also been distressed by the question of when to turn a profit for a long time, although the revenue of carbon credits in 2020 has made Tesla a short sigh of relief, but the continuous profitability in automotive products for two consecutive years after the second quarter of last year is the reason for the recent crazy rise in Tesla's stock price - Tesla has proved to the market the value of the company's existence.
Back to the "three fools of car building", Xiaopeng, Weilai and Ideal still have not escaped the quagmire of losses this year, and the three have lost 4.68 billion yuan, 4.02 billion yuan and 320 million yuan respectively.
Compared with the situation of loss, the ideal seems to be one step away from "going ashore". Behind the highlight performance of this year's delivery volume, the loss increase expanded (78% year-on-year expansion) so that the capital market also added several doubts to the optimism of Xiaopeng. After all, for Xiaopeng, to some extent, it is the same as the ideal, but it is also based on a model (Xiaopeng P7), but the latter looks like it is almost out of the head with its superb cost control ability.
The reporter believes that for Xiaopeng, who is mainly "intelligent" and Weilai, who is determined to create long-term competitiveness through research and development, the future will still maintain a high investment in the direction of research and development for a long time, so for Xiaopeng, continuing to significantly increase sales is the only way to share the cost of research and development and reduce losses.
The "second echelon" seeks to "turn positive", and the pattern of new car-making forces is still changing
Shallow water is noisy, and still water is deep. The huge future space of China's new energy vehicle market is far from being filled by "Wei Xiaoli". At present, although as a pathfinder for the new forces of domestic car manufacturing, "Wei Xiaoli" has grabbed a lot of traffic on the Internet, but many low-key new entrants are speeding up the pace of catching up with the head forces.
Magnesium Ke network noted that in the second echelon of new car-making forces including Weima, Aiways, Gaohe, Nezha and Zero Run, the most eye-catching last year was Nezha and Zero Run.
In the middle of last year, Nezha Automobile gained a lot of exposure because of the investment participation of 360 founder Zhou Hongyi, and it turned out that the "Red Sect Leader" did have a vision.
In the face of Wei Xiaoli, Nezha has grown into an opponent that cannot be underestimated. In 2021, Nezha Automobile delivered a total of 69,674 units throughout the year, an increase of 362% year-on-year. And in the period from November 2021 to January 2022, Nezha delivered more than 10,000 yuan for three consecutive months, and in February 2022, Nezha ranked second in the delivery volume of new car-making forces, second only to ideals, squeezing out Xiaopeng and Weilai.
Zero-run cars are more eager to "turn positive". In 2021, zero-run cars delivered annual revenue of 3.132 billion yuan, an increase of 496% year-on-year; a total of 43,748 electric vehicles were delivered in the whole year, an increase of 443.5% year-on-year. The reporter noted that although the gross profit margin of zero-running cars is also negative at present, the situation is constantly improving in recent years, according to public information, the gross profit margin of zero-running cars in 2019-2021 is -95.7%, -50.6%, -44.3%, respectively.
On March 17, Zero-Run Motors, which had a valuation of 22 billion yuan before the Pre-IPO round of financing, officially submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the first new car-making force in the second echelon to officially enter the IPO process, and companies such as Nezha, Weima, United and Gaohe also rumored that they had opened the road to IPO in Hong Kong. This also means that in the near future, the war between "Wei Xiaoli" and the second echelon will become more and more fierce.
After surviving the long cold winter and also walking through the spring of recovery, the "survival" of "Wei Xiaoli" seems to be no longer a problem. However, in the face of China's new energy car-making rivers and lakes that have blossomed into a hundred flowers, whether the next step will usher in the summer of fiery cooking oil, or the cold autumn of bleak slaughter, may be in a subtle decision of the three leaders.