Tram value preservation is actually a pseudo-proposition, whether from industrial technology precipitation or brand precipitation should not be regarded as a "luxury", the country's terminal expectation of new energy vehicles is also "low-cost popularization".
Wen 丨 BT Finance You Li
New energy vehicles are becoming more and more expensive. In particular, since 2022, the price increase of new energy vehicles has changed from heavy news to cliché.
Tesla's price increased by 30,000 yuan in 8 days, and BYD and WM successively opened the second price increase in the year, and the highest single model exceeded 30,000 yuan. Nezha, Zero Run, Xiaopeng and other new car-making forces have also joined the price increase army, with a range of thousands to tens of thousands of yuan, involving more than 50 models.
However, judging from the announced market situation, sales of new energy vehicles are still strong. According to the latest data from the Association of Passenger Vehicles, from January to February 2022, the production and sales of new energy vehicles were 820,000 units and 765,000 units, respectively, achieving a year-on-year increase of 1.6 times and 1.5 times.
The strong demand for electric vehicles is a natural choice for consumers, and a sharp price increase is a problem that the industry must solve. On the afternoon of March 26, 2022, Lin Nianxiu, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the 8th China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum that vehicle companies should continue to develop relying on existing production bases and no longer add new production capacity distribution points until the existing bases reach a reasonable scale.
This means that the country has seen the risk of overcapacity, and the new energy vehicle sector will usher in the era of three countries that emphasizes quality and brand. Under the premise that lithium resources will usher in the balance of supply and demand in the next 2-3 years, the disorderly expansion of the new energy industry and the chaos of horse racing will be restricted, and the next journey of heavy quality and strong experience has set sail.
Is increasing productivity the optimal solution?
In the eyes of investors, the new energy track is booming.
According to the latest financial report released by the three "Wei Xiaoli", the delivery volume of the new car-making forces in 2021 was 91,400, 98,200 and 90,500 respectively, compared with 43,700, 27,000 and 32,600 in 2020. The same growth rate is the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the market penetration rate of China's new energy passenger cars in 2020 is only 6.18%, and by the end of 2021, this data will be refreshed to 19.5%.
The continuous investment of Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi and other Internet manufacturers confirms the potential of the entire industry, and the other side of the coin is the lack of production capacity of many new energy vehicle companies.
According to the statistics in the article "Analysis of China's Passenger Car Production Capacity in 2021", of the 86 car companies with sales in 2021, 11 have a capacity utilization rate of more than 100%, and 7 of the 19 car companies with the highest capacity utilization rate are from the ranks of new energy. This confirms from the side that the head camp of new energy vehicle companies, the crisis of supply and demand is difficult to solve, and the problem of difficult delivery will eventually affect downstream consumers.
Some media questioned: "On October 20 last year, I ordered the Geely Geometry Kung Fu Cow EX3, but after half a year, I still haven't picked up the car, and I also asked the owner to change or refund." Claiming that the car owner's points discount that was not mentioned after May 31 was invalidated, it was geometric cars that maliciously limited production capacity so that customers could not pick up the car, so that consumers came to pay for it, what is the significance of the contract signed by Geely? ”
On the national automobile consumer complaint handling platform, the difficulty of new energy vehicles to pick up cars has always been one of the hot complaint issues. According to statistics, in the complaint platform in the past three months, geely, zero run, Euler and other new energy vehicle brands delayed delivery of the majority of complaints, waiting for half a year of consumers are not in the minority.
In the eyes of consumers, one of the reasons why car companies are difficult to deliver cars is to "limit production capacity", thus forcing car owners to increase their money to buy high matching. In the face of such contradictions, it seems that the easiest way is to increase the number of productions. The rapid expansion of the market, only by building a base to expand production capacity and meet the market demand with more supply, can the sales price be lowered, which is also the reason why new energy vehicle companies have actively built production bases before.
According to the 2021 annual report released by Xiaopeng Automobile on March 28, as of December 31, 2021, the net amount of property, plant and equipment owned by Xiaopeng Company was 5.425 billion yuan, an increase of 76% compared with 3.082 billion yuan in the same period of 2020. The property, plant and equipment disclosed in NIO's financial report totaled 7.4 billion yuan, an increase of 48% year-on-year; ideal automobile this indicator was 4.498 billion yuan, an increase of 81.5% year-on-year.
It is not difficult to find that vigorously expanding production capacity is a consistent choice for new car-making forces. Objectively speaking, they hold high the banner of building factories, and in fact, there is a reason for this. From the early design to the final manufacturing of passenger cars, there are many processes in the middle, the newly designed platform electric vehicle is difficult to produce in line with the fuel model, and the complex links such as equipment installation and commissioning make the waiting period for the transformation of the fuel vehicle factory to the pure electric factory more long. According to the statistics of Guangzhou Daily, the transformation of pure electric automobile factories often takes more than a month, and Weilai only took more than 20 days to renovate the factory, and it takes longer to debug until it is fully put into use.
Liu Wei, a researcher in the new energy industry, pointed out that we should also see that there is actually a shadow of policy support behind the industry consensus. When the potential of new energy first emerged, the state gave a lot of preferential measures to encourage enterprises to become bigger and stronger, and the high-precision foundation and sunrise industrial attributes of new energy vehicles themselves spawned car-making impulses in various regions, and hundreds of new energy vehicle brands emerged in China in the past few years.
Liu Wei pointed out that under such a premise, new energy vehicle companies are naturally more willing to build new factories with the support of local governments than to purchase time-consuming and laborious transformation of factories of other car companies.
According to media statistics, the total sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 will be 3.326 million units, compared with a total of 5.695 million units, and the overall capacity utilization rate is 58.4%, which is almost the same as the capacity utilization rate of 52.47% of the entire passenger car industry. Enterprises that already have production qualifications still have 10.46 million vehicles under construction capacity to be completed and put into operation, most of which are new energy vehicles.
Avoid "wasteful" development
The overcapacity of some car companies and the shortage of production capacity of excellent car companies are long-term coexistence.
Many people in the industry said that in the gap between ideals and reality, local cities have become risk managers for enterprises. A large number of "regional internal friction" dragged down the entire industry, and the financial interruption reported by many media after the limelight caused the new energy vehicle base to rot, which is one of the examples.
Lu Deming, who has long observed the new energy automobile industry, said that at the 8th China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, Lin Nianxiu was the leader who introduced the key work of the automobile industry in 2022. Relevant responsible persons from the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other departments have spoken, and the policy keywords they revealed are also very consistent, that is, "rationalization".
"Simply put, the state will provide all the conditions conducive to industrial development, but also avoid 'wasteful' development." By this time node in 2022, the model design of China's new energy industry has begun to take shape, and the development of refined promotion will definitely become the main theme. This also shows that the reshuffle of the new energy industry has begun, and existing brands and new brands are competing for core capabilities such as technology. Lu Deming read.
Liu Wei, a researcher in the new energy industry, pointed out that in the latest sales list of new energy vehicles, Weilai fell, Nezha rose to the second, in fact, it also reflects the natural choice of consumers for low price ranges, new energy vehicles have come to the popularization period after several years of promotion, Nezha and Xiaopeng sell more than 100,000 new energy vehicle brands can be the first to come first. Tram value preservation is actually a false proposition, whether from industrial technology precipitation or from brand precipitation should not be regarded as a "luxury", the country's terminal expectation of new energy vehicles is also "low-cost popularization", and it is understandable to make policy revisions.
It should be clear that the policy issued by the state department will not float in the air, and at first glance, the relevant regulations are very strict, but in fact, they will not cause a fatal blow to new energy vehicle companies.
GAC Aeon announced on February 18 that the second phase of the plant's production capacity upgrade has been completed, and after this round of upgrading, the annual production capacity of the plant has achieved a jump of 100,000 to 200,000 vehicles, with a total of 15 days. Xiaopeng Motors also mentioned in its 2021 fourth quarter report that it upgraded its manufacturing plant in Zhaoqing during the Spring Festival holiday and will accelerate the delivery of a large backlog of orders carried forward from 2021 to early 2022 after the resumption of production in mid-February.
However, the cruel thing is that from the root cause, there are two reasons for the increase in the price of new energy vehicles, and these two points cannot be solved by building new production bases.
One of the reasons is the decline of state subsidies, although the "Notice on Improving the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles" issued in 2020 mentioned that the government's support for the promotion of new energy vehicles in the form of subsidies will be extended until the end of 2022. However, the relevant departments also said that the subsidy will only adopt a more gentle retreat and rhythm, and the long-term blood transfusion may no longer exist. From 2020 to 2022, the subsidy standard has been reduced by 10%, 20% and 30% respectively from the previous year.
The second reason affecting the price of new energy vehicles is the fluctuation in the price of mineral raw materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt used in the manufacture of batteries and chips. Statistics from the Sting Institute show that the price of lithium carbonate rose linearly from January to March this year, breaking from 300,000 yuan / ton all the way to 500,000 yuan / ton, an increase of nearly 70% compared with the beginning of the year, which was ten times the price at the beginning of last year.
When a large number of car companies do not have the ability to develop batteries, allowing them to build factories on a large scale will not help to achieve long-term goals. As Lin Nianxiu said, the integration of idle production capacity, the creation of a safe environment, the promotion of backward enterprises and ineffective production capacity withdrawal, demand, supply, management and three parties work together to create a high-quality industry ecology, which is of more practical significance at present.
The new energy vehicle industry has entered 2.0
The relationship between new energy vehicle companies and upstream battery suppliers, and between the new energy vehicle industry chain and relevant departments, is not contradictory, but interdependent. The rise of each new industry inevitably encounters problems on the way, and the formulation of early policies also has its limitations, which also forces all parties to examine problems and correct deviations in development.
The national ministries and commissions have issued regulations, in fact, they are also assisting car companies to re-evaluate the business structure and optimize the staffing, from this point of view, in fact, the development of China's new energy vehicle industry has entered the 2.0 period: that is, the industrial chain cooperation is closer, the business structure is more optimized, and the product price is lower.
Before the notice of the National Development and Reform Commission was issued, there was news that the major department responsible for the overseas project of Xiaopeng Automobile was dissolved in situ. Although the above rumors do not seem to attract the attention of the market so much today when all walks of life have started the wave of layoffs, it is not difficult to smell the tendency of the industry to adjust the focus of work.
Monarch strategy analysts believe that after the release of risk aversion, it will take time for market confidence to rebuild. The national ministries and commissions have also given a feasible solution to this, the first is to strengthen the cleaning up and rectification of new energy vehicle violation projects, and investigate and deal with violations such as unapproved construction, batch zero construction, and construction while approving in accordance with laws and regulations. By concentrating the strength of the Yangtze River Delta, pearl river delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Chengdu-Chongqing and other regions, avoid blind planning of factories, PPT car manufacturing and land will become a thing of the past.
Immediately from the source, strengthen the guarantee system for lithium, nickel, cobalt and other necessary resources for car manufacturing, and improve the relationship between supply and demand. Soochow Securities has issued a research report, believing that global nickel production capacity is gradually being released, the supply tension can be alleviated, and the balance between supply and demand is coming. And the new production capacity is mostly integrated supporting, which can effectively reduce the cost of the lithium battery industry chain, and the impact of nickel price rise on the industrial chain is gradually shrinking.
At the same time, it assists the Ministry of Science and Technology in laying out core technologies such as new batteries and new generation electric drive systems, emphasizing the use of innovation to break through barriers, rather than relying on marketing and stories to go all over the world. At the infrastructure level, Jiang Wanrong, vice minister of housing and urban-rural development, proposed to accelerate the standardization of infrastructure facilities, promote the combination of transformation and new construction, facilitate enterprises to build charging piles in different areas of different cities, and ensure the needs of the public.
In general, the information released by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other departments represents that the country is still paying attention to the new energy industry, but the management tends to be rationalized and refined. Liu Xingzheng, who has been trading full-time for many years, said that the technology industry dominated by new energy and the bulk commodity industry represented by non-ferrous metals are all industries that the state focuses on.
"Every time the government makes a big effort to save an industry, the stock price of the industry will have a bull market trend. For example, use the 'three to one drop and one to make up' to save the resource industry, and use the 'to backlog inventory' to save real estate. Liu Xingzheng believes that the same is true of the new energy industry, whether from the social value level or the investment value level, electric vehicle manufacturing is still a good industry.
Car-making forces need to assume the social responsibility of enterprises, avoid waste, and carry out orderly development on the basis of making good use of existing conditions. By releasing its own strength to pull the industrial chain forward, put down the body to explore the supply chain, reverse innovation to enhance the collective innovation awareness of the entire technology manufacturing industry.
This is what car companies should do while enjoying policy dividends and market dividends. The road choice of car companies actually reveals a deeper corporate culture and value judgment tendency, and only enterprises that are committed to social responsibility can not forget their original intentions and develop healthily.
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