Song Doudou, a researcher at the 21st Century New Automobile Research Institute, recently released the financial report of Xiaopeng Automobile, and the 2021 report card of Weilai, Ideal and Xiaopeng was released. As the first wave of new forces of Internet car manufacturing, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal have completed the initial stage from 0 to 1 as the size of their respective markets approached 100,000 units and entered a period of rapid growth.
Stepping over the threshold of mass production delivery, realizing the positive gross profit margin, and entering the growth stage from 1 to N, the new forces began to reorganize their strategic ideas. Weilai positions high-end pure electricity and creates full-scene user services; Xiaopeng focuses on technology and intelligence, adheres to full-stack self-research, and impacts high-end areas; ideally, it insists on achieving increased range and pure electric two-legged walking, focusing on the pain points of family cars.
Facing the future, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal parted ways.
A map that resembles a "compass" clearly shows NIO's understanding of system capabilities: in addition to the dotted core of human resources, manufacturing, research and development, and business model innovation, NIO focuses on four aspects of system capacity building, including cars, services, digital experiences and lifestyles, which is WEILAI's overall layout for the automotive ecosystem.
Behind the positioning of Xiaopeng Automobile as an "explorer of future travel" is the extension of Xiaopeng from intelligent car capabilities to three-dimensional travel products, for which it has planned flying cars, machine horses, and involved in the Robotaxi business, trying to lay out a "smart travel ecology".
Ideal Cars continues to focus on the concept of family-built cars and accelerates the development of pure electric models. At the same time, the ideal is stepping up to catch up with intelligent and automatic driving technology to make up for shortcomings.
The 21st Century New Automobile Research Institute under 21st Century Business Herald launched the "2021 Head Car Manufacturing New Forces Competitiveness Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), taking the 2021 financial report of the top three new forces as the starting point, analyzing and interpreting the competitiveness of the three new car-making forces from multiple dimensions such as product planning, intelligent performance, capacity expansion, service and channels, and overseas layout.
First, the product planning level, Weilai held high, from the "benchmark BBA" to "build NBA", has been planned for the mass market in the low-end sub-brand; Xiaopeng focused on the high-end market of 150,000-300,000 yuan, the price range expanded to 15-40 million to cover a wider user group; the ideal with a single model range extender electric SUV Ideal One annual sales of nearly 100,000 vehicles, from 2023 onwards, it is expected to launch at least two pure electric models per year, to achieve range-extended, pure electric two-legged walking.
The "Report" pointed out that the three car companies have begun to attack each other's territory, and the layout of models in the price range of 300,000-400,000 and 400,000-500,000 is becoming more compact, and with the extension of the target population, product competition will become more intense. In addition, as the traditional car companies turn around and accelerate the transformation of electrification, to a certain extent, they will block the attack of new forces, and the new energy vehicle track will become more and more lively.
Thanks to the increase in delivery volume and the increase in vehicle sales revenue, the three new car-making forces not only achieved revenue growth in 2021, but also hit a new high in gross profit margin.
Second, at the level of financial indicators, thanks to the growth of delivery volume in 2021 and the increase in vehicle sales revenue, the three new car-making forces achieved substantial revenue growth in 2021, and the gross profit margin also hit a new high. According to the financial report data, the gross profit margin of Weilai Automobile in 2021 reached 20.1%, up 7.4 percentage points year-on-year; the gross profit margin of Xiaopeng Automobile was 11.5%, up 8 percentage points year-on-year; and the gross profit margin of Ideal Automobile reached 20.6%, up 4.2 percentage points year-on-year.
Although the three companies have achieved substantial growth in revenue, delivery, gross profit margin and other indicators compared with last year, they still cannot escape the fate of loss. In 2021, the total net loss of the three companies exceeded 9.1 billion yuan, and only Weilai Automobile achieved a narrower net loss year-on-year, but still reached 4.016 billion yuan. In 2021, the loss of Xiaopeng Automobile, the new force of car manufacturing, expanded by 78% year-on-year to 4.863 billion yuan, in short, the Xiaopeng, which sold the most, lost the most. Among the three companies, only Ideal Auto achieved profitability in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2021, and the net loss of Ideal Auto reached 321 million yuan in 2021, an increase of 112% year-on-year, and it is the closest to achieving breakeven.
High R&D expenses, marketing expenses and operating expenses are considered to be the main reasons why it is difficult for new car manufacturers to achieve "self-hematopoiesis". In 2021, Xiaopeng's R&D investment will account for a much larger proportion of revenue than Weilai and Ideal. In the whole year of 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile invested 4.114 billion yuan in research and development, accounting for 19.5% of the annual revenue. In the same period, NIO's R&D expenditure was 4.59 billion yuan, accounting for 12.7% of total revenue; ideal R&D expenditure was 3.29 billion yuan, accounting for 12.1% of revenue.
As a business with huge investment in the early stage and a long payback period, car manufacturing has to go through a long process of mass production of models - sales climbing - scale effect highlighting - gross profit margin turning positive - net profit turning positive - returning to the cost. The "Report" pointed out that subject to rising raw material prices, lack of core and other issues, the profitability of new energy vehicle companies is under pressure, although some of the cost pressure is transmitted to the terminal market, but the sales volume and gross profit margin of car companies may be affected. In 2022, the new forces of head car manufacturing will still lose money, but considering the scale effect and the sharing of research and development costs, the probability of loss will be narrowed.
Third, at the level of intelligent competitiveness, in the selection of intelligent part of the software and hardware, Wei Xiaoli gradually began to develop itself for core hardware + software. In the path of realizing the auxiliary driving function, Wei Xiaoli's logic is roughly similar, that is, through the upgrading of hardware and the evolution of software, as well as the accumulation of driving data, the iteration of algorithms and the unlocking of functions are realized.
Xiaopeng Motors, which is leading the way in the field of autonomous driving, is currently progressing in the research and development of NGP, the core function city of XPILOT 3.5, and after obtaining the approval of the relevant competent authorities, it plans to launch urban NGP in the first batch of cities at the end of the second quarter of this year. In 2023, XPILOT4.0 will be officially launched to achieve intelligent assisted driving at high speed and in all urban scenarios.
Weilai's road to autonomous driving research and development is relatively tortuous, from self-research to cooperation to return to self-research. Based on NIO's self-developed autonomous driving technology platform NT2.0, NIO's ET7 delivered in March 2022 is equipped with a new generation of automatic driving system NAD, including NIO Aquila supersensitive system and NIO Adam supercomputing platform, and will gradually realize the point-to-point automatic driving function experience covering all scenarios such as high-speed, urban area, and parking.
Compared with Xiaopeng and Weilai, the ideal self-development of autonomous driving lags slightly behind, and in December 2021, noa navigation assisted driving and complete AEB functions (active safety) were launched. The ideal L9, which is expected to be delivered in the third quarter of 2022, will be equipped with NVIDIA's Orin-Xd-based self-developed autonomous driving platform system.
Fourth, at the level of capacity expansion, the soldiers and horses have not moved, the grain and grass have gone first, and the delivery volume has approached 100,000 vehicles, and "Wei Xiaoli" has accelerated the expansion of production.
Nio Motor will start production capacity of 480,000 units in 2023, Xiaopeng Automobile will achieve its own production capacity of 400,000 units in 2023, and Ideal Automobile will expand its total production capacity to 500,000 units by the end of 2023.
Fifth, at the level of channels, services and replenishment systems, Weilai and Ideal adopt the direct operation model, and Xiaopeng is the direct operation + authorization model. Compared with fuel vehicles, electric vehicles are not only sold as "cars" themselves, but also as comprehensive "car services", the most important of which is the energy replenishment service. NIO implements rechargeable and replaceable upgrades; Xiaopeng layout supercharge, and will launch 800V + 480kW super charging + super energy storage station three schemes; the current main sales of extended range electric vehicles ideal to provide household charging piles and installation services, for the time being, there is no layout overcharge. However, with ideal cars planning to launch pure electric models in 2023, the construction of charging networks will also be a short board that it needs to strengthen in the future.
Sixth, at the level of overseas strategy, WEILAI and Xiaopeng have taken Norway as a starting point to expand more European markets, and the pace of ideal going to sea is relatively slow. In May 2021, Shen Yanan, co-founder and president of Ideal Auto, revealed that Ideal has established an overseas team to study market channels and other issues, but did not disclose which country will be the first stop in the overseas market of Ideal Auto.
The "Report" pointed out that the new forces of car manufacturing are still in their infancy, the difference in the market competition environment, the acceptance of smart cars in the European market and the cross-border data security risks of intelligent networked vehicles and other factors, in the short term, the overseas sales growth of new car-making forces will not be obvious, and more attention will be paid to overseas basic layout and brand system.
The clarion call of the game has been sounded, and the fight has begun. At the same time that "Wei Xiaoli" exchanged money for scale, the traditional car companies elephant turned around, Baidu, Xiaomi, Huawei and other cross-border forces have entered the game, the light orange era, box cars, group cars, etc. are scrambling, and the automobile industry is also welcoming these new outsiders with a more inclusive attitude. China's new energy vehicle field will inevitably appear in the new energy vehicle field continues to increase the number of new entrants and more and more enterprises to withdraw from the industry coexistence pattern, the next few years will usher in the rapid reshuffle of the entire new energy automobile industry.