On the first day of April, Ideal, Weilai and Xiaopeng successively released the March delivery data, which was a little unexpected from the results:
-The Company's 15,414 vehicles reached the top again
-The ideal 11,034 vehicles came in second place
-Nio's 9,985 vehicles ranked third
But if you look at the sales trend of the three companies in the past two quarters, it is not difficult to find that this situation has been going on for some time.
Why is Xiaopeng's sales so high, why is the ideal only one car still able to break through 10,000 now, and what has Weilai's sales experienced? In the next content, we will briefly analyze it.
Behind the ranking change
Xiaopeng: Counterattack and "Taking Risks"
Xiaopeng's sales of more than 15,000 vehicles in March were very impressive, and it can be described as a rapid increase year-on-year.
Following its re-summit in March, in the six months since October last year, Xiaopeng has become the first sales volume among the top three new forces four times, including more than 10,000 sales in 5 months, with a maximum monthly delivery of 16,000 units.
To be more intuitive, we have compiled a chart of The sales volume of Xiaopeng Motors from January 2021 to March 2022. Combined with Xiaopeng's actions in the past year, we can roughly see several reasons behind this growth.
The first reason is the continued growth in P7 delivery.
The official delivery of the Xiaopeng P7 was on June 28, 2020, when the market expectations for this car were not very high. At that time, the main benchmark product was tesla model 3 that was still in the "price reduction period", on the driving control, brand and popularity, Xiaopeng P7 was not the opponent of the latter, and at that time, Xiaopeng's intelligent label was not as significant as today, so P7 felt more like a more cost-effective "large Model 3", in short, the opponent was very strong, and the product positioning was slightly embarrassing.
After a period of ramping capacity, P7 sales reached a level of 3,000 units, and fluctuated up and down in this position for about half a year. However, starting in April 2021, the P7 suddenly entered the second wave of growth, achieving six consecutive months of month-on-month growth, with monthly sales from 3,000 stalls all the way to 7,000 slots, contributing significant growth to Xiaopeng's delivery volume in the same period, after which the P7 once again entered a stable period, and sales remained fluctuating around 7,000.
However, in the past March, P7 sales increased again, reaching a record high of 9,183 units, and the breakthrough of 10,000 seems to be just around the corner.
If you continue to analyze the internal reasons for the sales growth of the P7, you can find two main points:
1. Xiaopeng carried out many OTAs last year, of which NGP high-speed guided driving was pushed in January, and the overall intelligent experience was outstanding;
2, Xiaopeng P7 released a lithium iron phosphate battery model in March last year, the new car is equipped with XPLIOT 2.5 standard, the starting price is reduced by 20,000, and the optional XPLIOT 3.0 only needs to pay 10,000 more.
In the above two points, due to the overall growth trend of the new energy market last year, Xiaopeng P7 has gradually become the most intelligent model in this hot price range.
In addition, another reason for the increase in Xiaopeng's delivery is the expansion of the model product line.
Last year, Xiaopeng released three new cars, G3i, P5 and G9, of which the G3i and P5 were delivered last year. The arrival of new products has brought Xiaopeng another part of the growth beyond the P7.
However, there was a significant increase in the few months after the G3i was delivered, and then fell back to the level of 2,000 units sold per month before the change, so the real sales growth after that actually came from the P5.
P5 can be said to be Xiaopeng's "death spirit" attempt, before no independent brand has sold a large compact car to a price of 200,000, which is enough to buy a first-line joint venture brand of medium-sized cars.
And one thing to note is that although the P5 has more space and higher configuration overall, it is the same platform model as the G3i, and in the same platform model, the sedan sells more expensive than the SUV is also an anti-market law move. Therefore, the market performance of P5 can largely indicate whether the market is willing to pay for intelligence.
The sales results since the delivery of the P5 show that Xiaopeng seems to have gambled correctly at present. In the past 4 months, the sales of P5s, which are more expensive than the G3i, have been almost twice as high, so there is a very rare phenomenon in Xiaopeng's current product line: the more expensive the model sells better, the cheaper it sells worse.
Such a situation shows that the competition in today's pure electric market is not a situation of "low prices to get everything done", there are not many consumers who can afford to pay the price, and among the factors affecting sales, the importance of comprehensive product strength is even higher than the absolute price. The positive correlation between the sales of the P7, P5 and G3i and the product strength of the three vehicles reflects this law.
Ideal: Win in precision
Ideal March sales performance is normal, 11,034 vehicles data is the ideal fourth month sales exceeded 10,000, as the new power of the three in the past time to rely on a single model sales of the company, the ideal delivery volume did not fall behind.
The key node of the ideal sales climb in 2021 is the 2021 ideal ONE delivery, from June the ideal delivery volume began to climb significantly, the first month of the change set a new high of single month delivery, December set a record of 14,087 units of single month sales, the sales increase brought by the change is remarkable.
What is more noteworthy is that in 2021, there are also new Highlander, Lufang, Lynk & Co 09, Lantu FREE and other SUV models with similar price points or positioning, but under the siege of many new models, the ideal ONE still achieved growth. The direct reason for this result is the ideal extremely accurate positioning of "family car with a baby", which helps ideal ONE find a key growth point, starting from the market demand to cope with the changes, thus withstanding various differentiated product competition.
In addition, as a large SUV that can be refueled, the penetration rate of the ideal ONE in the sinking market has been outstanding, and the proportion of sales in non-restricted cities has increased from about 65% in 2020 to about 80% in 2021.
But what needs to be seen is that the overall architecture lag also makes the ideal ONE perform in the single item such as high-end assisted driving and mechanical quality, and the comparison with the recent new car has begun to become more and more difficult, and the subsequent growth momentum may slow down before the arrival of the new car L9.
Overall, the ideal ONE blockbuster strategy has achieved good practical results in the past time, compared to Xiaopeng's "outsmart wins" in assisted driving and voice interaction, the ideal growth is more in line with common sense, but it is also more difficult to be truly deeply understood.
NIO: The painful period of new and old iterations
Weilai's March is only 15 cars away from the third monthly sales of more than 10,000 vehicles, and the overall performance is also a good level within expectations.
Compared with The Small peng and the ideal, NIO delivered 91,429 vehicles in the entire 2021, an increase of 109.1% year-on-year. If you look at 2022Q1, WEILAI's delivery increased by only 28.5% year-on-year, and Xiaopeng and Ideal were 159% and 152.1% respectively.
It is not difficult to see from the sales chart of the model that the overall trend of Weilai in the past year or so, excluding the fluctuations of individual months, has been flat, ES6 sales have risen slightly, and EC6 and ES8 have hardly increased significantly.
If you only look at the actual results, Weilai's sales growth has slowed down significantly compared with the other two. But behind the results, we also need to see that the situation of Weilai contains many special reasons, which mainly include:
1. The sales performance of WEILAI in 2020 and 2021Q1 is the best among the top three new forces, and the year-on-year data is the most loss-making;
2. Among the three new forces, only Weilai has not updated its product line in 2021;
3. The overall price of NIO models is the highest.
In addition, another very critical external factor for WEI's growth restrictions in 2021 is the domestic production of Tesla Model Y, and the arrival of this strong direct competitor has greatly increased the fungibility of NIO's main sales models ES6 and EC6 in the market.
Under the multiple effects of the above factors, the slowdown in WEILAI's growth is reasonable. From another point of view, in such a challenging market environment, WEILAI has achieved more than 3-digit growth in 2021 with three old models, including sister product lines, which is actually relatively rare.
Weilai has actually made a lot of efforts in 2021, and the BaaS in advance layout in 2020 has helped Weilai reduce the purchase threshold of all series of products, which is quite critical, and the penetration rate of BaaS has reached 55% in the latest official information of Weilai. In terms of intelligent driving, the guided-assisted nop has also been unexpectedly successfully implemented on the platform of older models.
Another thing that is also worth paying attention to is that Weilai vigorously accelerates the construction of the energy system in 2021, and the substation has exceeded 700 from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, and most of the new substations are second-generation stations with better efficiency, plus the launch of 100-degree batteries and 75-degree batteries, which has paved the way and guaranteed growth on the energy supplemental experience side.
But after all, the 866 models on sale have not been updated on the core content for too long, and the decline in market competitiveness objectively exists, so the problem of stagnant growth still needs to wait for the delivery of new cars to climb before there will be real improvement.
In fact, the source of WEIO's growth slowdown from 2021 to the present is still the sequelae left by 2019, and the EC6 released in 2020 is a cost-oriented product of Weilai's economic crisis, and the original plan is to build a sedan project in Shanghai. It was the forced rhythm adjustments in 2019 that caused a product vacuum in 2021.
However, with the debut of NIO ET5, ET7, ES7 and other models this year, the throes of NIO's new and old iterations are also coming to an end.
brief summary
With the gradual development and growth of the three new forces in recent years, everyone has begun to form their own unique advantages, Xiaopeng hit the high-end market with intelligence, ideally relying on product definition to win the hearts of family users, and Weilai uses high-end image and services to attack the mainstream luxury market.
The comparison of sales of the three companies with the time of deduction has become more than just a numerical comparison, the indicators of judgment have become more and more multi-dimensional, the total amount, increment, average price, model sales, market segment rankings and other ways have their own reasons and emphases. We don't have to expect to "look old at three years old" from the current sales data, in contrast, what we should really pay attention to is the differentiation variables and market logic behind each sales volume. With this in mind, we may wish to make a preview of the sales of the three new forces in 2022.
2022 Forecast: Alternate leader under multiple challenges
Common problems: subsidies, epidemics, supply shortages
The price increase of electric vehicles is a hot topic in the new energy market in Q1 this year, mainly due to the decline in new energy subsidies and the increase in the price of battery raw materials. In addition to the ideal of the three strong forces has not been new energy subsidies, everyone has been affected by these two factors.
Ideal and Xiaopeng have successively announced the price increase of the model, and the price increase of the ideal ONE plus the diversion of the L9 is likely to pose a challenge to the new addition of the ideal ONE in the next few months, but the users who get on the car before the official price increase in March will still bring a certain buffer.
Compared with the ideal, Xiaopeng product line is also more affected by the price increase of battery raw materials because of the larger battery capacity, coupled with the fact that the average selling price itself is lower than that of the other two, the negative effect of the price increase on sales will theoretically be greater, and the sales volume of P5 and G3i may be reflected.
Weilai official has not announced any price increase at present, but in the near future, it has also revealed that the price strategy of adjusting the situation during the triage time, if the cost of power batteries continues to rise, I believe that Weilai will not be strong in the follow-up.
Not to be ignored is also the supply of parts and the epidemic problem, the shortage of vehicle regulation MCU chips, power batteries and other parts and components and the current new wave of the epidemic is a bigger problem for sales under the current price increase market.
At present, the industry's estimate of the shortage of automotive chips will continue to continue, may cover the whole year of this year, the second half of last year' new forces have encountered the problem of supply shortage, this year's growth will continue to face this unfavorable condition.
The epidemic in Shanghai began to be severe in March, and since April 1, it has entered the city-wide lockdown period, according to the insurance data of the past few months, the delivery volume that the top three new forces will lose in Shanghai in March and April is likely to be 1,000 units, and the same is true for the rest of the areas with a large epidemic impact. Fortunately, the three new forces have not yet had factories shut down due to the epidemic, and if the overall production capacity is currently in short supply, then orders in the epidemic area have the opportunity to convert part of the order to the rest of the region. But the premise is that this round of the epidemic is effectively controlled and does not trigger a larger-scale lockdown.
Xiaopeng in the previous period of power battery shortage after the explosion and Ningde era of some discord rumors, the current Xiaopeng power battery supply and last year's official announcement of SKI and rumored Xinwanda, for this year's growth stage may occur in the battery shortage Xiaopeng has taken action. Although Weilai and Ideal have no major moves, the supply side is also actively preparing.
Simply put, this year's new energy market is less favorable, the industry supply shortage will continue, and the epidemic has also filled the market with more uncertainty. These non-subjective and controllable variables will most likely influence the growth of the three new forces.
Sales forecast: alternate leads
Xiaopeng's sales lead according to our previous analysis is mainly derived from the growth of P7 and P5, such a growth momentum in the next better confirmation is at least P5 there will be a continuation, compared to the 866 + ET7 Weilai and only one car ideal, in the short term, if the sales of P7 can be stabilized at more than 8,000, then Xiaopeng's chances of defending the title are still continuing.
Followed by the new cars of each family, Xiaopeng is G9 and the modification of P7, G9 and the modification of P7 The current information is already known to everyone, the price of the modified P7 as an upgraded model should not have a substantial change, and there is still room for growth in sales after the optimization and improvement of pain points, the current price of G9 is unknown, but from the currently announced configuration, it can be predicted that it will be a large five-seat model in the range of 300,000 to 400,000, which also has a certain overlap with The product line of Weilai and Tesla.
G9 sales I think is still as difficult to predict as the previous Xiaopeng models, the actual capacity of the XPILOT 4.0 and 800 V electrical platform will be more important for the potential passengers of this car, Xiaopeng official preview of the Q3 delivery, this year's redesign of P7 and G9 brought a total increase should be 3 to 50,000 vehicles.
Then there is Weilai, ET7 has been delivered, is expected to climb the next few months to the monthly sales of 5,000 vehicles, with the May redesign of the 866 models, Weilai will usher in a small growth before Q3, so as to surpass the ideal or Xiaopeng are possible, and ET5 has the strength of monthly sales of more than 10,000, and ES7 front and rear foot delivery after the growth of Weilai will further accelerate.
The ideal this year's big move is L9, although its price may go to more than 450,000, but in terms of the current product positioning of this car, its sales are likely to exceed the 2021 ideal ONE, but the L9 in the time before the Q3 delivery, the ideal only with the 2021 ideal ONE increment will not be very optimistic, compared to the other two are basically in the defensive stage.
Write at the end
2022Q1 has officially ended, Q2's Beijing Auto Show will be a new car explosion event, the new forces of the three strong fist products will be unveiled in Q2 at the same time, and will be delivered in Q3 at the same time. I think that until then, the sales change of the top three new forces is still a continuation of 2021, and considering the changes in the market and products today, the comparison of the 1.0 epilogue is actually not so important.
The real good drama will start from Q3, in this year's industry's overall supply shortage, the uncertain epidemic situation, raw material prices in the context, the sales volume of each can better reflect the factory capacity and the company's supply chain control ability.
On the product side, although the three top three new forces this year seem to be divided into three roads, in fact, they are facing more direct competitive factors such as the convergence of intelligent routes and overlapping product prices, and everyone's growth strategy in the 1.0 stage will inevitably be adjusted in the new environment.
The condition for having more children to fight is that the per capita level of fighting is similar, the lower the price, the better the premise is that the product force is higher than the average price line, and the prerequisite for the success of the sustained explosive strategy is that there is no internal friction between the product lines.
In my opinion, in 2022, the top three new forces have the opportunity to impact 200,000 vehicles, and at present, everyone has its own advantages and shortcomings, and there have been differences in strategy and rhythm, but the overall level is still in the same echelon.
However, the so-called Wen Wu Wu Wu Wu No Second, sales data is easy to distinguish from one, two and three, and it is also the easiest to understand as one, two and three. The amount of delivery will still be an important basis for judging the three strong forces of the new forces, we will continue to pay attention to the trend of each family, and hope that Xiaopeng Ideal and Weilai can maintain this healthy competition with better results.