On the first day of April, the report card of the new car-making forces was released as promised. One of the most surprising is that the ideal that just reached the top last month slipped off the throne: the data shows that the ideal car delivered a total of 11,034 vehicles in March, an increase of 125.2% year-on-year; the delivery volume of Xiaopeng Automobile reached 15,414 units, up 202% year-on-year, returning to the top position.
The change of seats between the three giants of "Wei Xiaoli" is believed to be common to everyone in the past six months. But in March' deliveries, there's another name that deserves our attention: Nezha Cars. With an explosive growth of 270%, Nezha delivered 12,026 vehicles in March, surpassing the ideal to the second seat. Don't forget, Nezha also ranked second in terms of deliveries in February, leaving the old big brother Weilai far behind.
At the same time, the monthly delivery of zero-run cars, which are also in the second line, also exceeded 10,000 for the first time, reaching 10,059 units, surpassing Weilai and catching up with the ideal. All kinds of signs tell us that the pattern of the three male hegemony of the new car-making forces is being broken.
In fact, returning to the delivery volume change curve of the past year, Nezha has entered a high-speed growth stage since the second half of the year, and the year-on-year growth rate is also a straight line to catch up with "Wei Xiaoli". Under the supply chain crisis, "Wei Xiaoli" was deeply troubled, and Nezha, who was not optimistic in the early stage, seemed to be about to stage a counterattack myth of "my life is up to me".
Behind the counterattack, what efforts did Nezha make? The delivery volume has been overtaken, does "Wei Xiaoli" have other chips in his hand? Has the competitive landscape of the new car-making forces really been completely subverted?
At the time of the change of rankings, these questions deserve our serious consideration.
The new forces of second-line car manufacturing have collectively exerted their strength, and the industry pattern is facing reshaping
As mentioned earlier, the outbreak of Nezha Automobile began in the second half of last year, that is, the supply chain crisis gradually dropped the delivery volume of Weilai, and the "Wei Xiaoli" Sanxiong seat was constantly changing.
According to the data, Nezha Automobile delivered 69,674 vehicles in 2021, an increase of 362% year-on-year, and became the fourth new car-making force with a total delivery of more than 100,000 vehicles after "Wei Xiaoli" in February. If you take the delivery volume of each quarter apart, you can find that the delivery growth rate of Nezha Automobile in the second half of the year has increased significantly, far exceeding the "Wei Xiaoli" top three of the first echelon.
According to the data, the delivery volume of Nezha Automobile from July to December last year was 6011, 6613, 7699, 8107, 10013 and 10127 units, respectively. In 2022, Nezha also continued its excellent delivery performance, delivering 11009 and 7117 new cars in the first two months of this year, with a year-on-year increase of 402% and 332% respectively.
Throughout the first quarter, Nezha delivered a total of 30,152 new cars, which also exceeded Weilai's 25,768 vehicles, which was incomparably close to the ideal 31,716 vehicles and Xiaopeng's 34,561 vehicles.
In addition to the obvious progress compared with himself, the horizontal comparison of "Wei Xiaoli", Nezha's delivery volume growth rate is also quite amazing.
On the one hand, when the supply chain crisis intensified in the second half of last year, Nezha Automobile's delivery volume has always maintained a month-on-month growth, and the "Wei Xiaoli" in the same period has not been achieved.
Among them, last year's delivery champion Xiaopeng fell month-on-month in August and October, and ideally slipped in September. As for Weilai, which has been most affected by the chip shortage, it is not to mention that in July, August and October, there were month-on-month declines, and the number of deliveries in October fell sharply by nearly 7,000 units month-on-month.
In contrast, before February this year, the delivery volume of Nezha Automobile has achieved 11 consecutive months of month-on-month growth. As we all know, affected by objective factors such as the Spring Festival holiday, February has always been the low tide period of the domestic car market, and the delivery volume and sales volume of major car companies will fall to the bottom in this month. Leaving aside the influence of these objective factors, Nezha's mass production capacity and stability are still worthy of affirmation.
On the other hand, from the perspective of the year-on-year growth rate of delivery volume, Nezha has also greatly surpassed "Wei Xiaoli".
Since July last year, Nezha's monthly delivery volume has increased by 392%, 449%, 281%, 398%, 372%, 236%, 402%, 255% and 270% respectively year-on-year, and the delivery volume has basically doubled. In contrast, the data of "Wei Xiaoli" is much inferior.
Since the second half of last year, the year-on-year growth rate of delivery volume has basically been at the bottom, and in October, there was a year-on-year decline of 27%. Ideal and Xiaopeng have slight ups and downs during the period, but in addition to Ideal in February this year with a year-on-year growth rate of 265%, Nezha is firmly in the first place in other months.
More importantly, the rise of Nezha is not unique. The supply chain crisis induced by the chip shortage has interrupted the development rhythm of head manufacturers such as "Wei Xiaoli", and the new forces of second-tier car manufacturing such as zero-run cars and WM Motors have also taken this opportunity to quickly close the distance with the former.
Although the delivery growth rate of Zero Run and Weima is not as amazing as Nezha, the progress is also quite obvious.
For the whole of last year, zero-run cars delivered a total of 43,121 new cars, and WM delivered 44,157 cars, both of which reached a record high. If you calculate the data of the first quarter of this year, the zero-run delivery volume reached 21579 vehicles, and the gap with Weilai was narrowed to four digits, and the former delivery volume increased by as much as 410% year-on-year.
In March, ZeroCar officially launched its IPO plan to Hong Kong. According to the data provided in the prospectus, Zero Run plans to launch 8 new models by the end of 2025, drawing an incomparably grand blueprint for the capital market. Although the realization of this radical plan is unknown, the ambition of zero running is beyond doubt.
Of course, when it comes to the threat to the first echelon, Nezha is naturally the biggest.
In fact, in the initial stage, Nezha was not optimistic about the outside world and was considered to be another "PPT car" player. With the passage of time, Nezha already has the strength to rank among the frontlines and challenges "Wei Xiaoli". In recent years, Nezha has actually made a lot of efforts on the road to rise. For peers such as Zero Run and Weima, it may also provide some enlightenment.
(Picture from the official website of Nezha Automobile)
The delivery volume is in the top three, what is the secret of success of the game breaker Nezha?
Compared with "Wei Xiaoli", Nezha's dedication and investment in the concept of smart cars are higher.
At the beginning of last year, Internet giant 360 led a high-profile investment in Nezha's Round D 3 billion financing, becoming the latter's second largest shareholder. For this cooperation between the two sides, Nezha gave an official interpretation: scientific and technological equality is the core concept of the two.
In fact, since its inception, intelligence, systematization and ecology have become an important development strategy of Nezha Automobile. Fang Yunzhou, the founder of Nezha Automobile, has also repeatedly said in public that smart cars are the most important next-generation mobile smart terminals.
"Smart cars are no longer a single means of travel, but also an important carrier of the digital economy."
From the perspective of the development process of Nezha Automobile, intelligence is not only reflected in the operating system and functions of the car, but also in all aspects of production and design. In the view of the Value Research Institute, Nezha Automobile can catch up in the context of the lack of first-mover advantage and the increasingly red sea of the market, and intelligence is a very important keyword.
First of all, in terms of production, Nezha insists on using a fully intelligent production model. In terms of design and development, process development, manufacturing, quality control and procurement, intelligent system management is adopted, and it is one of the earliest car companies in the industry to realize the digital upgrading of the whole link.
The data shows that from the breakthrough of zero to the 100,000th new car off the production line, Nezha took only 42 months. Behind this, Nezha's intelligent production factory in Tongxiang has achieved 24-hour uninterrupted operation. In addition, Nezha's smart workshops in Yichun and Nanning were also completed around December last year.
At present, the Nezha cars launched on the market are mainly produced by the Tongxiang factory, but the capacity planning of the Yichun and Nanning factories is higher than that of Tongxiang: the first two are 100,000 vehicles, and Tongxiang is 80,000 vehicles. After the production capacity of nanning and Yichun factories was released, Nezha's mass production and delivery speed still had the opportunity to increase significantly.
Unlike weilai and other pioneers who chose the oem model in the early stage, Nezha realized the importance of independent production very early: this not only means a stronger supply chain control ability, but also lays the foundation for upstream procurement, research and development, downstream transportation and sales, and integration of the production chain.
(Image from UNsplash)
According to Nezha officially, Tongxiang Intelligent Factory is the first full ecological intelligent workshop for new energy vehicles in China, and the benchmark in terms of intelligence is Tesla Gigafactory.
In stark contrast, the transformation of factories and bases, which is currently the most affected by the supply chain, will take some time to complete.
In November last year, Li Bin told analysts on the earnings conference call that the advanced manufacturing base in Hefei is currently being upgraded and transformed in stages, and it is expected to be officially put into operation in 2022. In addition, NIO's second production base in the Intelligent Vehicle Industrial Park in Hefei Xinqiao is also being expanded, and it is expected to be officially put into operation in the third quarter of this year.
The Value Institute believes that the main reason for the sharp decline in Weilai's delivery volume is of course the chip shortage, but the upgrading of the production base at a critical time has also slowed down the pace of delivery to a certain extent. From this point of view, in 2019, which has not yet achieved scale, Nezha Automobile will build factories in three places in a big way, which may be a very far-sighted gamble.
Secondly, after the mass production capacity is raised, what attracts users to pay is still the advantage of intelligence.
Wang Junping, head of Nezha Intelligent Driving, previously introduced that the upcoming Nezha S will be equipped with its self-developed intelligent safety vehicle platform "Shanhai Platform" for the first time, and it is expected to open pre-sale in April this year and officially deliver in October this year.
The Nezha U series and V series models currently on sale are equipped with TA PILOT 2.0 and TA PILOT 3.0 systems respectively, and in the S series, they will also be fully upgraded to TA PILOT 4.0, which is in line with the first-line brands in intelligent driving technology.
The cooperation between the aforementioned 360 and Nezha Automobile provides support for the latter's intelligent technology upgrade, especially in driving safety.
Since the various components of the smart car need to be newly programmed to become a huge intelligent terminal, and at the same time face operations such as data migration to the cloud, there may be a large number of vulnerabilities that are attacked. The deep technology accumulation of 360 in the fields of Internet of Things security and industrial Internet can just fill the shortcomings of Nezha.
There is no doubt that after the explosive growth in the second half of last year, Nezha already has the strength to call "Wei Xiaoli" in delivery. However, this does not mean that the competitive landscape of the new car-making forces has been completely subverted.
After all, in addition to mass production capabilities, research and development, automobile ecology, upstream and downstream supply chains and other links are an important part of the comprehensive competitiveness of car companies. In these links, "Wei Xiaoli" actually has its own advantages.
Nezha is trapped "outside the fifth ring", "Wei Xiaoli" and his own moat
Compared with traditional car companies, the reason why the early birth of new car-making forces is difficult to mass production is mainly due to the integration ability of the upstream and downstream industrial chains and the lack of self-built production lines. From the perspective of mass production scale, "Wei Xiaoli" and the outstanding representatives of the second echelon such as Nezha and Zero Run have basically solved the latter problem and built a stable production line.
However, it is not so easy to open up all the links in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. For Nezha, who dreams of hitting the front line, on the top, it lacks the bargaining power with upstream suppliers; downward, it is still difficult to match "Wei Xiaoli" in the distribution channels, which has become an unfavorable factor hindering its subsequent development.
According to the data, by the end of last year, Nezha Automobile had a total of 363 direct operation and sales centers across the country, covering 27 provinces and more than 140 large and small cities.
In terms of the number of stores, there is not much difference between Nezha and "Wei Xiaoli". According to the data, as of the end of last year, Xiaopeng had a total of 357 operating stores, covering 129 cities across the country; Nio proposed a high-profile expansion plan at the beginning of last year, aiming to reach 366 stores by the end of the year.
In contrast, the ideal number of stores is the lowest, with less than 170 by the end of 2021, and its goal is to increase to 209 within this year, achieving a 27% year-on-year increase.
However, a closer look can be found that the concentration of Nezha's offline stores is extremely high, and the sales network is not wide enough: North China and the sinking market of the third and fourth lines have concentrated most of Nezha's stores. Among them, the stores in third-tier cities and fourth-tier cities accounted for 30.85% and 23.97% respectively, accounting for most of the country. In the regional distribution, Shandong and Henan provinces have 50 and 44 stores, accounting for more than 20%.
In Shandong, Nezha stores have even sunk to county-level cities. However, in first-tier large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, the volume of Nezha is still quite limited.
On the contrary, it is the ideal of the smallest total number of stores, and the number of stores in first-tier large cities and high-end shopping centers is the highest. According to the statistics of the 21st Century Economic Research Institute, as of the first half of last year, Ideal opened a total of 39 stores in the city's large shopping malls, which is not only higher than Weilai and Xiaopeng, but also far more than Tesla.
What exposes the embarrassing reality of Nezha being trapped "outside the five rings" is not only the distribution of stores, but also the overall price and brand awareness.
In November last year, Nezha launched a new V Pro series of new cars, the price range is between 76,900-80,900, the main focus is still the cost-effective advantage. The S series, which pins its hopes on Nezha's high-end, is expected to be delivered in October this year.
In contrast, the three giants of "Wei Xiaoli" have divided the territory of power in the 150,000-450,000 high-end market, and have accumulated a large number of loyal users. The later Nezha S comes out, the more difficult it is to pry the market of "Wei Xiaoli" - especially considering that Xiaopeng and Ideal are also actively penetrating into the high-end market.
In the view of the Institute of Value, with the gradual improvement of basic charging facilities, the popularization of the concept of new energy consumption and the advancement of intelligent network technology, the transition to high-end is an inevitable choice for new car-making forces. In the domestic high-end new energy vehicle market, the once invincible BBA has lost in the face of Weilai and ideals.
In 2021, the average price of each model of the ideal ONE is 300,000, and a total of 90,000 vehicles will be delivered throughout the year; the annual delivery volume of models with a price of more than 450,000 units after THE subsidy will exceed 10,000 units. In contrast, Audi's first pure electric SUV e-tron sold less than 2,000 units, the Mercedes-Benz EQC only had more than 6,000 units, and the BBA triwife relied on the BMW iX3 to support the scene.
Judging from these subdivision data, even if it is trapped by the supply chain, "Wei Xiaoli" still has its own moat backed by the high-end market.
The Value Institute also analyzed in the previous article that Xiaopeng, which has the lowest price range in the top three of "Wei Xiaoli", recorded the largest loss in the past year, which is related to the low gross profit margin of the vehicle and the limited premium space.
Today, Nezha, whose deliveries have exploded but is priced lower than Xiaopeng, may also face the same problem. Wanting to truly draw a balance of power with "Wei Xiaoli" and rush into the high-end market is an inevitable choice for Nezha.
Write at the end
As early as July 2020, the first anniversary of the opening of the science and technology innovation board, Nezha's parent company, United Automobile, was listed. At that time, the official plan of United Automobile was to land on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2021, and the C round of financing that had been launched at that time was to prepare for listing, and even media reported that the underwriters had moved in to deal with relevant financial statements.
However, due to the sharp turmoil in the global stock market in the past year, there have also been some adjustments to the regulatory rules of the science and technology innovation board, and Nezha's listing plan has also been repeatedly delayed. Some time ago, United Automobile was exploded to change the track to the Hong Kong IPO, but there has been no further news so far.
Compared with "Wei Xiaoli", Nezha still has a significant gap in volume, and listing is undoubtedly one of the best ways to narrow the gap - after all, listing financing can alleviate financial pressure to the greatest extent and rapidly expand brand influence.
However, after the repeated changes in the listing plan, the attitude of Nezha Automobile's senior management towards capital seems to have undergone some changes.
In June last year, Daniel Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Nezha Automobile, who attended the 13th China Automotive Blue Book Forum, said the following:
"Now everyone says that building a car, there is no cash reserve of 30 billion yuan or 50 billion yuan in hand, and they are embarrassed to say hello to others." My understanding is that you must have money to build a car, but if you have money, you must be able to build a good car? I think not necessarily, otherwise PetroChina and Sinopec should build cars the most. ”
In the past year, "Wei Xiaoli" has been "beaten" by the capital market, and the market value and stock price have plunged, which shows that the listing is not a stable and profitable transaction.
For Nezha, who has found the right point of strength and explored a stable development model, it seems that it is not big bad news that it cannot be listed for the time being. It is the most important thing to sink down to polish your own products and technologies and realize the high-end plan as soon as possible.