BYD bids farewell to the "fuel era"

BYD's "farewell" came sooner than expected.

In December last year, BYD gave a clear timetable for the suspension of fuel vehicles, but this time has arrived ahead of schedule. On April 3, BYD announced that it had stopped the production of fuel vehicles, making BYD the first car company in the world to officially announce the suspension of fuel vehicle production.

The suspension of fuel vehicles by a giant-level vehicle group is a landmark event for BYD and even the entire automotive industry. Globally, other automotive groups plan to discontinue fuel vehicles around 2030.

WANG Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, has done another big thing. With the dream of "world first" in the car, he did not hesitate on the future-oriented track and ran forward at great speed.

It was a relatively long goodbye. From the beginning of the army of cars, BYD walked on two legs, making both fuel vehicles and electric vehicles, but Wang Chuanfu put more energy on electric vehicles, and finally to this day, he has to go all out to this new war.

The global new energy industry is the new battlefield for BYD and Wang Chuanfu.

Bear down

On the evening of April 3, BYD announced that it would stop the production of fuel vehicles from March 2022 according to its strategic development needs. In the future, BYD will focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the automotive segment.

Global car companies, including BBA, also have plans to stop production of fuel vehicles and completely transform new energy, but most of the planned transformation period is around 2030. BYD's movements are much faster.

Many investors believe that there will be more OEMs to follow up, and the blueprint for the era of new energy vehicles will become clearer.

BYD also said that this strategic adjustment is around the national "double carbon" strategic goal, adhere to the new development concept of "innovation" and "green", and lead the transformation of the automotive industry with the impetus of scientific and technological innovation.

In fact, the earliest domestic layout of electric vehicles, power batteries of the car group, the proportion of fuel vehicles has been very small.

In the first two months of this year, new energy vehicles have accounted for more than 97% of ATD's total model sales, and last year this proportion was still about 81%.

According to the production and sales express report released on April 3, BYD has produced and sold 0 fuel vehicles in March 2022. Judging from the production and sales data, BYD's fuel vehicles have gradually withdrawn from the market stage.

In March, BYD's production of new energy vehicles was 106658 units, an increase of 416.96% year-on-year, and sales were 104878 units, an increase of 422.97% year-on-year.

Among them, pure electric passenger cars produced 54684 units, an increase of 266.20% year-on-year, and plug-in hybrid models produced 51434 units this month, an increase of 853.37% year-on-year. In terms of sales, BYD's pure electric passenger car sales in March were 53,664 units, an increase of 271.05% year-on-year; plug-in hybrid models sold 50,674 units, an increase of 857.40% year-on-year.

Compared with the production data of the previous four months, BYD's new energy vehicle production has further improved, from about 90,000 to 100,000.

According to a meeting minutes provided by investors, BYD management said at the 2021 performance meeting that the development of new energy vehicles far exceeded expectations, and the faster they developed in the back. The penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the first three weeks of March has reached 30%, and may reach 40% by the end of the year.

This means that for the whole year, the sales of new energy vehicles will be far more than the 5.6 million vehicles previously expected by industry insiders.

While the market is still growing at a high speed, it is a change in the competitive environment of the industry.

As BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said, the development of New Energy Vehicles in China far exceeded expectations last year, and the industry also entered a new stage of market-oriented development.

After the initial outbreak period, the entire new energy vehicle market has gradually shifted from policy-driven orientation to being determined by market demand.

On the other hand, in the context of the headwinds of the rise in raw materials and the market background of players in the field taking production capacity as the primary point of contention, the competition in the new energy vehicle market is becoming more and more intense, which is a severe test for players in the field. For many automakers, this year is likely to face a "battle of life and death".

BYD also needs to go all out to consolidate its market position in this increasingly urgent battle for the scale of new energy vehicles. The discontinued fuel vehicle is one of the links, and more research and development, capital and production personnel will be invested in new energy vehicles.

Investors familiar with BYD said that bydir's conservative sales target of 1.5 million vehicles, if the supply chain is highly coordinated, it is expected to reach a higher target.

A number of institutions, including Guosen Securities, expect that with BYD's launch of models including Denza brand and high-end brands in 2022, the rich model matrix will help the company hit the target of 2 million vehicles per year.

Battle of Kings

In the era of fuel vehicles, the giants are BBA, these established car groups, a few years ago, Tesla turned out to be a new energy vehicle era.

As BYD bid farewell to the "fuel era" and fully lays out the new energy vehicle market, this new field in full swing in the world has attracted more attention.

In China, the new car-making forces Wei Xiaoli have stolen a lot of eyeballs in the past few years, and none of their sales can be compared with BYD; in February this year, there were 5 car companies with wholesale sales of new energy vehicle manufacturers exceeding 10,000 vehicles, BYD ranked first with 88,000 vehicles, and Tesla China followed with 56,500 vehicles.

In China's new energy vehicle monthly sales list, BYD has ranked first for 9 consecutive months, even surpassing Tesla.

In the A-share market, BYD is the most concerned new energy star stock for investors in addition to the Ningde era, with a market value of nearly one trillion yuan.

In the world, BYD's strong sprint means that Tesla, the current king of electric vehicles, has ushered in the strongest challenger.

On April 3, Tesla officially released its global production and delivery report for the first quarter of 2022, which just passed: more than 305,000 new cars were produced worldwide and more than 310,000 vehicles were delivered.

The minutes of the investor meeting show that as of the end of March, BYD's cumulative undelivered orders reached 400,000 units, and it is still increasing month by month.

BYD's goal of 1.5 million has surpassed Tesla. On The Tesla earnings call in January, Musk said that sales in 2022 will increase by 50%, referring to last year's sales of 936,000 vehicles, which means that Tesla will sell more than 1.4 million vehicles in 2022.

This means that BYD is likely to become the new global king of electric vehicles this year and next.

In order to climb and sit firmly at the head of new energy vehicles, BYD's capacity expansion plan is also in full swing.

The "small target" of 1.5 million units means more than tripling from last year's level. ACCORDING TOD sources, from about 20,000 vehicles in January last year, the production capacity increased to more than 90,000 vehicles in November, and the company is maintaining a full capacity at full capacity.

With the release of capacity in these plants during the year, BYD's production will be further increased. According to public information, after BYD's new production capacity is put into operation, the overall production capacity will be increased to 2.2 million units in 2022, and it will further rise to 3.6 million units in 2023.

On the synchronous sales channels, people familiar with BYD pointed out that in the off-season in February, BYD mainly focused on opening up channels, allowing more dealers and 4S stores to come in, with the goal of increasing the number of channels from 1200 to 1500-2000.

While solving the problem of production capacity and sales channels, brand high-end is also another important starting point for BYD's sprint this year. BYD said, "Will take out the most ferocious sharks and crocodiles in the technical fish pond and shock everyone's eyes." ”

Of course, if it wants to compete with Tesla for "world first" and become a real king, BYD still needs a real "blockbuster" car, which will become the ballast stone of its sales, and in terms of technology, concept and ecology, there are more things beyond itself.

Wang Chuanfu has been doing the dream of "world first" in the car for 15 years, and now it is getting closer and closer to his dream come true.

He was lucky enough to bet on the new energy vehicle track and catch up with this popular outlet. After the "Great Leap Forward" burst of new energy vehicles in the past two years, BYD has once again come to the crossroads of its destiny.

At the 100-person forum on electric vehicles that just ended last week, Wang Chuanfu said that he was very optimistic about the new energy vehicle market, and he expected that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the mainland would reach 35% at the end of this year.

He mentioned that the growth of new energy vehicles last year was different from 3 years ago, when online car-hailing and taxis accounted for a large proportion, but last year, private cars accounted for up to 88%, and it was the people who used practical actions to support the purchase of new energy vehicles.

A new era has arrived. BYD does not want to miss this historic opportunity, and Wang Chuanfu is expected to continue his legend.