Wen | and Ling
BYD's "corner overtaking" came so violently, I really didn't expect it!
On April 3, BYD officially announced that it will stop the production of fuel vehicles from March 2022 in accordance with the company's strategic development needs. In the future, the automotive segment will focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
At the same time, BYD said that it will continue to provide perfect service and after-sales protection for existing fuel vehicle customers, as well as the supply of spare parts throughout the life cycle.
In the past two years, many car companies, including BBA, have said that the deadline for stopping production of fuel vehicles is between 2025 and 2030. In other words, within ten years at most, you will have to say goodbye to fuel vehicles. At that time, I was still very reluctant in my heart, after all, there were still many classic fuel vehicles that had not yet been driven.
Unexpectedly, in the first quarter of 2022, BYD took the lead in jumping out and ending your imagination. BYD became the first vehicle company in the world to stop the production of fuel vehicles. This moment will surely enter the history of the development of the global automobile industry, and "Big Car Observation" must be well recorded.
For a time, the top of the hot search, everyone has a variety of opinions.
"The next car, who will buy a gas car?"
"With DM-i, there is really no need for fuel vehicles."
"BYD's new energy vehicles sell too well, and it is good to concentrate on the production of new energy vehicles!"
It feels like there is BYD in front of it, and the latecomers will soon follow, not far from full electrification?
In fact, the fuel car says stop and stop, which is so simple?
Wait for the right time to strike
Or go to the nearby BYD 4S store to see. There are many people in the store who come to see the car, but there are no existing cars in the hybrid model in the store, and the pure electric model only has a few existing cars in the Qin PLUS EV. "The pick-up cycle is generally about 3 months." The sales consultant said, "Especially the DM-i model is good to sell, but there is no car!" ”
This is a naked reality, the current PRODUCTION CAPACITY OF BYD is close to the ceiling, according to BYD's data in the first quarter of this year, its production and sales are close, basically in a state of full production and full sales. In addition, BYD revealed in the minutes of the investor meeting after the release of the 2021 financial report that BYD's cumulative undelivered orders have reached 400,000 units, and it is still increasing month by month.
"Now almost no one who comes to the store to see the car asks about the fuel car." This sales consultant of BYD's 4S store has been working in the store for many years, and he gave me an example, "At that time, BYD Tang fuel version 130,000 yuan can be bought, pure electricity to 260,000 yuan, bought the owner of the tram, how to think how awkward, isn't it?" ”
The voice from the sales line is still very sharp. Indeed, BYD's engine technology is not the top, and the new energy brand uses a look, but the price is half of the new energy model, which inevitably does not make consumers have a feeling of "spending twice as much money just buying a battery". "The oil trucks are not selling well, and there is a suspicion of 'dragging their legs', and they are parked well." In addition, it can also free up some capacity for the hybrid car. The senior sales consultant said.
Therefore, the sales consultant sketched a rough idea in a few simple words. "In March 2022, BYD became the world's first manufacturer to stop fuel vehicles" This matter is a bit sudden for the industry, but for Wang Chuanfu, it is definitely not a pat on the head to come up with, and he has planned to wait for the right time to shoot.
Implanted in BYD's soul
In fact, as early as a year ago, BYD's fuel vehicle business began to gradually shrink. In March 2021, BYD's sales of new energy vehicles exceeded the traditional fuel vehicles for the first time, reaching 59.33%. Since then, new energy vehicles have been applauded all the way, and the presence of fuel vehicles has been greatly reduced. In 2021, BYD's annual sales volume was 730,000 units, of which nearly 600,000 new energy vehicles, accounting for 81.6%, while fuel vehicle sales were 136,300 units, accounting for 18.4%.
According to the latest March production and sales report, its new energy vehicle production in March was 106,700 units, and its sales volume was 104,900 units, exceeding 100,000 units for the first time. Among them, BYD's DM plug-in and hybrid models sold 50,600 units, an increase of 615.2% year-on-year; EV pure electric models sold 53,600 units in March, an increase of 229.2% year-on-year.
In the first quarter of 2022, BYD's cumulative sales of fuel vehicles were only 5,049 units, down 89.78% year-on-year, and accounted for only 1.7% of total sales; while the production and sales of fuel vehicles in March were 0, which is a historic moment.
"If ten years ago, the development of new energy vehicles was mainly driven by policies; 3 or 5 years ago, the development of the industry was a two-wheel drive of 'policy + market', then the current market drive accounted for 70%, and the policy drive was 30%."
At the electric vehicle 100 people's meeting just held a few days ago, Wang Chuanfu revealed, "Before BYD did a test, at the local auto show, spent 5 days to observe the car watching behavior of people on the spot, found that 60% to 70% of consumers are watching new energy vehicles, while only 30% to 40% of consumers who look at fuel vehicles make us very shocked, but we can clearly see that when the people buy cars, most people are looking at new energy vehicles, which is the direct reason for the penetration rate of new energy vehicles to increase month by month." According to this development, at the end of this year, it is expected that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the mainland will reach 35%. ”
To put it bluntly, on the one hand, external reasons, such as rising oil prices, emission upgrades, energy conservation and environmental protection, industrial transformation and other factors restricting the development of fuel vehicles, have stimulated BYD to accelerate this decision; more importantly, BYD's accumulated technical product strength has given Wang Chuanfu the courage to seize this rare "global first" opportunity.
In fact, people familiar with BYD know that BYD started from batteries. But few people know that since the establishment of BYD Automobile Company in 2003, three development businesses have been established: fuel vehicles, electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles. That is to say, hybrid and electric are deeply implanted in BYD's soul.
It's just that in the era of fuel vehicles, BYD has ups and downs, and life is average. But there has been no interruption in the exploration of hybrids and electric vehicles. For example, F3DM dual-mode electric vehicle, e6 pure electric vehicle, depressive launch... It was not until 2013, after the Qin DM dual-mode power model, that the strength of new energy products was gradually recognized by the market.
Especially in the past year, BYD has ushered in the outbreak of technology products with blade batteries, DM-i super hybrid, e-platform 3.0, etc. The newly launched bydding bydir Han DM series of new models Han DM-i and Han DM-p began pre-sale, and the cumulative orders in just ten hours have exceeded 12,098 units. Among them, the Fuel Consumption of Han DM-i 100 km loss is as low as 4.2L, and the comprehensive endurance is up to 1300km; while the Han DM-p, as a supermix performance coupe, accelerates by 3.7 seconds at zero hundred and consumes only 5.2 L of fuel per 100 km.
There are many challenges
In fact, at this time, when it announced that it has fully entered the era of new energy vehicles, BYD still faces many challenges.
First of all, electrification and intelligence are not separated, but intelligence is BYD's biggest shortcoming at present. BYD has The DiLink Intelligent Connected Vehicle System in the field of intelligent cockpit and DiPilot in the field of intelligent driving. Among them, DiLink has evolved to version 4.0, mainly relying on the Android ecosystem to download the car application, but the experience is not fully connected with the vehicle, "car machine caton" is the norm; DiPilot is relatively conservative, it is difficult to compete with the mainstream.
BYD knows this. In February this year, BYD chose Baidu as its supplier of intelligent driving technology, Baidu will provide BYD with an ANP intelligent driving product and human-machine co-driving map; that month, BYD also invested in the lidar company Sagitar Juchuang; at the end of March, BYD announced that it had reached a cooperation with NVIDIA in intelligent driving technology, and from the first half of 2023, BYD will be equipped with NVIDIA's DRIVE Hyperion platform on some new energy vehicles.
Interestingly, its low-end models cooperate with Horizon in terms of intelligent driving, and previously appeared in Horizon's circle of friends. In addition, BYD is also cooperating with Huawei MDC, and it is reported that BYD's upcoming seals will be equipped with Huawei MDC.
Second, BYD, which has entered the car market with low-end models, lacks high-end brand profit cows. In February, BYD's brand logo renewal clearly mentioned that it will rely on two brands to enter the high-end market in the future, namely the Denza brand and a new new high-end brand of new energy.
On February 14 this year, DENZA Automobile Sales & Service Co., Ltd., which is 100% owned by BYD, obtained a business license. At this point, 100% of Denza belongs to BYD and will make a comeback. The Denza brand will be positioned in the range of 300,000-500,000 yuan, and will launch three new models of pure electric multi-purpose vehicles in 2022-2023, including MPV and SUVs.
The new new energy high-end brand is expected to be launched in the second half of 2022, the price range is expected to be more than 500,000-1 million yuan, its brand, products, sales and service network, operation team, etc. will be fully independent operation, the first model is a hardcore off-road vehicle.
At that time, BYD Automobile will form four sales segment clusters consisting of Dynasty.com, Ocean.com, Denza and high-end brands. Among them, the main sales models of the Dynasty series include Qin, Han, Tang, Song, Yuan and derivative models, which basically cover the price range of 100,000-300,000 yuan; the main sales models of the Ocean series include Dolphin, Seal, etc. and the upcoming warship series.
Third, the new energy vehicles that sell the most, but make the least money? ACCORDING TOD's 2021 financial report shows that the operating income of the current period increased by 38% year-on-year to 216.14 billion yuan, but the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies fell by 28% year-on-year to 3.045 billion yuan.
Among the top three independent brands, in 2021, Great Wall Motor's revenue was 136.405 billion yuan and net profit was 6.726 billion yuan; Geely Automobile's revenue was 101.6 billion yuan and net profit was 4.847 billion yuan; in comparison, BYD had the largest revenue scale, but the lowest net profit. In this regard, some people in the industry say that BYD is "the most sold new energy vehicle, but it makes the least money." ”
In fact, this statement is not accurate. For the net profit in 2021 to fall by nearly 30%, BYD explained that "due to the impact of the global epidemic, the electronics business is under short-term pressure; affected by factors such as rising raw material and commodity prices, the company's overall costs have risen." During the period, the sales volume of the automobile business increased significantly, and the profitability of the automobile segment increased. ”
That is to say, the decline in profits is mainly affected by BYD's electronics business; the automobile business is still profitable. It can be seen from the financial report that the gross profit margin of the automobile business in 2021 is 17.39% by BYD, which is higher than the 17.14% of Geely and the 14.89% of the Great Wall in the same period, which is a normal level; of course, there is still a gap compared with the gross profit margin of Tesla's automobile business in 2021 of about 30%, and the gross profit margin of Weilai and the ideal automobile is 20%.
In fact, in addition to vehicle sales, the whole industry chain route created by BYD has also laid many new growth points for itself in advance. For example, the best quality asset - power batteries. BYD blade batteries have been open to the whole industry to provide, at present FAW Hongqi, Zhongtong Bus, Changan Automobile, Toyota Motor, Ford Motor, PSA, Daimler, etc. are all customers of Fadi Battery. This year, the latest news broke, and new customers of Xiaomi and Weilai were added, but this was not confirmed by the manufacturer. In addition to batteries, ATD e platform 3.0 has cooperated with Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Didi and so on.
In a word, the naked eye can see that BYD has posed as All in. Prior to this, BYD said that its sales target for 2022 is conservatively expected to be 1.5 million vehicles, and if the supply chain is good, it will hit 2 million vehicles. What is the concept of 2 million vehicles? In 2021, the domestic passenger car sales champion FAW-Volkswagen, the sales volume is 1.8 million, which is almost 2 million; the domestic new energy vehicle sales target in 2022 is 5 million, if BYD completes 2 million vehicles, it will achieve 40% of them... One family.
Looking forward to BYD's future performance, do not be in vain "the world's first".