Behind the G3 fire, Xiaopeng Automobile faced the "trust" crisis

Xiaopeng Car, how a "fire" word to get.

In the past March, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 15,414 units, an increase of 202% year-on-year. Whether it is the increment or the growth rate, Xiaopeng has become the holder of the bull's ear in "Wei Xiaoli".

If you count the entire first quarter, Xiaopeng Automobile also leads the new forces. In the first three months of 2022, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered a total of 34,561 units, an increase of 159% year-on-year. In the same period, Ideal Automobile delivered 31,716 units, an increase of 152% year-on-year; NIO delivered 25,768 vehicles, an increase of 28% year-on-year.

In terms of sales, "Wei Xiaoli" still belongs to the same echelon; but in terms of growth rate, Xiaopeng & Ideal has opened up a position with Weilai. At the moment, Xiao Peng seems to be constantly accelerating, running faster and faster.

#01

Spontaneous combustion, adding a fire to Xiaopeng

The industry cheered, fans clapped their hands, and Xiaopeng in the spotlight completely boiled.

However, a sudden spontaneous burning incident easily burned Xiao Peng's gorgeous coat.

At about 23:00 on March 28, under a residential building in Longhua District, Shenzhen, a Xiaopeng G3 car exploded, followed by fire. By the time the firefighters arrived, the car had only an empty shell left.

One witness said he saw smoke upstairs, then as if the wheels were on fire, followed by a raging fire. "Fortunately, the time is late, the owner is not in the car, fortunately in misfortune." The witness was worried.

Subsequently, Xiaopeng Automobile confirmed the spontaneous combustion, "On the evening of March 28, Mr. He's Xiaopeng 2019 G3 car had a fire in a community in Longhua, Shenzhen, and no one was injured." In addition, Xiaopeng Automobile also said, "Attaches great importance to the rights and interests of users, fully cooperates with relevant departments to investigate accidents, and assists customers in handling follow-up matters." ”

In real life, since 2019, Xiaopeng Automobile has undergone no less than 5 spontaneous combustions.

In addition, the last two accidents occurred on February 7, 2021, when a Xiaopeng P7 spontaneously ignited on the streets of Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, and on April 14, 2021, a Xiaopeng G3 spontaneously combusted during the charging of the charging pile.

Not only Xiaopeng, including Weilai and Ideal, in 2021, there will be more or less fire accidents in the new energy car manufacturing forces.

For example, on May 11, 2021, ideal one had an impact fire accident; on July 30, 2021, WEILAI EC6 also caught fire in the impact.

According to incomplete statistics, in the vast majority of spontaneous combustion incidents of new energy vehicles, collisions are the culprits. Especially in the high-speed driving state, violent collisions cause damage to the internal components of the car, which is very easy to cause short circuits, and then spontaneous combustion will occur.

But Xiaopeng's three recent fires have not been able to catch up with the impact: fire during charging, spontaneous combustion during driving, explosive spontaneous combustion, behind each fire, there is a big puzzle, which makes the owner invincible.

Focusing on the model, in Xiaopeng's 5 spontaneous combustion, the P7 series only appeared 1 time, the G3 series appeared 4 times, and the "hit rate" was as high as 80%.

In this regard, some industry insiders analyzed that the Xiaopeng G3 model was first launched in 2018, and the older model was a reason, when the technical level was worse and the spontaneous combustion rate would be higher.

#02

Crisis of trust, poor stability of the main car

In the face of life-threatening accidents, it is somewhat powerless to talk about anything.

If the car owner's concern is graded, the top two must be personal safety and inner trust, followed by the search for so-called various reasons.

But Xiaopeng G3 can not give users such a sense of trust for the time being. The reason is that this model with a high accident rate has a huge user base.

Since 2018, the G3 series has been one of the main models of Xiaopeng Motors. Even now, it still has a good sales performance. In 2021, the Xiaopeng G3 series delivered a total of 29,721 vehicles, accounting for 30% of the total delivery. From January to February 2022, the Xiaopeng G3 series delivered a total of 2815 vehicles, accounting for about 15% of total sales.

But it is such a long-term output, especially capable of playing the main model, has been controversial.

In January 2021, the State Administration for Market Supervision issued the Notice on the Recall of Some Xiaopeng Cars, requiring the recall of some Xiaopeng G3 vehicles produced from March 29, 2019 to September 27, 2020, for a total of 13,399 units.

At that time, Xiaopeng officially explained that the batch of cars may have inverter failure, and there is a possibility that it cannot be started in the parking state and lose power in the driving state.

As far as the overall performance of the current G3 series is concerned, the above situation rarely occurs, but spontaneous combustion has become a "common thing". A G3 owner said bluntly, "I am really worried, I am really afraid that something will happen to the car suddenly." ”

The owner's concerns are by no means empty.

A relevant person in charge of the fire department said that in 2021 alone, there will be more than 2,000 fire accidents of new energy vehicles nationwide.

According to relevant statistics, in 2020, the fire probability of new energy vehicles is less than 3 in 100,000, and the fire accident rate of fuel vehicles is higher than 1 in 10,000 in comparison.

Obviously, the incidence of spontaneous combustion of new energy vehicles is much lower than that of fuel vehicles. But there is one point of data that will not be accounted for, that is, the harm of the fire of new energy vehicles is much greater than that of fuel vehicles.

Why? Because the temperature of the new energy vehicle fire is higher, more intense, and more secretive and interlocking.

For example, once a pure electric vehicle using lithium batteries loses thermal runaway, it will cause a short circuit to cause a fire for a short time. When the fire starts, the flame temperature is as high as 800 ° C or more, which is twice that of the oil truck. Moreover, with the instantaneous chain reaction, the escape of the people in the car is extremely difficult.

In addition, even if the owner takes open flame extinguishing measures, it is impossible to judge the internal situation of the battery, so there is a risk of secondary re-ignition of the battery.

It is based on this that a model with safety hazards is very easy to lose the user's goodwill and trust.

Fortunately, in addition to G3, Xiaopeng P7 has risen.

In 2021, of the 98,155 vehicles delivered by Xiaopeng throughout the year, the P7 exceeded 60,000 units, accounting for more than 60%. Entering 2022, Xiaopeng P7 continued its strength, with P7 deliveries exceeding 9,000 units in March, accounting for about 60% of total sales in that month.

Among the many models launched by the new car-making forces, the Xiaopeng P7 has become the one that can play the most.

But behind the hot sales, Xiaopeng P7 is deeply involved in the "real and fake battery" storm. On the black cat complaint, search for Xiaopeng P7, the owner reflected the most, "Xiaopeng Automobile's first batch of 670N endurance was locked for no reason, 80.3kw battery can actually be charged into 70kw capacity" "670N involves false propaganda, the battery used is not the Ningde era."

Although this complaint was denied by Xiaopeng customer service, the controversy over the Xiaopeng P7 battery problem continued to brew.

For the person involved, Xiaopeng Automobile, it is obvious that he does not want the main model to have an accident. It's hard to nurture new models, but it's easy to lose users.

For example, the previous leader Weilai is still struggling to support the old ES6 models listed in 2018. It is also due to the lack of strength and lack of core factors in the new model, so that Weilai is surpassed by the ideal and Xiaopeng in terms of sales.

After the repeated safety hazards of Xiaopeng G3, P7 should become the ballast stone of Xiaopeng. From a market point of view, Xiaopeng P7 has indeed done it, but whether it can be maintained in the future depends on the security performance and service capabilities of P7.

#03

Low price impulse, Xiaopeng's gains and losses

Skip the spontaneous combustion incident and the model itself to see the basic disc of Xiaopeng Motors.

Through the financial report of the new forces, several data about Xiaopeng are particularly conspicuous.

One is the least revenue, xiaopeng achieved revenue of 21 billion yuan in 2021, only 58% of Weilai. The second is the largest loss, with a net loss of about 4.86 billion yuan in 2021, higher than Weilai's 4.02 billion yuan, and far more than the ideal of 320 million yuan. The third is the lowest gross profit/rate, of which the gross profit is 2.62 billion, which is equivalent to the ideal 45% and 38% of WEILAI.

Of course, Xiaopeng wins in the amount of car delivery, but the gap with the latter two is not large, and the difference between the delivery volume of the three is within 8000.

The above sets of data can be glimpsed a lot of information. More deliveries and less revenue show that Xiaopeng Automobile is mainly a low-priced model; the gross profit/ rate is low, and the loss is large, indicating that Xiaopeng Automobile does not make money. Behind this reflects Xiaopeng's current business strategy: at the expense of huge losses, low-price dumping to seize the market.

It has proved that Xiaopeng's strategy has achieved some success. Affected by the epidemic, low-end models are more competitive in the market at present, which directly pushes Xiaopeng to the position of leader.

But the drawbacks it produces are also obvious, the use of low-price means to pursue market share of Xiaopeng, is bound to sacrifice a certain profit space, which leads to a sharp increase in losses. No wonder, people in the industry issued a comment that Xiaopeng Motors "the more it sells, the more it loses".

At this time, maintaining price advantage and controlling the scale of losses have become the two ends of the balance that Xiaopeng is difficult to balance. To sell more, you must be low-priced, and the loss is more; to raise the price, the loss is less, and the car cannot be sold.

Obviously, Xiaopeng will not give up the low-price strategy. This is also based on the fact, after all, the proportion of low-end models in Xiaopeng cannot be changed in the short term.

As a result, Xiaopeng can only make a fuss about "service".

On March 30, some media exposed that Xiaopeng secretly modified the "rescue agreement".

When buying a car, Xiaopeng Automobile's explanation for worry-free rescue is an unlimited number of road rescues in the country with unlimited mileage. Specifically, Xiaopeng will provide free towing service, tow the vehicle to the designated service center or super charging station of Xiaopeng Automobile, and can use the service for breakdowns such as flat tires and no electricity during driving.

Now the "worry-free rescue" has deleted unlimited mileage, unlimited times, and no instructions for trailers to the supercharging station, and has added the premise of free rescue: "failure caused by product quality problems".

Xiaopeng Automobile's move to throw the pot directly pokes the owner's heart socket, and also creates a greater contradiction impact point. As everyone knows, when Xiaopeng is paying attention to the market and profits, consumers are most concerned about service and safety.

Whether it is the spontaneous combustion incident, or the large number of G3 recalls, as well as the shrinking rescue agreement, it is a wake-up call for Xiaopeng: after winning the sales crown, Xiaopeng has gained a lot, and correspondingly lost a lot.

Whether to occupy the market, or to occupy people's hearts; whether to win in the present, or to win the future; the decision-making level of Xiaopeng Motors has too many problems to solve.

End

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