Wang Chuanfu no longer tangled, cut off the fuel vehicle business to focus on new energy. Some media call it a broken arm, but given the volume of BYD's fuel vehicles, it is at most called a broken finger. From the release of the first electric concept car in 2004, to today's 18 years, Wang Chuanfu finally made up his mind that BYD can completely become a new energy vehicle company.
Wen 丨 wisdom driving network Huang Huadan
New energy or traditional car companies? Wang Chuanfu finally stopped tangling.
On April 3, although it was a holiday, BYD's brief official announcement was instantly on the hot search: "According to the company's strategic development needs, BYD Automobile has stopped the production of fuel vehicles since March 2022." In the future, BYD will focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the automotive segment."
"The first traditional car company to stop producing fuel vehicles", since then, BYD can unashamedly add this prefix to the name.
Subsequently, BYD announced its Sales for March. In March, 104878 new energy vehicles were sold, an increase of 333.06% year-on-year, of which 53,664 were pure electric vehicles and 50,674 were plug-in hybrids. The production and sales of fuel vehicles are all 0.
Some people joked that BYD stopped production of fuel vehicles, "Is it because you don't like it?" "And the capital market is indeed giving positive feedback." On the 6th, BYD's stock price opened up 6.34%.
For BYD, 2021 should be a year to remember. In January, BYD DM-i super hybrid products were launched, and Qin PLUS DM-i, Song PLUS DM-i and Tang DM-i fired three arrows at the same time. In December, song Pro DM-i was launched.
DM-i did bring a turnaround for BYD.
This year, BYD finally got rid of the glue that had lasted for more than a decade. From 2009 to 2020, BYD's sales have been hovering between 400,000 and 500,000 vehicles. In the same cycle, the sales of great wall and geely have long been approaching and then exceeding one million.
In 2021, BYD finally achieved a sales breakthrough of 744,900 vehicles for the whole year. Among them, the sales volume of new energy vehicles 562871, accounting for 78.04% of the total sales, and the domestic market share was 17.1%, surpassing Tesla and ranking first.
In the minds of many people, BYD has become synonymous with its own brand new energy vehicles.
This is the sales situation for the whole year of 2021. Specific to a single month, in December, BYD's single-month sales of new energy vehicles have reached 93945 units, and fuel vehicle sales have reached 5167 units, accounting for only 5.21% of the total sales of that month. In January and February 2022, the proportion of fuel vehicle sales fell to 2.36% and 3.07%.
Cutting less than 5% of the business is not a bad thing for BYD. Moreover, de-fueling is also in line with the trend of industrial development.
When the mainstream argument is still to achieve a total ban on combustion in 2025, 2030, and even 2045, BYD took the lead in announcing that it would stop the production of fuel vehicles in March 2022, becoming the world's first traditional car company to stop burning, which is undoubtedly a good brand promotion.
BYD stopped producing fuel vehicles, and its sales proportion has become a chicken rib must be the main reason.
But "not liking" may really be a reason.
BYD has always regarded itself as a "leader in new energy vehicles", not just talking. In fact, as early as 2004, BYD launched the electric concept car ET and appeared at the Beijing Auto Show. Musk released the first part of his well-known master plan in 2006.
——01——
Bumpy oil car road
BYD started as a battery and officially entered the automotive industry in 2003. At that time, China's automobile industry was still the world of joint venture cars, domestic brands had just started, there was no technology, no word of mouth, and could only squeeze into the low-end market abandoned by joint venture brands with price advantages.
BYD's history is also not glorious. From the acquisition of Qinchuan Automobile to launch the first A0-class car Flyer, to the F3 that imitated the Toyota Corolla to open sales, the early BYD had a mixed reputation in word of mouth. From the interior to the exterior, the corolla is imitated, the price is halved, and of course, the quality is greatly reduced.
At that time, the old editor of the automotive industry described the driving experience of F3, and almost did not use the word "garbage". But it is undeniable that F3, at a price of early 70,000 yuan, gave many first-time buyers in the Chinese market, whose private car ownership was still low at that time, an affordable and good choice.
The F3 became the dominant model in THE ERA OF BYD's fuel car era. In fact, it is likely to be the only fuel car that BYD has really sold well. Looking at historical data, the highest monthly sales of F3 exceeded 30,000, winning the top of the compact model sales of the month, and the highest sales volume of the whole model ranked second.
BYD, which tasted the sweetness of F3, has successively launched BYD F0, BYD F3R, BYD G3, BYD L3, BYD F6, BYD M6 and other models, reaching 448,000 units in 2009, achieving the first sales of its own brand, of which F3 bicycles alone sold 291,000 vehicles.
But since then, until 2020, BYD's annual sales have been fluctuating between 400,000 and 500,000 vehicles, and there has been no breakthrough, including the sales of new energy vehicles that have gradually begun to heat up.
Since 2010, BYD's fuel vehicle sales have begun to decline.
The reason for this, on the one hand, is the change in the market environment. The global economy is recovering, the domestic automobile market is gradually maturing, and the people's requirements for automobile quality have become higher. At the same time, the price of joint venture cars has declined, such as Ford Focus, Toyota Corolla and other compact models sell well, while BYD only has one popular model in F3, and the market share has gradually declined;
On the other hand, BYD began to expand its new energy vehicle business. From 2013 to 2018, the proportion of new energy vehicle sales in overall sales soared from 0 to nearly 50%. Under the premise of limited total capital, BYD can only give up part of the fuel vehicle business with half push and half push.
But the probability of BYD really willing to give up the fuel car early is not high. After all, the successful experience of the original fuel car F3 is too tempting.
Since the launch of the first Dynasty series Qin in 2013, most of BYD's models have adopted the mode of parallel fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles, but the general feedback of fuel vehicles is general.
In 2018, MPV Song MAX ushered in a small climax of monthly sales of more than 10,000, but it did not last long, and by the end of 2018, it fell within 10,000 vehicles, and then went all the way down. The monthly sales of the other two fuel vehicles in the same period, Song and F3, also stayed at the level of 1,000 units.
In November 2019, BYD also launched a version of Qin Fuel priced at 65,000-80,000 yuan, but in addition to a wave of attention when it was first listed, sales have been flat since then.
The only relatively successful fuel vehicle launched by BYD in a few years may be the Song Pro in July 2019, which achieved sales of more than 10,000 in the months after its launch, and became the only model in the entire BYD series to sell more than 100,000 yuan in 2020.
The Song PLUS fuel version is the last new fuel car launched by BYD before the fire stoppage, but the sales performance is still poor.
On the fuel car track, BYD took the lead in coming to the end.
Although the proportion of fuel vehicle business in BYD is decreasing, but after the fuel vehicle business is stopped, how to place relevant personnel, Du Guozhong, deputy general manager of BYD's passenger car brand and public relations division, told the intelligent driving network: BYD new energy is still expanding production, 22 years of new people; others are based on the consumer market, do strategic direction, rapid decision-making, the core technology firmly grasped in their own hands.
——02——
New energy vehicles broke the game
BYD's journey in the new energy vehicle track has just begun.
From the launch of the electric concept car ET in 2004, to the debut of the first iron battery electric vehicle F3e at the Beijing Auto Show in 2006, and then to the official launch of the F3 DM in 2008, it can be said that from the beginning, BYD has been actively exploring the possibility of new energy vehicles.
However, because the supporting environment at that time did not support the privatization of pure electric models, F3e was not finally listed.
At the 2007 Shanghai Auto Show, BYD described their vision in its brochure: the house of the future, the roof is photovoltaic, absorbing solar energy, storing energy in energy reservoirs, and supplying energy to electric vehicles at the door. Electric vehicles can also be reverse charged to power the house.
Does such a scene sound familiar? Musk mentioned the solar roof in the second step of his master plan published in 2016, and the Powerwall he is proud of is the energy reservoir. Today, in addition to reverse charging, the rest of the vision has become a reality in Solarcity, and this step is also on the way to realization.
On both sides of the ocean, Wang Chuanfu and Musk have long envisioned a clean energy future.
It is only in the realization of the plan that the two sides have taken different paths.
Tesla started with high-end electric sports cars and accumulated funds and technology for the large-scale mass production of affordable electric vehicles. BYD started from fuel vehicles, combined with its own battery business, waiting for the maturity of the development of new energy vehicles.
Since 2009, the state has issued a number of policies to promote the development of new energy vehicles, and since 2013, it has implemented subsidies for the purchase of new energy vehicles. It was in this year that BYD launched the first plug-in hybrid sedan in its Dynasty series, the Qin.
In the following years, BYD's new energy vehicles have developed rapidly, and sales have climbed all the way. From 2013 to 2020, new energy vehicles account for an increasing proportion of BYD's total sales.
It is obvious that Wang Chuanfu did not go firmly as Musk. According to the plan, Tesla has gone all the way from high prices to parity, ushering in the hot sale of Model 3. At the same time, solar roofs and Powerwall have also achieved commercial mass production.
BYD has been hovering between fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles for several years. Is it to focus on new energy vehicles or to make fuel vehicles and new energy go hand in hand? I believe that Wang Chuanfu must have had many tangled moments.
In 2020, BYD Han went public, bringing a wave of sales to new energy vehicles.
And the real breakers will come in 2021.
In January, BYD launched the DM-i series of hybrid products. DM-i technology is a plug-in hybrid technology based on DM and with energy saving as its main goal. According to different road conditions, it can realize three driving modes of pure electricity, pure fuel and hybrid, which can perfectly solve the problems of pure tram endurance shrinkage and mileage anxiety, and the fuel consumption of 100 kilometers is much lower than that of traditional fuel vehicles, so it is very popular.
In 2021, BYD's annual sales of pure electric vehicles were 296,600 units, an increase of 186.85% year-on-year, while plug-in hybrid sales were 229,200 units, an increase of 461.76% year-on-year.
The DM-i model is enough to replace the role of the former fuel car.
At the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum held at the end of March, Wang Chuanfu delivered a speech, saying that BYD will adhere to the "two legs" of pure electric and plug-in hybrid in the future. Among them, pure electric models are mainly for people who need additional purchases, while plug-in hybrid models can effectively replace those first-time users who are worried about the battery life of pure electric models, becoming an ideal alternative to fuel vehicles.
This time, Wang Chuanfu finally made up his mind to cut off the fuel vehicle business and focus on the new energy business that he had been obsessed with from the beginning.
——03——
BYD's considerations
Along with the rise in sales of new energy vehicles, BYD's brand image is also up.
When BYD was a hot seller in early F3, its image has always stayed in the low-end brand that started by imitation. Senior industry insiders said: "People who buy BYD fuel cars are people who don't understand cars and only look at the price. ”
This is undoubtedly a hard injury for BYD, which aims to be the "leader of new energy vehicles" and adheres to self-research and takes the route of scientific and technological innovation.
The price of F3, which is still on sale today, is between 40,000 and 50,000 yuan, far lower than BYD's average selling price of about 150,000 yuan. This year, BYD will also launch Denza and a high-end brand, focusing on the market of more than 300,000 yuan.
With the help of new energy vehicles to get rid of the stereotype of low-end brands, BYD naturally does not want to be dragged back.
From the perspective of production capacity, the hot sales of DM-i models have overwhelmed BYD's production line, and it has become normal for many models to wait for several months to arrive after booking. From this point of view, cutting out the old fuel vehicle business is also in line with the need for resource optimization.
This is actually similar to Ford's separation of the electric vehicle business and the fuel vehicle business. Electric vehicles operate independently and can be unaffected by fuel vehicles. The difference between the two is that Ford's fuel vehicle business is still dominant, while BYD's fuel vehicle business has become an indispensable embellishment in terms of revenue.
Therefore, for BYD, cutting off the fuel vehicle business is a reasonable choice. We call this the choice of broken fingers, or rather, the natural choice of water.
For other traditional car companies represented by Ford, they can promote the transformation at their own pace, and there is no real need to follow up with a broken arm.
【Pay attention to the electric vehicle evaluation video number "Electric Lab"】