"New forces" are strongly driving the new energy vehicle market

Recently, a number of car companies in the first quarter of the production and sales data released, new energy vehicles continue to maintain a high growth trend. With the continuous optimization of technology, policies, markets and other factors, the new energy automobile industry is in a period of new opportunities for rapid development, and as an important part of it, the market pattern of new car-making forces is also quietly changing, not only the steady growth of new car-making enterprises such as "Wei Lipeng", a number of cross-border integrated high-end new energy vehicle brands have also emerged, and the team of new car-making forces has continued to grow.

The new car-making forces are eye-catching

Statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that in the first two months of this year, new energy vehicles sold 765,000 units, an increase of 1.5 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 17.9%. The latest production and sales data of many car companies also show that new energy vehicles continue to maintain a high growth trend. Among them, BYD's production and sales of new energy vehicles exceeded 100,000 in March, a record high. At the same time, BYD officially announced that it will stop the production of fuel vehicles from March 2022, and BYD will focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the automotive sector in the future. This also marks that BYD has become the first car company in China to officially announce the suspension of production of fuel vehicles.

Xiaopeng, Ideal, Nezha and other new car-making forces have exceeded the 30,000-vehicle mark in the first quarter. Xiaopeng Automobile has won the delivery championship of new car-making forces for three consecutive quarters. In the first quarter of this year, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 34,561 vehicles, an increase of 159% year-on-year, of which 15,414 vehicles were delivered in March, an increase of 202.1% year-on-year, an increase of 147.6% month-on-month, and the delivery of its core explosive model P7 reached 9,183 units, setting a new high of 9,000 vehicles for the first time in a single month. By the end of the first quarter, the cumulative delivery volume of Xiaopeng Automobile had exceeded 170,000 units.

Ideal Auto delivered 11,034 units in March, up 125.2% year-on-year and 31.1% month-on-month, with sales rising steadily. Previously, Ideal Auto had topped the sales volume of new car-making forces in February. In the first quarter of this year, a total of 31,716 vehicles were delivered, an increase of 152.1% year-on-year.

Although it is a new front-line car-making force with Xiaopeng and Ideal, WEILAI Automobile's growth rate is relatively low, delivering 9,985 vehicles in March, an increase of 37.6% year-on-year and 62.9% month-on-month. In the first quarter of this year, NIO delivered a total of 25,768 new vehicles, an increase of 28.5% year-on-year.

At the same time, second-tier new car manufacturers such as Nezha and Zero Run are catching up, and their monthly sales have exceeded 10,000 vehicles. According to the production and sales data released by Xiaokang Co., Ltd., the production and sales of new energy vehicles in March were 6480 and 7451 units, respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 123.53% and 164.69% respectively; In the first quarter, the cumulative production and sales volume were 17,391 units and 14,200 units, respectively, an increase of 296.87% and 207.43% year-on-year. Among them, the main model Xilis achieved sales of 3160 vehicles in a single month, an increase of 13 times year-on-year, and the cumulative sales volume in the first quarter was 5044 vehicles, an increase of about 12 times year-on-year. From the perspective of the proportion of models, Xiaokang shares' sales of new energy vehicles in March have exceeded 30%.

Image source: OFweek New Energy Vehicle Network

The consumption of new energy vehicles continues

Recently, under the pressure of the soaring price of raw materials in the upstream of power batteries and the decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles, new energy vehicle companies have set off a wave of price increases, and from the production and sales data in the first quarter, it seems that the short-term has not affected the enthusiasm of terminal consumption, but the follow-up impact still needs time to verify.

Analysts believe that the impact of new energy vehicle price increases and the epidemic is expected to be reflected in May to June, but under the negative effect of the continuous rise in oil prices and the continuous narrowing of the preferential range of fuel vehicles, it is expected that automobile consumption will shift to electric vehicles, the continuous upgrading of models and consumers' inner acceptance of electrification is the strongest driving force, price increases do not affect medium- and long-term demand, and it is still optimistic that new energy vehicle sales will continue to grow in the second half of the year.

"For new energy vehicles, in the past, everyone used them more as alternative cars, or because there was no indicator to buy new energy vehicles, or a small number of early adopters were willing to buy, but now more and more users are more and more receptive to new energy vehicles, especially high-end electric vehicles, and the consumption of new energy vehicles has developed from the past early adopters to the current popular mass." Wang Qiufeng, deputy general manager of BAIC BJEV and president of Jihu, said.

This transformation is a major opportunity for new energy automobile enterprises, but also a great challenge.

"Early adopters have higher requirements for science and technology and intelligence, while the requirements for other aspects are relatively low." However, when the industry enters the stage of universal purchase, the needs of customers will have many changes, and many customers emphasize the quality of products, the handling of the whole vehicle and other basic elements of the vehicle, while pursuing the intelligence and ecology of the product. Fan Jingtao, executive deputy general manager of BAIC BJEV, said.

In addition, policy support is also an important reason for the rapid development of new energy vehicles. In October 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", proposing to focus on integration and innovation, break through key core technologies, optimize the industrial development environment, and promote the high-quality and sustainable development of the mainland new energy automobile industry.

In January this year, Guangxi issued the "14th Five-Year Plan" for the development of the new energy automobile industry, clearly proposing to vigorously develop pure electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, etc., vigorously improve the research and development level of intelligent networked vehicles, improve the level of intelligent manufacturing, create a whole industrial chain of automobiles, and build a new ecological circle of new energy vehicles, including cluster development ecosystem, collaborative innovation ecosystem, intelligent sharing ecosystem, application service ecosystem, etc.

The ranks of new forces are growing

With the promotion of policies and the development of new energy vehicles entering a high-quality stage, the cross-border integration of automobile OEMs, Internet companies and software companies has promoted the rapid development of the new energy automobile industry and accelerated the pace of survival of the fittest. At the same time, a number of traditional automobile companies have successively launched their high-end new energy vehicle brands, and from all aspects of products, models and other aspects to be closer to the network era, to promote the transformation and upgrading of enterprises, the team of new car-making forces is growing.

Jihu Automobile is a high-end new energy vehicle brand under BAIC Group, which is refreshing in terms of product appearance, performance, function, and marketing model. In 2021, the Polar Fox brand added 6,000 new car owners, and achieved zero negative reviews of Pole Fox products by 6,000 car owners.

"The zero bad evaluation of the owner makes us more confident in the technical level and the manufacturing level, and forms a high-end and high-quality product force." Dai Kangwei, manager of Baiqi Blue Valley and general manager of BAIC New Energy, said that in the past two years, BEIQI Blue Valley's investment in research and development has accounted for more than 20%. In order to cope with the fiercer market competition in 2023 and 2024 and enhance product strength, R&D investment will double this year.

Not only in research and development, in the face of new market demand, Beiqi Blue Valley has carried out all-round upgrades in terms of products, technologies and services.

From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, Beiqi Blue Valley set up a special development team of 700 people. This team is not responsible for developing the specific engineering design of the whole vehicle, but only doing consumer demand research, including the identification of consumer excitement points, the test of consumer excitement points, and the polishing of feasibility, and has established a basic laboratory supporting it.

Dai Kangwei introduced that this year, Jihu has determined a sales target of 40,000 vehicles, and there will be an SUV and a sedan product on the market in 2023, and the entire Jihu product matrix will be further enriched.

Similar to BAIC Jihu, a number of high-end new energy vehicle brands under traditional car companies such as GAC Eian, Changan UNI, Dongfeng Lantu, geely geometry and so on have been warmly welcomed by the market.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Vehicle Joint Association, said that despite the adverse factors such as the epidemic, chip shortages, and rising raw material prices, the mainland's new energy passenger cars still continued a high growth trend, and it is expected that the production and sales data in the first quarter will still double, and China's new energy vehicle market share in the world will rise to a new high of 65%.