Why is it difficult to stop the huge loss of performance | sales?
| Quotient packets
After experiencing a soaring 2021, Xiaopeng Motors seems to have opened up in sales. But the embarrassing thing is that the more you sell, the more you lose, which has become the "angina" of Xiaopeng Automobile CEO He Xiaopeng.
Under the situation that the average loss per car is 50,000, Xiaopeng Automobile urgently needs to improve the gross profit margin. In this regard, He Xiaopeng for the first time put forward the medium- and long-term target of 25% gross profit margin.
According to rumors, He Xiaopeng has read two books, "The Way of Toyota" and "The Legend of Tesla". At the beginning of stepping into the new energy vehicle track, both companies were the objects of his appreciation, Tesla was sharp and Toyota was calm. But within a few years, the top leaders of both companies became the object of his verbal dispute.
For a long time, Xiaopeng Motors, like its Chinese rivals and comrades-in-arms, was looking for its own way out of the problems of burning money, losses and quality. But just like Tesla and Toyota, the image of Xiaopeng Motors also swayed back and forth in the minds of users.
For seven years, He Xiaopeng has been trying to find some culture and ideas beyond the brand, which first needs a representative label with Xiaopeng characteristics. However, after 7 years, Xiaopeng Motors still seems to have not been found.
Gross profit margin is not high into a hard injury
As we all know, the low gross profit margin of core products is a long-term problem of Xiaopeng Motors, due to the low price in the new forces, and there is no obvious gap in the delivery volume, Xiaopeng's gross profit margin has always been at the bottom of the new forces.
However, in 2021, the situation has changed, and Xiaopeng's gross profit margin has grown rapidly, jumping from 4% in 2020 to 11.5% in 2021, nearly 3 times.
According to the financial report, the total delivery volume of Xiaopeng Automobile in 2021 is 98155 vehicles, and the delivery of P7 will reach 60569 vehicles, accounting for 66.24% of total sales.
In the product sequence of Xiaopeng, Xiaopeng P7 fully benchmarks Tesla Model 3, and compared to Tesla Model 3, Xiaopeng P7 has a good cost performance in terms of price, intelligence and mileage. It is precisely because of this that the sales of Xiaopeng P7 have skyrocketed and become a hit in the same level.
At the same time, xiaopeng P7 has a crucial role in supporting the gross profit margin of the financial report due to its higher price relative to other products of the same company. However, the growth of gross profit margin may be challenged in the future.
At present, the price increase strategy of Xiaopeng Automobile is relatively sharp, with the highest increase reaching 30,000 yuan, compared with the old price increase promised by Weilai and the ideal price increase of 11,800 yuan, the new force of Xiaopeng is unusually eye-catching.
From the perspective of the industry, although this price increase is caused by the general increase in the cost of raw materials, due to the low price of Xiaopeng products, user portraits are more sensitive to price than Weilai and ideal, so the price increase has a greater impact on Xiaopeng.
In addition, in this year's performance report meeting, some investors questioned whether it was true that after the Xiaopeng price increase, the order surged (before the implementation of the price increase policy), and some dealers said that the waiting cycle took 16-20 months.
Xiaopeng's official answer acknowledges investors' concerns, and the supply chain problem of vehicles has become another major inducement that directly affects the growth of gross profit.
At the same time, due to the anticipation of price increases, short-term consumers form a run-on purchase, which will overdraft the company's forward sales to a certain extent. This can be seen in the delivery volume guidance given by Xiaopeng in the first quarter of 2022.
According to the financial report, in January and February 2022, the sales volume of Xiaopeng Automobile was 12,922 units and 6,225 units, respectively, but in March, when the price increase was announced, it was likely to reach more than 14,000 units. Although this can make the first quarter performance end perfectly, after the product price increase in the second quarter, and there will be new cars on the market in the third quarter, the decline in Xiaopeng's performance in the second quarter has become a foreseeable situation.
After the release of the results, He Xiaopeng said bluntly: Xiaopeng Automobile's medium- and long-term gross profit margin target is above 25%. To achieve this goal, according to the experience of the new forces, the best grasp lies in the listing and delivery of high-margin models.
The surge in sales is difficult to stop the huge loss of performance
In fact, it is worth noting that although Xiaopeng Automobile is the sales champion among the new car-making forces, it is also the king of losses, which is the deepest impression of Xiaopeng Automobile to the public in 2021.
In 2021, among the three "Wei Xiaoli", Xiaopeng Automobile delivered a total of 98,155 vehicles throughout the year, an increase of 360% year-on-year, higher than Weilai's 91,429 vehicles and the ideal 90,491 vehicles, becoming the new force sales champion. The more cars sold, the bigger the losses, the more Xiaopeng Motors had the highest net loss among the three in 2021.
On March 28 this year, Xiaopeng Automobile released the fourth quarter and annual financial report of 2021, which showed that The annual revenue of Xiaopeng Automobile was 20.99 billion yuan, an increase of 259.1% year-on-year; the net loss was 4.86 billion yuan, an increase of 78% year-on-year. In 2021, WEIO lost 4.02 billion yuan and Ideal Auto lost 320 million yuan.
(Image source: Oriental Fortune Network Data Center)
In 2021, The net loss of Xiaopeng Automobile was 4.86 billion yuan, becoming the largest loss in "Wei Xiaoli", which is related to the high research and development investment of Xiaopeng Automobile.
Xiaopeng Motors is considered to be the most similar to Tesla's new car-making force, before entering the car-making industry, He Xiaopeng wrote an email to Tesla CEO Musk to ask him a "manufacturing + technology" question. Although Musk did not reply, the Silicon Valley pioneer concept represented by Tesla is what He Xiaopeng appreciates.
Benchmarking Tesla for self-research, Xiaopeng Automobile invested a lot of real money and silver. In 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile's R&D investment was 4.11 billion yuan, an increase of 137.6% year-on-year. This research and development expenditure is higher than the ideal car's 3.29 billion yuan and lower than WEILAI's 4.59 billion yuan.
However, if you look at the proportion of R&D investment in revenue, the R&D investment ratio of Xiaopeng Automobile is 19.6%, higher than Weilai's 12.7% and the ideal 12.2%. Prior to this, in 2019 and 2020, the research and development of Xiaopeng Automobile was 2.07 billion yuan and 1.726 billion yuan, respectively, and the R&D investment ratio was 89.2% and 29.5% respectively.
At the end of this year, Xiaopeng Motors plans to carry out robotaxi testing on the G9 to prepare for the transition to driverless cars in 2026. But on the other hand, robotaxi has the characteristics of large investment and long front, and how to control costs has become a problem that Xiaopeng Automobile needs to solve.
In addition, with the expansion of sales channels, Xiaopeng Automobile's sales, general and administrative expenses reached 5.3 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 81.7% year-on-year. In the fourth quarter, the month-on-quarter growth rate of this expense was about 31%, exceeding the growth rate of research and development expenses.
Frequent security incidents trigger recalls
In addition to the more it is sold, the worse it loses, the quality problem of Xiaopeng Automobile is also very frightening. On the night of The 2021 financial report released by Xiaopeng Automobile on March 28, a 2019 Xiaopeng G3 car caught fire in a community in Longhua District, Shenzhen.
According to follow-up reports, the fire did not cause casualties, and the fire department has completed the on-site disposal. Regarding the incident, the relevant personnel of Xiaopeng Automobile responded that the company attaches great importance to the rights and interests of users, and will fully cooperate with the relevant departments to investigate the cause of the accident, continue to follow up the follow-up results, and assist customers to deal with follow-up related matters.
(Source: Southern Metropolis Daily)
According to the data, the Xiaopeng G3 car has had several fire incidents in the past two years. On April 14, 2021, a Xiaopeng G3 in Guangzhou spontaneously combusted during charging next to the charging pile, and Xiaopeng Automobile did not give the cause of the accident; on August 11, 2020, a Xiaopeng G3 car had a smoke and fire accident in Haizhu District, Guangzhou. For the cause of the accident, Xiaopeng Automobile responded that there were obvious serious bumps and injuries at the bottom of the battery box, resulting in serious damage to the battery, and the preliminary judgment was the cause of the accident.
It is reported that Xiaopeng G3 Car is a new energy pure electric SUV under Xiaopeng Automobile, which was first released in 2018. Xiaopeng G3 is not a hot model of Xiaopeng Automobile, the data shows that from January to February this year, Xiaopeng G3 and G3i delivered a total of 2815 cars, accounting for only 14.7% of total sales.
Previously, Xiaopeng G3 cars have also been recalled in large batches due to quality problems. In January 2021, according to the announcement of the State Administration for Market Regulation, Xiaopeng Motors recalled about 13,300 Xiaopeng G3 cars with production dates from March 29, 2019 to September 27, 2020, and the Xiaopeng G3 car that recently caught fire is the 2019 model.
(Source: State Administration for Market Regulation website)
At that time, regarding the reason for the recall, Xiaopeng Automobile explained that the batch of cars may have inverter failure, if this situation occurs, the vehicle is in a parked state, it may not be able to start again, if the vehicle is in a driving state, the vehicle may lose power, there is a safety hazard.
In addition to the hot discussion caused by vehicle safety, Xiaopeng Automobile's recent revision of the commitment clause of vehicle rescue service has also caused dissatisfaction among users.
It is understood that when users buy a car, Xiaopeng Automobile said in its service introduction to worry-free rescue that there are unlimited and unlimited mileage road rescues nationwide; Xiaopeng Automobile will provide free towing services to the designated service center or super charging station of Xiaopeng Automobile.
However, according to the latest worry-free rescue information, it was found that Xiaopeng Automobile had made modifications in three places, first of all, the new agreement deleted the words "unlimited mileage, unlimited times" and only retained "nationwide roadside assistance"; secondly, an explanation was added, "limited to the failure caused by product quality problems", and the free trailer rescue service was provided; and finally the service of trailer to the supercharging station was deleted.
Xiaopeng Motors reserves the right to adjust the terms of service in the agreement, and updating the terms at any time does not violate laws and regulations. However, many users believe that Xiaopeng Motors should publicize or inform the terms of the modification commitment, and express dissatisfaction with the practice of being quietly modified by Xiaopeng Motors to the content of the free trailer agreement without their knowledge.
Xiaopeng Automobile responded that the optimization of the description of the rules is to describe the service scope of roadside assistance more clearly and specifically, so that customers can understand the rules more accurately, which in principle belongs to the "exceptions" caused by non-vehicle failures and does not apply to the service scope of "worry-free rescue". At the same time, Xiaopeng Motors said, "Considering the feelings of old car owners, the terms of this description optimization do not affect the first car owners who signed a car purchase contract before March 31, 2022."
Overseas markets are frequently questioned
It is worth noting that in the overseas market, Xiaopeng Automobile has also encountered quality and safety questions. In the first quarter of 2021, Xiaopeng exported 300 G3s to Norway. Prior to this, an authoritative new energy vehicle media in the United States directly expressed concerns about the safety of G3. According to reports, the Xiaopeng G3 has not yet been tested by the EU New Car Safety Evaluation Association, but has been listed for sale in Norway.
In Xiao Peng's explanation, the cause of this report is a video oolong. The media consulted the China Insurance Auto Safety Index (C-IASI) and learned that compared with the Weilai EC6 and the ideal ONE, the Xiaopeng G3 performed poorly in crash resistance and maintenance economy, not only popping airbags in low-speed collisions, but also because there was no side air curtain caused by window debris splashing.
(Source: China Auto Insurance Research Institute)
C-IASI tested the situation of the Low-speed collision of the Xiaopeng 2020 G3, and the airbag did not have to be ejected, which may cause unnecessary injury to the people in the car. C-IASI tested the situation of the Side Impact of Xiaopeng's 2020 G3 without side airbags to block the damage of glass fragments to personnel.
But on Xiaopeng's Official Website in Norway, what is presented is a video of G3 participating in the 2019 C-NCAP test, in which the vehicle is equipped with local side airbags and the side window glass is not broken, and the discrepancy between the two has caused concerns from foreign media.
In this regard, Xiaopeng Motors explained that it is selling a version of the G3 with six airbags in Norway, rather than the version tested by C-IASI. Although the video oolong was resolved, it also confirmed that some of the Xiaopeng G3 sold by Xiaopeng in China had a low security configuration and many security risks.
From recalls, abnormal noises, spontaneous combustion to brake failures, the pressure on Xiaopeng Motors in public opinion has always existed. They are interspersed in the various gaps of product change, strategy adjustment and market fighting, affecting the future development trend of Xiaopeng Automobile.
And this can be seen at a glance from the stock price. After the January 2021 recall, Xiaopeng ended a month of stock rally; after the spontaneous combustion incident in April 2021, Xiaopeng's stock price fell by 7%, erasing all the gains brought about by the release of the new car P5 the day before.
Subsequently, Xiaopeng Automobile turned to the Hong Kong stock market, and since last year created a new high of 220 Hong Kong dollars / share, it fell all the way down, the lowest fell to 71.85 Hong Kong dollars / share, the largest decline of nearly 70%, perhaps this is also the intuitive performance of investors who are not optimistic about Xiaopeng Motors.
(Source: Oriental Fortune Network)
In fact, with Xiaomi, Baidu, Huawei and other Internet companies successively entering new energy vehicles, the technological changes in the industry will only intensify in the future. In order to seize the high ground of autonomous driving, the strength of software and hardware is indispensable, and all of this needs to be based on funds, especially in the car track. In other words, the market has left Xiaopeng Automobile with few opportunities to "burn money" to grab sales.
concentrate:
The relevant data information comes from the company's announcement
"Xiaopeng Car, Legs Tripping", Hexun Network, March 30, 2022
"Delivery volume upwards and net profits downwards, Xiaopeng Motors caught fire, and the agreement was secretly changed", Investor Network, March 31, 2022
"The Hidden Worries of Xiaopeng Motors", Phoenix Finance, May 19, 2021
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