Author | Guan Xuejun
Source | Car selection network
If Wang Chuanfu entered the automotive industry, there was no risk, because it was in the seller's market period. Then stopping the production of fuel vehicles now means a huge risk, because China's new energy vehicle market is already in a state of serious overcapacity.
On April 3, a message from BYD showed: "According to the company's strategic development needs, BYD Automobile will stop the production of fuel vehicles from March 2022." In the future, BYD will focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the automotive segment. "As far as the general trend is concerned, the current policy on new energy vehicles is favorable, and China's new energy vehicle market is in a period of rapid growth." Although subsidies have been minimized this year and will be eliminated next year, and companies are in a difficult moment when costs are difficult to digest, BYD's situation is different. BYD has always maintained the title of sales champion among China's new energy vehicle brands, with obvious cost control advantages, and at this time, full investment in new energy vehicles may be able to expand its dominant position. In Wang Chuanfu's view: "In the future, electric vehicles will replace fuel vehicles." At this time, BYD became the world's first car company to stop production of fuel vehicles, which is both an ideal drive and a realistic inevitable choice.
From the perspective of the competitive environment, the current price of BYD's new energy vehicles has covered almost all market segments from high to low end, and it is the highest market coverage among all Chinese brands, and in such a wide range, no one's comprehensive strength can be single-handedly with BYD. This should be where Wang Chuanfu's confidence in the new energy vehicle market lies. As far as the "new forces" are concerned, although they have high-end products, they are not large in scale, and they cannot match BYD in terms of scale efficiency. In the traditional car manufacturers, although each of them has developed quite quickly in new energy vehicles, there are not many who have really formed a trend. Although the new energy vehicles of the joint venture are menacing, there are obvious shortcomings in the on-board intelligent system and automatic driving to varying degrees, and they are still in the kinetic energy conversion period with no batch of platforms. For Wang Chuanfu, the current is the window of strategic opportunities for BYD to achieve a sudden rise in the field of new energy, more precisely, this is the only chance to win a battle against the water.
From the perspective of BYD's layout in the new energy vehicle industry chain, first of all, Wang Chuanfu's best lithium iron phosphate battery is currently the industry leader, not only the world's first shipment, but also in the upstream lithium mine has long been laid out, so in terms of fighting against the rise in raw material prices, Wang Chuanfu has a trump card in his hand. Secondly, in terms of moduleless batteries (blade batteries), BYD is in a leading position, and the batteries it produces are not only for their own use, but also provide support for other domestic enterprises. In other words, the profitability of BYD's electric vehicle industry chain exceeds that of the fuel vehicle industry chain. Therefore, it is natural that the low-profit industrial chain will give way to the high-profit industrial chain. Third, in terms of new energy vehicle technology reserves, BYD should be one of the strongest enterprises, but the speed of technological progress of other car companies is also very fast, and BYD may be surpassed without increasing technical investment. At this time, the suspension of fuel vehicles, Wang Chuanfu can save the R & D funds of fuel vehicles for the research and development of new energy vehicles, and devote himself to new energy vehicles, which is an inevitable choice for Wang Chuanfu to maintain BYD's technical advantages in the field of new energy vehicles. Based on these comparative advantages, in the case of serious overcapacity of new energy vehicles in the country, no matter who dares to provoke a price war, Wang Chuanfu has enough confidence to give the most powerful counterattack.
As far as the development of new energy vehicle brands in the country is concerned, each company is impacting the high-end market. In view of BYD's technical reserves and achievable capabilities, BYD is entirely possible to form a more reasonable pyramid structure of high-end, medium-end and low-end products, and to achieve BYD's strategic goal of breaking through the "glass top" of brand high-end by continuously empowering and blessing each product line with culture. In fact, in the process of Chinese brands impacting the high-end, breakthroughs have been made in adopting trendy culture to build brands, and BYD is one of the practitioners. For Wang Chuanfu, the suspension of fuel vehicles will help to get rid of the pull-down effect of the BYD brand of fuel vehicles, giving BYD the opportunity to achieve brand renewal and brand high-end from the new energy field. After all, low quality and low price are not BYD's strategic choice, nor is it in line with the trend of Chinese brand development. As for BYD's recent output - "environmental protection, achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality is the global consensus." BYD focuses on the national 'double carbon' strategic goal, adheres to the new development concept of 'innovation' and 'green', leads the transformation of the automotive industry with the impetus of scientific and technological innovation, and promotes sustainable social development with a green and low-carbon cycle" and other topics.
Objectively speaking, the whole industry actively abandons the fuel vehicle market and only bets on new energy vehicles, and ISD is the only one in the world. This not only shows that Wang Chuanfu is indeed bold, but also highlights the trend of the global automotive industry to transform to energy, and BYD is just a typical case in the tide. As the saying goes, there is no turning back when opening the bow, and for the success or failure of the transformation, Wang Chuanfu allows the public to disagree, but he just keeps moving forward. In the tide of the century of global automotive industry transformation, everyone is looking forward to a successful case of transformation in the field of new energy vehicles. To this end, we have selected Wang Chuanfu as the news figure of the week in this issue and will continue to pay attention to the follow-up development of BYD.
(Image source: Internet)