The automobile market under the epidemic is facing huge difficulties. Some car companies, before the epidemic came, had already shown a downward trend. And the epidemic is only the last straw that crushed them.
"Legendary" Borgward filed for bankruptcy liquidation
As a once known as the "legendary brand" Borgward, it will eventually fall into mortal dust. On April 8, Beiqi Foton issued an announcement that due to the financial exhaustion of Beijing Borgward, it was indeed unable to pay off its debts due, and its assets were insufficient to pay off all its debts, Beijing Borgward held an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on April 8, 2022, and resolved to apply for bankruptcy liquidation in accordance with the law.
Review the development of Beijing Borgward. In January 2016, Beijing Borgward was established, and in the same year, Borgward BX7 was officially launched. The sales of Borgward BX7 were also available at the time. In 2016, Borgward BX7 sold more than 5,000 vehicles per month, and achieved a cumulative annual sales of 30,015 vehicles. By 2019, Borgward had sold more than 50,000 vehicles for the whole year. However, in 2020, Borgward's sales fell off a cliff, with annual sales of only 8,703 vehicles, a sharp drop of more than 45,000 vehicles compared with the previous year, a drop of 84.04%, and since then it has fallen to the bottom.
Acura: Delisted in 2023
On April 8, GAC Acura announced in an official announcement that from 2023, GAC Honda will no longer produce and sell existing products under the GAC Acura brand. This means that Acura will officially withdraw from the Chinese market in 2023.
Also in 2016, the sales volume of Acura in the Chinese market that year was also remarkable. GAC Acura's first domestic model, the CDX, was launched in July 2016. In this year, GAC Acura's domestic annual sales were 9,062 vehicles, an increase of 120% year-on-year. Among them, the first domestic model CDX achieved sales of 5130 units. In 2017, Acura's sales in China peaked, with 16,300 new units sold. Then it fell all the way back, and by 2021, GAC Acura's annual sales slipped to 6554 vehicles.
For the Chinese luxury car market where Acura is located, in recent years, it has been in an upward trend. In addition to "BBA", the three major Japanese brands, Toyota's Lexus, Honda's Acura, Nissan Infiniti, in addition to Lexus, the other two brands are also in an awkward situation. The main reason for the delisting of Acura is that it has not grasped the characteristics of users in the Chinese market very well. The introduction of models is too slow, the real localization design is not realized, the marketing strategy is not accurate enough, and so on, resulting in the current fate of Acura.
Nio: Stop production and increase prices
Unlike the above two brands, WEILAI Automobile has really been hit hard by the epidemic. On April 9 and 10, WEILAI Automobile released the announcements of "Weilai vehicle production suspension" and "Weilai Automobile price increase" on the official APP.
On April 9, WEILAI Automobile said on its official APP that since March, due to the epidemic, the company's supply chain partners in Jilin, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have stopped production one after another and have not yet recovered. Affected by this, WEILAI's vehicle production has been suspended.
Weilai said that many users' vehicles will be delayed in the near future. "Please also understand. The company will work with supply chain partners to ensure that production resumes as soon as possible and delivers vehicles to everyone as soon as possible under the premise of meeting the requirements of epidemic prevention. ”
On April 10, NIO motor announced an adjustment to the price of NIO products due to the impact of rising global raw material prices.
Among them, the starting price of ES8, ES6 and EC6 versions of the model was raised by 10,000 yuan, and the starting price of ET7 and ET5 remained unchanged. Select the battery rental service, the long-endurance battery pack (100kWh) rental service fee is adjusted to 1680 yuan / month, and the purchased car users are not affected by this adjustment. The battery pack is flexibly upgraded to a long-lasting battery pack on an annual basis, and the price is adjusted to 9800 yuan / year. ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7 deposit or ET5 reservation deposit payment before May 9, 2022 (inclusive), the purchase price and battery rental service fee are not affected by this adjustment.