The new forces of car-making are coming, and they can't build cars.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Yuan Shao, the overlord of the north, divided one side, and after being burned by the Wuchao, the grain and grass were not continued, the army was scattered, and guandu was defeated, and he lost the qualification to compete for supremacy in the chaotic world and enter the Central Plains.
History is always strikingly similar, this time the "shortage of grain and grass" is the turn of the "new forces" of car-making, once the hegemon of Weilai (NIO.US, 09866.HK).
Last weekend, for Weilai, it was not calm.
On Sunday, April 10, WEILAI continued to release the explanation of product price adjustment in its APP, and the starting price of its ES8, ES6 and EC6 versions of the model was raised by 10,000 yuan, and the starting price of WEILAI ET7 and ET5 remained unchanged.
Source: Weilai's official Weibo
In the recent month's price increase of new energy vehicles, Weilai's figure has not been seen for a long time.
On March 25, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of WEILAI, said at the financial report press conference that Weilai currently has no idea of raising prices.
This wave of operations has won Weilai the reputation of "conscience of the industry", and Li Bin has been named "the most beautiful retrograde" by consumers. However, after half a month, Weilai changed its course and joined the queue of price increases.
The reason for this price increase is still the impact of the rise in global raw materials.
Li Bin also said that raw materials, especially battery raw materials, rose too much, and wanted to bite his teeth and carry it over, but he did not think that the epidemic had become the last straw that overwhelmed Weilai, and finally could not carry it.
Source: NIO mobile APP
Since the beginning of this year, global raw material prices have indeed continued to rise sharply. Under this influence, according to incomplete statistics, almost all new energy vehicle companies have raised the prices of their products to varying degrees, ranging from thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
Source: Company announcements, collated by Alpha Workshop Research Institute
Price increases are the industry's recent "common" countermeasures to deal with rising costs, and Weilai has only followed the trend. And for EC6, ES6 and ES8, which are priced at 300,000 or 400,000 yuan, the price increase is 10,000, and the corresponding increase is only about 3%, which has little impact.
What is more market-killing is actually the announcement of the previous day.
On the afternoon of Friday, April 9, NIO released a description of the recent production and delivery situation in its APP: due to the epidemic, NIO vehicle production has been suspended.
Li Bin said in the top comments that some parts have been out of supply in mid-March, and it is not easy for Weilai to survive until recently. Immediately after, he launched the "atomic bomb" level information: weilai is not the only one facing the dilemma of suspension of production, many manufacturers have similar situations.
Source: NIO mobile APP
The message went straight to the capital markets on Monday.
On Monday, April 11, the share price of Weilai, which had just announced the suspension of production + price increase, fell sharply at the opening, closing at HK$144.8, down 11.44%.
Not only Weilai, affected by Li Bin's innuendo of the plight of the whole industry, the new energy sector fell sharply on the same day, Xiaopeng Automobile (09868. Shares of HK) and 02015.HK also fell 9.89% and 8.11% respectively.
April 11 "Wei Xiaoli" stock price, source: Flush iFind
The former overlord Wei Lai is in trouble.
The pattern of "new forces" is afraid of change
In the past year, "Wei Xiaoli", which occupies an absolute advantage, has been dominating the top three of the "new forces" of new energy vehicles. They overcame the shortage of chips, rising raw material prices and the epidemic last year, stood out among the "new forces", and made outstanding contributions to the transformation of domestic electrification.
In 2021, NIO delivered 91,429 units, an increase of 109.1% year-on-year; ideal cars delivered 90,491 units, an increase of 177.4% year-on-year; Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 98,155 units, an increase of 263% year-on-year.
With a total delivery volume of nearly 100,000 years, the pattern of "Wei Xiaoli" has taken shape.
However, as soon as the news of Weilai's suspension of production came out, the pattern may change. In fact, the March sales data has loomed in the grass snake gray line.
According to the latest data from the Association of Passenger Vehicles on April 11, 2022, the retail sales of the domestic passenger car market reached 1.579 million units, down 10.5% year-on-year and 25.6% month-on-month; the cumulative retail sales from January to March were 4.915 million units, down 4.5% year-on-year, and the overall trend was lower than expected.
Under the premise of the overall downturn in passenger cars, the retail sales of new energy passenger cars continued to soar in March, reaching 445,000 units, up 137.6% year-on-year and 63.1% month-on-month.
In March, the monthly penetration rate of new energy passenger cars has reached 28.2%, a record high, and the trend of new energy has once again been confirmed.
In terms of the "new forces" of new energy vehicles, Xiaopeng won the top spot with the delivery of 15414 vehicles, followed by Nezha with 12026 vehicles, the ideal 11034 vehicles and the zero run 10059 vehicles, and Weilai only ranked fifth with 9985 vehicles.
Among the top five, only Weilai's monthly delivery volume did not exceed 10,000, and the top four year-on-year growth was doubled, and zero running was 9 times year-on-year, while Weilai's growth was only 37.6%. Obviously, Weilai Single Moon has been surpassed by two new players, Nezha and Zero Run.
Source: Company announcements, collated by Alpha Workshop Research Institute
The pattern of "Wei Xiaoli" three males has suffered a reshuffle and evolved into a "small reason zero Wei" five hegemonic disputes.
The reason why it has the familiar name of "Wei Xiaoli" is because it is based on the initial sales ranking. Nowadays, Weilai has fallen from the top of the list to the fifth place, and at the critical moment when the "new forces" are racing, it is undoubtedly a great blow to the development of Weilai.
Great powers roam around
Why list the subdivision category of "new forces" of new energy vehicles? Because they start late, grow fast, and refer to each other, you can see the speed and good of relative development. However, new energy vehicle companies are not only these "new forces" in China, but also three mountains in front of them.
The first big mountain is Tesla, as the international leader of electric vehicles, Tesla has a relatively strong influence in the world.
On April 2, Tesla disclosed that the company delivered more than 310,000 vehicles in the first quarter, of which the Model S/X delivered 14,724 units and the Model 3/Y delivered 295,300 vehicles.
That is to say, Tesla's deliveries in the first quarter of this year have exceeded the total annual deliveries of "Wei Xiaoli" last year.
The second big mountain is BYD, according to BYD's production and sales express report, BYD's new energy vehicle sales in March were 104878, an increase of 333.06% year-on-year; the cumulative sales in the first quarter were 286329, an increase of 422.97%.
Source: BYD Announcement
The third mountain is a new brand of electric vehicles incubated or supported by traditional car companies, and their power cannot be underestimated. Backed by the technology, experience, supply chain and factory advantages of traditional car companies, these sub-brands also have their own main customer groups and occupy a certain market share.
An international brand leader, a domestic brand leader, coupled with many emerging sub-brands, new energy vehicles can be described as a hundred flowers blooming, expanding their market share in the competition.
According to the statistical caliber of the Association, there were 13 enterprises with wholesale sales of new energy passenger car manufacturers exceeding 10,000 units in March (an increase of 2 over the same period last year), including: BYD 104338, Tesla China 65,814, SAIC-GM-Wuling 51,157, Chery Automobile 21,817, GAC Aian 20,317, Changan Automobile 15,624, Xiaopeng Automobile 15,414, Great Wall Motor 15,057, Geely Automobile 14,166, Nezha Automobile 12,026, There are 11,034 ideal cars, 10,880 SAIC passenger cars and 10,059 zero-run cars.
Weilai, which ranks fifth in the monthly sales volume of "New Forces", can only be ranked after 13th in the global comparison.
Different manufacturers have different technical paths, and the main customer groups are also different, but at this stage, these are "stepping stones", when the customer group is large enough, the winner-take-all phenomenon is likely to occur.
Therefore, the stage of the "quantity" of the early reserve is particularly important, and whoever masters the early stage can have a huge first-mover advantage in the later stage.
It is true that there is still a certain gap between the "new forces" of car manufacturing and the three mountains in front of them, which is an objective fact, so within the "new forces", weilai and Xiaopeng and ideal competition are also tired.
The ideal main range extender electric vehicle program, the only model for the time being is the large SUV Ideal ONE, mainly focusing on family cars, oilable and electric, completely solving mileage anxiety, single-month delivery of 11,034 vehicles, has become the "new force" of the first best-selling car.
Ideal looks forward to the next city, will release the second model Ideal L9 on April 16, continue to improve its product matrix.
Source: Ideal official website
Xiaopeng mainly has three products on sale, the Compact SUV Xiaopeng G3i facing the city road and the family car Xiaopeng P5 and P7, especially the main coupe P7 that has been on the market for two years, with a single month delivery volume of 9183 vehicles, becoming the first best-selling car of pure electric drive of "New Force".
Source: Xiaopeng official website
Ideal and Xiaopeng emerged in large SUVs and family cars respectively, and advanced according to their own scripts. Weilai also looks at these two paths.
Focus on large SUVs, followed by ec6, ES6 and ES8 models; after opening the market, we are ready to continue to launch sedans. Who knows that this suspension of production has made this wishful thinking fall short.
The original SUV market may be replaced by ideals, the car market that has not yet been delivered may be replaced by Xiaopeng P7 and P5, and Weilai's original plan of having the best of both worlds has become an embarrassing situation of "losing everything".
It can be said that there is an ambush in the front and a pursuing soldier in the back.
New energy vehicle companies do not dare to stop, run forward, for fear of falling behind. However, today's Weilai has begun to stand still, sailing against the current, and retreating if it does not advance. At the key node of the new energy vehicle outbreak, if you can't keep up with one step, you may really not be able to keep up with it step by step.
If you want to break through the siege, close hand-to-hand combat seems inevitable, but at the critical moment, the chain is dropped, and the "divine soldier" in Weilai's hand cannot be found. How will weilai, which is overstretched, face the competition of the bayonet in the future?
Does NIO still have a future?
Weilai once dominated for a while, but there are still many advantages.
For example, its power exchange, compared to other electric vehicles, can only have a way to charge, Weilai to create its own brand characteristics, the battery can be charged and replaced, consumers can freely choose the power supply program according to their own needs.
Especially in the first-tier cities with more developed infrastructure, Weilai's network of substations is densely woven, and the 3-5 minutes of power exchange almost perfectly solves the mileage anxiety of commuting in the city.
From the removable battery, it also extends the BaaS (Battery as a Service) financial rental scheme, which lowers the down payment threshold for consumers to buy a car. Giving consumers an alternative with a degree of flexibility that is second to none.
In the hearts of consumers, WEILAI is the forerunner of these innovations.
A single "monthly exam" is just a quiz, and a defeat does not negate its wholety. Moreover, among the upstart Nezha and zero-run sales, micro/small electric vehicles account for a large proportion, whether from brand influence or from the scientific and technological content, can not compete with "Wei Xiaoli" on the same stage.
However, seeing the micro-knowledge, Weilai's shortcomings have been amplified in this "black swan" event.
First of all, the excessive pricing scares off many interested consumers, and the selling price of 300,000 or 400,000 is destined to be its target group is high-net-worth customers.
Then, high-net-worth customers, especially for young consumers who like to change their preferences, the attractiveness of old products that have been listed for 3 or 4 years is accelerating, and the enthusiasm for new products has been high in the Weilai Forum.
Source: NIO mobile APP
Secondly, the cars that Weilai has been absent, ET7 and ET5 were originally new heavy weapons for Weilai to continue to attack the city, but their late arrival once again broke the plan.
Although ET7 has been released for more than a year, and the news about ET7 is also continuing to ferment, there are still a few people who can see existing cars on the market.
A NIO salesman excitedly informed this writer last week that ET7 was finally exhibiting at the INDIGO NIO Experience Store in Beijing, welcoming potential consumers to watch it. When the author further inquired whether he could test drive, he was told that because there were too few cars, he could only exhibit and could not test drive.
Source: Weilai official website
Prospective owners of ET7 and ET5 are indignant about the frequent late arrivals of new cars, and potential owners who come to see them gradually lose patience because they cannot test drive for a long time, and then switch to other new energy camps.
The lack of production capacity not only affects the old models, but also loses the opportunity for new models to re-encircle the market. The future of Weilai will be difficult.
Building a car is not a simple matter
Before apple planned to build cars, now there are millet high-profile into car manufacturing, many car-making "new forces" have sprung up like mushrooms, and car brands on the street are gradually enriched.
This gives the illusion that building a car is an easy task. Some people joke that electric vehicles are shells + large-scale battery packs, which become with the interior.
However, whether it is a fuel vehicle or a new energy vehicle, car manufacturing is a very complex process. There is a close connection between the various parts or work areas of the whole vehicle, and the suppliers at all levels are organized in an orderly manner, which is not an exaggeration.
In other words, it is easy to build a car, but it is difficult to build a car continuously and stably. Among them, the security and stability of the supply chain is particularly important.
Even with the strategizing of Guo Jia and Xun Yu and the bravery and invincibility of Xu Chu and Dianwei, grain and grass are still the most important, as the saying goes, "it is difficult for a smart woman to cook without rice", and the supply chain is the most important reference index for a car company.
Although WEILAI has many reasons, suppliers "happen" to be located in areas with serious epidemics, but the overall coordination is also a "touchstone" to test the long-term development of car companies. All car companies face the same national disadvantages, but Weilai is the first to "explode".
If Weilai does not understand, it is difficult to have a way out in the future.