Author: Xie Renjie
Traditional car companies and new car manufacturers are tending to have a common intersection: that is, electric vehicles are not profitable. Not to mention that the "Wei Xiaoli" that has been listed has lost money, what is surprising is that even BYD, which has been selling crazy in the past few months, has actually not made any money.
To put it simply, the indicators of "Wei Xiaoli" are "expanding", and the revenue, gross profit margin and sales volume are more, but the marketing management expenses, research and development expenditures, and net losses are also increasing. In 2021, the delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" will be below 100,000 vehicles, but it will almost touch the edge of 100,000 vehicles.
Byd's performance is a bit surprising: in 2021, the revenue is 200 billion +, basically 10 times that of Xiaopeng Automobile, but the net profit attributable to the mother is only 1.255 billion yuan, down 57.53%. In the business segment, vehicles and power batteries and other related businesses, mobile phone parts business, photovoltaic accounted for 52:40:8. Obviously, the money was not made, and the crazy car business was to blame.
In 2021, BYD's "non-recurring profit and loss" increased by 510 million yuan, which is replaced by a subsidy in layman's terms. At its most, the BYD family received subsidies that accounted for 20% of the country's passenger cars. Even in 2021 after the decline, the total subsidies of various roads will be 5.867 billion yuan, which is more than 4 times the net profit.
Without subsidies, it will go to my grandmother's house. However, in Q1 this year, BYD expanded its sales lead, and the year-on-year growth rate was in the 3 figures for 3 consecutive months. With such a vigorous performance, can there be a net profit performance similar to Tesla in 2022? Not optimistic.
Tesla's financial report, gross profit margin of 26.5%, net profit of 14%, suddenly overwhelmed Toyota, and Toyota's profit margin has always been the handle of the automobile industry. The latter has a gross profit margin of 19% and a net profit of about 10% for the period from April 1 to 2021 (due to the fact that japan's fiscal year has not yet been announced since April 1).
The feeling is that electric vehicles are not easy to do, and they lose money when they do more or less.
"Dish" is weak
But only Tesla is immune.
To say that electric vehicles do not make money is actually a false proposition, because Tesla is making money. If there is amortization of fixed investment, Tesla will build two new factories in 2021; if the profit battery supplier takes it, BYD itself is the supplier. Blade batteries, IGBTs, flat motors, the flying of various technical cattle, the result is not dependent on subsidies, and in 2021, iron and white play will still lose.
What is a reasonable explanation? Is there a possibility that all of you who are currently losing money are for one reason: vegetables.
This is not to belittle anyone, everyone starts from the novice village, and "cuisine" is an innate endowment. The climbing path has actually been trampled by other commercial companies, and the automotive industry is not special. Technology, scale, cost management, branding, or the old ones. However, the automobile has now led the trend of the combination of industry and technology in the era, and the big guys who think they have foresight are desperately trying to cross the border to the car.
This process is a loss of money, many investors, founders are mentally prepared, after all, Tesla has also lost money for more than 10 years. But the difference is whether it is to lose first and then earn, or to lose and not to hold on to the bankruptcy.
Since they are all losing money, and Amazon is losing money year after year, why does no one worry about going out of business? Cash flow is king. There is cash in hand, no matter how he writes the financial report. Losing money in the name of technology, can that be called losing money? It's called hatching. However, some of them hatched, broke out of their shells, and sang loudly; some of them hatched and hatched, becoming hairy eggs.
Many people analyze what fixed asset investment scale, product line length, R & D investment, market price, brand premium, etc., some of these things can be quantified, some can only be qualitative analysis. It cannot be said that there is a mistake, because these are indeed the factors that car companies do not make money. But these are the results, the mapping of integrated capabilities.
Expand production! Expand production!
There is no standard answer to the question of how to make a profit, and we have to learn from history. The so-called news to see the bound book, in early 2016, when the 2015 financial report was issued, there were also investors, of course, there were also some professional short-selling institutions to analyze why Tesla lost money.
Of course, there is always a loss. To paraphrase Mr. Zhou, it has always been like this, right? Wall Street has never lacked a "spirit of questioning."
How was the rafter written at that time? The Model 3 is hotly booked, but it will not be delivered until 2 years later (in fact, it will be delivered at the end of 2017). In order to ensure supply, Tesla even cut orders that looked repetitive or hyped.
With the largest number of eviancers, a significant portion of whom are still holding real money (although only $1,000) to book new cars that have not yet been mass-produced, they can still lose money. After studying, The rafters said that because Tesla gave 50% of its revenue to Panasonic. That is to say, the battery supplier cut half of the revenue, so that Tesla's gross profit is too low, comprehensive research and development, marketing and management costs, net profit is negative, nothing strange.
At first glance, it seems to make some sense. Panasonic is still there, but at least not a Tesla supplier in China. In the long run, LG and Ningde era are more promising than Panasonic as a global "one supply". Batteries have also reduced their prices, and now the cost of batteries only accounts for about 1/3 of the whole vehicle.
In fact, if you think about it carefully, this analysis is purely an ass decision on the head, and it is an "inverted cause and effect". Both the Model S and model X were much more expensive than the later Model 3/Y, but the battery cost was high. One is because in 18650 there was only one supplier, and the depreciation of fixed assets had to be spared to the battery.
In 2015, Tesla's global sales were only more than 50,000 vehicles, such a small scale, amortizing the cost of the super factory, if the accountant uses the GAAP law to be more ruthless, Tesla can lose a little more miserably.
The key is to expand production, and the expansion of production can reduce the amortization cost and make money. The $80,000 "princess car" that can only run 300 kilometers and is too cold and afraid of heat is of course not easy to walk, and there are not enough fools in Beverly Hills after all. Expansion must do four things: make a cheap car, let suppliers roll up, create cheaper localization capacity, and find a broader localization market.
A thousand words come together into one sentence, and when you go to China, there are people, land, money, markets, and suppliers. That's it. Some time ago, I lost money, not in vain, shaping the brand image on the tall, and then extending down, you can use the air to dominate the sea (outside).
Weilai learns the Tesla route is the most similar, but the technology connotation (Tesla's scientific and technological connotation is controversial, but the market recognizes) did not learn to understand, and learned the product extension and marketing route. Some people sarcastically say that some brands of technology are not good, desperately trying to be good to cover up the fact that they develop "dishes". Technology itself is not used to "chant", but can effectively reduce costs. For example, the length of the internal harness of the Model Y is only about 1 km, while the ancient Model S is about 4.8 km.
Strength is not lost
This is a bit of a curse, Weilai research and development is not strong, no matter here. In "Wei Xiaoli", Weilai research and development is indeed the most (4.591 billion yuan, 2021), but there is no essential difference from the other two, and everyone is hanging around at the level of 4 billion. Moreover, this has accounted for 12.7% of the revenue, and "Wei Xiaoli" has tried to suckle on research and development investment. If the revenue does not go up, it is not possible to increase the investment in research and development.
BYD's R&D investment is as high as 10.6 billion yuan in absolute terms, catching up with the sum of "Wei Xiaoli", but accounting for less than 5% of revenue, which is very much more than sufficient.
In contrast, do you have more impressions of BYD, or more "Wei Xiaoli"? This is the volume difference. Therefore, being big is king. BYD has done quite a big job, and it is expected that in 2022, new energy sales will reach the first in China and the second in the world, second only to Tesla. But BYD's product line is far more complex than Tesla's. Moreover, because of the early brand image problems, the price climbed more difficult.
Recently, BYD terminated the production of fuel vehicles (but still produced internal combustion engines), sorted out the product line, and the price of bicycles is going up. That is, BYD is on the right path. Brand image renewal is a long-term thing and a result.
epilogue:
"Wei Xiaoli" roughly looks like Tesla in 2014, but it may not grow into Tesla's second; BYD has taken a different route, but the product line is messy, and a large part of the production management costs are idling, and no real profitability has been formed.
But overall, the more products a single platform produces, the lower the marginal cost. As long as the scale reaches a certain level, the net profit will turn positive and the water will come to fruition. How to expand the scale is another topic. Tesla's expansion route, in fact, is difficult to imitate, which is not a problem of temperament.