Per reporter: Duan Siyao Per reporter Per reporter: Pei Jianru
In the early morning of April 24, Changan New Energy suddenly issued an "Announcement on Suspending the Collection of Orders for the National Edition of the Ben E-Star Model" (hereinafter referred to as the "Announcement"), which said, "It is now scheduled to suspend the collection of orders for the E-Star National Edition model from 00:00 on April 25, 2022." ”
"The Ben E-Star National Edition multi-variety model received orders on the last day of today, and it will not be available from tomorrow." On April 24, a reporter from the Daily Economic News called a Changan Automobile 4S store in Beijing's Fangshan District as a car buyer, and a salesperson in the store said so.
Image source: Photo by reporter Duan Siyao
As for the reasons for the sudden suspension of the E-Star National Edition, Changan New Energy said in the above-mentioned "Announcement" that it was mainly affected by the recent shortage of upstream raw materials and the limitation of vehicle and parts production capacity, resulting in a longer delivery cycle of the model.
Keep two high-priced models
According to the data of the Association, in the first quarter of this year, the cumulative sales of the Ben E-Star were about 26,100 vehicles, an increase of 147% year-on-year. Suddenly stopping receiving orders during the period of rising sales, some car owners are worried about whether the model will be discontinued in the next step? "We were notified to stop receiving orders for the time being." The sales staff of the above-mentioned Changan Automobile 4S store said so, and did not answer the reporter's question of suspension of production in a positive manner.
On the same day, the reporter saw on the official website of Changan Automobile that the Peen ben E-Star national version of the colorful limited model showed that the subscription was suspended, while the heartbeat version and the heart version of the model have stopped booking.
Image source: Screenshot of Changan Automobile's official website
Changan New Energy said in the above-mentioned "Announcement" that for users who have previously ordered through officially designated channels, it will coordinate production resources to meet the scheduling plan of existing orders and ensure that users who have booked cars pick up their cars as soon as possible.
According to the sales staff of the above-mentioned Changan Automobile 4S store, "The pick-up time of the previous BenBen E-Star national version model was relatively long, and some car owners chose to unsubscribe. If you are in a hurry to pick up the car now, you can buy an unsubscribed model and deliver it in three days, but there are not many such existing cars. ”
According to the official website of Changan Automobile, there are 7 models of The Ben E-Star model, of which 5 are in the national version. This time, with the suspension of the national version of the model to receive orders, the Ben E-Star model on sale is only the pleasing version and the pure heart version. "The appreciation version and the pure heart version can receive orders normally, but it takes about three months to pick up the car." The sales staff of the above-mentioned Changan Automobile 4S store told the "Daily Economic News" reporter.
The reporter found that compared with the price of the Various Models of the Ben E-Star National Edition (29,800 to 53,800 yuan), the price of the appreciation version and the pure heart version is higher. Among them, the price of the pleasing version is 74,800 yuan, and the price of the pure heart version is 69,800 yuan.
Is it cost pressure, or is it capacity?
Leaving behind two higher priced Ben E-Star models, Changan New Energy's move is intriguing.
Some car company executives have calculated such an account, as far as A00-level products are concerned, taking the 30-degree electricity 300-endurance model as an example, the increase in batteries alone will basically bring about a cost increase of 3100 yuan to 3500 yuan, plus about 3400 yuan of subsidies, the overall increase in the cost of more than 7000 yuan. This figure is obvious for A00-class electric vehicles like the Ben E-Star National Edition, which is priced at only about 50,000 yuan.
Therefore, since the beginning of this year, in the context of rising prices of raw materials such as batteries and lithium carbonate, and the shortage of key components such as superimposed chips, A00-class electric vehicles have been suspended or increased in price, and A00-class models such as Hongguang MINIEV, Chery Ant, QQ Ice Cream have announced price increases.
Image source: Per reporter Li Xing photographed (data map)
According to the data of the Association, the wholesale sales of A00-class new energy models in March were 119,000 units, an increase of 75% month-on-month. Although from the sales data, the domestic A00-class new energy vehicle market is still growing, but with the improvement of the "dumbbell type" structure of the pure electric vehicle market, the market share of A00-class new energy models is shrinking. The data shows that from 2013 to 2021, the share of the A00-class pure electric car in the overall pure electric vehicle sales fell from 69% to 33%. Ping An Securities Research Report shows that the incremental pattern of new energy vehicles will change in 2022, and the growth rate of the A00-level new energy market will be under pressure.
In addition, some people believe that in the context of "lack of core and less electricity", Changan New Energy suspended the order for the E-Star national version model, which is also vacating production capacity for new models. At present, Changan Automobile's deep blue brand for the new energy vehicle market has been officially released, this year will launch C385EV, C673EV two models, a total of five models in the planned, the future C385 model will also launch hydrogen fuel, range extender power model, while Changan Automobile will also launch a small car LUMIN this year.
On April 13, an insider of Changan Automobile told reporters: "Changan New Energy will be the operation platform of the Deep Blue brand, and LUMIN will also be produced under Changan New Energy." This means that under the existing production capacity, changan new energy must make a choice about which car to produce.
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