Yuan Guobao
Internet trend observer, well-known financial writer, founder of New Alliance, senior media person, new media marketing and brand communication expert.
Brother said
BYD announced a major decision.
With the vigorous launch of new energy vehicles, BYD's attention in the past two years has also continued to grow, and on the evening of April 3 this year, it announced a major decision - BYD officially stopped the production of traditional fuel vehicles in March this year, and the future company will only do pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
The move shocked the entire industry, and BYD has now become the world's first 100% de-fueled traditional car company. Now it may be possible to call BYD a new energy vehicle company.
There has been a premeditated new energy road
In fact, the concentration of firepower on new energy vehicles is not BYD's whims, for becoming a new energy vehicle company, it may have been planned for a long time, which can be found in many things.
The first thing to know is that BYD started with the production of mobile phone batteries at the beginning of its establishment, and even once became the largest battery supplier in the country, and this experience also paved the way for its new energy vehicles.
After accumulating a certain amount of capital and successfully listing through batteries, BYD acquired Xi'an Qinchuan Automobile in 2003 and established BYD Automobile Co., Ltd., officially entering the automobile track.
But for BYD's car, the market does not buy it, and some people even say that BYD can make a good car that makes batteries. And it is this sentence, like a daigo empowerment, that awakens BYD - I am a battery maker, the fuel car is not good, I can do the tram. So since then, BYD has begun to invest huge energy and financial resources in the development of new energy vehicles.
In 2008, when China's new energy vehicles were still in their infancy, BYD announced the launch of the world's first new energy vehicle that does not rely on professional charging stations - BYD F3DM dual-mode electric vehicle. Since then, BYD has successfully entered the field of new energy vehicles.
Then, BYD has successively launched BYD e6 and Dynasty series of new energy vehicles, which can be said to be unsurprisingly going farther and farther on the road of new energy vehicles.
From this point of view, doing new energy vehicles may be destined to be the destination of BYD cars.
On the other hand, the current fuel vehicle business is already dispensable for BYD, and it can even be regarded as a chicken rib.
From the perspective of sales volume, BYD's sales of fuel vehicles have declined year by year, and as of 2021, its sales of fuel vehicles have fallen to 140,000 units, down 41.7% year-on-year. At the same time, BYD's sales of new energy vehicles have exploded, selling 600,000 units in 2021, an increase of 218.30% year-on-year.
At the same time, in terms of proportion, BYD's new energy vehicles also increased from 45% in 2014 to 82% in 2021, and in the first quarter of 2022, BYD's sales of fuel vehicles were only 1.7%. It has been clearly seen that the existence of BYD fuel vehicles has become weaker and weaker, and BYD's de-fueling is very resolute.
In addition, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference last November, BYD, as the only Chinese car company, signed the Glasgow Declaration on Zero Emission Vehicles and Vans with five other European and American car companies, promising to stop selling internal combustion engine vehicles in "major markets" around the world by 2035 and stop selling them globally by 2040.
Although IT did not expect BYD to react so quickly, most people believe that BYD's discontinuation of fuel vehicles is also a speed-up in its commitment to stop selling fuel vehicles.
Therefore, it seems that BYD's suspension of production of fuel vehicles is actually a matter of sooner or later. At the same time, for BYD, which has not been optimistic about fuel vehicles, the development of new energy vehicles is also a good time to change the image.
I want to do high-end BYD
BYD wants to do high-end, and in recent times it has been eager to seek a breakthrough in high-end.
First, because consumers are now eating more and more high-end this set, high-end intelligent cars have also become the current consumption of new outlets; second, doing high-end has always been a sign of independent brands to achieve corner overtaking, BYD wants to make a breakthrough, and can only rely on high-end cars at present.
However, although the idea is good, it is not easy to successfully build a high-end BYD.
The first is that it is difficult to change the brand image.
BYD initially opened the market by low-end fuel vehicles, and the current price of mixed and pure electricity is also between 100,000 and 200,000, which also makes it establish a low-end brand image in people's minds. Therefore, even if BYD makes high-end cars, its image is difficult to change to high-end for a while.
Second, there is the most important technical issue.
In response to the low price problem, BYD has made many changes, such as it launched a "Han" series of about 300,000 yuan in 2020, changing the previous low price, and also announced the release of a more high-end brand in October this year, with a price of between 50-1 million.
However, high price does not equal high-end, want to do a good job of high-end cars, more important is intelligent. This is also why if you do not talk about patriotism, more users are more willing to choose Tesla's Model 3 than BYD "Han".
As a high-end intelligent electric vehicle, its technical core is "three electricity" and "three wisdom", that is, the three electric technologies composed of batteries, motors and electronic controls create the foundation of high-performance pure electric vehicles, and intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit and intelligent gateway are the core of intelligent experience. Tesla is like this, and BYD is also working in this direction.
In the "three electricity system", BYD's three-power system is self-produced and self-sold, and its self-developed batteries are among the best in the country, and Tesla, which relies on suppliers to provide batteries, cannot be compared.
However, Tesla's battery management system is very strong, can link more than 7,000 18650 model batteries together at the same time, from multiple dimensions of charge and discharge for fine control, in such a management system, the same capacity of the battery, Tesla's actual mileage is often stronger than BYD's.
In terms of "three wisdoms", Tesla's intelligent system can be said to crush BYD.
In recent years, although BYD has made a lot of efforts in intelligence, and has some research results in terms of intelligent cockpit and auxiliary driving, it has been proved that its research and development has not reached the standard of intelligence.
For example, its intelligent cockpit system DiLink, although it has been iterated to version 4.0 since its development in 2018, this system is still unable to fully connect with the vehicle architecture, and only provides the function of an Android tablet. There are even many consumers who report that this system cannot achieve remote OTA upgrades, and to upgrade, they also need to drive the car to the 4S store to carry out.
In terms of automatic driving, BYD has also been distressed for a long time, and for BYD's "Han" series, there are even consumer complaints that its automatic driving function is invalid.
In contrast, Tesla's intelligence, its OTA upgrade software has achieved frequent automatic upgrades, and does not require additional installation costs. This is not only BYD can not be compared, other traditional car companies are far behind.
Tesla's self-driving technology is the key to becoming a technology company, and Musk even said that he will achieve L5-level fully autonomous driving this year.
Although I don't know whether Musk's bold words can come true, BUT ATD, which can only achieve L2 assisted driving, is indeed much worse than Tesla in terms of automatic driving technology, and its automatic driving system is currently using a BOSCH solution, and even the most basic ACC adaptive cruise is not doing well.
From this point of view, BYD's intelligence is indeed lagging behind. BYD wants to catch up with Tesla? The most important thing is to improve intelligence first. At present, in the minds of consumers, the intelligence of new energy vehicles is as important as safety.
How to do high-end Chinese new energy vehicles?
Doing high-end is not only a problem for BYD to face as a car company, in fact, the impact of high-end is a problem that the entire Chinese auto market has to face. In the era of fuel vehicles, China even has few cases of B-class high-end cars, and in the current new energy era, it is also an opportunity to impact the high-end of domestic cars.
If you want to make a high-end new energy vehicle, the most important thing is to make a breakthrough in intelligence and details.
In addition, while continuously improving intelligence, DOMESTIC CAR BRANDS SUCH AS BYD can also launch a sub-brand specializing in high-end cars, just like Toyota's Lexus, in order to get rid of the original low-end image in the minds of consumers and let everything start from scratch.
Can domestic cars seize the opportunity of the new energy era, make high-end cars, and tell national stories? We'll see.