Auto-First | Zhang Chi
Just like the name BYD was "blind", in 2003, when Wang Chuanfu acquired Qinchuan Flair to start the road to car building, he certainly did not expect that after 19 years, in April 2022, Wang Chuanfu would personally stop the fuel vehicle and completely transform into a new energy automobile enterprise.
However, there seems to be a necessity in all the contingencies. From matching mobile phone batteries, to battery kings, to China's new energy vehicle leaders, Wang Chuanfu and his BYD seem to be stepping on the right point at every step.
In 1966, Wang Chuanfu was born in the countryside of Wuwei County, Wuhu City, Anhui Province, and his parents died before graduating from junior high school, relying on his brother's small business to complete his college. After graduating from the Department of Metallurgical Physical Chemistry of Central South Mining and Metallurgical Institute (now Central South University) in 1987, Wang Chuanfu entered the Beijing Nonferrous Metals Research Institute located near the North Taipingzhuang Bridge in the North Third Ring Road, and has been associated with batteries ever since.
After five years of work, in 1995 Wang Chuanfu discovered a huge business opportunity for nickel-cadmium batteries. Borrowed 2.5 million yuan from his cousin, went south to Shenzhen, and began to start a business in the battery field. Since then, it has been out of control.
Three years later, it has been supplied to mainstream mobile phone manufacturers, and nickel-cadmium battery shipments have become the world's largest.
With a keen sense of business, Wang Chuanfu entered the automotive industry in 2003. At that time, Qinchuan Flair was acquired, the production qualification directory was obtained, and the road of car building began.
In that era of the car market blowout, the beginning of independent brands can not escape imitation, through imitation of Toyota Corolla, BYD with an F3 model quickly opened up the situation in the automotive field, the car once sold more than 40,000 units, for BYD to accumulate the "first bucket of gold" in the automotive industry. In 2008, BYD's auto sales have exceeded 200,000 units, of which F3 sales exceeded 160,000 units.
In addition to building their own cars, few people know that the BYD Mould Center in Beijing's Tongzhou Ciqu, Land Rover is also a BYD car customer, once producing white bodies and their components for Land Rover.
Even when he entered the automotive industry, Wang Chuanfu did not forget his old business. BYD's automotive battery layout began in 2005, the electric vehicle F3e was successfully developed in 2006, and the F3DM began to be put on the market in 2009.
In June 2011, BYD, which bore the aura of Buffett's 10% stake, was listed on the domestic A-share market, and among the more than 500 rich people created by the new stocks that year, Wang Chuanfu became the richest man with a value of 13 billion yuan, becoming the most tech-savvy Chinese businessman in one fell swoop.
After five years of dormancy, BYD electric vehicles ushered in the spring of 2014 - the state began to subsidize new energy vehicles on a large scale.
According to incomplete statistics, in the past five years, BYD has received more than 10 billion yuan in state subsidies, and subsidies have become the main source of its profits. Taking the past two years as an example, in 2020, the government subsidy was 2.3 billion yuan, accounting for 54.3% of the profit of the year; in 2021, the government subsidy was 5.867 billion yuan, and the net profit for the year was 3.045 billion yuan. FROM batteries to electric vehicles, BYD closely follows the national automobile industry policy, which can be described as occupying the day.
China's new energy vehicles mainly use lithium iron phosphate and ternary batteries. This also represents two technical routes, BYD bet on lithium iron phosphate.
The market share of lithium iron phosphate batteries accounted for nearly 70% in 2014 and 2015, and it has fallen to 45%, 39% and 32% by 2017, 2018 and 2019 due to subsidy policies.
Before 2017, BYD was equipped with its own passenger cars and commercial vehicles with its own lithium iron phosphate batteries. Since then, the national subsidy policy has more requirements for battery energy density and mileage, and the flexible BYD, in 2018, began to match passenger cars with its own ternary battery, so that it will get more generous subsidies.
However, BYD's ternary battery does not have an energy density advantage compared with the high-nickel battery of the Ningde era, and the passenger car does not allow willful loading of the battery due to cost and body structure characteristics, so that the lithium iron phosphate battery is slightly inferior.
Before 2017, due to the first-mover advantage in the battery field and a large number of government subsidies, coupled with BYD's domestic hegemonic sales of self-produced new energy vehicles, BYD's battery installed capacity has been ranking first in the domestic list.
Wang Chuanfu has technically bet on lithium iron phosphate batteries with relatively high safety, but the state's subsidy policy has been inclined to ternary lithium batteries with higher energy density and longer cruising range since 2017. In addition, BYD's battery is mainly self-sufficient and has not been supplied, laying the groundwork for Wang Chuanfu to lose the crown of the battery king, which is also one of the few times that Wang Chuanfu "did not step on the point".
In 2011, he encountered problems in BYD's automobile sales system, and Xia Zhibing, the elder of the sales company, left his job. When electric cars were still waiting for the right moment, two years younger than Wang Chuanfu, Zeng Liuqun, a Fujian native with the same battery technology background, founded the Ningde era.
In 2016, the installed capacity of the Ningde era has approached BYD, and finally under the blessing of the policy, BYD was pulled down in 2017. Nowadays, ningde era has become the largest installed battery manufacturer, the market value continues to rise, the current stock price is nearly twice that of BYD, which is also the biggest "difficult to flat" of Wang Chuanfu and BYD.
Obviously, BYD does not want to "just grab it", but an epidemic has disrupted the rhythm of all companies, including BYD.
Wang Chuanfu, who originally planned to completely decline the subsidy for new energy vehicles in 2020, used the "blade battery" to save some face after the policy advantages of the ternary battery were smoothed out, but heard the good news of the industry that the new energy vehicle subsidy policy was extended for two years.
This is not completely good news for BYD, which is based on lithium iron phosphate batteries. This may lead to a further widening of the installed capacity gap between lithium iron phosphate and ternary batteries.
But at such a moment, there was no choice for Wang Chuanfu, and the prepared knife would eventually be sheathed.
On March 29, 2020, two days before the release of BYD's annual report, the lithium iron phosphate blade battery was released, and the knife pointed directly at the soft underbelly of the ternary battery - safety.
On the same day, Wang Chuanfu personally went to the scene of Shenzhen Satellite TV to broadcast the acupuncture experiment for ternary lithium, ordinary lithium iron phosphate and blade battery, and the result was that the ternary battery deflagration, ordinary lithium iron phosphate battery, smoke, fire, only the blade battery needle puncture even after the egg placed next to it did not change, the reaction temperature was lower than 60 degrees.
Compared with the two batteries, lithium iron phosphate originally has a good safety advantage, and this conference has made its advantages amplified again. However, in addition to raising the stock prices of listed companies before and after the conference, due to production capacity restrictions, the installed capacity share of blade batteries has not expanded significantly.
As early as five years ago, Wang Chuanfu's battery king laurel had been taken away by Zeng Yuqun, the boss of the Ningde era.
In 2017, BYD's battery installed capacity was 5.43GWh, and in the Ningde era, which started with ternary batteries, the installed capacity has reached 10.4GWh, which is nearly twice that of BYD.
Five years later, the gap between BYD and The Ningde era has not narrowed, but has further widened. In 2021, the installed capacity of batteries in the Ningde era has climbed to 80.51GWh, and BYD is only 25.06GWh.
At present, the Ningde era "powers" dozens of domestic and foreign manufacturers, including mainstream automobile manufacturers such as BMW.
In the face of the ningde era of a riding dust and other battery companies to catch up, the former battery king "boatman brother", felt unprecedented pressure.
BYD is not only a battery supplier, it also produces new energy vehicles, blade batteries are first supplied internally, making it difficult for competitors to purchase its batteries, which to a certain extent makes it more and more distant from the Ningde era.
In order to solve the problem of the market share of power batteries, BYD is determined to split the power battery business segment and list it. According to Wang Chuanfu's plan, BYD will split its battery business and go public independently by the end of 2022 to raise funds for development. At present, the circle of friends of BYD batteries is constantly expanding. Li Yunfei, general manager of BYD's brand and public relations business unit, said in an interview with the media: "All the car brands you can think of are discussing cooperation solutions based on blade battery technology with us. ”
However, some experts in the field of batteries believe that at present, BYD's power batteries are still mainly internal supply, and the proportion of external supply business is far from enough, AND needs to expand the proportion of external power in a short period of time in order to achieve the indicators of independent listing of power batteries.
IND, which is slightly frustrated compared with the Ningde era in the power battery, has established a hegemonic position in the field of China's independent new energy vehicles. In 2021, BYD sold 603,800 new energy vehicles, accounting for 17% of China's total new energy vehicle sales, while its sales of new energy models in that year accounted for 81.59%, and this figure has become 97% in February this year.
In March this year, BYD's new energy vehicle sales reached 100,000 units, ranking first in the domestic new energy vehicle list, and the second-ranked Tesla 65,000 vehicles have obvious advantages.
At present, BYD's product layout is improving day by day, and hybrid and pure electric dual power. It mainly includes Dynasty Network, Ocean Network, Denza and more high-end brands in the future.
The well-known Dynasty series focuses on luxury and stability. There are Several major models of Qin, Han, Yuan, Song and Tang, from compact cars to mid-size SUVs, which almost cover the mainstream family car segment. And these models, have been laid out pure electric and plug-and-mix versions.
After the Dynasty series, BYD also released a new independent marine series, focusing on youth, aesthetics, more cheerful and innovative. This is an independent network dedicated to new energy vehicles, including the marine life series and the warship series, the former focusing on pure electricity, which is a pure electric product equipped with e-platform 3.0 technology, and the latter is mainly a plug-in hybrid, which is a product equipped with DM-i technology.
Denza is also a representative of high-end + luxury, and this year will also launch an MPV model, providing DM-i version and pure electric version; BYD is also laying out a more high-end brand in the follow-up, which is also the re-elevation of the Han in the Dynasty Network, and its operational details have yet to be disclosed.
BYD's new energy vehicle technology, following the blade battery, pure electric and DM-i technology, another hybrid technology platform - DM-p technology surfaced in 2021. BYD has two major technology platforms for hybrid, of which the DM-i series focuses on fuel saving, and the DM-p pursues power and acceleration performance, comparable to pure electricity, which is only equipped in the Han and Tang series in the short term.
At present, BYD's plug-and-mix technology models have been recognized by the market, occupying nearly half of the domestic retail market in 2021, and its DM-i hybrid series has sold a total of 272,000 vehicles. In February this year, with sales of 66,000 vehicles, accounting for two-thirds of the total retail sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles, it can be said that BYD has found the direction of pure electric vehicles in the future, and the transition solution plug-in hybrid technology has been recognized by the market, and it is only a matter of course for it to stop the fuel vehicle project.
The rapid development of new energy vehicles is mainly due to the mature production process and industrial chain of batteries in the electronics industry, and ITD's production of electric vehicle batteries and scheduling of electric vehicles has become logical. The advantages of the battery occupy the minds of consumers, so that people will naturally think of BYD when they mention new energy vehicles, which is a consumer cognition that is difficult for other new car-making forces to overcome in a short period of time.
Just like the transition from mobile phone batteries to car batteries, BYD easily achieved the first, and then was replaced by the Ningde era. In the auto giants, new car-making forces have entered the market, BYD Automobile's competitiveness will undoubtedly face a test. And the competition for new energy vehicles is not only the battery, the competition in the second half has shifted to smart cars.
With the rapid growth of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, new technologies and new products have entered an explosive period, the first-mover advantage including BYD and Tesla will become weaker and weaker, and many new car-making forces and traditional automobile groups will enter a new competitive pattern under the guidance of many new car-making forces.
56-year-old Wang Chuanfu, whether he can step on the point of smart cars, people are full of expectations. (Some of the pictures are from the Internet)