Today is the first day of May, the second day of the small long holiday, and it is also the day when various car companies release the delivery volume of the previous month, but it is obvious that everyone's enthusiasm today is not high.
The past April is undoubtedly a special month, the outbreak of the epidemic in Omicron has made Shanghai enter an extraordinary period, Shanghai citizens have spent more than 30 days of difficult sealing life, stagnant logistics not only makes the procurement of living materials extremely difficult, but also allows Shanghai to cut off the industrial blood of the city of Shanghai, so that the car town fell into a severe state of suspension.
In mid-April, the voices of Li Bin, He Xiaopeng, Yu Chengdong and others brought the impact of the epidemic in Shanghai on the entire automobile industry into the public eye, and also laid the groundwork for the delivery of cars in April.
The data released by various companies today finally confirm this concern.
01
Overview of April deliveries
The following are the vendors that have announced April delivery data before this publication:
Krypton: 2,137 units
Ideal: 4,167 cars
NIO: 5,074 units
Nezha: 8,813 units
Xiaopeng: 9,002 units
Zero-run: 9,087 vehicles
Extreme Kr grabbed the head: up month-on-month, orders exceeded 10,000
Today's first car company to announce the delivery volume is extreme krypton, and those who dare to compete in this market are usually good results.
In April, The Krypton delivered a total of 2,137 Krypton 001 vehicles, in fact, the data is not very good, in the seven months since the delivery of the Krypton just ranked fourth in the data, but more rarely, under the epidemic, this data has increased from 1,795 vehicles in March.
In addition, the official also said that the new orders of the extreme krypton in April hit a record high, the poster only showed more than 10,000, and insiders revealed that the order exceeded 12,000, which is higher than the April 2021 press conference. Compared with the delivery volume, in fact, this part of the order is more worthy of attention.
In fact, in the extreme kryptonian car friend group has always been complaining about the production capacity climbing slow delivery slow sound, extreme krypton delivery in the early stage because of the shortage of air suspension and other parts in the delivery efficiency is indeed not satisfactory, the production capacity of the force has naturally caused an impact on the delivery volume, the same trigger is also the intelligent table of the whole vehicle, similar problems are wait and see the user to pay attention to the link.
In February and March, Extreme Krypton made several OTA updates, fixed bugs that some users complained about, and the fluency of the car machine was also improved, and the feedback from car owners was more positive. In late March, Extreme Kr officials said at the user communication meeting that The Wyback's empty krypton exclusive supply line has been put into production, and the delivery of corresponding vehicles will be accelerated, and the improvement of these key issues has undoubtedly played a positive role in attracting potential users.
Another more immediate reason is that Krypton warmed up in April and announced the price increase plan for the car series to be implemented from May 1, taking into account the adjustment of the deposit deduction, the PRICE of the WE version model increased by 5,000, and the price increase of the YOU version model by 20,000. Under the big market of rising battery raw materials and collective price increases of new energy vehicles, this signal makes many wait-and-see users choose to place orders before the price increase. Many of these reasons eventually led to a record new order in April.
Second Tier Player: Still Strong
In the midst of mourning, Zero Run and Nezha's report card in April were exceptionally eye-catching.
Zero-Run delivered 9,087 units in April, with monthly deliveries increasing by more than 200% year-over-year for the 13th consecutive month. Although down 10% month-on-month from 10,059 units in March, it was the brand with the smallest month-on-month decline of any new force except Krypton. Considering the large monthly delivery volume of zero run, it is curious how to ensure production and delivery under the epidemic. For our questions, Zhu Jiangming, CEO of Zero Run, gave a kind answer:
In the first half of the month, when the epidemic was not too serious, it was grasped more tightly.
The truth that soldiers and horses did not move grain and grass first is really the truth. In addition, last week, Zero Run just held a CTC battery site integration technology conference, and officially announced more information about the upcoming flagship sedan C01, until the supply situation further improves, and Zero Run will also open a growth route for new product lines after the new product blessing.
Nezha delivered 8,813 units in April, down 27% month-on-month from 12,026 units in March, but still up 120% year-on-year. In the six months from November 2021 to the present, Nezha has delivered more than 10,000 vehicles in four months, and the remaining two months are February (7,117 vehicles) affected by the Spring Festival and April affected by the epidemic. Of the models, 5,694 units of the Nezha V series and 3,119 units of the Nezha U series were delivered.
The products of Leading and Nezha are positioned in the market that the majority of users just need the most attention, and their rise may represent the counterattack of the mass line.
02
The three new forces have their own difficulties
The three players of the first echelon of the new forces suffered a sharp decline in deliveries in April, and although everyone faced the same background, the impact of the epidemic on their respective rhythms in the background had their own particularities.
Ideal: Supply stagnated, plummeting by 60%.
The first is the ideal, with 4,167 units delivered in April, down 62.2% month-on-month, by a surprising magnitude. According to past insurance volume data, the ideal average monthly insurance volume in Shanghai is about 500 to 600 units, even if this data is added to the April delivery volume and the delivery volume lost due to the inability to deliver in Shanghai, 4,700 units is still far from the delivery data in recent months.
Shen Yanan, co-founder and president of Ideal, responded to the decline in deliveries in April as follows:
Since the end of March, due to the rebound of the epidemic in the Yangtze River Delta, the supply chain, logistics and production of the entire industry have been seriously disrupted. Ideal Auto's Changzhou base is located in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, in the heart of the Yangtze River Delta, while more than 80% of Ideal Auto's parts suppliers are distributed in the Yangtze River Delta region, and a large part of them are located in Shanghai and Kunshan, Jiangsu Province. Affected by the epidemic in the Yangtze River Delta, some suppliers located in Shanghai and Kunshan, Jiangsu and other regions can not supply, and some suppliers even completely stop work and operation, resulting in the inability to continue to maintain production after the existing parts inventory is digested, which has a great impact on the production of Ideal Automobile in April, resulting in the delay in the delivery of new cars for some users.
Earlier on April 20, Ideal released a description of the delivery delay to users on the official app, a one-sentence summary is that from the end of March, Ideal's delivery of new cars has been blocked due to supply and logistics problems, and the content is basically similar to Shen Yanan's response.
According to the latest display of the Ideal App, the delivery wait time for new cars is now 6 to 8 weeks, which is about 3 weeks longer than the pick-up cycle before the epidemic.
Ideally, in addition to supply issues, two things happened in April that had an impact on deliveries.
The first is the official announcement of price increase information on March 23, since April 1, the price increase of 11,800 yuan, from the release of the news to the execution of the potential car buyer left a week of empty crotch. The ideal delivery cycle was about a month, and in theory, this adjustment would have boosted short-term orders and increased Delivery in April, but the arrival of the epidemic has clearly disrupted delivery plans.
The second is the postponement of the release of the ideal L9. Ideal L9, as the most important new product of this year's ideal, started warm-up and momentum earlier, and throughout March, it carried out several rounds of key product information and attracted a large number of followers.
L9 conference was originally scheduled for mid-April, before the release of this large number of visitors attracted a considerable number of people in the new car situation, the same 6-seat SUV L9 and the ideal ONE overlap in product attributes, and the ideal L9 and ideal ONE price difference will become a key reference for this part of the user to make a choice in the L9 and the ideal ONE.
Therefore, the postponement of the release of the L9 listing has actually led to the postponement of the user's purchase decision. Based on this analysis, it can be inferred that the ideal new order in April will be greatly affected, but considering that there is still a part of the backlog of orders before April, the core link in determining the delivery volume in May will still be supply.
Weilai: The factory stopped production, and it was difficult for new cars to climb the slope
Nio delivered 5,074 vehicles in April, down 49.2% from March, with the biggest problem also being supply.
During the epidemic, NIO was the first of the three new forces to predict production and delivery obstruction, and in the april 9 announcement, it clearly stated that due to the continuous suspension of production in the supply chain, NIO was forced to suspend vehicle production.
Subsequently, WEILAI announced on April 14 that it would resume the resumption of vehicle production, and the epidemic not only caused several days of production stoppage, but also brought serious difficulties to daily production and transportation.
NIO delivered 1,878 ES6s, 1,252 ES6s and 1,251 ES8s this month, with ET7, which ushered in its first full delivery month in April, delivering only 693 vehicles this month.
Nio's insurance volume in Shanghai in March was 836 vehicles, and in April, this part of the number was basically cleared, and the delivery of our ALD ET7 was postponed. Excluding local deliveries in Shanghai, NIO is expected to deliver 3,000 vehicles outside the Shanghai area in April due to the impact of the epidemic.
The problem of alternating new and old products also affected Weilai, on April 1, Weilai officially announced that the ES8, ES6, EC6 three cars will be released in May, and the remodeled models will upgrade the 8155 car machine chip, 5G car networking and a higher definition 360 surround view system.
However, on the one hand, Weilai clearly stated that the models on sale can carry out the same hardware upgrades, on the other hand, Weilai announced a price increase on April 10, and the 866 three models rose by 10,000, taking effect on May 10, so the impact of the change is still relatively limited.
On the contrary, the new car ES7, which is not much information at present, may have more impact on potential users, although Weilai currently has 4 models on sale, but the sales volume of ES6 and EC6 accounts for a large proportion, and ES7 as an upgraded version of ES6 model rumors will be released in May, before that in April there will be some users who will have a wait-and-see attitude towards this, and orders will be postponed.
Therefore, in May, Weilai's delivery will pick up with the recovery of supply, and what level can be reached on the one hand, look at et7's capacity climb and delivery in the third month, on the other hand, look at the 866 promotional orders before the April price increase and the backlog of orders in March can provide much help.
Xiaopeng: The most deliveries, the smallest decline
Xiaopeng delivered 9,002 vehicles in April, down 41.6% month-on-month, although the decline also reached 40%, but it is still the best performer of the top three new forces in April, and the absolute delivery volume is almost equal to the sum of the other two. Deliveries of the three models on sale were P7 3,714 units, P5 3,564 units and G3i 1,724 units.
For such a performance, if you analyze from the supply side, it is not difficult to find that Xiaopeng is in Guangzhou, compared with Weilai and Ideal, which is relatively less affected by the Yangtze River Delta automobile supply chain, has more geographical advantages in the delivery of Guangdong and its surrounding areas, and now the inventory and production in the dual factory state have a little "double redundancy" meaning.
But it should be noted that the smallest decline we said is the proportion, and the loss of Xiaopeng's delivery volume this time is not low in absolute quantity.
As far as the Shanghai area is concerned, Xiaopeng's insurance volume in Shanghai in March was 565 vehicles, and if this part of the delivery volume is zero in April, then the delivery volume lost by Xiaopeng due to the epidemic outside Shanghai will still be 4 to 5,000 vehicles.
Moreover, Xiaopeng, the top three new forces, was also the first company to announce the price increase due to raw material problems on March 18, and set aside a three-day consideration period before March 21, and completed the promotion action when April approached.
Xiaopeng also has a new G9 this year, but what is different from the ideal and Weilai is that the overlap between G9 and Xiaopeng's existing product lines is not large, there is no heavy new and old alternating attributes, and the warm-up period before the listing will not have a significant impact on potential customers of existing models.
Therefore, if the production capacity recovery in May is good, Xiaopeng is likely to win the monthly sales crown of the top three new forces again.
brief summary
2022 was supposed to be a year of 200,000 annual sales of the three new forces at the same time, the sudden epidemic not only made the members of the first echelon directly lose tens of thousands of deliveries in this month, but also disrupted the rhythm of new product releases, delayed the user's car purchase decision period, and successively affected the overall new orders in the next few months.
What is more of concern is that as a key area of China's automobile industry, the Yangtze River Delta region where Shanghai is located plays an indispensable role in the normal operation of the domestic automobile industry, and on April 14, He Xiaopeng sent a circle of friends to express concern about the continuation of the epidemic.
On April 19, Li Xiang himself said in the circle of friends that in addition to solving the problem of parts supply in front of them, it is also necessary to analyze and troubleshoot the survival problems of secondary small and medium-sized parts suppliers that did not need attention before, and provide decisive assistance.
The shortage of automotive parts and components led by the lack of cores has continued since last year, and now under the re-increase of the epidemic, the supply situation has become more severe, so the supply shortage caused by it is not wanted for both enterprises and consumers.
Because of this, the priority of supply chain risk management has been raised to a new height, and the precision inventory on-demand production that represents the advanced concept of traditional manufacturing industry will no longer be applicable in this special period, and it is appropriate to abandon efficiency and seek multi-point layout, and multi-point supply will become a safe choice under the epidemic.
03
Write at the end
In the first half of April, there were still top-notch OEMs such as Tesla and BYD in a month-on-month growth trend, but in the second half of the month, as the impact of the epidemic further expanded, logistics were blocked, the economy was down, and the tight supply and demand phenomenon that everyone least wanted to see had begun to appear.
According to the statistics of the Federation of Passenger Vehicles, domestic passenger car sales are expected to reach 1.1 million units in April, which may become the lowest value since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, and the overall decline may be more than 30%.
On April 16, Shanghai released the first list of 666 insurance companies, many key suppliers in the automotive industry unsurprisingly appeared in the list, and Tesla, which has been suspended for three weeks since March 28, also officially started closed production on April 19.
It is now May, the inflection point of the epidemic has passed, and with the orderly resumption of work, the recovery movement of the automobile industry is already in progress. However, the recovery of the auto market needs to be aligned at both ends, and the recovery of the retail side needs to be buffered, not only the car selection needs to wait and see, the market also needs to wait and see, and the process will go more slowly than the supply side.
For China's new energy market, which is still in the growth stage, Q2 will be a quarter of collective adjustment, and so on, several large auto shows are successfully held, a large number of new cars are poured in, and then accompanied by the rise in the public's desire to consume, the market in the second half of the year will find the momentum to continue to rise.
Author: Reinhardt, Pigeon
Edit: Reinhardt
These are also worth reading