Behind the continuous rise in sales, safety concerns appear frequently, where will Xiaopeng Motors go?

Following the "failure of the intelligent assisted driving system" on the hot search, recently, the reporter of Shandong Business Daily And leopard news network received a complaint from Mr. Huang, a shenzhen citizen, that the Xiaopeng P7 he bought had problems such as steering wheel deflection the day after purchase.

In addition, in a QQ group called "Xiaopeng Battery Warranty Rights Protection", more than 200 consumers complained about Xiaopeng Automobile's change of battery warranty policy, battery locking, brake failure and other issues. Xiaopeng Automobile, which ranks side by side with Weilai and Ideal Automobile, is one of the three major "new car-making forces" in China, and is sought after by virtue of its intelligent and cost-effective characteristics, and its sales continue to rise, followed by safety concerns such as vehicle driving and batteries that appear from time to time.

◎ Shandong Business Daily And Leopard News Network reporter Feng Yunyun Du Zilin intern Yan Ziheng

He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xiaopeng Automobile (data map)

The steering wheel shifts the day after the pick-up?

"When I was driving, I found that the car always ran to the left, and when I went to the test, I found that the steering wheel was deflected 15 degrees to the left." Mr. Huang, who lives in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, purchased a Xiaopeng P7 at the Xiaopeng Delivery Center in Longgang District, Shenzhen on September 8, 2021, and what Mr. Huang did not expect was that the new car had a steering wheel deflection problem the next day.

Mr. Huang told reporters that from the problem to the complete alignment of the steering wheel, he intermittently adjusted for a little half a year, "the next day after the car was picked up, there was such a problem, and I even doubted whether their vehicle passed the quality inspection before leaving the factory." ”

After the steering wheel problem was solved, Mr. Huang's vehicle had a different sound on the right forearm and a peculiar smell on the air conditioner, and after testing, the reason for the noise of the right forearm of the vehicle was loose screws. Mr. Huang said: "Loose screws are not a small problem for the vehicle, and it directly causes safety hazards to my driving vehicle. "In response to the peculiar smell of the air conditioner, Xiaopeng Automobile proposed to Mr. Huang a solution to replace the evaporation box of the air conditioner." Replacing the air-conditioned evaporation box requires the removal of the car, and the new car I just bought will be dismantled and repaired, and I have no way to accept it. Mr. Huang told reporters that his current appeal is to ask Xiaopeng Automobile to return the car.

According to the information of Tianyancha, Guangzhou Xiaopeng Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. is the main company of Xiaopeng Automobile, and the controlling party is Guangzhou Orange XingZhidong Automobile Technology Co., Ltd.

With the problems and demands faced by Mr. Huang, the reporter called Guangzhou Xiaopeng Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xiaopeng Automobile"), and the relevant person in charge of its public relations department, Ms. Wu, responded to the reporter of this newspaper, "I apologize for Mr. Huang's bad experience with the car." In response to Mr. Huang's demand for returning the car, Xiaopeng Automobile said that it would be handled in accordance with the national three-guarantee regulations and the provisions of the warranty/maintenance manual of the car. The reporter learned that as of the press release of this newspaper, Mr. Huang and Xiaopeng Automobile have not yet reached an agreement on the withdrawal of the car.

Three-year losses exceeded 10 billion

A fact that cannot be ignored is that in recent years, the domestic consumption of new energy vehicles has flourished, and more and more consumers like Mr. Huang have chosen to buy new energy electric vehicles because of their low cost and unlimited travel characteristics.

According to the data, in 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales reached 3.521 million units, and in the first two months of this year, the output of new energy vehicles in the mainland has reached 820,000 units, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year. The National Passenger Vehicle Market Information Joint Conference predicts that the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles in China are expected to exceed 6 million in 2022, and the market penetration rate is about 22%.

Compared with a number of traditional car brands, Xiaopeng Motors, Weilai, Ideal Automobile and other car companies are known as "new car-making forces", and their sales have been in the front row in recent years, of which Xiaopeng Motors was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in July 2021.

According to the 2021 financial report data released by Xiaopeng Automobile a few days ago, the total revenue of Xiaopeng Automobile reached 20.988 billion yuan last year, an increase of 259.1% over 5.844 billion yuan in 2020. Among them, the sales revenue of automobiles was 20.042 billion yuan, an increase of 261.3% from 5.547 billion yuan in 2020, and the increase was mainly due to the increase in automobile deliveries in 2021.

According to the financial report, in 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered a total of 98,155 vehicles, an increase of 263% over 27,041 vehicles in 2020. Nio's annual delivery volume was 91,429 units; ideal car delivery volume in 2021 was 90,491 units, and Xiaopeng Automobile's new car delivery volume ranked first with a slight advantage.

It is worth noting that while achieving good results in the past year, the loss of Xiaopeng Motors has also continued to expand. According to the financial report data, the annual net loss of Xiaopeng Automobile in 2021 was 4.863 billion yuan, an increase of 78% year-on-year, and the reporter noted that from 2019, this loss has lasted for 3 years, with a total loss of nearly 10 billion. According to the amount of loss and the total amount of delivery in the financial report data, the average delivery of a Xiaopeng car will lose nearly 50,000 yuan, and the data of Weilai and Ideal Automobile will be 44,000 yuan and 0.35 million yuan respectively.

Industry insiders said that the expansion of Xiaopeng Automobile's loss is mainly due to the significant increase in research and development and sales service expenses in the same period, from the financial report, Xiaopeng Automobile invested 4.11 billion yuan in research and development in 2021, and the marketing and administrative management expenditure reached 5.3 billion yuan, an increase of 81.7% year-on-year. Some insiders also said that the shortcomings of supply chain management capabilities are an important reason for the expansion of Xiaopeng Automobile's losses.

Market demand continues to be strong

In the latest data, the trend of increasing delivery volume continues. Xiaopeng Automobile's smart car delivery data in March 2022 and the first quarter shows that Xiaopeng Automobile delivered a total of 34,561 smart cars in the first quarter of 2022, an increase of 159% year-on-year, of which 15,414 vehicles were delivered in March, an increase of 202% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that while the number of car deliveries has doubled, many consumers still express dissatisfaction with the inability to pick up the car on time after paying the deposit. The reporter noted that in the black cat complaint platform, some consumers said that the car booked in January this year has not yet been equipped and delivered in May, and this type of complaint is not a column.

In response to this phenomenon, Ms. Wu replied to this reporter's reporter, "Due to the domestic epidemic, the industry is facing extreme tension in the supply chain, which has brought great uncertainty to production. As for when the vehicle can be delivered, the person in charge said that the company is actively taking measures to solve the supply problem and maintaining close information communication with the supply chain at all levels to enhance the prediction of the risk of overdue and, within the scope of its capabilities, to ensure the production and delivery of models.

In March this year, Xiaopeng Automobile adjusted the price of vehicles again, with a price increase of 10,100 yuan to 20,000 yuan, due to the increase in the price of upstream raw materials, and the average price of Xiaopeng Automobile after the price increase was about 200,000 yuan. According to the latest subsidy policy, in 2022, new energy vehicles will slide by 30% on the basis of last year's subsidies, and as of the end of December this year, the subsidy policy will be officially terminated, which also means that the purchase of new energy vehicles will pay a greater cost.

Although the price trend of new energy vehicles continues to rise, the market pattern is still growing from the perspective of the physical sales of Xiaopeng Motors. According to the financial report data, as of December 31, 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile has opened a total of 357 operating stores, covering 129 cities, and established 772 supercharger stations, covering 208 cities. In addition, Xiaopeng Automobile has established three plants in Zhaoqing, Guangzhou and Wuhan, Guangdong, of which the Guangzhou plant and the Wuhan plant are still under construction, and the production capacity is currently mainly concentrated in the Guangdong Zhaoqing plant.

Behind the intelligence is hidden concerns

Compared with traditional cars, a major selling point of new energy vehicles is intelligence and a sense of technology. Since the launch of Xiaopeng's first model, it has become a fan of smart cars with voice assistants and assisted driving performances.

While the scale of the enterprise has achieved good development, Xiaopeng Automobile is also further promoting the process of enterprise science and technology. He Xiaopeng has publicly stated that Xiaopeng Automobile will complete the transition to unmanned driving in 2026. At present, most of the Xiaopeng cars on the market are still in the L2 - assisted driving level.

Behind the pursuit of intelligence and a sense of science and technology, the rapid development of Xiaopeng Automobile is also facing safety concerns. The reporter learned that the relevant safety issues of Xiaopeng P7 reflected by Mr. Huang are not the first time they have appeared in the public eye. On April 11, the owner of a Small Peng P7 collided with a rollover vehicle parked in front of him while driving on the hot search. Although Xiaopeng Motors responded to this, the cause of the accident was caused by the driver's failure to maintain observation of the environment in front of the vehicle and take over the vehicle in time, but after the accident, the intelligent car's ability to recognize stationary objects has once again attracted attention.

Many car owners have raised such a question: if the identification of smart cars on stationary objects has a high probability of failure, will it pose a threat to the safety of the driver's life and property, and will Xiaopeng Automobile completely solve the problem of identifying stationary objects in the future? With consumers' doubts, the reporter interviewed the relevant departments of Xiaopeng Automobile. As of press time, Xiaopeng Automobile has not specifically answered the above questions.

In addition to the problem of still life recognition, in the previous media reports and related complaints, the problems of battery locking, auto spontaneous combustion, and brake failure of Xiaopeng Automobile have also appeared in the public eye many times. Taking the battery fire as an example, Xiaopeng Automobile listed this problem as a risk factor in its financial report. "In rare cases, lithium batteries rapidly release their stored energy in the form of smoke and fire, and can ignite surrounding materials and other lithium batteries. Our batteries have strong safety features and strong thermal management capabilities, but at the same time there is no guarantee that the batteries will always operate safely. ”

In the interview, some insiders said that the foundation and core of safe driving of intelligent cars are not the hardware systems in the traditional impression of the public, but should be software, "In the research and development process, software security actually comes from the accumulation of big data in a wide range of scenarios and the faster iteration of algorithms." ”

In the future, when the strength of the software is unified with the guarantee on the hardware, whether there will be a new "spark" to generate, and then achieve real safe driving, it still needs to continue to wait and see.

Some experts also suggest that the establishment of a smart car regulatory system, which creates a relaxed environment for format innovation, while also taking into account legal supervision and risk prevention and control, to better protect the personal and property safety of consumers.