The second echelon of anti-growth banner, what is the enlightenment of new energy vehicle sales in April?

After Shanghai gave two "white lists" for resuming work, new energy vehicle brands also gave an expected sales and delivery report card. In summary, "if you fall less, you win." Among them, the performance of some second-tier car companies is even better.

In mid-April, Li Bin, He Xiaopeng and Yu Chengdong spoke out, which also made the outside world mentally prepared for the waterloo of the automotive industry. The second quarter is about to pass the halfway point, and it is also likely not the lucky season for new energy vehicles. However, what car companies can learn from these two months is likely to affect the development of the industry in the second half of the year or even longer.

Supply chains put the brakes on orders

As of press time, the April report card of mainstream new energy vehicle companies is as follows (some car companies are based on order volume):

Zero run 9087 vehicles, Xiaopeng 9002 vehicles, Nezha 8813 vehicles, Weilai 5074 vehicles, Ideal 4167 vehicles, Hechuang 3084 vehicles, Extreme Krypton 2137 vehicles, Jihu 1140 vehicles.

Obviously, the decline of the new forces is reasonable, Xiaopeng still has spare strength, and the pressure on ideals and Weilai may be greater. In the case of supply chain interruption, ensuring that product production is not "dropped" is an almost impossible task, especially the automotive industry will not make a large number of excess reserves for parts inventory under normal circumstances, mainly because the manufacturing industry is more sensitive to hoarding and inventory.

There is also a lot of unexpected information, such as the first delivery of zero running to the top, and under the downward trend, Hechuang is basically flat in March, and the performance of Extreme Kr is still rising.

Starting from the traditional three strong forces of the new forces, the delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" fell by 49%, 42% and 62% respectively, and the year-on-year changes were -29%, 75% and -25% respectively.

The Xiaopeng P7 delivered 3714 vehicles, the Xiaopeng P5 delivered 3564 vehicles, and the Xiaopeng G3 delivered 1724 vehicles. Xiaopeng has obviously maintained the greatest stability, but the hottest P7 has been most seriously affected by production cuts, down nearly 60% month-on-month. Therefore, although the decline is small, the loss is actually not low. You know, in March, only the Xiaopeng P7 delivered 9183 vehicles.

In contrast, Weilai CEO Li Bin issued a warning in early April: "A car is not a part that can be produced." Affected by the supply chain, WEILAI's vehicle production was suspended on April 9. Since April 15, the Hefei production base is gradually resuming production. The current supply chain situation has improved slightly compared with April, and the overall pressure has gradually decreased.

The most "sad" should be the ideal, the ideal L9 arrow on the string was interrupted by the epidemic, the ideal ONE is still optimistic about consumers, but from the ideal founder and president Shen Yanan's response to the decline in April delivery volume can see the difficulties: "The ideal car Changzhou base is located in Changzhou, Jiangsu, in the center of the Yangtze River Delta, and more than 80% of the parts suppliers of ideal cars are distributed in the Yangtze River Delta region, and a large part of them are located in Shanghai and Kunshan, Jiangsu. ”

"Affected by the epidemic in the Yangtze River Delta, some suppliers located in Shanghai and Kunshan, Jiangsu And other regions were unable to supply, and some suppliers even completely stopped work and operation, resulting in the inability to continue production after digesting the existing parts inventory, which had a great impact on the production of Ideal Automobile in April, resulting in delays in the delivery of new cars for some users." He said.

In contrast, the second echelon won a small victory in April.

Zero-run deliveries fell only 9.7% month-on-month, and Zhu Jiangming, CEO of Zero-Run Technology, said that it was only "tighter when the epidemic was not too serious in the first half of the month"; the orders of Extreme Kr in April increased by 19% month-on-month, and the official revealed that the number of new orders in a single month hit a record high.

The order volume of 3,084 units in April and 3,016 units in March were basically the same, due to the similar explosive strategy of Xiaopeng P7 - Hechuang Z03. In the price range of 130,000 yuan to 170,000 yuan, Hechuang Z03 can be called a "hexagonal" warrior, with a first-line level of vehicles, power systems, and endurance, and outstanding cost performance. It is worth mentioning that as of the end of April 2022, Hechuang has built a total of 179 offline stores, covering 120 cities, with decentralized advantages in demand and channel protection.

Zero run, extreme krypton, co-creation and even Xiaopeng, these players who are still stable against the trend, what enlightenment has they brought to the industry?

The revelation of adversity against stress

The car companies that have fallen the most are nothing more than because the supply chain problems are "around Shanghai". On the other hand, the situation is not so tense car companies, first of all, the location distance has preserved the production capacity of the whole vehicle.

Specifically, Xiaopeng's main base is in Zhaoqing, Guangdong, the first factory of zero run is in Jinhua, Zhejiang, Nezha's factory is in Tongxiang and Yichun, Zhejiang, Hechuang and Xiaopeng belong to the same Guangdong department, and the production capacity and reserve production capacity are in Nansha, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou, Zhejiang.

It must be admitted that the supply chain has a natural agglomeration effect, so the whole vehicle still needs decentralized supply chain enterprises to complete production. For example, Xiaopeng has some motor-related suppliers located in Shanghai, so its production capacity will be affected after the inventory is exhausted. And the ideal even if the factory is not in Changzhou, it will face supply interruptions like Weilai.

Nevertheless, based on the consideration of ensuring more production capacity, the expansion of production by car companies is still a potential guarantee, especially in the face of the ramp-up card slot war and longer-term development after the end of the epidemic. In the first quarter of this year, the second phase of GAC Aeon Guangzhou Intelligent Ecological Factory was completed, adding an annual production capacity of 100,000 vehicles; Dongfeng Honda signed an investment agreement for a new electric vehicle plant with an annual production capacity of 120,000 units in Wuhan; and FAW Audi's Jilin New Energy Plant with an annual production capacity of 150,000 units has also been filed.

According to the official disclosure of production and other information, BYD has at least hefei, Jinan, Zhengzhou, Xiangyang and other places this year, serving more than 6 new factories serving its different models. BYD, which does not compete with the new forces at one level, sold 105475 passenger cars in April, up 136.5% year-on-year, of which DM hybrids were 48,072 and EV pure electric was 57,403.

The enlightenment brought by BYD is "double redundancy", one of which is capacity redundancy, and the other is supply chain redundancy.

Ideal founder Li Xiang sent a circle of friends in April, calling on auto brands to go deep into the supply chain and pay attention to and assist low-line suppliers that are often overlooked. They are most susceptible to external intrusions, but they are also an indispensable part. The epidemic has made car companies more certain that they need to strengthen communication and cooperation with suppliers, support each other and resist risks.

On another point of view, only a rich supply chain ecology can allow car companies to have more choices and not dilute profits by the industrial chain. Scarce things are precious, and this is true of technology, resources, and industrial relations. For a company, if some things that are abandoned because of short-term interests may become a shackle or even a threat to themselves in the near future, then it needs to think twice.

For manufacturing, stability is a matter of life and death, and fluctuations at one node affect the entire network. The Nansha District, where Hechuang Automobile is located, is actively promoting the integration and innovation of the third-generation semiconductor and new energy automobile industries. From wafer production to chip design, packaging and application, the whole industry chain is "close at home". When car companies expand their layout, cultivating a regional supply chain ecology with local governments and industry institutions will become a clearer focus. With the spark of scattered clusters, burn out the haze of the epidemic.

At the same time, this is also the time to strengthen the core technical strength. BYD's blade battery is still a unique existence in the industry, and it is also the only automobile company in China that has a complete industrial chain of IGBT. Whether it is a daily or special situation, manufacturers with stronger autonomy will develop more smoothly.

The industry is under pressure to look at or in the second half of the year

Although April was affected by the epidemic and poured cold water on the Q2 sales performance of many new energy vehicles, this will also be a quarter with recovery and storage as the main theme.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, said that the automobile market in the second quarter was under great pressure and the situation was extremely severe, and its trend was more related to the recovery speed of Shanghai under the epidemic, and retail sales were expected to achieve zero growth throughout the year. On May 5, he again posted that "as the only consumer product that has not been popularized, passenger car consumption continues to be sluggish, and more measures are needed to promote the consumption of the car market." ”

In terms of methods, because the pressure on government funds is also relatively large, it should give play to the tax reduction effect of personal income tax on car purchases and stimulate the growth of automobile consumption.

On the consumer side, the policy is indeed already in action, and I hope that Q2 can show positive effects. On April 25, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Releasing Consumption Potential and Promoting the Sustained Recovery of Consumption, proposing to support the accelerated development of new energy vehicles. Jiangxi Province announced on April 28 that from May 1 to July 31, it will raise policy funds of 76 million yuan to support automobile exhibitions, and individual consumers can draw subsidies for lottery numbers.

On April 29, the Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission announced a policy that from May 1 to June 30, the maximum subsidy for the purchase of new energy vehicles was 10,000 yuan per vehicle, and 40,000 car purchase indicators were added to The two cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The recovery of the production end requires the active cooperation of enterprises and multiple parties. Chen Yudong, president of Bosch China, said on May 1 that there are two problems with the resumption of work, one is that the closed-loop management staff is insufficient, and the output of the resumed production plant is not enough; the other is that the resumption of production by suppliers at all levels is too slow. In short, the total capacity recovery is insufficient, and the conduction is too slow. He suggested canceling the "white list" and accelerating the resumption of work and production.

Cui Yan, chief analyst of the automotive industry at Huaxi Securities, believes that the capacity elasticity of the factory after the resumption of production is still relatively large, and the overtime and two-shift approach is expected to make up for the previous supply gap, but the recovery of production capacity will also be around June. On May 6, a number of media reported that Tesla is hoping to implement a two-shift system in the Shanghai factory from May 16 to return production capacity to the policy track as soon as possible.

If you refer to the first quarter and April, cost-effective brands such as Zero Run, Co-creation, etc., may find their own rhythm faster. Weilai, which is positioned more luxuriously, is working with partners to meet the needs of orders, while the ideal of a closer relationship with the Yangtze River Delta needs to pay more attention to epidemic control and the resumption of work and production. But in any case, car companies will not let the crisis is just a crisis, check the shortcomings and fill in the gaps, consolidate the foundation, everything is silently unfolding, this is also a different kind of competition.