In the current electric vehicle market, two trends seem to be unfavorable to domestic new energy. One is that Tesla price reduction after the order skyrocketed, 4680 battery large-scale mass production brought by the cost reduction, may continue to reduce prices, Musk recently mentioned in the earnings conference call, many people want to buy a Tesla tram, but may not be affordable, so our price adjustment in the market will also meet the needs of ordinary consumers.
Musk said that while the overall car market may contract, consumer demand for Tesla will remain good, with deliveries expected to reach 1.8 million vehicles for the year.
According to foreign media news, Mercedes-Benz internal sources revealed that the company plans to abandon its "EQ brand" focusing on the development and production of electric vehicles at the end of 2024 when the next generation of compact new cars is on the market, and accelerate "full electric". This may mean that the BBA is seeing its own crisis in the era of electrification and is trying to reverse the trend.
From these two trends, domestic trams may face pressure at both ends.
Behind Tesla's price reduction and Mercedes-Benz's complete abandonment of oil to electricity
The effect of Tesla's price reduction is actually immediate.
According to people familiar with the matter, the number of orders in some Tesla stores in cities increased by 500% compared with December 2022. We know that the impact on domestic trams is already showing, and it is not, and it is not with it.
Especially from Tesla's financial report, in 2022, Tesla's total revenue reached $81.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 51% to $81.5 billion; Net income reached US$12.6 billion, up 128% year-over-year.
From the financial report, Tesla's profits and revenues are growing rapidly. However, Tesla's price reduction space still exists, and if it drops to a price of about 200,000, domestic trams will face great pressure. After all, from the perspective of taking into account cost and profit, domestic trams no longer have much room for decline.
In the past, domestic new energy is actually gradually BBA to some extent, in the new energy model, the current domestic new energy in more than 20 ~ more than 300,000 models of the main force, NIO ES8 price has been impacting the price of four and a half million, BYD looks up to impact millions of luxury cars.
In the 30~400,000 tram camp, BBA can no longer do local brands. BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi have long entered the electric vehicle, and have also launched their own pure electric models, such as Mercedes-Benz's EQ series, BMW's i series and Audi's e-tron series, but sales have always been sluggish, they have seen the limitations of oil to electricity, and are making changes.
For example, BMW Group planned to stop the production of MINI electric models at its Oxford plant in the UK as early as October last year and transfer the production line to China, while BMW's next-generation pure electric model MINI will be produced in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, China.
Also last year, 500,000 Mercedes-Benz tram owners expressed their dissatisfaction because they encountered Tesla's sales ridicule, but unexpectedly encountered the ridicule of the entire Internet and became popular. We can clearly feel that the automotive industry, the tide of the times is undergoing subtle changes.
According to the data of the risk volume from January to December 2022, the six pure electric models (including EQA, EQB, EQC, EQE, EQS, EQS amg) currently on sale are 3,420, 4,057, 3,211, 1,633, 1,584 and 45 respectively, with a total of only 13,950 units. Compared with the sales of other fuel vehicles under the Mercedes-Benz brand, the total sales of EQ series pure electric vehicles are even less than one-tenth of the Mercedes-Benz E-class.
Whether it is Audi or Mercedes-Benz BMW, the current performance in the field of new energy vehicles is not good, from the October sales data, although the domestic BMW i3 and iX3 bicycle sales are higher than Mercedes-Benz, but only 2498 and 3103 units.
An important reason for the backwardness of BBA electrification lies in the limitations brought by the change from oil to electricity. BBA as a giant in the era of fuel vehicles, the original production process and platform model has been solidified, although BBA is engaged in pure electrification, but still has not completely replaced the original production mode, electric vehicles are also produced on the original fuel vehicle platform, is a typical oil to electricity mode.
However, due to the different structure of electric vehicles and fuel vehicles, the core components are different. The produced cars, whether it is the rationality of the mechanical layout, the efficiency, endurance level and safety of the three electric systems, are all far from the cars produced by the pure electric platform of Tesla, BYD and NIO.
This has led to the gap between them and Tesla and domestic new forces in terms of tram experience and performance.
Why is oil to electricity not competitive?
Oil to electricity is on the basis of the traditional fuel vehicle to replace the original engine and gearbox with the three major parts of the electric vehicle, then in this "change" process, the problem arises, the motor changes the engine, and the traditional fuel tank is replaced by the power battery pack, there are certain hidden dangers in structure and safety, large curb weight, small battery space, short mileage, high power consumption level, poor space performance and other problems are very prominent.
From Mercedes-Benz's own point of view, creating MEA is to choose a traditional fuel vehicle manufacturing platform for electrification transformation and intelligent upgrading. From the perspective of EQA and EQB's two "oil to electricity" products, the hard injury is very obvious.
For example, the EQB, which is between EQC and EQA, had to cancel the seven-seat configuration of the fuel version of the GLB in order to leave enough internal space to store the battery pack. The maximum battery pack configuration under the MEA platform is 100kwh, and the cruising range is about 680 kilometers, which cannot meet the market's demand for long endurance, and the charging efficiency is not very good.
In fact, not only Mercedes-Benz, but also other brands of oil-to-electric models market performance is relatively average.
In general, the pure electric of oil to electricity is basically not as good as the pure electric platform of the price, because the tram platform does not have an engine and gearbox, and the battery and motor position can be better planned when designing, and the same energy density can put down more battery packs and provide better endurance.
The pure electric platform also considers the battery energy management system, wiring harness layout, redundant design in assisted driving, and the overall intelligence and software capabilities are better. Redesigning a dedicated tram platform is undoubtedly much better than changing the product from oil to electricity.
Tesla cut prices, Mercedes woke up, and pressure came to the domestic tram
As mainstream car companies have launched new pure electric models based on pure electric exclusive platforms, the market for 'oil-to-electric' models launched by traditional car companies in previous years is shrinking, and the current market competition situation no longer allows Mercedes-Benz to eat the old capital.
Judging by the actions of Mercedes and BMW, they are waking up.
From the current point of view, BBA are changing, this volume of enterprises, do a good job of pure electric may be a matter of time, the use of pure electric platform after the probability of driving experience is able to catch up, at this year's CES exhibition, Mercedes-Benz released a new intelligent lane change and navigation assistance driving function, Mercedes-Benz official also announced that it has applied for certification of L3 conditional automatic driving system in California and Nevada, USA, and will open commercial use after approval.
From the current point of view, although domestic new energy vehicle companies have certain advantages in tram layout time, from the perspective of technology accumulation, the moat barrier of most players is not too deep.
Therefore, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are waking up and fully promoting intelligence and electrification, and at this time, the pressure is actually more domestic new energy. On the one hand, Tesla is continuing to reduce prices, the future pricing space has reached the level of 200,000, hit Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda these fuel vehicle companies, but also suppressed the cost performance space of domestic trams, and domestic new energy in fact, the past pricing trend is moving towards the high-end, and the pricing space of BBA is getting closer and closer.
In the past, Mercedes-Benz EQS and other models were subject to the limitations of oil to electricity, and there was still a certain gap between domestic new energy in the two core areas of intelligent cockpit and automatic driving. However, from the past CES, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and other automotive giants intelligent cockpit components and driving assistance systems, concept cars and other products have appeared one after another, Mercedes-Benz fully abandoned oil to electricity, changed the pure electric platform, in the field of intelligence to catch up, may only be a matter of time.
For example, with the replacement of the MEA platform by EVA and MMA, EQS was rapidly mass-produced. The EQS became one of the few pure electric cars with a battery capacity of more than 100kwh. Moreover, EQS uses 8-core CPU and 24GB running memory to support the smoothness of the vehicle system and develop intelligence. Experience improvement is also visible to the naked eye.
Therefore, the pressure of domestic new energy is squeezed at both ends. On the one hand, Tesla acts as a price butcher, which puts pressure on fuel vehicles and domestic new energy, blocking the way to cost performance. Domestic new energy can not achieve the same price reduction sales and profits as Tesla, there is no way to keep up with the rhythm of Tesla.
After all, BBA's high-end brand influence has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, with precipitated technology and brand premium effect, consumers buy BBA, social show-off psychology and brand considerations occupy a large part of the reason.
Therefore, as long as they keep up with the mainstream level in the field of electric vehicles and product strength, the brand premium accumulated in the era of fuel vehicles can still be maintained in the new energy camp, and the possibility of selling cars at a premium to maintain profits and sales still exists.
It's time for domestic trams to wake up
Mercedes-Benz fully abandons oil to electricity, in fact, is also a signal similar to Tesla's price reduction, it can be said that they have misjudged the competitiveness of domestic trams in the past, Tesla in the domestic new energy competitiveness is not strong enough, in the past can harvest high profits and high sales at the same time, but as the competitiveness of domestic trams becomes stronger, Tesla began to sacrifice profits to do more sales, and Mercedes-Benz fully abandons oil to electricity, which also means to pay attention to opponents from a strategic level, from today's point of view, Mercedes-Benz, BMW are ready to go all out, Drop the baggage of fuel vehicles and go into battle.
Therefore, from the perspective of the market situation in 2023, the pressure on domestic electric vehicles is far better than in the past, Tesla has played the hole card of price reduction, and BBA has not yet played the hole card, and domestic electric vehicles may face the embarrassing situation of squeezing at both ends.
At this time, domestic trams need to wake up, in the current situation, Tesla in the continuous price reduction, should not blindly rush to the high-end, the core to stabilize sales, domestic trams in order to ensure price competitiveness at the same time, service level and product technology level to have new highlights to capture consumers, the current is still a key moment to do a good job in product reputation and technological innovation.
How to jump out of this squeeze dilemma, you need to have your own rhythm and playing style, come up with competitive new products to continue to raise the brand premium, rather than being led by the opponent rhythm, after all, the real hand-to-hand combat has started in advance.
Author: Wang Xinxi TMT Senior Reviewer This article is not reprinted without permission