On January 29, 2023, Bitcar editors selected the following for you:
Domestic retail sales of passenger cars in January are expected to reach 1.36 million units
2. NIO's third brand will be the car brand to be launched in Europe first
3. In 2023, Xpeng will launch 5 new cars
4. The ideal city NOA will be implemented by the end of the year
5. CATL German battery factory officially put into operation
6. Musk faces SEC investigation
7. Online transmission of Xiaomi car design renderings exposed
8. Geely Star Smart Computing Center was officially launched
Headline: Domestic passenger car retail sales in January are expected to reach 1.36 million units
According to the China Passenger Association (MHA), domestic retail sales of passenger cars in the narrow sense in January 2023 are expected to be 1.36 million units, down 34.6% y/y and 37.3% m/m. Among them, new energy retail sales are expected to be 360,000 units, up 1.8% y/y, down 43.8% m/m, and with a penetration rate of 26.5%.
In January, under the disturbance of consumption and the early Spring Festival, the growth rate of the auto market declined, and the average daily sales of major manufacturers in the first and second weeks were -24% and -18% year-on-year, respectively. The third week is the week before the Spring Festival and 5 working days, affected by the Spring Festival factors, the average daily retail sales are expected to be the same as the week before the Spring Festival last year, and -65% year-on-year. Considering the post-holiday recovery effect and the momentum of manufacturers at the end of the month, the market is expected to recover in the fourth week, with a year-on-year increase of about 9%. Retail sales in January are expected to reach 1.36 million units.
Planning: NIO's third brand will be launched in Europe first
Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, told the outside world that NIO's third brand will be a small car brand and will be launched in the European market first, and the first time is expected to be in the third quarter of 2024.
Based on the current news, the reason why NIO's third brand will first choose to debut in Europe is because the local market is still strong enough for small cars and mini vehicles, and the Chinese market benefits from the large number of cost-effective compact car products of its own brands, so the demand for small cars and mini vehicles with small space is very small.
NIO ET5 hunting version is also the main direction of the European market, will be promoted in Europe first, combined with the previous news, the car may be launched in June, and then will also enter the Chinese market sales, about the third quarter of this year to start delivery.
Planning: Xpeng will launch 5 new cars in 2023
On Xpeng's internal opening letter, He Xiaopeng officially revealed that 5 new and facelifted models will be launched this year (3 models were previously mentioned at the earnings conference). From the currently known information, the facelifted models will have P7, G3, P5 models, and the new models are Coupe SUV and MPV models.
On this year's new model, the first is the Coupe SUV, although it is not officially named at present, but it is certain that the new car will be a model starting with G, but the suffix number is not yet certain. For Xpeng MPV models, there is very little known information, but from spy photos, you can still see that the new car adopts the X-BOT FACE 3.0 DESIGN STYLE, WHICH CAN REFER TO XPENG G9 AND other models. In terms of power and more configurations, it will be necessary to wait for further official news.
Planning: The ideal city NOA will be implemented by the end of the year
Li Xiang sent a letter to all employees of Ideal Auto, which mentioned that it will become a leader in the global artificial intelligence industry in 2030, hoping that in 15 years, Ideal Auto can build a complete system capability in the field of artificial intelligence (software 2.0). Smart electric vehicles with autonomous driving will also become the earliest artificial intelligence robots, as well as the mother ecology of artificial intelligence in the physical world: from AI algorithms to life-changing AI products, from AI operating systems to AI inference chips, from AI training platforms to AI training chips. We hope that through our continuous R&D investment in the field of artificial intelligence and the ability to continue to exceed user needs, we will use artificial intelligence robots to change the efficiency and experience of the physical world for the benefit of every family and every member of the family. Through continuous efforts, after round after round of industry elimination, we will become the leader of the global artificial intelligence industry in 2030.
Ideal believes that the landing of software 2.0 technology products in 2023 will be officially opened in China, and in the most important field of intelligent electric vehicles, urban NOA navigation assisted driving (without relying on HDMAP) based on BEV perception and Transformer model to achieve end-to-end training will begin to land at the end of 2023, which will be an important starting point for software 2.0 for the transformation of the physical world.
Industry: CATL German battery factory officially put into operation
CATL's power battery plant in Thuringia, Germany, was recently put into operation. It is worth mentioning that this is the first factory opened by CATL outside China. CATL's German plant, with a preliminary design capacity of 30 million power batteries per year, is expected to reach production in early 2024, which can meet the production demand of 185,000 to 350,000 electric vehicles. At present, CATL is applying to increase the design capacity by another 70%.
It is reported that so far, many batteries of German electric vehicles have been shipped from China by sea, and after the new German factory of CATL is put into operation, the batteries can be transported from central Germany to German car companies. Matthias Zentgraf, president of CATL Europe, said that up to 1.8 billion euros (about 13.2 billion yuan) flowed into the project, "which will be the first large-scale production of batteries in Western Europe." ”
Industry: Musk faces SEC investigation
Because of Tesla's publicity of its autopilot assistance technology for its automotive products, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is opening an investigation into Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and the agency is also considering whether Musk has made inappropriate forward-looking statements.
It is reported that this investigation is mainly aimed at Tesla's automatic driving assistance technology publicity, although the two sides have not yet issued a clear statement, but it is expected that the US Securities and Exchange Commission may want to find out whether Tesla and Musk have "improper" statements when promoting the technology. According to rumors, in 2016, Musk personally directed a video promoting Tesla's self-driving assistance driving, and allegedly exaggerated the capabilities of the technology to the outside world, because the fully autonomous driving function promised by the vehicle itself in the video had not yet been realized.
New car: online rumors of Xiaomi car design renderings exposed
It is rumored on the Internet that the exposure of the Xiaomi automotive MS11 design renderings is basically the same as the previously exposed pictures of the outer covers. Previously, Xiaomi Group said that the leaked document was a design draft of the very early bidding process, not a final document, and this time it was not the final design of Xiaomi cars.
Judging from the design renderings of this exposure, the new car adopts a closed front grille, which is in line with the mainstream design of new energy vehicles, with rounded headlight groups on both sides and triangular air intakes, which is highly recognizable. The shape of the whole car is relatively rounded, similar to the size of the BYD seal, the new car is suspected to be equipped with environmental perception radar and cameras on the wings and roof, and the charging interface is located on the left rear fender. The new model is scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of 2024.
Technology: Geely Star Smart Computing Center was officially launched
The "Smart Geely 2025 Strategy" has been newly implemented as a new digital infrastructure, the world's first "cloud, data, and intelligence" integrated super cloud computing platform, and Geely Star Smart Computing Center was officially launched. With the launch of Geely Star Smart Computing Center, Geely's overall R&D efficiency can be improved by 20%, and users can create "safer, smarter and better to use" smart electric vehicles.
It is understood that Geely Star Smart Computing Center has more than 10 industry-leading technologies, and is the intelligent computing center with the largest scale of self-built equipment, leading comprehensive computing power, the most comprehensive business coverage, the strongest intelligent support ability and high safety level among domestic car companies. It covers business areas including intelligent networking, intelligent driving, new energy safety, trial production and experiments, etc., which can improve Geely's overall R&D efficiency by 20%. As the "super brain" of Geely's car manufacturing, its official online operation marks Geely's entry into the "era of intelligent computing" of car manufacturing, realizing the generational advantage of leading the industry for 3 years in intelligent computing.