The next step for the new forces is to move towards the "old" forces.
Tesla raised the flag, Wei Xiaoli followed, and the domestic new energy market was once led by new forces in car manufacturing. Labels such as range extension, battery replacement, and automatic driving catch people's attention, and praise such as "disruption", "innovation" and "unprecedented" are endless.
Users are chasing new people to promote the process of the industry, and new forces have become the vanguard of the industry as subversives. For a while, passive traditional car companies have become catch-ups.
By the end of 2022, the domestic new energy penetration rate has reached 27.6%, and new energy vehicles have long been everywhere, and the new technologies and business models associated with them are difficult to attract again, and the industry structure has changed again.
In 2022, BYD successfully surpassed Tesla to the top, with the top ten domestic car companies in annual sales, and traditional car companies occupying 6 seats.
There is no explosive point in the industry, users tend to be calm, and the new energy track is increasingly red. In the face of the continuous "chasing the new" of traditional car companies, the gap is getting wider and wider, and the new forces of car manufacturing that cut into the track with "novelty" urgently need to adjust their pace.
Small and beautiful in trouble
The power of subversion is like the end of a strong crossbow, and "small but beautiful" is extremely intolerant in the Red Sea.
With the launch of NIO's three NT2 models, ideal launched the L series, and Xpeng Motors is about to expand its relatively cramped 2+2 product matrix. He Xiaopeng announced that this year Xpeng Motors will launch 5 models, of which 3 are new models, and will have 7 models by then.
Big money means urgency. The past year has been difficult for new forces, and the combination of objective factors such as the surge in raw materials at the beginning of the year and the epidemic has severely tested the relatively weak domestic new forces.
Xpeng suffered the largest quarterly loss in history in Q2, and NIO and Li Li updated their respective quarterly losses in Q3. The loss caused by rising costs was not fully offset by the increase in product prices, and the fluctuation of sales volume was undoubtedly exacerbated.
Even if it breaks through the "100,000 vehicles of life and death", it is still struggling with huge losses, and the new forces have not yet turned over, while traditional car companies are advancing quickly.
BYD's annual sales reached 1.868 million units, followed by Changan and GAC at 200,000 units. The highest annual sales volume of new forces in China, United New Energy, only sold 146,000 units.
The new forces have been far left behind by traditional car companies, and the sales gap between the leaders of the two camps has been more than ten times, and the root cause may not only be brands and products, but also volume.
In terms of brands, the new forces with higher "origin" points have gone further in the high-end process, and the brand has no historical baggage is its biggest advantage, even so, spontaneous combustion, broken shaft and other problems, gradually diluting the enthusiasm of consumers, "self-hi innovation" is difficult to withstand the test of time, relatively high premium can not break the value logic of high and oligo, relatively few product matrices can not "left and right".
In short, consumers are reshaping the new energy market with a rational attitude. The stories of the new forces are not as attractive as before.
Looking at the products alone, the new forces have first-class product power in their respective price segments, and what is lacking is user coverage. Xiaopeng, with a relatively reasonable layout, from G3i, P5 to P7, G9, has a clear distinction between low, medium and high, which is one of the important factors for it to win the domestic sales championship in the first half of last year, and it is also the basis for its rebound at the end of the year.
After several years of ideal "going it alone", the L9 has made a good start for the route of the L series from high to low, but like NIO, the current price of all products is still more than 300,000 yuan, and the user coverage is still not wide enough. Moreover, the influx of 300,000 stalls of competing products is gradually increasing, and the competition in the high-end market is becoming more and more fierce.
NIO's second and third brands are about to emerge and enter the low-end market with "shell sinking", while maintaining the high-end positioning of NIO's brand. NIO, which is cold in high places, seems to be ready to replenish heat elsewhere.
When Xiao Beauty encountered market difficulties, the new forces no longer followed the past tone and chose to cooperate with the market.
To a certain extent, brands and products reflect the immaturity of the new forces, and the essence is that the volume is small and the "ability to resist blows" is insufficient. There is no Tesla production capacity, there is no traditional brand decades of industrial accumulation, and even the direct management system that the past was proud of was played clearly by traditional car companies.
High-end positioning is both a stepping stone and a stumbling block.
When the self-driving technology has not yet changed qualitatively, the four major companies have joined hands to enter the battery replacement track, and the extended range luxury living room has been replicated, and the new domestic forces represented by Wei Xiaoli are becoming ordinary little by little.
There are not many cards to play and it is difficult to call it a "king bomb", and scale expansion may be the solution, at least the right medicine.
Want to be an adult
Enterprises are improving costs and increasing efficiency, and the needs of new forces are more urgent.
High selling prices have led to higher gross profit margins for bicycles, but they are not enough for new forces. Ideal and NIO were around 20% for a long time, and Xpeng rebounded to 13.5% as of Q3. Even Xpeng's gross profit margin level was barely reached by BYD after increasing sales of mid-to-high-end products and expanding production vigorously. It is not uncommon for other traditional car companies to have a gross profit margin of less than 10%.
However, traditional car companies with low gross margins live better.
The high-end of traditional car companies intends to break through the dilemma of low gross margin, and mainstream car companies have achieved results. Taking a step back, even if it is difficult to achieve great success in the short term, its huge product line and low-end volume foundation are relatively stable for the time being, and even if it follows step by step, it can rely on the existing system to survive.
The new forces are different, and holding tens of billions of cash and equivalents is not a measure of theoretical survival time, but a replenishment of material reserves. Moving from adolescence to adulthood, inadequate nutrition, choosing the wrong direction, and tending to mediocrity may cause difficulties in the path of life.
The chips in the hands of the new forces are far less powerful than they seem.
Xpeng Motors, which completed the phased redemption at the end of the year, is still not optimistic. He Xiaopeng's anxiety is overflowing: "Without doing a good job in costs and profits, enterprises will never survive." With scale expansion as the next primary goal, He Xiaopeng clearly knows the "root cause" of Xpeng Motors.
The dilemma of the new forces is not caused by backward technology and products, but because there is a significant gap between the volume and mainstream traditional car companies. The product is relatively single, often choose a drive form, and do not have the ability to achieve the multi-directional development of traditional car companies such as fuel, hybrid, pure electric, and battery replacement, and can only be prosperous and lossy.
On this basis, capacity expansion seems imperative, but in fact, it is necessary to "watch the customers and order." ”
Not long ago, Tesla's stock price rebounded strongly after falling by 60%. Financial institutions were pessimistic about Tesla's capacity vacancy, and then Tesla not only set a single-quarter revenue record, but also dragged the industry into a price war with a single-vehicle gross margin of 25.9%, the lowest in nearly five quarters. After the official fall, Tesla's sales maintained a strong momentum, and continued to inject "strength" into the capital market.
Expanding production is by no means just throwing money at the end, and being pushed away by sales can only laugh to the end.
This is true of BYD and Tesla. Cutting prices is undoubtedly a simple and crude way to stimulate sales, but the new forces that are still seriously losing money can hardly bear the price of this protracted war, and they are still a long way from catching up with the scale of Tesla and BYD, and they have to risk the production capacity trap and can only look ahead.
From the perspective of planned production capacity, most mainstream car companies have "overcapacity". Even if the passenger association estimates that this year's new energy penetration rate will increase by 10.4 percentage points compared with last year, reaching 36%, the extra cake, Tesla, BYD and SAIC and other traditional car companies are likely to continue to take a large share. The remaining small piece is estimated based on the existing market share, and will not put much pressure on the production capacity of the leading new forces.
Scale expansion, the ideal state is to match the production capacity of the product, and the product to match the sales volume. For example, BYD, its car sea tactics, brand expansion, etc. have already taken shape, and the planned capacity redundancy only provides more room for development. A major expansion of production can avoid repeating the negative impact of the backlog of orders in the past two years.
New forces, whether they are about to debut new cars or brands, need to prepare production capacity while taking risks caused by product uncertainty.
The situation in the industry is grim, and the new forces need to gamble if they want to completely turn over.
Gamble on the future
Last year, Wei Xiaoli recorded the largest quarterly loss in history. Looking closely, the R&D expenses of the three companies are also rising, and if R&D expenses are deducted, they can even achieve breakeven.
R&D expenses remain high, and the anxiety of the new forces is obvious.
There is a lack of new technologies that users can perceive, and the development of existing technologies has fallen into a bottleneck. Most car companies choose to seek stability, such as autonomous driving, vehicle systems, etc., and adopt supply chain solutions to reduce their own R&D investment.
The way to survive varies. Increasing R&D investment to seek breakthroughs, in addition to car companies with high market share, there are also new forces. The former has seen a bright future and throws money without distraction; And the latter, not only need to upgrade the only "weapons" at hand, but also need to enrich the "arsenal".
Even if the scale is closer to that of traditional car companies, the unique tonality of the brand and the image of the subversive of new forces still need to be maintained. With Tesla's heart, you also have to move closer to BYD.
Compared with the upward attack, sinking is the current focus of the new forces. NIO, which has been the most successful in the high-end of the new domestic forces, sinks the most directly, and has both strength and breadth, and the third brand even aims at the 100,000-level gear. This is the price range where the new forces directly fight with traditional car companies, and it is also an area that Tesla has not yet stepped into.
It is an inevitable trend for new domestic forces to promote new products. The accompanying expansion and R&D are essential, and the expansion of product lines, the market needs to be fully prepared.
For example, power batteries, new forces choose to increase the code to improve their own supply chain system. Wei Xiaoli's capital increase Sunwoda is like booking a spare tire, the layout of upstream raw materials closely follows the mainstream, self-built battery research and development system, gradually expands the upstream, middle and downstream layout, and reduces the constraints of the third-party supply chain as much as possible.
It will take time to scale and achieve results, but with increasing expenses, the already unoptimistic status quo looks even more difficult.
The expansion of product lines and investment in infrastructure construction will continue to consume the physical and mental health of new forces. Typical is NIO, the power exchange mode has made it unique, but the high construction cost of the power exchange station has also become a constraint to its development, with the four major enterprises entering the power exchange track, NIO is no longer lonely, nor special.
The track is crowded, and the situation in NIO reflects the survival pressure of the new forces, not only to continue the old story, but also to tell the new story well.
After experiencing many difficulties in 2022, standing at the beginning of 2023, Wei Xiaoli's primary consideration may no longer be subversion, but to change himself.
When the small and beautiful can not withstand the storm, and the gap is widened by the acceleration of traditional car companies to occupy the market, the two camps and two models have won and lost. The new forces made up for the shortcomings with sub-brands, product expansion, and capacity expansion, hoping to participate in the second half of the game by broadening coverage and reducing costs. The shift of strategy to pragmatism, "if you can't beat it, imitate" is also a kind of growth.
However, scaling leads to increased costs, which not only increases the burden of moving forward, but also faces many uncertainties.
This may be the price of growth.