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The two new car-making forces exposed rumors of fraud on the same day. This shocked the new energy automobile industry.
First, the manager of a car dealership of a TOP 5 new force in Jinan, Shandong Province, said in a short video circulating on the Internet that 4,916 of the 8,493 cars sold by the brand in December last year that coerced dealers to write off 8,493 vehicles under the names of employees were false data. (Editor's note: The new forces of car manufacturing in this article refer to NIO, Ideal, Xiaopeng, Nezha, Zerosport, WM, Skyrim, Gaohe, etc., excluding the new brands of traditional car companies) And if the employees do not cooperate with the listing, the national subsidy fund for each vehicle will be directly transferred to the automobile manufacturer. According to data presented by the store manager, the total number of vehicles licensed by the company in Shandong and Henan provinces in December 2022 was 1,724, of which the number of cars listed by dealers was as high as 936.
In this regard, the brand officially said that after internal verification, it was all false information. The company said that the distributor instructed the store manager "Zhang" to provide false information to the media, which had violated the relevant regulations on the management of the company's distributors, and the distributor would be dealt with in accordance with the regulations. In response to the above rumor-mongering incidents, the company has initiated judicial procedures to protect the rights of the responsible entity for rumor-mongering and spreading false information, and adopted legal means to investigate the legal responsibility of "Zhang" and protect its legitimate rights and interests.
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However, on the evening of April 11, the above-mentioned dealers responded positively that "all the content is true and can provide relevant evidence." At present, the car company has not updated the relevant response for the time being.
Another new force brand in the TOP 3 is caught in the rumors of "scam compensation". Information circulating on the Internet shows that many car owners in a group of car friends of the brand said that some car owners who did not have Jiading household registration found scalpers to apply for fake residence permits and obtained car purchase subsidies and were detained by the police. Some car owners said in the group of car friends that there is a "Fellow pulling an agent to help apply for a residence permit." Another owner said that because of the incident, he was "detained by the police station for one day." People suspected of being sales consultants for the brand responded to the crowd that the company had also been summoned.
"We are also victims, and when we were summoned, we also knew that the scalper made false materials, and we are also pursuing it, and we are trying to find a way to contact the owner to appease." The sales consultant said. But this raised questions from the car owner, who said, "The company itself is assisting the owner to apply for Jiading subsidy, not the reason of the company?" Regardless of the truth, it is not uncommon to buy cars across regions to get subsidies. For example, in the previous Wuhan implementation of car purchase subsidies, many foreigners went to Wuhan to buy cars. However, because the policy requirements are different in different places, whether this cross-regional purchase of a car enjoys subsidies is also implemented in different ways.
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"In fact, many brands have this operation." An automotive industry source said. But there are some businesses that will get car owners to sign a waiver agreement. Take a car company that is also in the top three of the new forces as an example, the car company previously purchased a car in Hangzhou because of the subsidy incident, resulting in its own responsibility for the amount of subsidies to the owner, which makes it more cautious in subsequent operations. However, at present, the car company has not made an official response to this, and it is not clear whether the incident is true and the specific situation.
However, it can be seen from these two rumors that this year is the year when new forces build cars into a life and death battle, and survival is the most critical thing at the moment.
From 2023, new energy vehicle subsidies have been completely abolished, and electric vehicles have entered the real market-driven stage. From the sales data in the first quarter of this year, from January to March, China's new energy vehicle production and sales reached 1.65 million and 1.586 million units, respectively, a year-on-year increase of 27.7% and 26.2%, and a market share of 26.1%. However, on the side of the new forces, the overall pressure from January to March this year was greater, among which Nezha, Xiaopeng, and Zero ran negative growth, while Wei achieved a small increase, with the ideal increase in sales of extended range products the most.
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At the same time, a number of new forces fell into trouble in the first quarter, including WM Motor, Skyrim Motor and Ziyoujia.
On the other hand, new brands of traditional car companies are also entering the market in large numbers, which has had an impact on new forces. In the first quarter of this year, Chery released the icar brand and Xingtu's high-end new energy series "Star Era" in one breath, and the two brands formed its product array in the range of 150,000-500,000 yuan. In terms of BYD, it will also release a professional personalized brand this year, and its Yangwang brand products will also be launched. With the increase of products, consumers have more choices, which has a great impact on the consumption of the entire market. For example, NIO CEO Li Bin said that there are more and more new products, and the success rate of recommending NIO is definitely slightly lower than before, because there are more and more choices.
From the perspective of the new car companies that have been listed, the losses of NIO, Lili, Xiaopeng, and Zerorun have increased significantly last year.
Among several enterprises, NIO suffered the largest loss, with a loss of 14.4 billion yuan, an increase of 2.59 times over the same period of the previous year; Xpeng had the highest net loss rate, with a loss of 9.1 billion yuan with a revenue level of less than 27 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 88.07%; Leapmotor's net loss in 2022 was 5.109 billion yuan, an increase of 79.52% over the previous year's -2.846 billion yuan. The ideal situation is the best, with a loss of 2.032 billion yuan, although it has also expanded by more than 5 times over the same period of the previous year, but it is already the most profitable enterprise among the new forces.
For example, Zhu Jiangming, chairman of Zerorunning, said that starting from 2023, it will be the moment that really determines life and death, "In 2025, the pattern of the automotive industry may be set, and you must have your place at this stage." "Therefore, in these three years, it is necessary to accelerate the seizure of the market and kill the opponent himself in order to survive." In order to survive, all your strength must be exerted.