In 2023, China's auto market looks cruel, but the new forces actually win?

2023 has passed quietly, and the competition in the auto market this year can be described as fierce, and under the market conditions of a large number of brands, everyone wants to win the first place and is unwilling to admit defeat.

Now, with the 2023 sales results coming out, an invisible dividing line is being divided in front of the major brands. On the scene, in the past year, major car companies have been "bleeding", but most of the brands have achieved good results, but the results are also high and low, and we will temporarily divide it into three camps.

Unreachable sales champions

BYD

On January 1, BYD announced its production and sales report, and in December 2023, BYD once again broke through its historical performance, with monthly sales reaching 341043 units, a year-on-year increase of 45.1%, and a total of 3,024,400 units sold in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 62.3%, completing an annual sales performance of 3 million units.

Since 2023, BYD's performance has been unbeatable, and it is not surprising that BYD has secured the position of the sales champion in 2023, but the performance of completing 3 million annual sales really makes people sweat for BYD, after all, BYD is still 320,000 miles away from completing the annual sales target last month, and in order to complete this sales target, BYD has been offering limited-time discounts ranging from 5,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan for many models such as Qin, Han, Tang, Song, and Yuan under Dynasty Network since December.

Judging from the results, the rapid rise of BYD in the past two years is inseparable from "the right time, place and people".

First, China's auto market has a unique new energy soil, all kinds of policy support, even if there is no Di Wang, there will be other car companies to take the lead; second, the impact of a series of factors such as soaring oil prices, geopolitics and changes in the concept of car purchases, has provided a boost for China's new energy transformation; finally, and the most critical point, is BYD's own years of new energy technology accumulation, which is why there is only one "Di Wang" in China's auto market.

Ideal car

Then the undisputed sales champion among the new power brands here is Li Auto.

In December, Li Auto delivered more than 50,000 new vehicles for the first time, reaching 50,353 units, a year-on-year increase of 137.1%, and a total of 376,000 vehicles delivered in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 182.2%.

In fact, as early as November, Li Auto has taken the lead in reaching the annual sales target of 300,000 units. With the announcement of sales in December, Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal, could not hide his joy and made a related speech, "In 2023, in addition to thanks, I am still grateful." He also said that it will hit the annual sales target of 800,000 units in 2024.

In fact, the ideal car is also a very magical existence in the car circle, it has always been "the scolding has not stopped, the sales have not lost", recently the ideal car has been mired in the negative news of traffic accidents, but it does not seem to affect its sales at all, every time you think that the sales of the ideal car are difficult to guarantee, it can be hard to throw out a proud report card, it seems that the dad car that focuses on the "refrigerator color TV sofa" still has an irresistible attraction.

The dark horse faction that caught off guard

AITO asks the world

If you want to say that the dark horse player, the world should not let go, and the sudden explosion surprised everyone, and friends saw it become the strongest "dark horse" in the car market but were powerless to stop it. In September, the new M7 was released, and with the explosion of the Huawei Mate series, it also led to the fire of the new M7, and the 100-day order for the new car has exceeded 120,000 units.

In December, 24,468 new vehicles were delivered for the AITO series, an increase of 29.96% month-on-month, and a total of 94,380 vehicles were delivered in 2023. Of course, this may be just the beginning, the M9 has exceeded 30,000 orders in the seven days since it was listed, and there is a momentum of the new M7 in the beginning, in short, the question in 2024 should not be underestimated, and the ideal should really be careful.

VOYAH Automotive

On this side, Dongfeng Motor's VOYAH Automobile is also full of good news. In December, VOYAH delivered 10,017 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 479%, and in 2023, it sold 50,552 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 160%.

Since June 23, VOYAH has maintained 7 consecutive increases, and this is inseparable from VOYAH's strategy of "price reduction and allocation".

Previously, the old VOYAH FREE featured a "rich configuration", there are many versions, range extension, pure electric both hands, and the price is more than 300,000 yuan, the product force is another word, this pricing alone makes many consumers prohibitive, and the new VOYAH FREE price directly came to 266,900 yuan, and there is only one car in the whole series, which is concise and clear, and consumers are no longer confused.

The subsequent updates of the 2024 Dreamer and Chasing Light PHEV also follow the strategy of "price reduction and additional configuration", which is also remarkable. In fact, the example of VOYAH also tells us that in the Chinese auto market in 2023, there are no cars that cannot be sold, only prices that cannot be sold.

Zhiji Automobile

As a Zhiji who has undertaken the transformation of SAIC, it did not disappoint.

For the whole year of 2023, the cumulative sales of Zhiji Automobile will reach 38,253 units, a year-on-year increase of 665%, and a strong counterattack, of course, a lot of the credit is due to the Zhiji LS6. In December, Zhiji Automobile finally crossed the mark of "monthly sales exceeding 10,000 units", with sales reaching 10,412 units, of which 9,878 units were contributed by Zhiji LS6.

In October last year, the sales volume of Zhiji LS6 did not meet expectations after its launch, so in the month of listing, Zhiji LS6 carried out price reduction promotion on its models, with a maximum reduction of 15,000 yuan, and the reduced price of Zhiji LS6 surpassed Xpeng G6 with higher cost performance, and successfully won the throne of medium and large pure electric SUV sales.

And it seems that he has tasted the sweetness of low prices, and Zhiji has waved a price reduction knife on LS7, and the official price has been reduced by tens of thousands of yuan, directly pulling the price of a car comparable to the ideal L7 to 249,800 yuan. But judging by the results so far, it seems that this price reduction has not worked.

Stable and good, but not up to expectations

NIO

According to the data released by NIO, in 2023, NIO delivered 160038 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 30.7%, and in December 2023, NIO delivered 18,012 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 13.9%.

In 2023, except for the monthly sales of more than 20,000 units in a single month in July, NIO's sales in the rest of the months will not be stable, perhaps this is inseparable from NIO's high pricing, but Li Bin, the founder of NIO, has said more than once that NIO will not "reduce prices and exchange volume", and even released a new flagship ET9 with a pre-sale price of up to 800,000 yuan at NIO DAY in 23, and the intention of "luxury" positioning is obvious.

However, Li Bin and Weilai are not the first to the end, in order to solve the problem of revenue and sales, Li Bin, who was originally exposed to the sub-brand codenamed "Alps" (positioning 20-300,000 yuan), admitted that it has been renamed "Dabie Mountain", and the meaning is self-evident.

Xpeng Motors

In 2023, Xpeng Motors will still be at the bottom of the "Wei Xiaoli" echelon. In December, Xpeng delivered 20,115 vehicles, still above the level of monthly sales of 20,000 units, and Xpeng Motors delivered a total of 141601 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 17%.

In June 23, after the launch of Xpeng G6, it helped Xpeng reverse the decline in sales continued to be sluggish, and after the launch of Xpeng G9 in September, it continued to strengthen the competitiveness of Xpeng's products, but it still could not make up for the gap formed with Ideal and Weilai in the first half of the year.

However, fortunately, Xiaopeng's new MPV model Xiaopeng X9 is favored by the market with its low starting price, excellent interior and seat layout, and the current pre-sale orders have exceeded 30,000 units, and then it is likely to take Xiaopeng's overall sales upward.

Leapmotor

In December, Leapmotor delivered 18,618 vehicles, refreshing the historical data of deliveries, a year-on-year increase of 119%, and the cumulative delivery volume for the whole year of 2023 was 144155, a year-on-year increase of more than 29%.

Since the beginning of the year, Leapmotor has repeatedly reduced the price of its models, and various preferential policies can be seen almost every month, on the basis of frequent price reductions, the annual delivery volume of Leapmotor has only increased by 29%, which can be described as not meeting expectations.

But fortunately, Leapmotor will also hug the thigh of Maserati's parent company, Stellantis Group, in 2023, so there must be no need to worry too much about the future.

Write at the end

In fact, this sales inventory was originally intended to objectively show everyone in front of the screen the sales performance of China's new energy vehicle companies in the past year. But objectively speaking, the cruelty of China's new energy vehicle market in 2024 is estimated to only increase, even BYD can't guarantee that it can always win, right?