What to do in 2024? Just keep an eye on these 8 men

Lead

Introduction

Even if it is top-notch, there are highlights and dimness.

Author丨Du Yuxin

Editor-in-charge丨Li Sijia

Editor丨Jin Penghui

People are always the most critical element of an industry and industry. Whether it is the involution of the automotive industry in 2023 or the color of blood, there are some key figures behind it.

Some of them have influenced or dominated the trend and direction of the industry, and some have become the center of public opinion, a word, an action, may be the big news of the industry, attracting a lot of traffic attention, in the funnel mechanism, affecting the cognition of consumers, screening out batch after batch of new customers, for the growth of enterprises and brands, bringing new possibilities. Such as Wang Chuanfu, Yu Chengdong, Li Xiang, Lei Jun, etc., they must live in everyone's conversation with their brilliant achievements and influence.

Some people walk towards the highlight moment, and some people live in the shadow after the highlight. Some of them have suffered the most doubts in the wrong or unbalanced strategy, or fallen into the trough, or eclipsed in the fulfillment of past promises, but they still push the brand and the company to move forward in the bloody business war. Just like Li Bin, Wei Jianjun, Zeng Yuqun, Akio Toyoda, etc., even if they are not the most miserable people in 2023, it seems difficult to accurately interpret their year with a word or a paragraph.

Busy and miserable, bright or low, the cruelty of competition, the difference in thinking, direction and choice, so that the gears of their respective destinies turn in different directions, pioneering and persevering, experience and lessons, also cast a colorful competitive pattern.

Public opinion and humanity in the spotlight

Wang Chuanfu, who won the annual sales of 3 million vehicles, can be said to be the miracle of Chinese automobiles, which is the first 3 million in the history of Chinese car companies, and it is also the first time to surpass foreign car companies and brands with a large score. also promoted Wang Chuanfu again, stood in the spotlight again, and accepted the praise and highlight baptism inside and outside the industry.

BYD is indeed competitive, and Wang Chuanfu appeared on the Hurun Report as early as 2009 and became the richest man in China. From 2022 to the present, BYD's cumulative sales of new energy vehicles have soared, from 3 million, 4 million, 5 million to 6 million, and the time to break the record is getting shorter and shorter. As a veritable leader in new energy, BYD has led Chinese automobiles to find the right direction of new energy in just two years.

In August 2023, at the scene of the 5 million new energy vehicles rolling off the assembly line, Wang Chuanfu, who has always appeared as a calm and restrained engineer, mentioned that it was not easy for BYD to be in a low period four or five years ago, and he rarely choked up and cried. The practice of exhibiting the core products of various Chinese brands and shouting "Chinese cars together" has won praise from the outside world for Wang Chuanfu's pattern, even if it has been discussed.

From the overall leadership of the market position, to the further level of profitability, from constantly breaking the upper limit of the pricing of Chinese brands with Denza, Equation Leopard and Yangwang, to shouting that Chinese brands will account for 70% of the market share within three years, Wang Chuanfu has constantly refreshed the impression of BYD from the outside world, so that BYD has won more affirmation from products to enterprises to public opinion.

Compared with the rotten word "volume" in the car market, the most heard word in 2023 may be Yu Chengdong's "far ahead". In 2023, boosted by the national sentiment of Huawei Mate 60 and chip breakthroughs, Huawei and Yu Dazui have captured the arrogance of the Chinese people. And Yu Chengdong is the one who stands in the limelight and accepts the admiration of inside and outside the industry and consumers.

From the dumb fire in the first 8 months to the new M7 facelift, the sales of bicycles in the range extender market exceeded the ideal, Yu Chengdong successfully turned the tide and brought the world back to life and regained its glory. The subsequent release of Zhijie S7 and Wenjie M9, as well as the unprecedented hot sales of products, once again proved the correctness of Yu Chengdong to withstand the pressure and end up in the car.

Obviously, the automobile business led by Yu Chengdong has fully entered the harvest period with the introduction of more products under the smart car mode. In the eyes of consumers, as long as it is a car product released by Yu Chengdong, it is a representative work of Huawei's car manufacturing. As long as it is the occasion of Yu Chengdong's presence, it must be the center of traffic. Whether it is the matter of AEB or the incident of understanding the winter test of Chedi, countless facts have also proved that a top streamer who cannot create topics cannot be a good salesperson.

Huawei's big chess game of going deep into the automotive industry has become clearer with Yu Chengdong's performance in the automotive circle. Today, it doesn't matter whether Huawei makes cars or not, but at least it is reshaping the industrial ecosystem with real hardware and software technology, and it can be called the strongest behind-the-scenes player.

It is said that the new car-making forces are thankless, but for Li Auto, getting a middle-aged man ushered in a splash of wealth. As the one with the worst spraying technology of the new car-making force, Ideal took the lead in the new force, with a price of more than 300,000 yuan per car, the strength of monthly sales of 50,000 units, and the ability to exceed the annual sales target of 376,000 units throughout the year.

"Geely and Great Wall will join the range extension army" "In 2024, we are confident that the total sales volume will exceed BBA", as the founder of Li Auto, Li Xiang has built momentum for Li Auto strongly under good performance this year, and continues to control the trend of public opinion.

Weibo small composition writer, strong output of opinions on big and small things, hot search at every turn, known as the chief conspicuous bag of the car circle, the craziest person in the new forces. Although he is not unassailable in every speech, and even some of his remarks are not worthy of encouragement, his grasp of the Internet society and the laws of communication is perfect.

Even if "no one likes Li Xiang", it has to be said that the ideal product strategy of family positioning, with the lowest cost and cost-effective way such as range extender, and the face project of "refrigerator color TV sofa", is indeed very in line with the real needs of China's high-end users for products. Behind this is the insight into the market and demand, and the control of human nature, which has brought a lot of new thinking to the industry.

Originally, Lei Jun should have been a hot figure in the mobile phone industry, but he resolutely joined the automobile industry and released the technology and products of Xiaomi cars in the last few days of 2023. As a major technology manufacturer, Xiaomi and Lei Jun, who originally had a group of loyal fans, have become the object of heated discussions inside and outside the industry with topics such as "Xiaomi makes a car", "Baoshi Mi", "secretly leading", "how much does SU7 cost" and "there is no subversive change".

Lei Jun is also worthy of the name and has become the last person in the automobile circle to stand on the highland of traffic in 2023.

On the one hand, the price and positioning of SU7 continue to test consumers' feelings and cognition of the price of Xiaomi cars amid rumors, and on the other hand, it is the first to release the price of competing products such as ZEEKR 007 and Galaxy E8, which makes the outside world worry about Xiaomi cars a little more.

However, it is certain that, like Huawei, Xiaomi's brand influence, audience, and strong channel capabilities, including Lei Jun's personal business operation ability, will definitely make the commercial expansion of Xiaomi cars more advantageous than new forces such as "Wei Xiaoli", depending on whether the pricing of Xiaomi cars has enough subversive ability.

Of course, in fact, the top of the rim is far more than the 4 men mentioned above. The traffic and popularity seen by the outside world are actually more about the control of public opinion and human nature. In this new era of competition, this has become almost the most important competency in the business world.

But there is no doubt that no one can stand in the spotlight forever. The marathon track of car building, even if it is Mercedes-Benz, the inventor of the car, or Toyota and Volkswagen, the world's largest automobile groups, will be driven by the cycle and enter a trough at a certain historical moment. Compared with traffic and public opinion, what is beneficial to enterprises is actually the long-term and sustainable development ability behind it, as well as the positive business value.

Who is the worst person?

It was said before that Li Bin was the worst person in the automobile circle in 2019, but in 2023, this keyword will be placed on Li Bin, and there seems to be no sense of disobedience.

From the beginning of the year, Li Bin's communication with rights defenders was threatened with words such as "We are not here to talk, we are here to negotiate", "Brother Bin, my relationship with you is not so close", "I have my own hole card, which is the reputation of more than 10,000 car owners", to Li Bin's helpless words such as "You should scold me and scold me, you should hate Weilai, I will accept it" and "If you don't beat me, I will give face".

From Li Bin shouting "If there are still more than 10,000 vehicles, then we will have to look for a job", to the end it is still hovering at 10,000 units, which is quite far from the expected 30,000 units/month, and the target sales volume of 250,000 units with a result of 160,000 units; from the end of the year, NIO decided to lay off 10% of its employees, the vacillation of the mobile phone and self-developed battery business, and the departure of responsible personnel, to the continuous burning of money in various businesses, the bloated organizational structure, and the cumulative loss of nearly 100 billion yuan in 8 years of car manufacturing.

From boasting that Haikou would never reduce prices, to finally under the pressure of the industry, it had to cancel the free battery replacement and adjust the rights and interests to be forced to reduce the price in disguise. Seeing that the whole system was about to be overwhelmed, Gan Lin, a local tyrant from the Middle East, was ushered in at a critical moment, and released its flagship sedan ET9, which made NIO jump between "near-death" and "highlight" repeatedly.

Sustainability, efficiency, and long-termism should be the keywords that Li Bin mentioned the most this year, but it is no longer important that Li Bin is miserable or not in the wake of big manufacturers, the electrification of luxury cars and the price war, and the increasingly fierce competition. Especially in 2024, as the head representative of the new forces, survival may become the first priority of NIO.

The process of electric vehicles has promoted the improvement and growth of the battery industry chain, and the huge demand for batteries has given birth to global power battery giants such as CATL. In the past, CATL, known as Ningwang, earned more than 100 million yuan per day at a very considerable profit level, and will continue to set a new high in profits this year, and continue to sit firmly in the global power battery champion.

However, the once invincible battery giant will have a trillion market value in 2023, and the stock price will fall from a maximum of 382 yuan to 150 yuan, which has exceeded the 100% level. In the past, major car manufacturers have "kidnapped CATL", and at the moment of rapid development of electric vehicles, there is a market share with battery supply. However, after experiencing a battery shortage in 2021, the new energy strategy of many car companies was constrained by Ningwang, and finally car manufacturers had to choose a new path.

At least more than 10 car companies or auto groups, including ZEEKR, NIO, Changan, GAC, BMW, and Volkswagen, have invested in the layout of the entire power battery industry chain, reducing the amount of "Ning" in the development plan, accelerating the decoupling from CATL, and trying to stop working for CATL.

There are also pioneers such as BYD Fodi, Great Wall Honeycomb Energy, and China Innovation Airlines, which continue to devour the battery share of CATL and change the pattern of Ningwang's dominance. And in less than two years, CATL's domestic market share has shrunk by about 9%. The hairline of the battery king Zeng Yuqun is estimated to have to move upwards again.

Wei Jianjun in 2023, at the age when he enters the sixtieth year, more anxiety makes him look a lot haggard than before, not only because the Great Wall Motors led by him have only completed the annual sales target of 1.6 million units of 1.23 million units, which is at the downstream level of traditional manufacturers. Also because of this year, the Great Wall was deeply involved in water armies and war of words on social media.

Whether it is the "high-pressure fuel tank" incident that poked out the industry's attention but no result, or the "fuel consumption door" incident of the equation leopard leopard 5, or the recent "wrench breaking the beam" incident, it reflects the white-hot competition between BYD and Great Wall.

"With rhythm, a bunch of water army, those things that must be had, very TM no bottom line, very dirty. In November last year, Wei Jianjun rarely bombarded friends in public, although he did not name names, but the angry and corrupt appearance was tacitly understood by the visitors. There is no doubt that the Great Wall, which bets on SUV products to hit the market, feels unprecedented pressure when SUV rivals have sprung up.

The fall of the SUV overlord H6 from the first-line throne, the comprehensive failure of the high-end brand Wei brand with annual sales of only 40,000 units, and the hard-core off-road vehicle and pickup truck market with new energy products mastering the market voice and profits are eyed by many opponents, including the departure of many executives, and the final everything has to be carried by Wei Jianjun alone.

The only thing that is gratifying is that the profits of the Great Wall have maintained a good growth, which also shows that Wei Jianjun chose to "let the share ensure profits". However, under the price war and the stock competition of the industry for market share and influence, Wei Jianjun's choice is good or bad for Great Wall Motors, and everything has to be handed over to time.

The domestic volume makes a group of car people anxious or pessimistic, and this sentiment is transmitted to overseas and global markets. In 2023, the international celebrities who are full of anxiety and constantly bombarding to find a sense of existence are none other than Akio Toyoda, who has abdicated.

"It is right to boycott electric vehicles", "Electric vehicles are inseparable from policy support, and they are not environmentally friendly", "Electric vehicles are not a new thing, they are low-level products, and they are low-level technologies"...... Regarding the general direction of electrification in the automotive industry, Akio Toyoda has frequently shown a counter-intuitive attitude in the past two years, firmly standing against electric vehicles.

Many netizens and industry insiders believe that Akio Toyoda is not only a little sour, but also shows the tragic appearance of the auto giant in the face of industrial transformation and the ship's great U-turn. From the perspective of Toyota's position or the Japanese local market, it is understandable that the development of electric vehicles is slow, and even electric vehicles are not promoted, but as the general direction of the global automotive industry, the progress of electric vehicles is unstoppable.

For Toyota, the transition will not be easy. Even in Japan, at the 2023 Japan Mobility Exhibition, electric vehicles are still the top priority and become the direction of future travel, and even Toyota is constantly upgrading its electric vehicle transformation plan, planning to increase the annual sales of electric vehicles to 1.5 million units in 2026, and Akio Toyoda has also put on a grand scene of 16 electric vehicles in one go.

On the one hand, it is attacking electric vehicles, and on the other hand, it is invested in the arms of electric vehicles, which reflects that Toyota's position in the Chinese market is constantly being eroded, and the market sales of newly launched electric vehicle products are poor and far less than expected.

As the most typical representative of the car rim, these 8 men represent the different business ideas and directions of the automobile industry to a certain extent, some are positive and some are reverse, and it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong for each car company. In the face of a more cruel 2024, what will be the result of these 8 men?

|Du Yuxin|