The domestic auto market in 2023 may be the most involuted year in recent years. At the beginning of the year, an unprecedented price war swept the entire market, and then the major car companies began to roll up the price, volume configuration, and volume intelligent driving, especially under the heavy pressure of traditional car companies, the new forces of car manufacturing are walking on thin ice.
After a year of competition, some new forces eventually withdrew from the market competition, but some new forces not only survived, but also became more at ease. For example, after the reshuffle in 2023, Ideal stands out among the new forces, and opens a gap with other new forces that is difficult to catch up with in a short period of time, and even Weimar, which has been mass-produced and delivered more than 100,000 vehicles, finally ended in a thunderstorm.
So, how are the new EV makers doing in 2023?
The ideal is successful, but Weilai and Xiaopeng are still struggling
Ideal has achieved success in the fierce competition in 2023 and can be said to be unique among the new forces.
Many people may not expect that the first to come out of the new forces is ideals. Although it uses the range extension technology that has been questioned as "backward", and also uses a set of design "nesting dolls" to produce three cars, refrigerators, color TVs, and large sofas can be favored by "dads", and L7, L8, and L9 models are sold out, which is behind the accurate grasp of market demand.
For the whole year of 2023, the cumulative sales volume of Ideal reached 376,000 units, becoming the sales champion of the new car-making forces, and successfully unlocked a new achievement of monthly sales of 50,000 units in December, and it is also the only car company among the new forces to achieve the annual target. Under the ideal, the new force with the highest sales volume is NIO, which has sold 160,000 units, and there is a big gap between it and the ideal.
In addition to sales, Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, is also frequently searched for small compositions and sharp point of view output, especially the expression of "comprehensively learning Xi Huawei", "80% of Huawei is a Xi, 20% is respect and 0% complains" has caused a lot of heat on the Internet, it can be said that Li Xiang alone is worthy of his entire team in marketing, which is also the envy of many car companies.
In contrast, the other two in "Wei Xiaoli" are both struggling. NIO only delivered more than 6,000 new vehicles in April and May 2023, while Xpeng's sales continued to be sluggish in the first five months, and it did not return to the level of 10,000 units until June.
In addition, both NIO and XPeng have undergone organizational restructuring adjustments in 2023. The former cut redundant staff and organizational setups by about 10% in November, and postponed and cut investments on projects that did not improve the company's financial performance. The latter made organizational structure adjustments earlier, and Wang Fengying, who has the title of "Iron Lady of the Rim", joined in and optimized the product planning, product matrix and marketing system of Xiaopeng Motors.
However, fortunately, both NIO and XPeng have eased up before the end of the year and see hope.
In June 2023, Xpeng G6 was officially launched, and Xpeng put almost all the most advanced technology on this new model, and for the first time, the price of the 800V high-voltage platform hit the price of 200,000 yuan; After the launch of the two models, Xpeng delivered more than 20,000 units in a single month for three consecutive months at the end of the year.
NIO underwent a price adjustment in June, reducing the price of all cars by 30,000 yuan and canceling the right to free battery replacement. Sales in July topped the 20,000 mark, but in December, sales fell to 18,000 units.
Of course, the most hopeful thing for NIO is that NIO has recently obtained two strategic financing loans totaling $3 billion from Abu Dhabi, a Middle Eastern capital, and there is no shortage of money for the time being. Secondly, NIO's battery swap model has also been recognized by the industry, and it has signed battery swap cooperation agreements with Geely and Changan Automobile, and NIO's moat has begun to take shape.
The more Zero Run sells, the better, and Nezha is temporarily behind
Also struggling with NIO and Xiaopeng is Nezha Automobile. As the sales champion of the new car-making force in 2022, Nezha will have a significant decline in 2023, and the final annual sales volume will only be 127,400 units, and the achievement rate of the annual sales target is only about 50%.
Nezha Automobile CEO Daniel Zhang also made a public summary and reflection on his personal social media, frankly admitting the reasons why it did not do well in 2023: there was no good connection when switching between new and old production, and the rhythm was chaotic; the price of new products on the market was too high, and although the adjustment was in place in the second half of the year, it lost the opportunity; the loss-making product line greatly reduced production; the old and good things in the communication method could not be said; and the marketing headquarters centralized power and weak management.
In addition, Nezha Automobile also reorganized the marketing system, removed Jiang Feng Marketing Company from the position of executive vice president and Li Changhe Marketing Company as executive vice president, and put Daniel Zhang personally in charge and concurrently served as the president of the marketing company.
Leapmotor can be said to drive low and go high in 2023. Although the sales at the beginning of the year were cut in half, they soon launched an extended-range version of the model in early March, and reduced the price of all models, and then quickly got feedback in the market, and the sales went all the way up, and finally the annual sales reached 144,000 units, a year-on-year increase of nearly three percent, only lagging behind Ideal and Weilai among the new forces.
There are two main strategies of Leapmotor, one is to provide a "pure electric + extended range" dual power scheme for all models, and the other is to take the ultimate cost-effective route. In addition, the extended range version of Leapmotor provides a super-large capacity battery, and the pure electric range can even reach 300 kilometers, which can meet the needs of a week's urban commute and weekend travel, which is very popular in the market.
Huawei and Xiaomi have become new forces 2.0
It is foreseeable that the competition in the new energy vehicle market in 2024 will be more intense, and the market pattern may also change.
Although Huawei is not directly involved in car manufacturing, it has been deploying in the field of autonomous driving for many years, and the cumulative sales of the Wenjie series in cooperation with Celis will exceed 94,000 units in 2023, approaching the annual target of 100,000 units.
In particular, the new Wenjie M7 suddenly exploded after its launch, and the order volume exceeded 15,000 units in less than 24 hours. In December, more than 20,000 units of the new M7 were delivered, and the cumulative number of units has exceeded 120,000. In addition, the M9, which has just been launched, has exceeded 30,000 units in just one week. In the sales ranking of new car-making brands announced by Ideal in the first week of 2024, the Wenjie series surpassed Li Auto for the first time and won the single-week sales championship of the new forces.
In addition to the Wenjie series, the first model of the Zhijie series cooperated by Huawei and Chery, the Zhijie S7, has also been launched, and the follow-up cooperation with JAC and BAIC is also planned. According to the forecast of Ping An Securities, the sales volume of Huawei's deeply empowered models is expected to reach 670,000 units in 2024 (including Wenjie, Zhijie, and AVATAR).
In addition, Xiaomi has been hot since it announced its car. After the technical conference on the 28th of last month, the traffic poured into the sky made all car companies envious, even though the conference has been over for more than a week, various rumors about the price are still flying all over the sky, so that the official has to come out to refute the rumors.
Xiaomi's first mass-produced car, the SU7, will be delivered in the first half of this year, and if it comes up with a more competitive price, it is bound to grab a certain market share.
In 2024, in the fierce competitive environment, let's wait and see how the new EV manufacturers will respond.