BYD Dolphin Glory Edition, to become the terminator of micro and small cars?
Image source@Visual China
Text: Tram Pass
In 2020~2021, China's new energy vehicle industry is on the right track, the old car companies are gradually transforming, and the new car-making forces are also delivering goods one after another. However, at that time, BYD had not yet risen, and the new forces were still fighting for survival, and Tesla almost dominated the Chinese new energy vehicle market until the arrival of a new energy vehicle broke the situation.
This car is not the current hot-selling BYD Qin, Song, nor Aion, Wenjie and Wei Xiaoli, but from SAIC-GM-Wuling's Hongguang MINIEV, after the car was launched in July 2020, it has beaten Tesla for many months, won the first place in domestic new energy vehicle sales, and the market share of micro electric vehicles was once as high as 75%.
A few days ago, Wuling Motors announced that by February 2024, the cumulative sales of the Hongguang MINIEV family have exceeded 1.2 million units. Such an achievement is worth celebrating, but looking at the mini car market, the former king is now more and more inadequate.
The miniature car rolled up crazily, and the king of Wuling fell off the altar
If a market can obtain huge sales and profits, it is natural that countless companies will flock to it. After seeing Wuling make a lot of money in the mini car market, other car companies quickly joined the battle, Chery launched QQ ice cream, Changan launched Lumin, and Geely launched Panda mini......
Judging from the sales data, the cumulative sales of Hongguang MINIEV are as high as 237863 units, with an average monthly sales volume of nearly 20,000 units, which is a very good performance, but it has lost the annual sales crown of mini cars. The new champion is the BYD Seagull, with a cumulative sales of 239,270 units, and the Seagull will be launched at the end of April 2023, having only been sold for eight months last year. Secondly, the rise of Chang'an Lumin has also caused a lot of pressure on Hongguang MINIEV.
If Wuling wants to return to the top mini car sales spot, it must improve to meet the needs of consumers, otherwise its market share may decline. So, what do consumers pay most attention to when buying a mini car?
Price, the first element of buying a mini car
Wang Xiaoqiu, CEO of SAIC Group, once said that 90% of Hongguang MINIEV's audience is post-80s and 50% is post-90s, and most families buy Hongguang MINIEV as a second car for the family to meet their daily travel needs.
Since it is a daily commute, grocery shopping, and pick-up and drop-off for children, the requirements for battery life will not be very high, but there are fewer use scenarios, and there is more than one car at home, it is inevitable that I hope to spend less money to buy a scooter. The starting price of Wuling, Geely, and Chery's mini cars is generally about 40,000 yuan, and the high-end version usually does not exceed 80,000 yuan.
As soon as the first year of Jiachen started, BYD couldn't wait to launch a price war, and other car companies immediately joined the battle. The 79,800 yuan Qin capital is here, and with a little more money, you can get on the A-class car, isn't it more comfortable than a mini car?
Compared with other mini cars, the Changan Lumia and BYD Seagull, which are selling more and more, are actually more expensive, but the high price has not hindered the hot sales of these cars, and the reason is that they meet the second requirement of consumers for mini cars.
size, mini car users also want a large space
The size of the mini car is usually smaller, the body size of Hongguang MINIEV, Panda mini, QQ ice cream is about 3050*1500*1610mm, the difference is not big, while the size of Changan Lumin has reached 3270*1700*1545mm, the length and width are much larger, only the height is slightly lower.
The BYD Seagull has achieved 3780*1715*1540mm, which is completely different from the square box design of traditional mini cars, so that it is counted as a small car (A0 class) in some media statistics. However, in BYD's product positioning, the Seagull is indeed a mini car (A00 class), and BYD's small car product is the Dolphin.
The space left for rear passengers in miniature cars is too small, and the ride experience is poor. BYD Seagull differentiated competition, the price is slightly expensive, but it can improve the ride comfort, and the price of the same endurance version is not much different from Hongguang MINIEV, which can naturally attract more consumers.
Considering that consumers need enough space even for scooters, Wuling, BYD and other manufacturers have expanded the war, and the competition has spread from mini cars to small cars.
The war spread, and BYD and Wuling competed for small cars
In 2023, BYD will rank first among its own brands with 3.02 million sales. In the inventory of BYD's sales of various families, the Dolphin refreshed the historical data of domestic small cars with 367419 sales. The only one qualified to compete with BYD is Wuling's Binguo, with a cumulative sales volume of 231,100 units in 2023, which can be called a cliff-like lead compared with other new energy small cars.
The positioning of the small car is similar to that of the mini car, mainly as a second car for the family, used for daily transportation, but it is more oriented for size and comfort, and the price is a little more expensive than the mini car.
On February 23, 2024, BYD held a press conference and launched the Dolphin Glory Edition, with a price starting at 99,800 yuan, with a price reduction of more volume, and a 302-kilometer version to lower the threshold, launching a price war for small pure electric vehicles.
If it is simply used for transportation, Wuling Binguo still has a price advantage, 410 kilometers Lingxi Premium Edition is currently priced at 88,800 yuan, and the Dolphin Glory Edition with the same battery life costs 112,800 yuan, but if the overall comparison configuration, the Dolphin still has more advantages. In terms of size, the size of the Dolphin Glory Edition is 4125*1770*1570mm, and the wheelbase is 2700mm, while Wuling Binguo is only 3970*1708*1580mm and the wheelbase is 2560mm.
The Dolphin has many advantages in terms of other motor power, top speed, reversing camera, as well as NFC/RFID key support and interior. It's not that Wuling can't equip the product with these configurations, but if you add a 360-degree image, a 12.8-inch central control screen, and upgrade the motor, the cost of Binguo may be much higher.
BYD's confidence in reducing costs comes from the fact that in addition to tires and glass, the hardware can basically produce a full set of production lines by itself, without considering the profits of upstream and downstream supply chain enterprises. Other car companies still need to purchase hardware from supply chain companies, which must leave profit margins for partners, and it is difficult to achieve extreme cost compression.
Because of this, Dolphin's only opponent may be the Yuan PLUS of the BYD Dynasty series and the upcoming Yuan UP. For Wuling Binguo, reducing the configuration and price, and achieving differentiated competition with dolphins may be the best solution.
As for whether there will be car companies to break the situation of BYD Dolphin in the future, it depends on whether other old car companies are powerful, and now major car companies are promoting self-development and self-production to reduce dependence on the supply chain. Changan, Great Wall, Geely, Chery and other car companies may be able to launch products that are cost-effective enough to compete with dolphins in the future.
However, before competing with the dolphins, Chery, Geely, and Wuling need to make adjustments to their own mini cars.
If the price does not increase, the best time to buy a mini car has arrived?
Micro and small cars are usually the choice of transportation, so the requirements for battery life are low, Wuling, Chery, Geely micro cars, many versions of the range is only 120 km ~ 180 km.
In December last year, the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Announcement on Adjusting the Technical Requirements for New Energy Vehicle Products for Reduction and Exemption of Vehicle Purchase Tax", which put forward higher requirements for pure electric vehicles exempt from purchase tax, two of which are not less than 200 kilometers and no less than 120 kilometers in low temperatures, but January 1, 2024 ~ May 31 is the buffer period.
The price of mini-cars with a range of less than 200 kilometers is generally 30,000 yuan ~ 50,000 yuan, if you can't be exempted from the purchase tax, you will have to spend 3000 ~ 5000 yuan more, it is better to add money to the BYD Seagull. Considering that the dolphins have released the Glory version, maybe the Seagull will also launch the Glory version in a few months, compressing the price to less than 70,000 yuan.
In addition, the price of small cars is also generally reduced, and the starting range of 300 kilometers has a larger interior space and longer range, which will also affect the sales of mini cars. In the context of the general price reduction of new energy vehicles, car companies dare not rashly raise prices, and the increase in the volume and price reduction of mini vehicles is likely to be the main theme of the market.
From the standpoint of consumers, Xiaotong believes that the best time to buy mini cars and small cars is from the second half of 2024 to 2025. In 2026, the purchase tax will no longer be fully exempted, but can only be halved, and after losing the subsidy, new energy vehicles may stop reducing prices, or even increase prices slightly.