In the past year, the price war has been loud, and all electrification companies are actively adjusting prices, on the one hand, in order to have better competitiveness, on the other hand, they are also squeezing water.
But there is one company that is very determined, and NIO, which has been in the high-end market for many years, can be said to have not adjusted the price of any products in the past year.
The price of battery-grade lithium carbonate has dropped from 600,000 per ton a year and a half ago to more than 90,000 per ton today.
The reason why NIO does not cut prices is also very simple, insisting on high-end and not backstabbing old car owners, maintaining a high level of brand and gaining time window for profitability.
Indeed, it is too difficult for NIO, and the net profit loss of NIO in Q4 2023 will be 5.593 billion, although it has narrowed by 4.34% year-on-year, it still cannot solve the problem of profitability.
Not making money is a very real problem in front of NIO.
One of the important reasons is that NIO's necessary expenses are too fixed, and the main service means that every NIO sold needs to have a corresponding service team to keep up, and at the same time, the pressure of battery swapping will also increase.
An important reason for the increase in the loss in the fourth quarter of last year was the sharp decline in sales, which was only 50,000 units in the fourth quarter.
From the perspective of consumption ports, NIO's opponents are actively adjusting.
The BMW 3 Series, the opponent that ET5 wants to trip, has now dropped to about 230,000 in the terminal market, the price of i3 has even fallen below 220,000, and the price of AITO M7 has been adjusted from 290,000 to 250,000.
The prices of Zeekr, Denza, BBA, Ideal, and Xpeng are all rapidly decreasing, and the strong NIO is forced to expose the problem of "insufficient cost performance".
Although the guide price has not been reduced, in fact, the terminal price of Weilai has been significantly reduced, and many models have a price reduction of more than 30,000 yuan, and Weilai has just announced a price reduction for BaaS, from the previous 980 yuan to 728 yuan, and buy 4 get 1 free.
In other words, NIO is actually cutting prices, but the decline is much smaller than that of other brands.
For example, the comprehensive reduction of the Denza N7 has reached 70,000, but the higher-priced NIO has only reduced by 30,000-40,000.
After all, NIO has not yet come out of the predicament of losses.
The main reason why NIO will not cut prices is that Li Bin's long-planned Alpine project will be launched in a few months, and Li Bin said in an interview with the media that targeted Alpine models will be launched for families of different sizes.
The Alps project is a model that mainly targets the sinking market, and because of NIO's technical reserves, the Alps project will definitely enjoy these technological dividends, which means that NIO will have a big turnaround this year.
Considering the stabilization of losses, NIO can stimulate sales through a certain degree of price reduction, but it will not let the brand enter a situation of collapse, after all, the expenses are huge, and more funds are needed to maintain the operation of the brand and support the implementation of new projects.