The sales volume in March shows that family cars are not divided into power forms, and 300,000 yuan is a watershed in pricing
According to the China Automobile Dealers Association, domestic passenger car sales in March this year were about 1.65 million units, lower than expected.
BYD sold 302459 vehicles in March, a year-on-year increase of 46.8%, and sold more than 300,000 vehicles for the third time after exceeding 300,000 units in November and December last year. Ideal sold 28,984 new cars in March, which is still quite far from the monthly sales of more than 50,000 at its peak, while Qiyuan, Leap and Deep Blue relied on plug-in, extended range market demand and price reduction, with sales of 15,228, 14,567 and 13,048 respectively.
Pure electric brand, ZEEKR relied on the 2024 ZEEKR 001 launched at the end of February, with sales rising to 13,012 units; NIO maintained the basic sales of 10,000 units per month, with sales of 11,866 units; although Xpeng has reduced prices and increased rights, and with the momentum of X9, sales have not exceeded 10,000 units, with only 9,026 units in March.
The world can rush to the high-end than the ideal, and the trend of the low-end market depends on BYD
BYD has cut prices for almost all of its products, once again achieving monthly sales of 300,000 units. It's the same way it reached 300,000 in November last year. At that time, BYD gave cash and equity concessions on the basis of the Champion Edition model, and successfully impulsed at the end of the year. In February, BYD handed over a big move, and it needs to be seen whether there are other big moves to stimulate sales in the future.
At present, BYD can use many killer features, such as the fifth-generation DM technology, which can increase the comprehensive range of hybrid models to more than 2000km. In addition, the starting price of the 2024 Denza N7, which was withdrawn more than half a year later than the 2023 model, has dropped by more than 60,000 yuan.
Wenjie and Ideal fought for three months, but Ideal failed to increase sales by taking advantage of the 2024 new car launch of L7/8/9, but after the launch of MEGA, its reputation gradually collapsed. According to the ideal sales introduction, there are still 2023 models in stock for the three models in March, and the comprehensive discount, the three cars are all more than 40,000, and the highest L8 is 46,000 discounts. The new model also has a discount of 5,000, and the Beijing brand in Beijing can also be discounted by 10,000 yuan. This situation, coupled with the fact that the ideal L series is added without a price increase, is still not sold before the end of last year to complete the replacement and launch a new question. What's more, the gap between Wenjie and the ideal monthly sales is widening, which was 1,808 units in January and rose to 2,743 units in March.
At the end of last year, the new M7 exceeded 130,000, not counting this year's new orders, and the remaining M7 orders are still more than 50,000. In other words, according to the current delivery rhythm of Wenjie, these orders can still consume two months. The M9 reached 60,000 units in March, and it is currently another delivery growth point after the sales of the M7 stabilized. Launched in December last year, the M9 was almost delivered in January and February this year, and the number of deliveries rose to 6,243 units in March. The increase in M9 production capacity can stabilize the subsequent growth of the Wenjie and continue to compete with the ideal.
On the other hand, the ideal price was reduced in January this year to clear the inventory, and the ideal sales exceeded 30,000, which was better than the performance of the L series after the new and price reduction in March. Another trend, the Ideal L series was calculated on a weekly basis in March, and the sales volume gradually decreased, that is, in the face of quarterly impulse, the ideal performance was not good.
Two other high-profile brands, NIO and XPeng, one launched new rights in March, and the other relied on price cuts for its main models other than the X9 in an attempt to boost sales. With the use of new rights, NIO has sold more than 10,000 units per month, and its performance is better than that of the price reduction promotion in January, which is the opposite of ideal. In the case of the price reduction of several models of Xiaopeng, the sales of X9 without price reduction accounted for 44% of the overall sales, and the performance of Xiaopeng in the market of late-mover models has still not improved, even if the price of old cars is reduced, it will not be able to reverse this situation.
From the perspective of the brand alone, the strong ability to rush high has changed from the ideal to the question, mainly because the ideal can guarantee that the three models of the L series will have an average monthly average of more than 10,000, but in the case of price reduction, it can no longer guarantee the results of L9 monthly sales of more than 10,000. On the contrary, it is the M9, after the production capacity climbs, there is a good delivery volume, according to the introduction of the Hongmeng Zhixing clerk, the monthly orders of the M9 Beijing single store are basically the same as the M7. This shows that in the sales ratio of Wenjie, it is not only based on low-priced products to pull volume, but the ideal previous model, and all employees can increase the volume.
In the low-end market, BYD has formed two market trends, one is the pricing trend of different levels of models, such as the A-class sedan Qin PLUS, which will lower the market of the same level to less than 80,000 yuan, and BYD Han, which is between the B-class and C-class, will pull the B+-class plug-in hybrid market to 170,000, etc.; Second, according to BYD's production and sales express, after pure electric vehicles will sell significantly better than plug-in hybrid in 2023, plug-in hybrid sales will surpass pure electric in the first quarter of this year, and in March, plug-in hybrid sales exceeded pure electric vehicles, and in March, plug-in hybrid sold 30,000 more than pure electric vehicles.
These two trends, one is to lower the price of both fuel and pure electric models by at least one level, and the other is that some car companies that mainly plug-in hybrid or extended range have taken advantage of the situation to increase sales, such as Qiyuan, Deep Blue and other brands mentioned at the beginning.
Next, it will be more and more difficult to sell cars above 300,000
Before the large-scale outbreak of new energy vehicles in 2020, census data showed that the sales of models below 200,000 accounted for more than 85%, while those with more than 300,000 accounted for only 5%. After the large-scale launch of new energy vehicles, the market pattern has changed slightly, and some people have bought high-priced new energy vehicles.
But from now on, more than 300,000 cars, regardless of the form of energy, will not be easy to sell.
The main opponent faced by gasoline vehicles is plug-in hybrid models. Especially this year, the mainstream of plug-in hybrid will become a product with a range of 2000km on full fuel and full power. First of all, Geely released the Thor electric hybrid, the thermal efficiency of the hybrid internal combustion engine will be increased from the current generation of 44.26 to more than 46%, and equipped with a 3-speed DHT; then Chery released the new car Fengyun A8 Voyage Edition model, in the actual test of Chery's live broadcast, ran a score of 1900km+; Finally, there is BYD's big move, the fifth-generation DM hybrid system with a range of 2000+, will be equipped on the Qin L.
The point is that Chery has priced the new car at the 100,000 level, and the Qin L level is between the Qin PLUS and Han, basically locking the 100,000 to 150,000 level, and the Geely model equipped with Thor Hybrid is basically in this price range. In other words, this year's 100,000-level hybrid model is no longer a pure A-class sedan, and it is likely to be a B-class joint venture model that has reduced the price to 150,000 yuan.
Once this happens, the B-segment continues to drop in price, and the C-segment will have to follow suit. At present, the 200,000 to 250,000 level can already buy C-class entry-level models including BBA, and you can also buy mid-range models of second-tier luxury C-class cars.
New energy vehicles, it is not difficult to judge from the new cars on the market recently, 250,000, is the dividing line of high-end pure electric models, at most 3 months ago, this dividing line was still 300,000. From the perspective of product strength, the 250,000-level electric models already have 700km + endurance, double wishbone + multi-link, no more than 300,000 after the optional air suspension, city + high-speed pilot, 10%-80% fast charging within half an hour and other mainstream demand configurations.
In other words, plug-in hybrids not only lower the price of fuel vehicles, but also the price of pure electric vehicles cannot be stretched when the penetration rate growth rate is faster than that of pure electric models.
In addition, taking the new car on the market as an example, the new model of Denza N7 is 60,000 yuan lower than the old model, and the time interval of the facelift is more than half a year, the price of AVATR is reduced by 35,000 yuan, and the interval between the facelifts is half a year, and the price of ZEEKR 001 has dropped by 30,000 yuan after one year, but at the end of last year, the price of the 2023 ZEEKR 001 after the discount is much cheaper than the current model.
In other words, the price change of pure electric models is extremely unstable, not only because of the decline in the cost of raw materials, but also because of the composition of the volume.
Therefore, after more than 300,000 new energy, pure electric models will dare to sell more than 300,000 yuan unless they can change the new gameplay of core aspects such as batteries and intelligent driving, or can give configurations that far exceed those of similar products, as well as luxurious design materials. On the other hand, the dividing line of 250,000 will continue to decline as the cost further declines.
Epilogue:
After BYD launched the Honor Edition, the monthly sales of 5 models exceeded 40,000, concentrated below the 200,000 level. Although the production capacity of M9 has climbed, the delivery is still concentrated on the M7, and the ideal sales volume continues to fall short of expectations, and the sales of L9 cannot maintain the balance with L7 and L8, indicating that new energy vehicles are inclined to the sales of low-end models. In other words, this round of technology cycle and cost cycle has pushed the price of mainstream new energy vehicles to less than 300,000 yuan, and only a very few special products can be sold at relatively high prices.
In the future technology and cost cycle, the price of new energy vehicles may be lower.