An auto show made BMW and Mercedes-Benz powerless to resist the new forces, and the frustration of the Chinese market stemmed from the "bad consequences" five years ago

Driver's School

2024-04-29 14:11Posted in Sichuan Automobile Creators

At the 2024 Beijing Auto Show, the most disappointed are joint venture car companies, and the second disappointment is luxury brands.

In the past few years, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, which were surrounded by three floors and three floors outside, have become much sparser this year, especially BMW's most important product, the new generation of 5 Series, even if it is placed in the best position at the entrance, it is not as concerned as the MINI brand. Mercedes-Benz deliberately put fuel vehicles on the best visiting line for consumers, and the field built for the pure electric big G is like a hot check-in spot.

The mainstream brands of joint ventures are even more deserted, especially those with new energy products as the protagonist's booths. Brands such as Honda and Nissan, which emphasize the transformation of new energy, are even less popular than Ford, which only sells gasoline cars and only sells personalized products.

On the contrary, the Chinese brands such as BYD, Geely, Great Wall and Chery at the Beijing Auto Show are almost overcrowded, and they are the protagonists of this Beijing Auto Show.

Moreover, there is another phenomenon at the Beijing Auto Show this time, where the scope and breadth of cooperation between joint venture brands and Chinese brands in new energy products are increasing.

For example, at the Volkswagen Night, He Xiaopeng almost became the most important guest of the link, Volkswagen made no secret of its positive attitude of cooperation with Xpeng Motors; Nissan announced the use of Dongfeng technology to create new energy vehicles, and it will release four models in one go; GAC Toyota used the platform of the second-generation Aion V to make the bZ3X; Mazda used Changan Deep Blue SL03 to build the new Mazda6; Volvo's EX30 came from Geely's engineering team; and smart is half of Chinese blood......

From the 2014 Beijing Auto Show to the 2024 Beijing Auto Show, the product has changed from a fuel vehicle to a new energy product, and the protagonist has also changed from a foreign brand to a Chinese brand.

It seems to be a huge flip, but it is a gray line. The story begins in 2014.

01 A new force that has just been born

Ten years ago, on April 22, Elon Musk came to China to deliver new cars to the first Tesla Model S owners.

No one may have thought that among this group of new Model S owners, there will be many "people of the year" in the new energy vehicle industry, such as Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, and Li Xiang, the CEO of Autohome at that time and later founded Li Auto.

If you count Lifan Automobile, which was later acquired by Ideal and reorganized into Ruilan Automobile by Geely, then Yin Xidi was also the first batch of car owners at that time; Cao Guowei, who was now the largest "new energy communication position", then CEO of Sina and now chairman of Weibo, and Yu Yongfu, chairman and CEO of UC Youshi, was also the first batch of users of Model S, and now He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Motors, was a partner with Yu Yongfu at that time.

Of course, we can't forget Tesla itself, Elon Musk has won the preferential treatment for himself to build a wholly-owned factory in Shanghai, and Tesla Model 3 and Model Y have become "sharks" that have "stirred" the entire Chinese new energy vehicle industry after being produced in China.

No one could have imagined that the seemingly simple and even humble Tesla Model S delivery ceremony in 2014 would plant a seed for the vigorous development of China's new energy vehicle market ten years later.

This node in 2014 is the first year of China's new forces.

On April 16, 2014, Huang Xiuyuan opened a column on Zhihu, and the first column was called "Ranger Electric Vehicle Opens a Column!". This article gives a rough introduction to Ranger Motors' idea and the direction of talent acquisition - this company should be the first new car company to bear the "Tesla cult" label.

Earlier, Wang Xiaolin, who later left a "strong stroke" in the new energy bubble scam, created a car company called Weimon Jitai, and in 2014, launched a product called Maimai, which is considered an "earlier Hongguang MINIEV", with a price of 120,000 yuan at that time.

NIO was officially established in November 2014, and Li Bin attracted investment from Liu Qiangdong, Li Xiang, and Tencent, and released Formula E and EP9 supercars in the following two years.

The initial team of Xiaopeng Motors, which was not called Xiaopeng Motors at that time, was also formed in 2014, and He Xiaopeng only participated as an investor, when he was still working in Alibaba.

Li Xiang's idea of leaving Autohome to start a serial business was also between 2014 and 2015, when he already knew Li Bin's plan to start a business and build a car.

On the last day of 2014, Shen Hui left Geely Group. He was instrumental in Geely's acquisition of Volvo and was previously Senior Vice President and Chairman of Volvo Cars China. After leaving Geely, Shen Hui first went to Shanghai PATEO to prepare his own car building plan, and later founded WM Motor in 2015.

In December 2014, a company called Singularity Auto was founded, and its founder was Shen Haiyin, who used to be the vice president of Qihoo 360.

Another company was founded in 2014, Faraday Future, based in Silicon Valley and Southern California, founded by Jia Yueting, and in July of the same year, Jia Yueting also registered LeEco cars in China, but it was still very low-key at that time.

……

Of course, 2014 is just the first year of the symbolic new forces, from 2015 to 2017, there are still an endless stream of new power car companies, including Byton, Aiways, Qiantu Automobile, Sailin Automobile, Human Horizons, Jinkang Automobile and so on.

But ten years later, many of the above new power car companies have become a thing of the past, and even become a laughing stock.

For example, Ranger Auto was first debunked by the Zhihu respondents: they only relied on a set of PPT and modified Model S to circle 8.7 billion investment;

Shen Haiyin of Singularity Auto may not have thought that although he planned a lot of cars, none of them were built, but the miraculous thing is that Singularity's official website can still be logged in now. What Shen Haiyin may not have expected is that his former boss, who has almost nothing to do with car manufacturing and automobiles, became the top figure in the car circle at the Beijing Auto Show ten years later with only a red coat.

Byton, Aiways, Future, Skyrim ...... These names are less and less remembered.

Don't mention the past, life has been stormy.

And most of the new forces that really survived have survived nine deaths, and they have survived until now, and what is inseparable from summarizing the reasons is luck.

In 2019, Weilai and Xiaopeng were close to total annihilation, and in 2020, the global release of water created another round of bubbles in new energy vehicle manufacturing; Li Auto was forced to give up before it was put into production for the first time to build an SEV, but Li Xiang's personal insistence on extending the range unexpectedly ran out; Xiaokang-Jinkang-Cialis, after experiencing three changes of its name, backed by Huawei, actually achieved a change of life against the sky and the peak of market value.

Therefore, standing at the 2024 Beijing Auto Show and looking back at China's new energy vehicle market ten years ago, it is understandable that traditional car companies did not look down on these new forces at that time. From the perspective of industry insiders, seeing a lot of hot money handed over to the "Internet car" with no experience in making cars is tantamount to throwing money into the water, and the country has quickly adjusted its thinking in industrial policy to avoid overcapacity of new energy.

Ten years later, everyone has seen that the views of traditional car companies are not wrong, and "Internet car-making" is like a joke, and it is more of a bubble to bloom.

And the "new forces" that really stay at the 2024 Beijing Auto Show have actually become "old forces", Ideal, Weilai, and Xiaopeng no longer have the vigor of the year, but care more about the maintenance of sales, and no one is passionate about changing the world in their preaching.

However, what no one could have imagined was that Huawei and Xiaomi would become the protagonists of the Beijing Auto Show, and Lei Jun and Zhou Hongyi would become the world's most popular traffic at the Beijing Auto Show.

02 2014 of traditional car companies

In 2014, when new forces emerged one after another, the attitude of traditional car companies towards new energy was not a cold eye, although it was still the era of fuel vehicles, but there were not a few new energy vehicles that appeared at the Beijing Auto Show.

At the 2014 Beijing Auto Show, there was a new energy vehicle that had a far-reaching definition of later new energy products, that is, BYD's first Tang. Although the original Tang is still a bit difficult to describe in terms of design, it has been replaced with the second-generation DM plug-in hybrid system, and the pure electric range can reach 85km (NEDC standard), which is also the first model of BYD's 542 strategy.

In this, "5 represents the 0-100km/h acceleration of all models in 5 seconds, 4 represents full four-wheel drive, and 2 represents fuel consumption within 2L per 100 kilometers".

These three figures also define the selling points of all high-end plug-in hybrid SUVs in ten years - dual-motor four-wheel drive, low electric fuel consumption, and long pure electric range.

At the same time, the theme of SAIC's exhibition was "New Energy, New Technology, New Products", and three new energy vehicles were exhibited - Roewe 550 plug-in hybrid car, Roewe E50 pure electric car and Roewe 950 fuel cell car. Not to mention the Roewe 950 fuel cell vehicle that "shows off its muscles", the Roewe 550 plug-in hybrid and Roewe E50 are largely the basic products of the new energy vehicle market in ten years - corresponding to the Qin PLUS and Hongguang MINIEV.

Geely Automobile at the 2014 Beijing Auto Show, released the Emgrand Cross PHEV concept car, at that time Geely used the GL-ESD energy shunt system - that is, Toyota power shunt - to create a plug-in hybrid system, with a 65kW + 40kW dual motor system, and a 10kWh power battery, which can drive 50 kilometers in pure electric mode, with a maximum range of 650 kilometers and an acceleration of 100 kilometers in 10 seconds.

In addition to their own brands, joint venture automakers actually began to experiment with new energy vehicles in 2014.

For example, Volkswagen brought the "god car" XL1 to the Beijing Auto Show in 2014. This XL1 adopts advanced diesel-electric hybrid technology, with a fuel consumption of only 0.9 liters per 100 kilometers, making it one of the most efficient cars in the world, and is Volkswagen's ultimate exploration of wind resistance and hybridization. And that year, Bentley also brought a Mulsanne hybrid concept car, which is also the earliest attempt to take the hybrid route among ultra-luxury brands.

In 2014, Dongfeng Nissan, which was in the limelight, launched a "Chenfeng e30" on its joint venture brand Venucia, which was actually the "Chinese version" of the Nissan Leaf, the world's best-selling pure electric vehicle at that time. It's just that Dongfeng Nissan, in order to get domestic subsidies, negotiated with Nissan to make the Chenfeng E30 domestically produced, and put the battery assembly on Dongfeng Nissan.

At that time, the car only had a 24-kilowatt-hour battery and a range of 175 kilometers, and it was only tested in Huadu, Guangzhou, Dalian, where Dongfeng Nissan's production bases were located.

Daimler has been paying attention to the new energy vehicle market for a long time, and as early as 2010, Daimler cooperated with BYD to create a new brand - Denza. It was in 2014 that DENZA launched its first production car, equipped with an 86kW, 47.5-degree lithium iron phosphate battery with a range of 300 km.

At that time, Dr. Cai Che, CEO of Mercedes-Benz, told the media: "We are very optimistic about the prospects of China's electric vehicle market. Therefore, it makes sense to tailor an electric vehicle for the Chinese market through the cooperation with BYD. Although it is not yet possible to predict the specific sales volume of the DENZA product, I believe that the high performance of the product will improve the level of the entire electric vehicle industry due to its range and high safety, and I am very optimistic about it. ”

Compared with Mercedes-Benz's choice of BYD as a partner in China, BMW at the same time was more aggressive in its electrification strategy.

As early as 2011, BMW launched a separate i brand to focus on electrified models. In 2013, BMW officially launched its first plug-in hybrid two-door supercar, the i8, and later that year, the BMW i3 for urban mobility was released, and both cars were launched in the Chinese market in the second half of 2014.

The price of the BMW i8 launched in July 2014 was 1.98 million yuan, while the price of the BMW i3 launched in September reached 449,800 yuan to 516,800 yuan. These two cars can be regarded as products launched by traditional luxury brands in the true sense of the word, built on a new generation of pure electric platforms, especially the BMW i3 brought several new insights to the Chinese market at that time:

Pure electric platform development, range extension technology, carbon fiber technology, environmentally friendly interior materials, simple design style, etc.

Compared with the Tesla Model S, which was introduced in the same year, BMW invested a huge amount of money in marketing to input the driving performance advantages of electrified products and the experience advantages of pure electric travel to Chinese consumers. However, because the two BMW cars were imported models, they could not enjoy the high domestic new energy national and local subsidies at that time, and due to the imperfection of charging facilities, the sales volume was not satisfactory.

In fact, at the 2014 Beijing Auto Show, Alan Murali, then Ford's global CEO, said: "We are working closely with the Chinese government to see what kind of support the government can give in the infrastructure construction of new energy vehicles, so we are analyzing and solving these problems and can formulate our new energy plan." Because we believe that when there is a market, we can bring these cars and make new energy successful - I would like to add that even with government subsidies, the sales of electric vehicles are still very small. So in other words, the choice of new energy should be unified to reduce the price, when it comes to new energy vehicles, there must be infrastructure construction to charge. Therefore, it should be the cooperation of enterprises and governments to do this. ”

Alan Murali's remarks almost represent the clear attitude of the majority of foreign investors towards China's new energy vehicle market. Luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi may try to launch new energy vehicles in the Chinese market, but for foreign joint venture car companies, at that time, they did not see the opportunity for large-scale adoption in the short term, which is really not worth investing in for global car companies that prioritize profits.

03 Why "One Thought Misses Five Years"

If we only look at this node in 2014, the traditional joint venture car companies and most luxury companies have made the most correct judgment, that is, not to participate in the noisy and impetuous and illusory new energy market, if necessary, also need to wait until China has enough infrastructure, China has a clear new energy track before the next step of investment.

Going back to 10 years ago, just looking at the development of the next five years, this choice seems to be the right one.

For example, BMW, as the first company to fully invest in electrification products, BMW i8 and BMW i3 projects have almost exhausted all of BMW's enthusiasm for new energy, and around 2020, BMW discontinued the production of the i8 model, and then continued to produce the i3 for two years, and then all of them were terminated.

BMW only kept the "i" brand, and then added fuel cars to batteries, and created new BMW electric vehicles on models such as the 3 Series, 4 Series, and X3, which had a much better return on profits.

Mercedes-Benz is in a similar situation. From 2015 to 2019, Daimler and BYD sold only 13,800 vehicles, with a cumulative loss of more than 3.5 billion yuan in five years.

In fact, joint venture car companies have also tried to introduce some new energy models, especially in 2017, several leading American and European car companies have introduced corresponding plug-in hybrid products.

For example, Buick introduced the Velite 5, Changan Ford introduced the C-MAX, BMW had the X1 plug-in hybrid, Volvo also brought the S90 T8, Jaguar launched the I-PACE, etc., but without exception, the loss was a mess.

On the contrary, traditional car companies that have not launched any new energy have made a lot of money in those years, such as Toyota chose to take the hybrid route, while Geely, Great Wall, and Changan are all talking about new energy transformation, but most of those concept cars have not been mass-produced and listed. In those years, BYD, which was really going all out in new energy, was also facing a real "darkest moment".

However, the "correct judgment" of traditional car companies on the new energy market in the next few years has also become their ultimate "burden".

With the purchase tax reduction between 2015 and 2017, China's auto market has ushered in a new wave of growth, with joint ventures and luxury brands with gasoline-powered vehicles as the absolute main force increasing their market share and profit margins. Therefore, for car companies with return requirements for foreign shareholders such as joint venture brands and luxury brands, there is no need to invest in new energy products, and they do not think that the new energy vehicle infrastructure can be quickly rolled out after 2017.

The more you invest, the worse the performance will be for the management at the time.

Therefore, in fact, in the past few years, the planning of joint venture car companies and luxury brands for new energy products has fallen into a typical "operation orientation".

For example, after the failure to introduce new energy products in 2017, these joint venture car companies need to plan products in 2018 for four years. If there is no new energy license policy, purchase tax exemption after 2023, and the rise in battery costs, PHEV models planned four or five years later are obviously not as cost-effective as HEV models.

Clearly, they made a mistake – misjudged China's support for the new energy industry.

With the domestic new energy vehicle purchase tax reduction policy clearly extended, it will be extended from December 31, 2023 to December 31, 2027, for four years. This means that the joint venture car companies and luxury brands have almost all been wrong in the previous round of market planning in the Chinese market, which is why from 2021 to this year's Beijing Auto Show, these foreign brands have almost no new energy products with new platforms, which also explains why they have invariably put the new energy product rollout cycle around 2026.

Going backwards in time, these joint ventures and luxury brands basically began to realize these problems around 2022 and began to readjust around 2023. Therefore, when the product is exported, it is basically around 2026, and the joint venture car companies have chosen to use the technology of Chinese joint venture partners to carry out the transition at this stage.

Now that I think about it, compared with the joint venture car companies and luxury brands at that time, BYD and the new forces have only one real advantage in new energy - dare to invest all their net worth and bet on an unclear trend.

04 Who will be the protagonist of the next Beijing Auto Show?

If we look back at the competition in the new energy track in the past decade, the former winners have become "lonely", but the new forces have not completely stabilized. Every player in 2024 is being "rolled", and no one dares to say that they are stable.

For each car company, the new energy route has been very clear, and the difference is only the sooner or later the launch time. Looking at it now, joint venture car companies and luxury brands may not be so "unbearable", and there are benefits to late launches, after all, most of the projects that are rushing to work cannot really hit the node.

There is an obvious situation at this Beijing Auto Show, when some joint venture car companies rush to launch new energy models, only to find that Chinese brands have launched a new generation of products. Even Chinese brands such as Chery and Great Wall have high efficiency, and their new energy products in the past two years have had to iterate two or three wheels of powertrain, such as the Wei brand Blue Mountain Intelligent Driving Edition unveiled at this auto show, not only with the addition of lidar, but also from DHT to Hi4, this iteration speed is not friendly to purchased users.

This also makes many late-developing joint venture car companies choose their new energy vehicle product nodes after 2025, which is equivalent to at least ensuring that the products that will be put into research and development this year will be able to keep up with market demand after they are released 24 months later. It can't be like some first-mover companies, the 400V products planned in the early years will not be on the market until the second half of this year, and Chinese brands have begun to talk about 800V, SiC, and overcharging above 4C.

This kind of "listing that is, backward" is the most embarrassing for joint venture car companies, it is better to put the node farther away, wait for the stability of the technical route and then go all out to promote new cars.

There is also a situation where the new forces that once represented the level of advanced technology have also begun to lose track of the pace in this round of iterations.

For example, last year, the city NOA was still talking about vigorously, but this year, there are few follow-ups, and consumers don't feel so concerned, and billions of R&D and promotion expenses have been invested, so they are in a dilemma. For example, this year, I talked about the large model on the car and started to talk about AI, but I suddenly found that the 8155 chip I installed in the car could not support it, and the OTA iteration advertised before could not be improved.

What's more, the first few Internet car manufacturers have invested a lot of energy in intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving, but in 2024, due to the participation of companies like Huawei and Baidu, the experience will be quickly leveled. This year, joint venture car companies began to cooperate with ICT companies such as Huawei Car BU and Baidu, and after Honda, Nissan, Dongfeng, and GAC added Huawei, consumers suddenly found that the products of these traditional car companies are not lagging behind.

Therefore, if you look at the Beijing Auto Show two years later, or four years later, there may no longer be the title of "new force", and those who can stay at the table are old powerhouses.

All car companies will no longer struggle with whether to sell fuel vehicles, plug-in hybrids or pure electric vehicles, because all car companies have understood that the trend of new energy has become clear, and the difference is only that there is not one more engine to help the motor. The same is true for consumers, and the next Beijing Auto Show will no longer focus on the form of drive, but on something else.

As for what those things are, there may not be a way to answer here, most likely "AI".

At this year's Beijing Auto Show, we have heard too many words of "AI", "large model" and "artificial intelligence", although it feels like these words have not jumped out of the category of marketing terms, but in fact, when the Beijing Auto Show talked about the term "new energy" ten or eight years ago, it was a similar scene.

If the trend could be seen at a glance, so many people would not be out of the picture.

And in this game of looking at flowers in the fog and looking at the moon in the water, we will see the germ of those truths, not vigorous, and even always so inconspicuous. But one day, it will grow into a towering tree.

"New energy" has been the case in the past decade, and whatever the next truth is, it will grow from humble to towering in the next decade.

May you and I, who have met in front of the mountain, still meet again behind the mountain.

（END）

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