Question Tesla, understand Tesla, surpass Tesla......
I believe this is what all new car-making forces have been trying to say.
Why didn't you "become Tesla"?
One is the market, and the other is the heritage.
China is the largest market for new energy vehicles, and the penetration rate of "gasoline-electricity reversal" exceeded 50% last month, but it is also the most competitive market.
Of course, the premise of all this is only the new forces of car manufacturing, and traditional car companies and BYD are not counted, because they are more powerful!
Despite the sharp drop in stock prices, declining sales, 10% layoffs, and postponement of new cars, Tesla is still a giant, with its flagship Model Y selling a total of 456,000 units in the domestic market last year, which is still far behind the new car-making forces, and the maximum ideal is less than 400,000 units.
It is worth mentioning that Tesla also took the lead to have today's situation, and the annual sales growth in China is declining day by day.
No, another model has emerged that challenges the throne of Tesla's Model Y.
01
Compared with Tesla Model Y, the price is close to Xiaomi SU7, and the long-brewing second brand of NIO - Ledao is finally unveiled!
Not long ago, NIO officially released its second brand "Ledao", and Ledao's first model, L60, was also officially unveiled.
The pre-sale price of the Ledao L60 starts at 219,900 yuan, which is 30,000 yuan cheaper than Tesla's Model Y, and will be launched and delivered in September this year.
According to reports, the highest endurance version of the Ledao L60 model will exceed 1,000 kilometers, and the energy consumption per 100 kilometers will only be 12.1 kWh.
On the surface, Tesla has become the object of Ledao's comprehensive anchoring, in terms of body size, energy consumption, appearance, configuration, and intelligence, L60 is all on par with Tesla Model Y.
Li Bin has previously said that as the second brand of Weilai, Ledao will focus on the 200,000 yuan market. And in this level of the market, Tesla occupies an unshakable position.
In fact, in the 200,000-level market, in addition to Tesla Model Y, Xpeng G6, Li L6, BYD Song L, Denza N7, Ford Electric Horse and other models will become its competitors.
However, from the perspective of the industry, the significance of Ledao's "debut" is not only to "intercept" Tesla, but also to shoulder the heavy responsibility of NIO's impact on scale.
Compared with the NIO brand, Ledao has a lower positioning, and it is the first work of NIO to deploy from high-end pure electric vehicles to the mainstream home market.
Li Bin, the founder of NIO, said that Ledao means "happy family and good family", and the brand is positioned in the family market, "Ledao wants to redefine the new standard of family cars".
It can be seen that after Weilai stands firm, Li Bin has high hopes for Ledao!
At present, under the dual pressure of losses and poor sales, NIO is in urgent need of a high-volume model, can Ledao reverse the current situation of NIO and help NIO get out of the quagmire?
02
Boost sales, dilute costs, and reverse losses...... Ledao may have to carry the burden of Taishan like NIO at the moment.
From January to April this year, NIO delivered 45,700 new vehicles, with a monthly average of 11,400.
Compared with other new power car companies, Weilai's sales performance this year is not outstanding, and the sales volume in the first four months is less than half of that of Wenjie and Ideal, and it is also lagging behind ZEEKR and Leap, and has fallen from the first echelon of new forces to the second echelon.
In terms of profits, NIO is the lowest of the four Hong Kong-listed new EV manufacturers.
In 2023, the four new car-making giants of Ideal, Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Leap, except for Ideal to achieve annual profit, the remaining three are in a state of loss, with Xiaopeng Motors losing 10.38 billion yuan and Weilai losing 20.72 billion yuan, which is nearly twice as much.
Since 2021, NIO's gross profit margin and vehicle gross profit margin have gradually declined, with gross profit margins of 18.9%, 10.4%, and 5.5% from 2021 to 2023, respectively.
If this continues, the future of NIO is hard to say!
But fortunately, Li Bin has also found a way, that is, brand scale, the most successful example is the "car king" BYD.
For the whole year of 2023, BYD sold 3.024 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 62%, ranking among the top 10 in global car sales for the first time.
In the past year, the price war in the car rim has lowered the gross profit margin of many car companies, but BYD's gross profit margin has increased against the trend.
Due to the continuous increase in sales scale, BYD's annual gross profit margin has reached 23.02%, while the company's indicator is 20.39% in 2022.
On the contrary, Tesla's gross profit margin on vehicle sales fell from 26.2% in 2022 to 17% in 2023. In terms of profitability, Tesla has been completely left behind by BYD.
In the case of more fierce competition in the auto market in 2024, NIO will launch a second brand, Ledao, which can be described as a "big move".
However, it should be noted that the competition in the market segment of 200,000 yuan is continuing to heat up, and it is also the most serious market for new energy vehicles.
Therefore, if the future of NIO is only based on Ledao alone, it will not be easy at all!
03
NIO is starting to amplify its moves, and Tesla is about to lose it!
Tesla has had a lot of rights and wrongs recently, first falling to the throne of "car king", then declining sales, plummeting stock prices, and then reporting less than expected layoffs by 10%...... Musk's head is big.
Last year, BYD, which sold more than 3 million vehicles a year, not only sold out, but also surpassed Tesla to become the world's largest new energy vehicle manufacturer.
Since 2024, Tesla's stock price has fallen by more than 43% at its lowest, almost halved!
According to the financial report, Tesla's revenue in the first quarter of 2024 will be $21.3 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 9%, and the revenue decline is the largest in 12 years; net profit was only US$1.1 billion, down 55% year-on-year;
This is Tesla's worst record in 12 years!
down 8.3% year-on-year, up to 20% quarter-on-quarter, the first quarterly sales decline in nearly four years; Sales fell below 400,000, a new low in the past five quarters;
In fact, Tesla's delivery data for the first quarter of 2024 has already illustrated a problem - Tesla can't sell!
But the joys and sorrows of car companies are not the same, and domestic new energy vehicles are ushering in a carnival!
After three years of car manufacturing and an investment of 100 billion, Xiaomi Auto has just rolled off the assembly line, and it has a phenomenal performance and has become "someone else's car company";
Huawei and Chery's "crystallization" Zhijie S7 has started large-scale delivery, and Xiangjie S9 may be officially released in the near future.
The "catfish effect" shook the entire automobile circle, and Wenjie, Weilai, and Xiaopeng also made big moves...... Domestic new energy vehicles have set off a new round of climax!
In 2023, China's automobile exports totaled 4.91 million units, surpassing Japan and becoming the world's first.
China has become the world's largest automobile producer, largest automobile consumer and largest automobile exporter!
04
What we can see is that China's new energy vehicle companies are rapidly expanding their market scale and seizing the minds of users, and the Chinese market has undoubtedly become the main battlefield of global new energy vehicles.
In 2023, the annual sales of new energy vehicles in the world will be 14.653 million units, a year-on-year increase of 35.4%;
Among them, China's sales alone are as high as 9.495 million units, accounting for 64.8% of global sales, and it has been the world's top for 9 consecutive years, while the annual sales of new energy vehicles in Europe and the United States are less than half of China's!
This is also the fundamental reason why Tesla pays so much attention to the Chinese market.
According to the latest data released by the Passenger Car Association, in the first half of April this year, the retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles was as high as 50.39%.
However, the overheating of the market is not necessarily a good thing for car companies, new energy vehicles are a thorny road, and the industry has now entered a tragic knockout stage, which can be described as a mixed blessing.
Judging from the completion rate of the sales target in 2023, BYD, Li and VOYAH have all achieved their targets well. Among other new car-making forces, the highest completion rate of ZEEKR is 85%, and the lowest is only 50%.
It is worth mentioning that if the automobile industry wants to continue to grow bigger and stronger, it will inevitably face industrial upgrading, and improving industry concentration is the only way, and the head enterprises will inevitably increase their market share through price reductions and eliminate small and medium-sized enterprises through scale effects.
The word "big reshuffle" has become a high-frequency word in the automotive industry since the new forces of car-making rushed into the track, and the automobile market began to divide into new energy plates!
After the "volume" in 2023, in 2024, when the "sea of blood" competition among new energy vehicle companies is more intense, with the launch of the second brand of Xiaopeng and Weilai, as well as the price reduction of models such as BYD, all new energy vehicle companies will face the test of "life and death".
In this "blood competition", car companies no longer stick to the bottom line of price, and no matter how difficult it is, they have to "roll" their opponents first.
At present, the competition of electric vehicles has entered the second half of the intelligent competition, and it is very important for major car companies to master the core technology and large-scale application in the field of intelligence, and it is also the key to winning the competition.
It is foreseeable that the main tone of the new energy vehicle industry in 2024 will become clearer: more direct confrontation in price, more brutal competition in technology, and more obvious differentiation in market share.
A good brand is not only a "hot product", but has made generations of excellent products for decades, and the investment in this is massive.
It can be said unceremoniously that in order to become a new energy vehicle company that stays on the "table" in the future, it will need at least hundreds of billions of yuan in revenue, and the head car company will even reach trillions of yuan!
However, for all car companies, the priority is to be psychologically prepared to deal with cruel competition, and how to pass the "profit pass" and "life and death pass" is a test of the comprehensive strength of all car companies.
From mushrooms after the rain to hundreds of schools of thought to the competition for hegemony, we will eventually see that domestic new energy vehicles stand on top of the world!
Don't forget to click "watching"
Resources:
"NIO Enlarges Moves! Ledao "debut", China Fund News
"Penetrate into the low-price segment! The first model of the second brand of NIO, Ledao, was unveiled, can it save NIO? China Securities Journal