The key word of the new energy vehicle industry in the near future: rebirth.
After three months, Human Horizons, the parent company of Gaohe, found an investor, and iAuto, an automobile investment consulting company in the United States, signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with Human Horizons, planning to invest more than 1 billion US dollars to help Gaohe Automobile restructure; Aiways is also on the upside, with U.S.-listed Hudson Buyout I merging with Aiways Europe to provide electric vehicles for the European market.
There are more than these two new energy car companies seeking rebirth, and in March this year, a number of car companies have sought resurrection through various means.
Zhidou Auto was restructured by Geely, Emma Technology and GSR Ventures; Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. officially became a wholly-owned shareholder of Southeast Motor. In February, Reading Motors Group Co., Ltd. was reorganized.
2021 is a period of growth for the new energy market, and the growth period in 2022 has not yet peaked, and it has already entered the knockout round. Until now, the knockout rounds are still going on, and from time to time there will be news that a certain car company has problems. With such fierce competition, new energy vehicle companies that have been eliminated for a round will have new opportunities even if there is a possibility of resurrection?
A number of new energy vehicle companies seek resurrection, who really has a chance?
In the face of a more volatile new energy vehicle market, car companies such as Gaohe and Aiways have come back, will there be a chance?
Specifically, iAuto will fully support the resumption of business operations and vehicle production plans, which means that at least the orders that have not been delivered by Gaohe before, users do not have to worry.
Aiways is not ready to develop in the Chinese market at all, and its next plan is to enter the European market. Aiways has said that the European market is not as volatile as the Chinese market, and there is also a demand for electric vehicles.
Zhidou and Reading take the mini car route, the market is niche, but indispensable, the opportunity is that the market competition is not so fierce, but relatively, the opportunity for market expansion is small.
Aiways, Zhidou and Reading have one thing in common, that is, from different perspectives, the market competition in the three companies is relatively less fierce, and the support of capital and the experience accumulated in the early stage have the opportunity to regroup in their respective markets.
Gaohe is different, before taking the high-end route, under the proof of the market, this set of play in new energy vehicles, at least so far has not worked. Different from pure technology flow car companies, Gaohe's previous main luxury is similar to luxury customization, and creates a sensory luxury experience through a series of functional configurations. Although in terms of hardware configuration, the materials used by Gaohe are not bad, but the homogenization of new energy products is a serious problem, which buries the characteristics of Gaohe products, coupled with the expensive selling price, and the audience is too small, resulting in Gaohe being unable to make a name.
If we return to the market, if we don't change the way we play, the $1 billion injected by iAuto will not last long at the current development speed of the new energy industry. Compared with other new forces, NIO will invest 13.43 billion yuan in R&D in 2023, Xpeng will invest 5.28 billion yuan in R&D, and Ideal R&D will invest 10.59 billion yuan. In this comparison, if Gaohe wants to catch up with the head new energy car companies, it is far from enough to rely on only 1 billion US dollars.
If Gaohe changes its play, returns to reality, and develops affordable products, it depends on its ability to save costs in the supply chain and manufacturing. But judging from Gaohe's previous ability, it is obviously very difficult.
Therefore, for Gaohe, 1 billion yuan of capital injection, if everything goes well, Gaohe can still follow the previous road, previously in the difficult mode of the market, Gaohe failed to survive, now the market has been upgraded to hell mode, Gaohe only continued a life, the prospect is not clear.
In contrast, Aiways, Zhidou, and Reading have a greater chance.
Aiways goes to foreign markets, even if the product can't be sold well, but there is no big problem to ensure that the brand survives. There are also precedents in the new energy vehicle circle, and Qiantu Auto, which could not get along in the Chinese market, chose to enter the Southeast Asian market and found investors after the incidents such as salary arrears and high-level dishonesty were exposed.
After the restructuring of Zhidou, backed by large companies such as Geely and Emma, there is a lot of room for development in the future; Although Reading has been bankrupt before, it has the production qualification of new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles and three production bases, and the annual production capacity of new energy passenger vehicles in Weifang, Chengdu and Mianyang has reached 240,000 units, which has a certain hard power.
That is to say, to avoid a hard confrontation with the current most volatile market segment, it is an opportunity for the resurrection of the new energy brand that has "disappeared" before, on the other hand, it depends on how much potential the relevant market segments are involved.
Is the resurrection of the "disappeared" brand a spoiler, or is it insignificant?
There has never been a shortage of spoilers in the new energy vehicle market, do car companies such as Gaohe and Aiways have the ability to disrupt the situation?
Judging from the current state of the car market, it is difficult.
The reason is that, first of all, the new energy price war at this stage is gradually stabilizing, although there are still many products with exaggerated marketing and crazy stockpile configuration, but affected by profit and other issues, the overall market has gradually returned to a rational trend; Second, the price of products in the market segment of the new energy vehicle market tends to be stable, and after the price war tends to stabilize, the current material cost, technical cost and supply chain cost are more stable than before last year, and affected by product homogenization, the price of products of the same level is very different, and it has moved closer to the market environment of fuel vehicles at that time; Third, the new energy vehicle market has gradually formed a brand system, compared with the previous users pay more attention to the comparison between products, after the market development gradually matures, brand power has become an important dimension for users to consider when buying new energy vehicles.
Or take Gaohe as an example, under the current market demand, continue to focus on Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin and suppliers such gimmicks are greater than the actual use of the brand direction, in the product force to the extreme in the market, obviously not used.
Even new energy products that can be called high-end luxury, including NIO ES8, Wenjie M9, Ideal L9 and other products, are more focused on the material cost on the basis of performance configuration, and then upgrade the functional configuration. Therefore, the underlying logic that new energy vehicles can be sold at a high price has been solidified into a comprehensive product performance priority, including but not limited to power system, chassis, intelligent driving, etc., followed by luxury. This is completely different from the logic of the luxury fuel car that Gaohe stayed in.
But from another point of view, when HiPhi was delisted, its main sales of HiPhi Y were reduced to less than 200,000 promotions, if this is the logic, with the product strength of HiPhi before, although Zhijia has not been able to enter the first echelon, but the pure electric models equipped with basic assisted driving are sold within 200,000, there is still market demand, even if it will not be able to go because of the brand niche, but it will bring a lot of pressure to competing products.
Zhidou and Reading, brands that focus on the mini car market, have the ability to pull down the price of mini cars. At present, the price of pure electric mini vehicles with a CLTC range of more than 150km is generally more than 35,000 yuan, while most products in the mini car market have a range of more than 150km.
At present, the new regulations are that the threshold for the purchase tax of pure electric vehicles has been increased from the original pure electric mileage of more than 100km to 200km, which means that the vast majority of medium and low-end models of mini cars are subject to purchase tax, and the purchase tax of 30,000 yuan for new cars is about 2,500 yuan.
The question that arises is that whoever can save the cost of purchase tax will be able to get a piece of the market for the next mini car. This has led to a new product logic, and further launched products that will have a range of less than 150km, so as to save battery costs and reduce the cost of purchase tax subsidized by selling prices.
Zhidou Rainbow, which was launched on April 18, launched a 125km range model, and the lowest price after a time-limited subsidy was 27,900 yuan, which is lower than the Geely Panda and Wuling Hongguang MINIEV with a range of 120km. In addition, another galloping pony that will be launched in the near future has a low range of 122km, and the price is lower than that of Geely and Wuling.
In other words, Zhidou's return to the market will further reduce the price of micro pure electric vehicles, and in the case of the need to pay purchase tax, the general price of micro electric vehicles is between 25,000 yuan and 30,000 yuan, not exceeding 30,000 yuan, which is a more reasonable starting price this year.
Epilogue:
Not all "disappeared" new energy vehicle companies are unable to return to the market, in addition to the most volatile 150,000 to 300,000 new energy market is not easy to compete, there are opportunities in other market segments. In addition, new energy tends to mature from technology application to cost to market pricing, which gives a better market reference standard for new energy vehicle companies that have not had a good time before, that is to say, although the current market is volume, at least the reference target is more and richer than before, and it can also help car companies avoid many detours.
Of course, if you want to return to the new energy vehicle market, several things are unchanged from before, continuous hematopoietic ability, technology research and development ability, and market sensitivity are indispensable.