How far is NIO’s “future”?

Welcome to the WeChat subscription number of “Sina Technology”: techsina

Text / Elle

Source: Tidal Business Review (ID: daily-case)

NIO’s new products are long overdue, with a budget of more than 400,000 in hand, Xiaomin, who is determined to buy a new energy vehicle, is not happy. Although he has been fond of Weilai for a long time, but recently Weilai has been caught in a vortex of quality, and the sales ranking has doubled down, so Xiaomi began to shy away from Weilai, which is recognized as a “high-end new energy vehicle”.

What’s more, looking at today’s new energy vehicle consumption market, there are not a few new energy vehicles with about 400,000 options. Tesla Model Y, Hongqi E-HS9, Gaohe HiPhi X, etc. are also very popular in the market, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. This makes Xiaomin, who has difficulty in choosing, even more wandering left and right, undecided.

As we all know, before the “Wei Xiaoli” and other new car-making forces “turned out”, my country’s independent new energy vehicles had almost no say, the market was almost monopolized by traditional car companies, and the products were lackluster. Time did not speak but answered all questions. With the rapid rise of “NIO”, my country’s independent new energy vehicle industry has ushered in changes, which not only affected products and technologies, but also profoundly changed consumers’ driving experience of new energy vehicles. .

If everything develops on the established track, Weilai, as the “pioneer” of independent new energy vehicles, should be infinitely close to the highlight moment. In the first half of this year, the repeated outbreak of COVID-19 has caused significant ups and downs in the auto market, which has brought a lot of impact on new energy vehicles, which have always been outstanding. Many players have entered the market one after another, which has also brought more intense competition to the market. Like a mysterious force, the future of “NIO” is full of many uncertainties.

Strength determines ambition?

NIO is one of the most “proud” new energy vehicle brands in China. In 2018, as my country’s first tram Xinli to go public in the United States, its corporate DNA determines its high-end products and marketing routes, and for the first time pushed the price of its own new energy vehicles to a high of more than 400,000 yuan. La and BBA are head-to-head, which consumers never thought of before the birth of NIO in 2014.

However, behind the rush, the undercurrent is still surging.

At a time when charging efficiency and mileage anxiety have been criticized, NIO’s first battery rental model in the industry in 2018 has also become one of the reasons why countless middle-class and elite players are willing to pay the bill. After all, as a consumable power battery, there is always depreciation and a limited life cycle. Compared with the high efficiency of replacing a battery in just 5 minutes, who wants to waste time charging.

It is undeniable that NIO’s battery swap mode has largely eased the anxiety of some car owners about charging efficiency. From a certain perspective, this is even a “creative initiative” of NIO with considerable commercial wisdom.

It’s just that when we look back to the present, can Weilai’s “far water” really quench “near thirst”?

According to the latest data released by Weilai: As of July 6, 2022, Weilai has completed the construction of 1,011 battery swap stations (including 256 expressway battery swap stations) and 1,681 charging stations (9,603 charging piles) nationwide. There are more than 520,000 third-party charging piles, providing users with more than 10 million battery replacement services and more than 820,000 one-click power-on services.

Behind the dazzling data is the expenditure of large-scale costs.

On June 9, Weilai Automobile announced the financial report data for the first quarter of 2022. The revenue of Weilai Automobile in the first quarter was 9.91 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.2%, of which car sales revenue was 9.24 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.8%; a The quarterly net loss was 1.78 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 295.5% compared to the 450 million yuan in the same period last year. Revenues have increased, but losses have increased instead of falling. Careful analysis of the financial report shows the clues. Take marketing and management expenses as an example: NIO spent 2.0148 billion yuan, and Li Auto was 1.20 billion yuan. From the intuitive data, NIO A car costs about twice as much as an ideal car.

However, why does Weilai burn more money than other new car-making forces?

In fact, NIO is the only company that insists on “replacement” of household new energy vehicles. It is also the investment in battery swap technology and power station that keeps NIO’s R&D investment at a high point in the industry.

According to industry sources, the cost of NIO building a power exchange station is around 2 million, and so far, NIO has built more than 1,000 power exchange stations. From this point of view, the cost of building the station alone is as high as 2 billion yuan.

From this point of view, it is not difficult to understand the “loss” of Weilai. How to balance customer experience and financial health is an inescapable “hurdle” for Weilai.

Suspected by outsiders

Look up at the starry sky, but also look down at the road.

On June 22, the incident of “the test car fell from the building and two test drivers died” caused an uproar across the Internet, although the announcement issued the next day stated, “This was an accident (not caused by the vehicle).” But the two lives The death of NIO still touched the sensitive nerves of the public, and Weilai’s official response immediately caused controversy. After all, no matter what the cause of the accident is, it is enough to scare consumers like Xiaomin. After all, the so-called accident, as long as it happens to me, is 100%.

What makes the public remember is that on August 12, 2021, well-known entrepreneur Lin Wenqin drove to NIO ES8 and passed away in a traffic accident after enabling the automatic driving function (NOP pilot status). One after another “war of words” came, and the focus of the controversy was whether Weilai’s introduction and promotion of NPP would confuse and mislead consumers.

Coincidentally, the spontaneous combustion of NIO vehicles is also frequent. Previously, a Weilai ES8 spontaneously ignited in an authorized service center in Xi’an; another ES8 spontaneously ignited in an underground garage in Anting New Town, Shanghai… Regarding the spontaneous combustion problem, Li Bin, chairman of Weilai Automobile, once said: battery spontaneous combustion is only a probabilistic event.

The ebb of the user’s trust in security issues is obviously not the biggest obstacle for Weilai. Even if it has overcome all the major problems of the new car-making forces, it will also “surprise” to face supply problems in the epidemic.

April was a month when the epidemic was seriously affected and the production capacity of a large number of car companies was low this year. Weilai was one of the car companies with the fastest decline in production. At that time, the most restrictive parts of Weilai were batteries, chips and other components. At the same time, the two major automobile cities of Changchun and Shanghai have pressed the pause button one after another. Many car companies and parts suppliers have stopped production, logistics and transportation have been blocked, and the upstream and downstream supply of the industrial chain has been interrupted on a large scale, and production and sales cannot be smoothly advanced. Li Bin also publicly stated at the time that some parts of Weilai had been cut off and only maintained by inventory.

Fortunately, everything turned around in June, sales have entered a new stage again, and production capacity is gradually recovering.

The heroes will finally compete

Since the beginning of this year, high-end independent new energy vehicles are no longer dominated by NIO. Consumers have more choices, and their eyes are a little tired.

In addition to Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal appeared in the humorous style of painting in June. On the front foot, the ideal L9 just came out with a price of 459,800 yuan, claiming to be “the best family flagship SUV within 5 million yuan”; on the back foot, Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng said on Weibo that the pure electric medium and large SUV Xiaopeng G9 will be in the market. Bookings opened in August, claiming “the best SUV under $500,000”. The fellow travelers who used to sympathize with each other finally chose to compete on the same stage. The two SUVs are close to the price base of Weilai, and everything is self-evident.

In the past, new forces were chasing and blocking, and then traditional car companies began to fight back. Recently, Geely has added another strongman. The new brand RADAR (radar) will fully attack the high-end new energy pickup market; Great Wall’s Wei brand has also increased its layout; BYD may release a new high-end tram brand “Starry Sky” in the third quarter of this year. “And Chery’s long-rumored high-end new energy brand may have given birth to five models.

In addition, it cannot be ignored that in the field of high-end new energy vehicles, traditional car companies are also eyeing them. BBA, Porsche, etc. have always been traditional high-end brands widely recognized by users. In the first half of this year, BMW’s pure electric vehicle sales achieved a year-on-year growth of 74.6%, while Mercedes-Benz and Audi are also full of sincerity. Firmly occupy the high-end ecological niche.

There is no way in the world, and there are more people who walk.

Although the competition has intensified unprecedentedly, Weilai is also trying new “playing methods”. It is reported that Weilai Automobile is preparing to explore the market, and it has been clear internally that it will launch a new brand to enter the mass market, in order to solve the current strategic passiveness of Weilai Automobile. Li Bin also publicly stated that Weilai has signed a second-phase agreement with Hefei for the Xinqiao plant to prepare for the annual production capacity of 500,000 vehicles for Weilai’s 200,000-level Volkswagen brand models.

It’s just that brand exploration is a double-edged sword. How to balance the relationship between the main and sub-brands and accurately set the anchor point in the consumer’s impression will be a challenge that needs to be faced in the future.

“Hey, to be honest, after looking around for a while, I decided to take another look. I want to wait for the battery technology to become more mature. However, I have to say that I have test-driven several mainstream new energy vehicle brands, and the intelligence is really good. “Xiao Min said with emotion.

The era of new energy vehicles may finally come, and does the future belong to “NIO”? Perhaps the answer is only known to consumers.

Business is just that.

(Disclaimer: This article only represents the author’s point of view and does not represent the position of Sina.com.)

This article is reproduced from: http://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-08-08/doc-imizmscv5304789.shtml
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.