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Text/Wang Lin
Source/Tech Planet (ID: tech618)
No one thought that in 2022, China’s new energy vehicle market will develop so rapidly.
In the first three quarters of 2022, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 4.717 million and 4.567 million respectively, an increase of 1.2 times and 1.1 times year-on-year. Both production and sales have greatly exceeded the level of last year, with a market share of 23.5%, 3 years ahead of schedule. Completed industry forecasts.
This is a key node, because from the past experience of smartphones and mobile payments, when the penetration rate of a category reaches 20%, it means that it will enter the fast lane of occupying the market, and its market turning point will come.
After “Wei Xiaoli” (NIO, Xiaopeng, Ideal Auto), these car 1.0 companies have verified the feasibility, the car 2.0 companies are stepping up their pace. The market response of the Qjie series launched by Huawei and Celis has been very good. Avita, which is supported by CATL, has also completed 5,000 reservations within ten days. and 10,000 vehicles, GAC Aian sold more than 30,000 vehicles in October. They want to capture more market share as quickly as possible.
The current new car track is undoubtedly a game of racing against the time window. At the end of 2021, He Xiaopeng, founder and chairman of Xiaopeng Motors, said in CCTV’s “Dialogue” program that the next reshuffle moment for the new energy car industry may be between the end of 2023 and 2025. He Xiaopeng will call it a new car. Car 2.0s.
However, with the early arrival of the market inflection point, when the mass production and delivery of “Languang after the car is built”, the competition will be far more fierce than the original estimate, how much share will they still be able to eat?
Cross-border car manufacturing, some happy and some sad
Two years after the collective announcement that the car was built, the “waves after car building” have begun to submit papers one after another.
The fastest is Jidu. On October 27, 605 days after the official announcement of the car’s construction, Jidu CEO Xia Yiping introduced the limited edition of Jidu’s first car robot ROBO-1 to users online. The SUV is priced at 399,800 yuan.
Xia Yiping said that Jidu is best at making breakthroughs in software and intelligence, so all the intelligent capabilities of the ROBO-1 lunar exploration version are top-of-the-line, and are standard in all systems, and the entry-level version is standard laser radar.
It may be that the booking exceeded expectations. At the end of the conference, ROBO-1, which had only 1,000 reservation places, added another 1,000 places.
With the joint efforts of Geely and Baidu, Jidu launched its first car in two years, and will release its first mass-produced car at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November.
But market feedback doesn’t seem to be friendly. After the new car was released, heated discussions took place among the potential users of Jidu. Some booking users believe that the benefits of the set degree are not enough. A number of potential users said that other homes have five times the “expansion gold”, but the concentration is to draw the “expansion gold” like a lottery, and each person’s expansion multiple is different, the highest is 5 times. Some users feel that it is expensive. If it is 5 times the inflation gold, it is 25,000, and it is 374,800. The price is acceptable. In just 3 days, the group of 200 people lost 20 people.
However, before the new car is actually delivered, these can be improved. After all, pricing is a metaphysical concept. The price of Xiaopeng G9 has been reduced just two days after its launch. There is still time to adjust the concentration of the first-mover advantage.
In addition to the concentration, the most concerned “wave after car building” is Xiaomi. Unlike Huawei and Baidu, which have teamed up with Celis and Geely respectively to speed up the launch of new cars, Xiaomi Auto currently does not choose to cooperate with or OEM with mature car companies, but chooses to build its own factory. This means higher difficulty, longer time, and the need for stronger financial reserves.
“Mi Fans” expect Xiaomi to create the first new energy vehicle for young people. At present, Xiaomi has completed the engineering prototype, which means that the development of the whole vehicle has come to an end, and the next step is the trial installation of the simulated prototype and the test of the engineering vehicle.
Xiaomi Auto may officially obtain the car-making qualification around June to July 2023. At the same time, if things go well, Xiaomi’s first pure electric vehicle will be officially mass-produced in 2024.
Evergrande Automobile, which has been building cars since 2018, finally launched its first mass-produced model, Hengchi 5, in July this year, despite the worrying financial situation of its parent company, Evergrande Group. However, at the end of October, Evergrande, which was short of money, delivered the first batch of 100 Hengchi 5s in a slightly rudimentary open space.
The Avita 11, which is supported by Changan Automobile, CATL and Huawei, has welcomed its first owners and has exceeded 5,000 vehicles within 10 days. Ziyoujia Automobile, a new energy vehicle brand founded by Mavericks founder Li Yinan, announced that the luxury medium and large-scale urban exploration SUV Ziyoujia NV has been officially launched. deliver.
The trump card of the “waves after car building”
Even if “Wei Xiaoli” need to face new questions every year, it does not prevent them from building a strong mind in the minds of users – Weilai relies on user experience, Xiaopeng relies on intelligent routes, and the ideal is “milk” Dad” users’ first choice.
Not only that, but Nezha, which ran through this year, is now the first choice for users in third- and fourth-tier cities, and Wenjie is one step ahead of Xiaomi to make the concept of smart cockpit deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
What they rely on to attract users has become one of the keys to their impact on the existing pattern.
On the first day of Jidu’s establishment, Xia Yiping had a general judgment on the first car. He hopes that the car will have strong self-driving capabilities, voice capabilities and intelligent capabilities, “essentially a robot.” Xia Yiping’s expectation is that in 2023, a car robot with the best user experience, both quality and cost advantages, will be delivered on time and define the highest level of intelligence in China.
However, at present, early users of the latest limited edition of Jidu’s lunar exploration seem to be dissatisfied. An early pre-order user of the lunar exploration version said that he felt that the price of 399,800 was too high without the 800V supercharge and air suspension. The intelligence or intelligent driving that the concentration fancy is more like futures for some users. Some users chose to unsubscribe after the launch of the lunar exploration version, and most of the target prices in their minds were 350,000.
“The current price and configuration of the lunar probe version are the 8295 chip and the enabling of Apollo’s autonomous driving. Although it is the first model equipped with this chip, by the time of mass production next year, many cars may be equipped with the 8295 chip, and only automatic I drove,” said a lunar target user.
Obviously, it is difficult for users to pay for autonomous driving alone, and it is necessary to make up lessons in hardware and design.
Xiaomi’s killer, at first, was smart life.
At the initial press conference, Xiaomi Auto’s original intention was to “use high-quality smart electric vehicles to enable global users to enjoy a ubiquitous smart life.” It is one of the key scenes and core nodes of intelligent life.
At the press conference, Lei Jun spent a lot of energy introducing the imagination of Xiaomi smart home in the car cockpit. For this reason, he also built a RV equipped with Xiaomi smart home.
But at the press conference two months ago, Lei Jun repeatedly mentioned automatic driving instead of intelligent ecology.
Unlike previous reports that Xiaomi’s car-making progress is not as good as expected, Lei Jun said that the current research and development of Xiaomi’s cars is progressing very smoothly and exceeding expectations. Lei Jun believes that autonomous driving is the key point for smart cars to win. Stack self-developed algorithm.
An industry insider analyzed on Snowball that Huawei has already exploded the concept of Xiaomi’s smart cockpit, and it is difficult for Xiaomi to tell better cockpit stories outside of Huawei’s Hongmeng smart cockpit.
Obviously, autonomous driving is not familiar to Xiaomi. In China, Baidu is still the leader in autonomous driving. However, an industry insider said that it is difficult to judge how much room Xiaomi still has. Xiaomi is late in mass production, and it is difficult to say the price of batteries in the next few years, but loyal “Mi Fans”, they are the most potential buying users.
Other players in the “wave after car building” are also exploring differentiated paths.
The founder of Stone Technology, Chang Jing, is keen on off-road vehicles. The first car of Luoke Auto chose to take the extended-range route as the ideal, and was positioned as the benchmark Mercedes-Benz G series off-road vehicles. The battery life will exceed 1,000 kilometers, which is currently lacking in the market. The category is blank, and Nezha, who once invested in 360 but then withdrew, has now established a market in third- and fourth-tier cities.
It is worth noting that with more and more new energy vehicle players, consumers can choose more and more targets. Under the scenario of “shopping around”, any single bright spot may not be able to leverage consumers’ interest. Buying desire, consumers need a car that has other highlights while performing well in autonomous driving.
This is a test for “the wave after the car is built”, and even all new energy vehicles.
New car-making forces speed up, and the window period is shortened
In 2021, Tesla sold 936,000 vehicles throughout the year, and China contributed half, which is more than three times that of “Wei Xiaoli” combined; in terms of quantity, BYD is not enough to compete with Tesla ; And Nezha and Leaprun are still in exploration mode and have not yet entered the mainstream vision. At that time, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China had just reached 10%.
At that time, it was an excellent window period, which was exactly the same as when Lei Jun established Xiaomi Group to enter the smartphone market. The iPhone is a mobile phone, but it is not as unified as it is now, and most of the domestic smart phones are no-brand or copycat products, and there is no “machine king”.
Jidu, Xiaomi and other “waves after car-making” just entered the market at this time, because according to industry forecasts, the annual compound growth rate of new energy vehicles is 34.2%, and the penetration rate will reach about 20% by 2025.
20% is a critical point, or a tipping point. Because once the user penetration rate reaches 20%, it is very easy to do more with less. This means that after 2025, the market size of new energy vehicles will increase significantly.
According to this time node, the “waves after car building” have just 4 years to realize the process from team formation, engineering prototype to mass production and delivery, which is also in line with the production rules of automobiles. Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Ideal Automobile, It’s all over such a time period.
Let’s take a look at the planned mass production and delivery speed of the “waves after car building”. Jidu will be delivered in Q3 of 2023, the first car of Stone Technology will be rolled off the production line and mass-produced in the first half of 2024, and Xiaomi Auto plans to deliver the first car in 2024.
Although the “Wei Xiaoli” are likely to fail to break the annual delivery mark of 100,000 vehicles this year, BYD has made great strides and has delivered 1.18 million vehicles in the first three episodes, more than Wei Xiaoli, Nezha, and Leapmotor. , Lantu, Jihu and other enterprises combined even more. Next year, if the production capacity does not pull the hips, the new energy vehicles that have broken through the key node will greatly swallow the fuel vehicle market, and there is still more than a year before the “waves after car manufacturing” will deliver the cars.
An employee of a new car-making power company admitted to Tech Planet that everyone is more cautious in joining the “wave after car-making”, even Xiaomi, which has a large number of loyal users. The reason is that most of these companies have no experience in building cars, and the time to start is not early, and the market gives limited room for trial and error. For new energy vehicles, mass production is almost the biggest threshold in the early stage, and only after mass production can it be considered a company. Qualified car company. Few people are willing to go to trial and error.
It took 10 years for the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China to increase from 0 to 5%; it took only half a year to increase from 5% to 10%; and it took less than a year for the penetration rate to increase from 10% to 20%. It may be faster in the future, and the time window for the “waves after car building” is getting shorter and shorter.
But the charm of the business world is that the competition between enterprises is not based on theory. Even if the window period is getting shorter and shorter, there are always unexpected forces to break the inherent pattern. The first person to eat crabs may not be the ones who eat the most crabs.
This article is reproduced from: https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-11-02/doc-imqqsmrp4602720.shtml
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