Sales plummeted, layoffs, price increases and production stops. Since the beginning of the year, "Wei Xiaoli" has gradually withdrawn from the comfort circle and faced one practical problem after another. According to the latest retail data released by the passenger Federation, the retail sales volume of new energy vehicles in April was 282000, with a sharp decline month on month, especially the "Wei Xiaoli" in the first camp, with a large decline of more than 40%.
The decline of government subsidies, the rising price tide caused by the rising price of upstream raw materials and the impact of the epidemic on the resumption of work and production are all important reasons for the decline of sales. On April 9, Weilai announced that it would stop production.
In addition to the challenges of chip supply, endurance anxiety and high problem rate, recently, the news about ideal and Xiaopeng breaking the contract for fresh students has also been exposed.
Whether it is their own competitiveness, organizational structure, or the whole market environment, "Wei Xiaoli" and other new forces are facing a new "big test" in making cars.
Sales fell sharply
In April, the sales of new energy vehicles fell sharply.
According to the latest retail data released by the passenger Federation, the domestic retail sales of new energy vehicles from January to April was 1.352 million, and the retail sales of new energy vehicles in April was 282000, a year-on-year increase of 78.4%, but the chain fell sharply by 36.5%.
In April, the wholesale sales volume of new energy passenger vehicle manufacturers exceeded 10000, down from nearly 10 to 4. BYD once again won the sales title of new energy vehicles; However, affected by the epidemic situation in Changchun and Shanghai, the masses in the north and South have a difficult performance; New car making forces such as Zero run, Xiaopeng, Nezha, Weilai and ideal all performed poorly. In particular, the "weixiaoli" in the first camp decreased significantly month on month, exceeding 40%.
The decline in sales was mainly affected by the price rise of new energy vehicles and the epidemic. "Because the car is not just needed, after the epidemic, many people save their money and postpone the plan to buy a car." Qi Qing, a practitioner of new energy vehicles, told bullwhip.
The price rise of new energy vehicles since the end of last year is mainly due to the decline of subsidies, the soaring price of upstream key raw materials, the superposition of chip shortage and other factors.
The notice on the financial subsidy policy for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles in 2022 issued by the Ministry of finance, the Ministry of industry and information technology, the Ministry of science and technology and the national development and Reform Commission on December 31 last year clearly pointed out that in 2022, the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles will decline by 30% on the basis of 2021. In addition, the notice also points out that the subsidy policy will be terminated on December 31, 2022, and the vehicles licensed after December 31, 2022 will no longer be subsidized.
Because the price of most domestic new energy vehicles includes government subsidies, once the government subsidies are reduced, they will be directly reflected in the retail price of vehicles. However, on the whole, the subsidy is still declining slightly, and a large number of car enterprises choose to bear this part of the cost, so the price rise effect caused by the decline of subsidy is not obvious.
On the other hand, the rising cost of raw materials is also one of the reasons for the general price rise of new energy vehicles in this round.
In April, Tesla president musk tweeted to show the price changes of lithium carbonate, one of the main raw materials of power batteries, in the past decade, and said that the price of lithium has reached a "crazy level". If the price is still not alleviated, Tesla may enter the mining and smelting industry on a large scale.
According to the data of benchmark mineral information company, the price of lithium rose by more than 480% last year.
Some media have calculated this. Comparing the price of 50000 yuan per ton of lithium carbonate in 2021 with the current price of 450000 yuan per ton, the cost of a 60 degree battery pack alone will rise by about 14400 yuan, which is only the price rise of lithium carbonate as a raw material.
Ideal car CEO Li Xiang also wrote on social media that the increase in battery costs in the second quarter was very unreasonable, and joked that "buying a car can appreciate".
Affected by the above factors, in December 2021, Zero run automobile took the lead in announcing the price increase of some of its models by 8000 yuan. Tesla announced that it would increase the price of its model 3 rear drive version by 10000 yuan and the price of model y entry-level model by 20000 yuan. In 2022, with the implementation of the new subsidy standard, major car enterprises such as Nezha, Xiaopeng, GAC ai'an, BYD and Wuling raised the price one after another.
By the end of April, more than 20 auto companies had announced price increases.
Jiang Yao, the owner of Xiaopeng P7, lamented that "I didn't expect to appreciate even when I bought a car". The car was picked up by 260000 in July last year, and now it needs 330000 for the same configuration.
Affected by the epidemic, it is difficult for new energy vehicles to return to work and production.
"One part of a car can't be produced. This is not our case. Many manufacturers have suspended production." Li Bin said in the Weilai auto app that affected by the epidemic, Weilai had cut off the supply of parts in mid March. With the support of inventory, until last week, the recent epidemic in Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places led to more partners unable to supply and had to suspend production.
At present, new energy vehicle manufacturers mostly follow the JIT (just in time) production mode, that is, the zero inventory mode. Like its name, the purpose of JIT mode is to reduce inventory and reduce costs. In this mode, the necessary parts are sent to the production line in the necessary quantity and at the necessary time, and only the required parts are sent to the production line in the required quantity and at the right time.
In other words, manufacturers do not hoard goods. Once faced with irresistible factors such as the current epidemic, and the upstream parts cannot be supplied on time, auto enterprises will face the problem of shutdown.
McKinsey's analysis report points out that the output of complete vehicles in Shanghai and its surrounding areas accounts for about 15% - 20% of the country, and the scale of parts industry accounts for about 30% of the country. The impact of the epidemic on automobile enterprises is very obvious.
Increased investment
According to the ideal first quarter financial report, the ideal car achieved a revenue of 9.56 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of 167.5% and a month on month decrease of 10%. In terms of R & D expenses and sales management expenses, the expenditure of ideal automobile in the first quarter of this year was 1.37 billion yuan and 1.2 billion yuan respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 167% and 135.9%, and the investment continued to increase.
However, in April 2022, only 4167 ideal vehicles were delivered, with a year-on-year decrease of 22.77% and a month on month decrease of 62.23%. It was not only the bottom among the new forces, but also surpassed by the second tier brands.
The just released financial report of Xiaopeng in the first quarter also highlights the problem: increased investment and decreased sales.
Facing the increasing investment, companies began to solve the problem by means of layoffs. Therefore, following the layoffs on the Internet, the best employment direction "new energy" has also failed in a round of layoffs.
Some users broke the news that Xiaopeng had not enrolled in vocational school for about 22 years, and advised everyone to "run quickly if you can run". Under this topic, many netizens burst their experience of being laid off and said that "Xiaopeng is too stupid" and "this company really has no integrity". "Xiaopeng's car was exposed to be damaged by more than 20 fresh students" boarded the microblog and searched 2 hot spots.
Previously, the ideal of new forces for car making was also exposed to large-scale layoffs.
According to the 2021 financial report of ideal automobile, the R & D and sales management expenditure of ideal automobile last year were 3.296 billion yuan and 3.492 billion yuan respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 198.8% and 212.1% respectively. In this regard, ideal automobile explained that it was mainly due to the increase of employees, resulting in the increase of employees' salary.
Some insiders pointed out that if the optimization of staff costs can be realized, the ideal probability will turn losses into profits and become the first new force to make profits among the three "Wei Xiaoli". It is not difficult to understand Xiao Peng's ideal layoffs.
New car manufacturers have gradually made a smooth transition from the previous stage of brutal expansion. At present, reducing cost and increasing efficiency and realizing cost optimization have become an important topic for new energy vehicle enterprises.
In this case, looking at the whole new car making forces, they can be roughly divided into three categories: the first tier is mainly those new forces of leading stars, such as Weilai, ideal and Xiaopeng; The second echelon is Nezha, zero running car, etc; The third echelon is basically on the verge of being eliminated. Recently, lvchi, who is in the third echelon, was cancelled its business license for failing to deliver a car.
The second echelon, such as Nezha and great wall, seize the "her economy" and constantly add female elements to the models and names. The interior and exterior decorations of Nezha's "Nezha V witch version" are pink. In the name, BYD dolphin, Wuling Hongguang miniev makaron series, Chery QQ ice cream series and cute cats all try to further capture female consumers.
With the development of the market, the leading pattern of "Wei Xiaoli" has been broken and reorganized bit by bit, and Nezha has sprung up. In April sales, Nezha even surpassed Wei Laihe ideal.
New energy vehicles
New energy vehicles also face some problems while running fast.
The most important thing is endurance anxiety. A large number of consumers have been persuaded away by problems such as endurance anxiety and difficult charging.
Although most models have reached the level of endurance of more than 500km, it is still not enough to run long distances.
"The common problem is that the power loss of new energy vehicles will be more serious, which is the false standard of battery life," Qi Qing told Bian Niushi. "A pure electric new energy vehicle, under normal circumstances, does not run at high speed when turning on the cold air conditioner in spring, summer and autumn, and the battery life basically needs to be 20% off; if it is driven in winter, it may be 70% off, and it may be 5-6% off when running at high speed."
On the other hand, at present, the construction progress of large public charging stations and private slow charging piles in China is far lower than the growth rate of new energy vehicles, and the vehicle energy replenishment experience is far lower than that of traditional fuel vehicles. Jiang Yao told whips that "charging often requires queuing, and the charging process also takes some time".
These problems are transmitted to users and become life anxiety. "You always check the remaining power when driving," said Lin Limu, the owner of new energy.
Second, the problem rate of new energy vehicles is relatively high. "When I first bought a car, I often went to the 4S store." Jiang Yao told whip Niushi that at the beginning, there were often some small problems, such as the speaker couldn't rise, there was a strange noise in the car and so on. Moreover, Jiang Yao also said that the car owners in his group often complain about such problems.
"These are a few problems. At present, the most common problem of new energy vehicles is the car machine problem," Qi Qing said. "At present, Tesla car machine is the best, and Xiaopeng is the best in China."
In addition, Qi Qing also said that the value preservation rate of new energy vehicles is too poor compared with fuel vehicles. "At present, many models seem to be appreciating, but in fact they are raising prices."
The third is the chip supply of new energy vehicle enterprises.
New energy vehicles are big consumers of chips. It is understood that a fuel vehicle needs 300-500 chips, while a new energy vehicle needs more than 2000 chips. There is a large demand for chips, but against the background of global core shortage, a large number of new energy vehicle enterprises announced earlier to suspend production.
On the other hand, the power cells are purchased from third-party suppliers, and few car companies build their own battery factories, so it is difficult to ensure the supply, which is easy to be blocked by upstream cell suppliers.
However, in response to the above problems, car enterprises are also actively responding. For example, Weilai attempts to solve the problems of battery life and slow charging by means of "power exchange", but the construction and operation of the "power exchange" system cost a lot of money. In terms of chips, BYD opened up the industrial chain and realized the self supply of IGBT chips. At the same time, BYD also entered the supply system of many manufacturers to strive to achieve self production and supply guarantee, which is also an important reason for BYD's growth despite the decline of sales in April.
At present, BYD has stopped production of fuel vehicles and made heavy bets on the future of new energy vehicles. On the other hand, the current international oil price is still at a high level. In terms of cost, new energy vehicles will also become the choice of more people.