Text|On the outside, Zhang Ranran, black and silver.Chinese cars have broken the defense of foreigners again.Edit|Fu Xiaoling, Cao Binling.
Buying a Chinese car is a betrayal", Austria's intention to purchase China's new energy vehicles as official cars caused an uproar, foreign media claimed: "German car manufacturers and their Austrian businessmen will face difficult years." ”
Not only Europe, according to a number of domestic and foreign institutions**, China will officially surpass Japan by the end of 2023 and become the world's largest car exporter.
From backward beating to reverse output, this time, it is finally China's turn to teach the world to build cars. But in addition to pride, it cannot be ignored that the car companies that go to sea to make money are actually in the dark tide.
It can be seen that domestic electric vehicles are a wave set off by new forces, and overseas, the main pillars are traditional car companies such as SAIC, BYD, and Geely.
In terms of strategy, in order to cater to the aesthetic preference of the Chinese people's "cheap big bowl", domestic cars have to be more or less home-based, and SUVs are running everywhere, but after crossing the ocean, the big car route suddenly does not work.
The difference between the two automobile markets at home and abroad is already obvious. In today's world of telling the story of cars going to sea, it is self-evident that it is important for car companies to find out the rules and choose a suitable posture for going to sea.
Especially in the case of the domestic market, the first battle was fought from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, and the last month was even more likely to fall below the bottom line of the competition. Although this has won the recognition of car owners, the hearts of car companies are dripping with blood.
In the process of reviewing the new energy vehicles going overseas, we have summarized some common laws that can be referred to.
First, the European people don't buy it, and the emerging market "country" is wide open, and BYD's financial report this year may not be easy to write about the description of going overseas.
In terms of investment, the European market undoubtedly spends the most energy. According to a recent survey, the new energy business in Europe has covered 19 countries and regions, with a total of more than 170 stores.
However, in the first ten months of this year, the sales volume in the European market was only about 10,000 units, accounting for only 16%, and the majority of the sales increase was in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions.
In fact, this is not the experience of BYD's family, but the common problem faced by car companies going overseas.
The first stop for everyone to go to sea is to go to the mature European market, and the determination is not insufficient. For example, when NIO entered Germany, it vowed to strive to become one of the world's top five automakers by 2030.
But the European people, who are "pampered", do not buy it at all. Data shows that the sales of NIO and Xpeng in Europe from January to October this year combined were less than 3,000 units.
Behind this is the European people, who are in the hot land of the automobile industry, who despise all foreign cars equally. They have not paid attention to the American cars and Japanese cars that dominated before, and now they are just as arrogant to the newly rising Chinese brands.
As shown in the figure below, SAIC and Geely, which had good sales in Europe during the same period, were both stained with the light of acquisition - SAIC's MG was once a British brand;Geely's Volvo, the acquired Swedish brand.
In addition, according to statistics, the average age of new car consumers in Europe is 53 years old, which is 20 years older than that of Chinese new car consumers (average age 33). These "daddy" level European mainstream users, consumer cars are more concerned about safety and handling.
In their opinion, car companies are hindered by the experience of color TVs, refrigerators, massage chairs and other standard configurations in China. For example, a McKinsey survey mentions, "When the car machine system is shown to European consumers, they report that it is so messy, and they don't know how to press ** at all, and only need three buttons at most." ”
Consumers huddle together and exclude outsiders, and ** also pull the shelf clearly.
At the beginning of October this year, the European Union opened a countervailing investigation into Chinese electric vehicles. The big brother BYD, as well as SAIC and Geely, which have just nodded in Europe, were the first to be investigated.
Surrounded by such local protectionism, the road to Europe for domestic new energy vehicle companies is predictably difficult.
Unlike Europe's cold reception, emerging markets are wide open to domestic new energy vehicle companies.
In Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Australia and other places, most of them do not have local independent brands, and automobile consumption has always relied on imports. It can be seen that in these markets, either Japanese cars are entrenched, or the entire automobile market is highly fragmented.
In the eyes of the people in these areas, they are all foreign cars, and everyone who buys them is the same, putting aside their feelings, and only paying for the product. As soon as domestic car companies entered, they faced a relatively fair competitive environment without discrimination.
In addition, these emerging markets themselves have introduced various incentives to accelerate electrification.
It can be seen that Thailand wants to build itself into the largest electric vehicle manufacturing base in ASEAN, and the Middle East wants to get rid of its dependence on oil and go in both directions with China's new energy.
Reflected in the data, the growth of new energy in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East has surpassed that of the European market, and the momentum continues.
The contrast between hot and cold is obvious, and domestic car companies have switched to the overseas track. However, in terms of the pace of expansion, the old and new forces have diverged.
It can be seen that the layout of the Great Wall and Geely this year is spread across ASEAN, Latin America, the Middle East, Central Africa and other regionsIn contrast, there are three new forces, and so far, only Xiaopeng has made moves in Israel.
In fact, it is not that the new forces do not want to enter the market, but they are not able to enter the market for the time being.
According to the statistics of China Securities Construction Investment, SAIC has more than 2,000 overseas marketing service outletsGreat Wall, Chang'an, and Geely also have 700, 450, and 379 sales outlets respectively.
Many of these existing sales channels can be directly used for new energy products. For example, at the end of last year, Great Wall held the 2022 Overseas Dealer Conference in Thailand for the first time, attracting dealers from more than 50 countries (who have cooperated) to participate.
To put it bluntly, traditional car companies have past channels available, and they are familiar with the dealer cooperation model, and the entry posture is relatively relaxed.
In contrast, the new forces are pure newcomers overseas, and everything has to start from scratch.
In terms of channel laying, they basically copied the sales model they were good at in China to foreign countries. For example, NIO still follows a pure direct sales model in Europe, and Xpeng also continues to use the "direct sales + authorization" model.
However, as we all know, compared with the direct sales and dealer models, the market expansion speed is slow and the cost is relatively high.
When in China, the cost management of direct sales has plagued the new forces, and when it comes to overseas where people are not familiar with life, the problem will only become more prominent.
The ideal has not gone to sea, and one of the concerns is here. An ideal employee once said, "When I wanted to do A0 (internal code) at the beginning, I mentioned going overseas, but the cost calculation of all aspects was relatively high, and in the end, I did not go overseas considering the cost factor." ”
Of course, the new forces can bend and stretch, and under the "unsmooth" road, they have copied the homework of traditional car companies.
When Xpeng expanded into the Israeli market this year, it chose to cooperate with local car dealer FreesbeThe European channel model being evaluated by NIO's sub-brand "Firefly" also includes dealers.
However, the shift from direct sales to distributors is tantamount to a round of transformation, which may bring greater challenges.
In general, under the trend of changing the overseas track, traditional car companies can take advantage of the "shade" of past channels and resources, and the speed of staking is faster than that of new forces.
However, channel dependence is only one of the pluses, and the key to overseas competition is to attract consumers to pay for products.
Second, the small cars disliked by international manufacturers have contributed to the counterattack of Chinese car companies on the two phenomena of "flowering inside the wall and fragrant outside the wall" and "orange orange in the south and orange in the north", which are being staged at the same time in the process of cars going overseas.
Some domestic cars with monthly sales of less than 3,000 units have become a sweet spot when they go overseas: Nezha V has a 20% share of the new energy market in Thailand in the first eight months of this year, and MG MG4 EV has won the sales championship of pure electric compact models in Europe in the first ten months of this year.
And Weilai and Xiaopeng, which have good domestic sales, "turned off" when they went abroad - the cumulative overseas sales in the first ten months of this year were 2032 and 449 respectively, which are not enough for a fraction of BYD's overseas sales.
A large part of the reason for the diametrically opposite fate is the difference in the models that go to sea.
The Nezha V and MG4 EV are compact models, and BYD's overseas main products, the ATTO 3 (Yuan Plus) and Dolphin, are also small cars, and small cars are very popular overseas.
In Europe, for example, many streets retain the narrow, curved pattern of the Middle Ages, and cars over 5 meters are difficult to walk in, and parking lots are not open, which makes small cars occupy half of the European market.
Not only Europe, Southeast Asia's young lady drove on the street Ora good cat is a small car;People in Latin America and the Middle East are also small cars parked in garages.
In particular, cost-effective small cars are particularly popular – Europe is due to the decline in purchasing power due to high inflation, and Southeast Asia and Latin America are due to the large proportion of first-time car buyers, who prefer to buy cheap entry-level models.
On the other hand, medium- and large-sized cars are not as popular overseas. A French dealer mentioned that a Chinese brand has entered the French market with a medium-sized pure electric SUV, although these cars are good, intelligent, and have good battery life, but the car is "too big" to meet the needs of local consumers, and the sales volume is worrying.
However, knowing the preferences of consumers, international manufacturers are reluctant to produce cheap small cars.
It can be seen that in the past decade, international manufacturers have successively cut entry-level brands such as Mitsubishi Phantom and Ford Fiesta.
According to S&P Global, the number of A-segment (mini) and B-segment (small) vehicles in Europe has fallen from a peak of 1.9 million to 160 in 2023 and is expected to fall to 124 in 2024.
The same is true for Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, where Japanese brands such as Honda, Nissan, and Toyota have announced that they are reducing their small car business.
The reason is written in Honda's 2019 financial report: the average net profit of sedans and small cars is about 20% lower than the average of all models, while the average net profit of medium and large cars is about 35% higher.
To put it bluntly, selling small cars is tiring and the return is small, and the pampered international manufacturers can't bear this hardship.
When it comes to the electric vehicle sector, small cars are even less profitable - international manufacturers that have not achieved scale effects have been led by the high cost of raw materials for electric vehicles.
The Renault Zoe, a small electric car that was once popular on the European continent, announced that it would stop production in January this year, citing the soaring prices of raw materials and electricity last year, and even an 11% price increase could not guarantee profits.
A recent study in France found that the average retail price of B-class electric vehicles in the French market is already much higher than that of fuel vehicles of the same level.
For profit reasons, international manufacturers have to strategically abandon small cars in favor of medium and large cars. General Motors, for example, plans to eliminate the Bolt EV, the cheapest electric vehicle in the United States, and instead produce more expensive electric pickup trucks.
As a result, the penetration rate of medium and large new energy in many overseas regions is high, while the penetration of small new energy is low.
However, the burden of dislike by foreign manufacturers is a surprise in the eyes of domestic car companies.
As we all know, China has established a huge industrial chain cluster in the field of new energy vehicles, coupled with the scale effect of years of fairy fighting, domestic car companies have already practiced a perfect "cost control technique".
In the domestic market, this set of efforts can only be put into a large body, and examples of C-class cars selling B-class cars in size abound. Overseas with a focus on small cars, car companies can finally show their strengths.
According to automotive market research firm Jato Dynamics, the average cost of an electric vehicle in Europe in the first half of 2023 was $7$170,000 vs. $7 in the United States290,000 dollars, while China only 3$340,000.
Reflected in the price, since 2015, the average of electric vehicles in Europe is 14%, the United States is 20%, and China has reduced prices by more than 50%.
The UBS report states that China produces Volkswagen IDThe serial model, even if it is exported to Europe with freight and tariffs, is sold at a price 1 3 lower than its locally produced counterpart.
Therefore, even if BYD Yuan sells ** close to Tesla model3, foreign bloggers still have to sigh that "Chinese cars are the first choice", after all, we are not only cheaper, but also "give" free charging and winter tires and other additional configurations.
From this dimension, it is almost inevitable that car companies that give up the thinking of domestic large cars and take the route of small cost-effective going to sea will usher in a tailwind.
As overseas industry insiders concluded: "China's success in popularizing electric vehicles lies in the fact that they offer affordable options for those who want to embrace electric vehicles without spending too much money." ”
In the 70s of the last century, when Japan knocked on the door of the United States with fuel-efficient cars, giants such as GM, Ford, and Chrysler were dismissive.
In their eyes, the U.S. market is big enough to let a few small fish and shrimp come in, which will not affect their business at all.
However, Japanese cars, which are more cost-effective, hit the consumer demand after the oil crisis, once accounting for 80% of the imported car market in the U.S. market, and also made a breakthrough in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, and eventually became the world's No. 1 auto exporter.
History is always strikingly similar, and today's Chinese new energy vehicles are counterattacking in the world, just like the Japanese cars of the year.
This is also a revelation for the overseas car companies in the game.