Looking back at the new energy market in 2023, it is indeed thriving on the surface.
Looking deeper, I can only say: "The surface is glamorous, but the back is cold and warm." "The cruel competition in the terminal market is far beyond imagination, so that every participant in it can feel the arrival of a bitter winter.
For example, the protagonist of today's article, NIO.
Recently, the less-than-expected sales performance and continuous losses, coupled with the 10% reduction of employees, have once again shrouded NIO with the rumor of "going out of business next year". Even He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xiaopeng Motors, persuaded Li Bin bitterly: Save money and spend some money.
2023 is harder than 2019?This is definitely not, in 2019 I really don't know that next month's salary is in **, and now we have tens of billions of fund reserves in our bank accounts. Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, bluntly said that since last year, the company has indeed been affected by external factors, "There is nothing to complain about, continue to move forward, gradually recover gross profit, gradually stabilize sales, gradually deliver products, maintain concentration, and achieve goals one by one." Heightened risk awareness and managing resource boundaries are things that need to be done. ”
On the eve of NIO Day, Li Bin stood up to answer as many as 140 questions from the outside world through a 2-hour and 14-minute communication meeting, elaborating on his thoughts on NIO's past, present and NIO.
Then, on December 17, Li Bin personally went down and tested the ET7 using a 150kWh semi-solid-state battery to challenge a mileage of 1000km.
2 hours and 14 minutes of standing to answer 140 ** questions, and a 13-hour live reality show, Li Bin's sincerity touched people's hearts again. As of December 19, NIO has risen as much as 115%。
NIO's "obsession".
Whenever it comes to NIO, it is always impossible to avoid "battery swap".
On the one hand, in terms of the layout of the battery swap network, NIO is unique in the countryOn the other hand, because the battery swap model is based on large-scale human, material and financial resources, especially in the context of NIO's loss situation has not improved for a long time, whether insisting on building a battery swap network is not a correct development path, which has also become the focus of controversy for NIO.
Recently, NIO has made a series of major moves in the battery swap business: it has successively reached battery swap cooperation with Changan Automobile, Geely and TÜV Rheinland. However, this series of moves has also sparked many discussions, such as "battery swapping is no longer a unique label for NIO" and "NIO is under great financial pressure and needs to get rid of the burden of battery swapping".
I think most people still regard battery swapping as our burden, and I must tell you very solemnly that battery swapping is not our burden, but a moat. Li Bin said frankly, and said, "We introduce partners not to reduce costs, but to expand profits." ”
It is reported that as of December 5, NIO has deployed a total of 2,226 battery swap stations around the world, including 694 domestic highway battery swap stations, providing users with more than 33.2 million battery swap services. Li Bin said that at present, the annual cost of a single battery swap station is between 30-400,000 yuan, and a single battery swap station can achieve profitability by 60 orders a day, and the average number of single battery swap stations in Shanghai has reached 80 orders, which has achieved profitability. "If 60% of the cars in China use NIO to swap batteries, I can wake up smiling when I sleep at night. ”
In Li Bin's view, "battery swap must be the moat of NIO, and this moat with the expansion of the network, with the increase of peers joining the battery swap network, with the gradual listing of their cars, as their cars sell more and more, our moat will only get deeper and deeper. ”
In the author's opinion, although it is necessary to invest a lot of manpower, material and financial resources in maintenance and planning, it must be admitted that as the "scale effect" becomes more and more significant, the battery swap business will undoubtedly bring huge imagination space to NIO. However, in view of the scale of the partner's battery swap products and the layout of the battery swap station, the battery swap still needs continuous blood transfusion.
Therefore, NIO will continue to insist on the battery swap business. As Li Bin said: "How many battery swap stations we plan to build next year, we put it on NIO Day." "It's not hard to speculate that this is likely to be another staggering number.
In addition to sticking to the battery swap business, "no price reduction" is another "obsession" of NIO.
To be honest, "* war" has become a normalized means of competition in the current market, and NIO seems to be an "alternative".
In this regard, Li Bin said that at present, many peers are doing business under the condition of negative gross profit, and NIO's top priority is to ensure that it survives first. But he also mentioned a premise, that is, "NIO insists on not reducing prices, not exchanging price for volume".
And he also emphasized, "Weilai only does high-end, does not participate in the first-class war, ET5 will be the lowest-priced product of Weilai, there will be no Weilai products with a lower price than this car, and the Weilai brand will not sink to the 20-300,000 yuan market, we can't roll with others." ”
Li Bin further said that NIO's existing models are still at the ceiling level in many aspects such as intelligent hardware, and when the infrastructure such as charging and battery swapping is improved and the brand consensus value is established, the sales growth will be very fast. A strong proof is that from July to November this year, NIO's sales in Shanghai exceeded BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi high-end brands for five consecutive months, and the lead is getting bigger and bigger.
For the market in 2024-2025, Li Bin judged, "Next year will indeed be more intense, we mainly convert sales into sales, and we are still very confident in the sales increase after the second quarter of next year." ”
As for the specific sales target, Li Bin said that with the gradual maturity of the sales consulting business, it is expected that after the first quarter, NIO will be able to maintain a monthly sales base of more than 20,000 units, and strive to maintain more than 40% of the market share of the pure electric market of more than 300,000 units.
Flagship products and second brands
For a long time, NIO has the most abundant product lineup among the new forces. At this communication meeting, Li Bin also gave a further introduction to NIO's product planning.
First of all, it is NIO's new flagship product ET9, which is positioned as a million-level luxury car, and will target Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 7 Series, Porsche Panamera and other models.
As a flagship model, ET9 is not destined to be a volume model, but Li Bin is still full of confidence in it, "the next generation of flagship models, is a crystallization of our technology investment, I can say so, it is definitely the world's most advanced technology of a car, this can be put here, can not be said to be far ahead, it must be the most comprehensive leading car, you can imagine some automotive technology, in this car, will become a reality." ”
In contrast, the progress of NIO's second brand is what everyone really cares about.
In fact, as early as 2021, NIO planned to launch a sub-brand with the internal code name "Alps", with a pricing range of between 20-300,000 yuan, and is expected to start mass production in 2024.
This time, Li Bin directly denied the name of "Alps" and said, "This name is very down-to-earth, and we call it 'Dabie Mountain' internally." ”
Regarding the time for our second brand to enter the market, Li Bin said, "Although the VB car has long been off the assembly line, but we are not in a hurry, according to the previous VB car off the assembly line to the release, it will be faster, we now decided to wait for a while, let everyone roll a roll first, we finally came in to lift the table." ”
Immediately, he added: "The second brand is aimed at the family market of more than 200,000 people, and it is popular to "refrigerators, color TVs, and large sofas", which are all equipped with long-lasting single motors. Moreover, unlike NIO's main brand, which gathers a variety of products, the second brand focuses on a less but refined route, and currently only plans three cars.
According to Li Bin, the second brand will sink to the second- to fifth-tier markets, so its playing style will be "very different" from the main brand of Weilai, but it will still adopt a direct sales model.
To a certain extent, the second brand will shoulder the heavy responsibility of the NIO brand, and the NIO brand will continue to focus on the high-end market, while at the same time having both home and personalization. The author speculates that the second brand may learn from the "matryoshka" product strategy like Ideal L, and dilute the cost through "one car", so as to have a place in the most competitive 200,000-300,000 market segment.
In addition, Li Bin also revealed that the first product of the third brand has entered the trial production stage. As for Weilai MPV products, Li Bin said bluntly, "The project has been established, let's wait a while, it may be better to do it earlier, and if it is late, there will be no hurry, but it will definitely be MPV, and we will strike later." ”
NIO's "going to sea".
In recent years, "sailing to the sea" has become the consensus of Chinese auto brands.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to November 2023, China's automobile exports increased by 58% year-on-year4%, up to 44120,000 units, and the annual vehicle export is expected to exceed 5 million units, setting a new historical record. Among them, the export of new energy vehicles was 10910,000 units, 835% year-on-year growth.
Under the background of the rapid development of domestic new energy vehicles and the global consensus of the "dual carbon" goal, more and more Chinese new energy brands have begun to lay out overseas business to find more incremental markets.
As early as May 2021, NIO officially announced its entry into the European market, with Norway as its first stop in the European marketIn September of the same year, NIO officially delivered the first batch of ES8 models in Oslo, the capital of Norway. In February this year, NIO set up its European headquarters in Munich, Germany, and plans to introduce the ET7 and ET5 models to the European market in 2024.
Although the pace is not slow, Li Bin still feels a lot of resistance. "We are still in the learning phase for a long time to come. ”
At present, the overall sales volume in Europe is not large compared with the domestic market, and it has also suffered from policy intervention similar to the "countervailing investigation", but Li Bin still said that "the original intention remains the same", and the next thing to do is to "adjust the rhythm, seriously lay the foundation, and gradually accumulate cognition".
Focusing on the NIO house and battery swap station experience, it is the right direction to manage the market with local high-end talent," Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, further added, "It's just that we need more time." ”
At the same time, Li Bin also said that the North American market, right-hand drive countries and the United Arab Emirates market are also on NIO's list of going overseas.
Summary: In the past, NIO has always adhered to "long-termism", but in the face of the current "rolled" car market, NIO has to become more pragmatic.
In the interview, Li Bin said frankly: "Our original intention will not change, and long-termism will not change. But long-termism is not an excuse for not doing a good job of short-term implementation. Talking about long-termism is easy to derive a culture in the company, that is, it does not look at short-term execution, which is definitely not good. He even joked that he hoped that the outside world would not use "long-termism" to "paralyze" NIO.
In the author's opinion, there is nothing wrong with "long-termism". After all, building a car is not a 100-meter sprint, but a marathon, which tests endurance and perseverance. However, we cannot ignore the support of "short-termism", especially in the face of market diversity and uncertainty, and the need for clear goals and good execution. In a word: "long-termism" should be needed, but "short-termism" cannot be separated from it.
Thankfully, NIO is starting to change.