Looking back on the whole year of 2023, "* war" is undoubtedly a high-frequency word in the automotive industry. At the beginning of the new year, Tesla took the lead in adjusting its two models, firing the first shot of the first battle of domestic car companies.
Towards the end, there is less than a full moon left before car companies sprint KPIs. With the emergence of words with obvious price reductions such as "limited-time moment discount" and "year-end purchase", this war without gunpowder is still continuing.
On last Friday (December 1) alone, six car companies, including FAW Toyota, Dongfeng Automobile, Leapmotor, Zhiji Automobile, BYD, and Changan Automobile, successively carried out price reduction activities. Not to mention that there are GAC Group's first adjustments to some models of different brands.
Generally speaking, December is the last month of the year, although it is not as hot as the "Golden September and Silver October" consumption season, but car companies often invariably carry out the year-end large-scale **, which indirectly stimulates the consumer demand of this month.
A war without gunpowder
It seems that the addiction of automakers to "** war" is not easy to quit.
From the perspective of the industry, there are two main factors that promote this round of price reduction: the adjustment of raw materials represented by lithium carbonate provides a downward profit margin for car companies to reduce the price of new energy vehicles;In order to complete the KPIs set at the beginning of the year, car companies have to "exchange price for volume" to seize market opportunities.
In November last year, battery-grade lithium carbonate** once approached the 600,000 yuan mark, which made the entire commodity market and new energy industry chain fall for it.
Now the battery-grade lithium carbonate ** mud and sand are all down, from being held in the "palm" to now being thrown in the mound. According to the data of Shanghai Ganglian, on December 4, the battery-grade lithium carbonate ** 2000 yuan ton, the average price was reported at 12950,000 tons. In the long term, the last time the tonnage price of lithium carbonate was less than 100,000 yuan (Shanghai Ganglian data), it will be traced back to August 2021. In the past year, nearly eighty percent of battery-grade lithium carbonate has been.
For the future trend of lithium carbonate, although there is a multi-party game in the industry to a certain extent, "lithium prices continue to be weak" is still the view of most analysts. Zheng Xiaoqiang, a lithium analyst at Shanghai Ganglian New Energy Division, revealed that lithium carbonate** is expected to operate between 80,000-120,000 yuan in 2024.
The negative feedback factors in the lithium carbonate spot market are still continuing, and the market has a consistent expectation of the current surplus, coupled with the continuous downward movement of ore at the cost end and the off-season on the demand side, resulting in recent fluctuations in lithium carbonate. ”
At the same time, with the recent release of last month's report card by car companies, some clues can also be glimpsed from it. For example, among these new energy vehicle companies, only Li Auto relies on 32The sales volume of 570,000 units was achieved ahead of the target of 300,000 units set at the beginning of the year. Not surprisingly, Ideal was able to take the opportunity to significantly exceed the quota in this only one month remaining.
BYD's total car sales in November were 30190,000 units, an increase of 70 units from October;This year's cumulative sales are about 26720,000 units, an increase of 64 year-on-year29%。In terms of proportion, BYD has completed 89 of the "3 million" target07%, which means that BYD will sell 3280,000 units. Although it is difficult, it is not impossible for BYD to work hard.
Unlike BYD, other new energy vehicle companies are under more pressure. For example, NIO has a 58% completion rate and Xpeng has a 60% completion rate75%, Leap and Nezha are 6277% and 4248%……
As a result, we see that BYD Qin PLUS DM-i has continued the discount in November, with a discount of 10,000 yuan;The price reduction of many models of Changan is 150,000-20,000 yuan;The highest cash discount for all models of Leapmotor is 170,000 yuan, the first owner of the first car lifetime free three-electric warranty ......
At present, from the perspective of the overall development trend, the exchange of price for volume will continue to spread among car companies for a long time.
** War is still the main theme in 2024
For car companies, no one wants to cut prices to survive, which is somewhat mixed with a little helplessness.
Starting from the Golden September and Silver October, the trend of sprint goal-driven ** has been significantly stronger, fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles** have increased month-on-month, and consumer demand for car purchases has been released.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in October, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China were 9890,000 and 9560,000 units, an increase of 29 y/y2% and 335%, with a market share of 335%。From January to October, the domestic production and sales of new energy vehicles completed 735 respectively20,000 and 7.28 million units, an increase of 339% and 378%, with a market share of 304%。
As Musk said, although the ** of electric vehicles will be lowered again, the company's gross profit margin will be affected, but it is willing to sacrifice gross profit margin in exchange for sales growth.
"Price reduction and profit concession" does allow car companies to achieve sales growth in a short period of time and solve inventory pressure, but repeated price cuts will only squeeze the profitability of car companies. Of course, for consumers, car companies can reduce prices to help them buy their favorite products at a lower price.
Although automakers have a lot of complaints about price reductions, from the perspective of the industry, this trend will continue in the coming 2024.
At this Guangzhou Auto Show, in the face of the expectation of the "war", most car company executives generally believe that the war will be the main theme of the auto market in 2024. Yi Han, vice president of marketing at Xpeng Motors, summed it up as "more like an irreversible trend." ”
*The battle is not only this year, but this year is especially fierce. As long as there are enough players, the industry will be rolled up enough, and the number of players will gradually decrease. Lin Jinwen, vice president of ZEEKR Intelligent Technology, said that in the next 2 to 3 years, volume will be the norm, and all competing products and brands will soon be out if they do not have the ability to roll and afford to roll.