The competition in the automobile market is becoming more and more fierce, and the news in the automobile circle is becoming more and more lively and bizarre - new energy is showing a sweeping trend, but the first war brought by new energy is also worrying; The automotive industry is booming in production and sales, but the industry's profit margins have hit a new low.
British writer Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities".It's the best of times, it's the worst of times"It's no longer a phrase that describes the whole current situation of the car market, British sociologist Zygmunt Baumann".Although there is suffering in every era, there is also its beautyIt is the most appropriate and accurate explanation.
1. The acquisition of Gaohe in the automobile circle caused the share price of Changan Automobile to plummet?
A week after apologizing to employees for the shutdown and saying that "many companies have shown interest in Gaohe Automobile and may make acquisitions or investments", Ding Lei appeared in Chongqing to visit Changan Automobile and was received by Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile.
A number of Ding Lei and Zhu Huarong's friendly conversations have been spread on the Internet, so that many people think that this is the precursor of "Changan Automobile's acquisition of Gaohe Automobile", and even "good deeds" gave specific information: Changan Automobile will acquire 51% of Gaohe Automobile's shares.
One stone stirs up a thousand waves. But the latest news is that Changan Automobile insiders revealed that the news of Changan Automobile's acquisition of Gaohe Automobile is not true, but only "preliminary communication", and it is far from "negotiating".
Regarding the information spread on the Internet, Che Wenyi believes that objectively, Changan Automobile does not have the need and necessity to acquire Gaohe Automobile.
For Changan Automobile, the high-end positioning, focusing on pure electric and high-end intelligent driving AVATR has a good market influence, Deep Blue has performed well in the mid-end market, and the position of "descendant" Qiyuan in the mass market has become increasingly stable, and has become the backbone of Changan Automobile's "stubborn" friends in the new energy market. Changan Automobile has formed a complete layout of "high, medium and low" in the field of new energy; For Changan Automobile, Gaohe has no differentiated "value".
As for Ding Lei, as the founder of Gaohe Automobile, at the moment of Gaohe's "life and death", he will undoubtedly and frequently appear in the "conference room" of capital institutions and automobile manufacturers - this is not surprising - he will "run" for Gaohe whose life is critical, which is Ding Lei's unshirkable responsibility and his journey of self-redemption.
Today, after Ding Lei visited Changan Automobile, Changan Automobile's stock price was **607%；As of press time, Changan Automobile became the largest Chinese car company.
2. Apple gave up making cars, and netizens shouted to Lei Jun again to "stop".
According to the latest news from foreign media, Apple has abandoned the car project codenamed "Titan".
So far, since Apple announced the construction of a car in 2014, the "Apple car myth" that has lasted for 10 years has been completely shattered.
At first, with Apple's strong influence and unparalleled technical image, the Apple car was highly anticipated at first, and when Apple announced that it would invest tens of billions of dollars and thousands of engineers into the car project, many people thought that the Apple car would be like a mobile phone, with a revolutionary product launch that would disrupt the industry. Although the Apple car continued to "difficult birth" and skip tickets, there are many people who believe that Apple will "amplify its moves".
One detail worth noting, the report said that it was Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, who was in charge of abandoning the car-building project"Titans"Kevin Lynch, vice president of the program, made a "tough decision" together. It is not difficult to see that giving up making cars is indeed a bit of a helplessness for Apple to "eat tastelessly and abandon it".
Kevin Lynch
Just last month, a Bloomberg reporter revealed that the main reason for the difficult birth of the Apple car is that the Apple car has encountered many challenges in the actual promotion process - it was originally intended to design a car with fully autonomous driving, but the actual "effect" did not open up the gap with Tesla. Based on this, Apple has lowered its R&D standards and is preparing to shift from the initial L4 intelligent driving to a lower L2+ level.
Faced with an unsatisfactory reality, Kevin Lynch, head of the automotive project, and Apple CEO Tim Cook "talked":Either the delivery is finalized or the project is safely canceled
Tim Cook
Obviously, in the face of the extremely money-burning project of automobiles, the employees of the car hardware will be laid off, and some employees will be transferred to Apple's artificial intelligence AI department, and it is quite wise to stop losses in time.
Interestingly, after Apple terminated the car-making project, many netizens even "shouted" Lei Jun: Stop!
3. Hantang pushes the Glory Edition to lower the price again BYD's sales anxiety
As the "leader" of China's new energy, BYD, which has an absolute right to speak in the new energy market, is still aware of the severity of 2024 - the strategy of pushing the "Champion Edition" to lower the price in 2023 will be further continued in 2024 - starting the "fight" in 2024 with the "Glory Edition" with a lower price.
After the BYD Qin PLUS and Corvette 05 official drops 20,000 yuan, the Han and Tang Glory Edition models are listed again with an "official drop" of 2-50,000 yuan. Although it did not reach the previous rumor 15980,000 yuan from the "expected", but Han DM-i 16The starting price of 980,000 yuan is indeed on the same starting line as fuel vehicles of the same level. Thanks to the "tax exemption" policy for new energy vehicles, compared with non-new energy vehicles, it can be regarded as indirectly achieving "lower oil than electricity".
At present, the competition in China's auto market has entered a "tragic" situation, and the first war has become the norm; BYD's first-mover advantage and high cost performance have also encountered "resistance", and Chinese car companies that have comprehensively and deeply transformed new energy have begun to "hunt" BYD.
In this case, BYD is bound to show greater courage to maintain at least "sales lead", otherwise BYD will face greater downside risks.
It is worth noting that in 2023, BYD's sales of 200,000 yuan models will still account for a relatively low proportion, and models below 200,000 yuan will account for more than 65% (this data is lower than in 2022) - BYD's situation of relying on cost performance to support sales has not changed. Therefore, BYD can only choose a "big price cut" to deal with the fierce competition.
Of course, it is not enough for BYD to rely on price reductions alone, after all, price reductions are the most untechnical and at the same time unsustainable "strategy".
Therefore, we can see that although BYD has achieved its set goal of 3 million units in 2023, its stock price has been falling and falling recently, which is enough to reflect the capital market's concern about BYD's future.
The sharp price cut seems to be BYD's active attack, but it is also a helpless move to alleviate sales anxiety.