2023 has come to an end, and China's auto market has gone through another dynamic and turbulent year. Most traditional automakers are struggling, but new energy vehicle manufacturers, represented by new EV manufacturers, have proposed sales targets for the next year and started the competition in 2024.
After several years of brutal competition, more than ninety percent of the mainstream new domestic car-making forces have disappeared, and only a few are left at present, such as Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng, Leap, and Wenjie. So what are they going to do in 2024?
Ideal: Target 800,000 units
What kind of sales target the manufacturer sets is based on the performance of the previous year. In 2023, the cumulative sales volume of Li Auto will be 3760,000 units, with a target of 800,000 units in 2024, a year-on-year increase of more than 100%, which is the most aggressive sales target among domestic new energy manufacturers other than BYD.
What is the concept of 800,000 units in sales? Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi sell about 700,000 units a year in China, and if this sales target can be achieved, it means that Li Auto can be on an equal footing with BBA.
You must know that Li Auto does not have low-end models below 300,000 yuan, and it may become the first domestic manufacturer in history to defeat BBA in the high-end market of more than 300,000 yuan.
So how likely is Li Auto to achieve its goal? At present, Li Auto has three models: L7, L8 and L9, each of which has the strength of monthly sales of more than 10,000 yuan. If only three cars are relied upon, it means that they must reach the level of 20,000 units sold per month, which is still difficult to achieve considering that the growth of the new energy vehicle market will slow down next year.
Therefore, Li Auto must launch more models, including but not limited to Li MEGA. After this car, Li Auto is expected to launch more pure electric models to expand its product lineup. However, even so, it will be difficult for Ideal to achieve its goal of 800,000 units.
Q: The target is 600,000 units
The cumulative sales of the Wenjie brand in 2023 is 94,380 units, unfortunately, it did not reach the level of 100,000 units, but it actually began to sell well after the release of the Wenjie M7 in September last year, and the monthly sales in December 2023 have soared to 240,000 units, so Yu Chengdong will shout out the goal of monthly sales of 600,000 units in 2024.
So how does it achieve this? According to Yu Chengdong, the monthly delivery volume of Wenjie will reach more than 30,000 units in 2024. If this goal is achieved, the current model alone will contribute to sales of about 400,000 units a year.
In addition, it is unlikely that the question will remain in place in 2024, and it will launch more models.
In 2024, the M5 is likely to be completely renewed, and the current monthly sales of this car are only about 3,000 units, and if it can achieve monthly sales of more than 10,000 units, it can contribute to more than 100,000 sales in a year. Coupled with other new models, it is still relatively likely that Wenjie will achieve the goal of 600,000 units in 2024, provided that the production capacity of Wenjie can keep up.
NIO: Target of 230,000 units
In 2023, NIO's cumulative sales will only be 160,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 307%。NIO has achieved this result with 8 models, but it is not very good.
Therefore, when setting the sales target, NIO also gave a relatively conservative figure of 230,000 units. Roughly calculated, it equates to an increase of about 40% on the basis of 2023.
The slowdown in NIO's growth is first of all due to its relatively high selling price, which dissuaded a large number of consumers, and NIO is unwilling to cut prices significantly in order to maintain its high-end positioning.
At the same time, the number of models is too large, which makes it difficult for consumers to choose; The battery swap mode, which has been pinned on high hopes, has also proved to be not as attractive as Li Bin imagined.
If nothing else, NIO's focus in 2024 will be in two directions. First, to upgrade the existing models, it is no longer necessary to launch more new cars, it is time to shift from "heavy scale" to "heavy quality"; Second, promote the rapid growth of low-end brand Alps.
In addition, with the continuous construction of battery swap stations, NIO's battery swap mode may also bring a lot of help.
Xpeng: The target is 280,000 units
In 2023, the cumulative sales of Xpeng Motors will reach 1410,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 1726%, significantly underperforming the market. In 2024, Xpeng Motors aims to sell 280,000 units, which is equivalent to doubling year-on-year. So can this goal be achieved?
Xpeng Motors and NIO have the same problem, that is, big but not strong, more but not refined, Xpeng Motors has a total of 5 models on sale, the best performance of Xpeng G in June average sales of less than 8,000 units, the worst performance of Xpeng G in March average monthly sales of less than 500 units. The lack of popular models that can continue to contribute to sales is a significant problem for Xpeng at present.
Xpeng Motors is good in terms of technology, but in the case of sluggish sales, the difficulty of getting the core technology into the car has increased significantly, so it may be difficult for technology such as rear-wheel steering to be popularized to other models in a short period of time.
In 2024, Xpeng Motors needs to upgrade old models such as P5 and P7 to increase sales as soon as possible, and high-end models like X9 will not be its lifesaver.
Zero: The target is 200,000-300,000 units
In 2023, the cumulative sales volume of Leapmotor will be 1440,000 units, which is close to Xpeng Motors, but it is conservative in setting its sales target, only 200,000-300,000 units. In fact, according to the growth rate of new energy vehicles, it is not difficult to achieve the goal of 200,000 units, but it is more difficult to achieve 300,000 units, unless overseas sales are added.
At present, there are four models on sale: Leapmotor C11, Leapmotor C10, Leapmotor C01 and Leapmotor T03, of which Leapmotor C11 has the strength of monthly sales of more than 10,000 units, and another main model with high hopes has been hovering at the level of monthly sales of about 3,000 units for a long time. The overall performance of the recently launched Leap C10 is good, and if it can achieve monthly sales of more than 10,000, then Leaprun may achieve its goal.
In fact, Leapmotor is not short of technology, and it can even export technology to foreign-funded car companies, but in 2024, Leapmotor needs to concentrate on creating another popular model in order to achieve a breakthrough in sales. China's new energy market is too volatile, and technology alone is not enough to make Leapmotor gain a firm foothold.
In fact, many new EV manufacturers have not achieved their sales targets in 2023, and with the expansion of the sales base, the growth rate of the new energy market will slow down in 2024, which will bring greater challenges to car companies. However, the mainstream new forces have their own complete set of solutions, and if they can improve their product design capabilities, they still hope to achieve a breakthrough in sales.