Pure electric cars can't be sold, and hybrid cars are really fragrant.
After the sales statistics in January came out, it seemed that they were telling this consensus.
NIO and XPeng have returned to the level of "10,000 households" from a height of around 20,000 units, while the ideal and question world with fuel tanks continue to make great progress.
Even though January is the off-season for car purchases, pure electric and hybrid vehicles still present different skies on both sides.
NIO and Xpeng, should the pure electric ideal in their hearts continue?
I don't understand why everyone still buys gas trucks now. 」
What else is good about it but being able to smell some gasoline? Listen? 」
On NIO Day in December 2021, Li Bin made such remarks after the release of ET5.
At that time, the ET5 became the model with the highest number of orders after the press conference in the history of NIO.
Li Bin, who is full of ambition, thinks that it would be good for ET5 to sell more than 10,000 units a month.
It can't be too much, it's not good to be a street car, and I don't really like selling 30,000 a month. 」
Later, it took nearly a whole year for the ET5 to cross the 30,000 mark.
So, last year, Li Bin admitted that he was wrong.
"Smell the smell of gasoline", I was talking about happiness at the time, my sentence must be wrong, at an inappropriate time, it must be reviewed. 」
If you say it in another 5 years, it will be better. 」
Li Bin said this against the backdrop of another point, NIO's annual sales in the coming year failed to achieve the basic goal of surpassing Lexus.
160,000 units, up 307%, which is NIO in NT20 platform models after the full year's cumulative results.
As for Xpeng, which also holds up pure electric vehicles, it fought a whole year against the wind, and finally ended up with a year-on-year increase of 17% to more than 140,000 units.
But the representatives of hybrids with fuel tanks are all outstanding.
Last year, VOYAH sold more than 50,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 160%;
Navy cumulative sales 1370,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 390%;
Ideal to achieve 3760,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 1822%。
As for the strong turnaround of **M7, Wenjie also achieved a year-on-year increase of 27% in sales throughout the year.
By January of this year, the world was asked to 3The performance of 30,000 vehicles exceeded the idealWon the new force delivery championship for the first time.
On the other hand, in the same period, NIO's 10,000 vehicles and Xpeng's 8,250 vehicles, even though there was a year-on-year increase, did not look like **.
In addition, BYD pointed out that since the launch of the Seal DM-i in September 2023, the sales volume has exceeded 10,000 for three consecutive months, helping the sales of the Seal series to exceed 20,000 units in January.
For NIO and Xpeng, others only rely on 1 model with a fuel tank to top the performance of their entire brand.
Take the pure electric route, yesDifficult.
According to the statistics of the number of insurance in 2023, the sales of pure electric vehicles increased by 24% year-on-year4% to 4.94 million units, with a market share of 228%；
Plug-in hybrid models sold 1.74 million units, a year-on-year increase of 658%, with a market share of 8%;
Sales of extended-range electric vehicles 6270,000 units, up 174% y/y, and achieved 29% market share.
Under the growth rate of plug-in hybrid + extended range, it far exceeds that of pure electricThe share of the two has basically reached half of the pure electric vehicle market.
But that's not all.
If you add up the sales of 13.39 million units, the market share is 618% of fuel vehicles, at this time you will find ——
The one with the fuel tank is the boss.
The good of pure electric and the cake of pure electric trend cannot make it a real market leader.
AbsolutelyNIO and XPeng are not convinced.
So, there are various adjustments.
Since last year,AdjustmentsIt has become a buzzword in the industry.
At the end of 2022, Xiaopeng carried out organizational structure adjustments, and some of the original core management faded out, and He Xiaopeng refocused his efforts on the automotive business.
At the beginning of 2023, Xpeng introduced Wang Fengying, a veteran in the industry, to focus on reducing costs and reshaping sales channels.
He Xiaopeng described that Wang Fengying has worked for more than 30 years, and she knows what is going on as soon as she asks about countless cost details.
In September last year, Xpeng launched the "Jupiter Plan" channel reform plan to vigorously embrace the dealer model again.
It is reported that the target of this adjustment isGradually replace the direct sales model with the dealer model.
Then we saw that Xpeng had completed the set goal of selling 20,000 units per month in Q4.
However, in January this year, it suddenly returned to the level of 8,000 units, and we do not know whether this is related to the previous impulse.
At the end of last year, He Xiaopeng pointed out in an interviewValuable sales are the most importantIt's worth pondering.
In January 2024, it was reported that Xpeng was carrying out a new round of organizational restructuring under the leadership of Wang Fengying.
Among them, the R&D team of intelligent driving in North America continues to shrink, which is also emphasizedReduce costs and increase efficiencyappeals.
In this regard, the past advocatedExtravaganceNIO has to make a similar decision.
Since the end of last year, NIO has announced a 10% layoff of employees and a reduction in projects that will not improve financial performance for three years.
Last month, Yin Shuijun, the head of Weilai's mobile phone, resigned, and Bai Jian, the head of Weilai's hardware, took over the phone-related business.
Regarding the adjustment of organizational structure and sales channels, these are relatively inefficient outputs, which need to be done.
But the essence of reducing costs and increasing efficiency is onlyLessons.
Li Bin admitted frankly that what he is doing so far is actually making up classes, and he can't talk about the degree of optimization.
Lessons. Just to reach the base line at peer level.
However, this does not mean that you can bridge the gap with the leaders, because others are also growing.
From the beginning of 2021, Ideal will learn from Huawei's product R&D system and implement Huawei's IPD system.
At the end of 2022, Li Xiang announced the full launch of the matrix organization upgrade, adding five horizontal departments, and he directly managed the commercial department and the ** department.
We were surprised to find that the painful problems we encountered in product research and development, sales and service, manufacturing, organization and finance were solved more than ten years ago. 」
It cannot be ruled out that NIO and XPeng are working hard, and they also have the value and significance of hard work.
But the result may still beThey are always far from ideal.
Just as NIO and XPeng both maintained year-on-year sales growth in January, they are still far from the ideal monthly sales of 30,000 units.
After a series of cost reductions and efficiency increases,They still have to face the question of how to live.
At this time, should we return to the original intention of doing business?To be a profitable company.
Is it possible to make a profit from pure electricity?
Recently, BMW's chief financial officer said that the sales of fuel vehicles have passed a critical point, and sales growth mainly comes from electric vehicles.
But he also believes that the profit margin of electric vehicles in the next few years will hardly surpass that of traditional internal combustion engines.
In addition, Xu Daquan, President of Bosch China, pointed out
We have been investing in the research and development of electric motors and electric bridges for many years, and this business segment is still in the red from a global perspective so far this year. 」
At present, many OEMs are still selling an electric car and losing one, should this strongly support the seizure of market share in China? 」
If we look at the financial data of new power enterprises, we can find a distinctive common feature of themHuge losses.
At the same time, we have to face the fact that there are only three electric vehicle companies in the world that can achieve profitability today - Tesla, BYD and Ideal.
Among them, BYD and Ideal have bothWith fuel tankelectric vehicle business.
It is also worth reflecting on the fact that Leaprun, which only started the range extension business last year, has recently made great financial improvements.
In Q3 2023, the gross profit margin, which had been negative before Zerorun, finally turned positive, and Q3 reached 12%, of which the monthly zero run in September achieved a gross profit of 5%.
The improvement of Leap is obvious to all.
If the fuel tank can make blood, it will naturally be possible to achieve blood transfusion.
Zero Run and Ideal continue to play a preferential strength of 10,000 yuan at every turn, which is not without advantages for stimulating market share.
Reduce costs and increase efficiencyThe immediate goal is to stimulate sales, while the ultimate goal is to survive.
For NIO and Xpeng, they want to surviveFirst Principles ,Should you go backShould you build a tram with a fuel tank?And in itself?
Pure electric and hybrid,In the eyes of some, it may be an antagonistic relationship.
However, this is more about the idealist's eating.
The EV market share is unlikely to exceed 30%.Recently, Akio Toyoda's remarks have been criticized by many people.
Musk tweeted a sigh of regret.
In fact, from the perspective of corporate survival, Akio Toyoda's statement is not unreasonable.
If pure electric companies fail to make blood and survive, how can they increase their market share?
A few days ago, Volvo also said that it will no longer provide funds to Polestar and will be supported by Geely.
Porsche's CFO also said that Europe may postpone plans to phase out the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035.
On the road of pure electricity, some people are beginning to want to slow down.
Pure electricity is a trend, an ideal, and a beautifully painted pie.
However, the pure electric route was first established at the Beidaihe Conference in 2009.
So far, 15 years have passed, and there has not been a single Chinese car company that relies entirely on pure electric routes to make profits.
NIO and XPeng, are they really capable of doing it?
We can say that BYD is a benchmark for learning.
But for a long time, it relied on the profitability of oil vehicles to support the development of pure electricity.
Moreover, BYD has not given up the plug-in hybrid business with fuel tanks.
We can also give the example of Tesla.
It was founded in 2003 and only became profitable in 2020, where the turning point was:Complete localization.
Tesla's competitive advantage lies in winning the favor of China's ** through leading technology, and then exporting its products to the global market to make a profit with the help of a cheap domestic ** chain.
It's a pity,Global marketUnder the Sino-US dispute, it is out of reach for Chinese car companies.
If you can't copy the development model of Tesla and BYD,Is there any hope for the profitability of NIO and XPeng?
At this time, we have to talk about product planning
When you launch the next car and have more new cars, it will be fine. 」
Li Bin also had such expectations at the end of 2022, but NT2The result of the exhaustion of the 0 model did not bring surprises.
This year, it is the turn of Xpeng to usher in a big year for products.
The A-segment MONA, a new mid-to-large sedan, a large SUV, and the X9 ......, which was launched in JanuaryAs a result, it was reported that Xpeng's sales target for 2024 exceeded 280,000 units.
However, He Xiaopeng gave a low-key responseXpeng doesn't have a sales target, and we don't do big publicity. 」
After the product planning, another person saidIt is necessary to play the price reduction card and play the cost performance.
Therefore, now Li Bin still has the "last hope", waiting for the announcement of the small battery configuration of the Weilai model and the new BaaS plan in March.
In addition, the Alps, which will be released this year, Li Bin also said that he would "flip the table" after playing.
Can NIO change its means to promote cost performance?
Behind the cost performance, it is the ability to operate funds.
To use an analogy,For NIO, Alps is like raising a Nezha or Leap that advocates pure electricity and cost-effectiveness.
But Nezha and Leap failed to play, so why did Alps have to succeed?
If you ignore the cost and blindly reduce **, this is a race to the bottom, and in the end, it will be **.
Some car companies have brutally lowered their profits, but their profitability has also collapsed directly, and they eventually become potential acquisition targets for others. 」
Stellantis CEO Tang Weishi said this at the beginning of the year when talking about the electric car war.
Last year, Stellantis spent 1.5 billion euros to win 20% of the equity + overseas sales rights of Leap, and had the opportunity to obtain low-cost China's ** chain empowerment.
The French, who have left the field, still show a winner's attitude.
Making products and selling cars at low prices is in exchange for money.
But it cannot be denied that there is a deal to do businessBetingredients.
LuckIt is very important, and this luck is also related to the current situation.
In 2019, most of the new forces came to the brink of breaking the capital chain.
What ultimately saved them was ,The Fed's unlimited QE quantitative policy caused by the epidemic in 2020.
The financial liberalization has revitalized the global market and given new forces a second life.
Unfortunately, not everyone can grasp the opportunity, excessive waste and extravagance, once again sent the enterprise to the judgment seat of fate.
Looking back today, many things can be seen more clearly, such as the dollar market in 2021 is zero interest rate, but how can it always be zero interest rate? 」
We should feel very fortunate in the unilateral growth of the past few decades, and now there should be more risk and cyclical awareness, and many entrepreneurs in China need to make up for this lesson. 」
Last year, Li Bin finally admitted that resources are not unlimited. 」
Waiting for luck to come again, or to put it bluntly, waiting for a recession in the United States, hoping that the Federal Reserve will release financial water again.
This expectation, with the beautiful non-farm payrolls data again and again, has dispelled expectations one by one.
If you can't wait for the water to be released, should you look at the battery swap support led by China, or encourage mergers and acquisitions?
Or are you willing to create hope with your own hands?
The main factor in reducing costs and increasing efficiency lies in the hybrid business with fuel tanks.
This has been fully verified by the market on many car companies such as Wenjie, Deep Blue, and Leap.
It is worth reflecting on the fact that when Li Xiang initially proposed to build an extended-range hybrid vehicle for financing, investors generally reported that the technical route was backward and not as good as Tesla's pure electric vehicle.
As a result, the financing road of Ideal at the beginning of the game was more difficult than that of NIO and Xiaopeng.
But the good thing is that now Ideal has reaped continuous quarterly profits, and it can also build pure electric cars more calmly.
Somewhat ridiculous, but effective.
Li Bin and He Xiaopeng didn't fail to see the good of the fuel tank.
He Xiaopeng believes that the first war will continue to be fought in 2026, because gasoline cars are still profitable.
Li Bin also clearly saw that the process of converting oil vehicles to trams in the high-end market was slower than expected.
However, the two are more resistant to the transformation of plug-in hybrid vehicles than Leap, Nezha, VOYAH and AVATAR.
Idealism may also be the biggest excuse for complacency.
Today the hybrid looks strong, but we think it's an intermediate, and some people think it's long, and some think it's short. 」
It doesn't matter, can't a company survive two or three years of loneliness? 」
Since 2009, the country has spent 15 years developing a pure electric strategy, but no Chinese pure electric company has been profitable.
He Xiaopeng said that if he persists for another two or three years, can he make an exception?
One thing to be wary of is that Tesla's gross profit margin has been decreasing quarter by quarter, and it is currently lower than Toyota.
The giants are not doing well, so how many opportunities will be left for NIO and Xiaopeng in the next two or three years?
China's own brands, which are still insisting on multi-gear PHEV car companies, will switch to the range extender route in the next one or two years, and this judgment can be verified in 2025. 」
By 2026 at the latest, Xpeng and NIO will be acquired due to the lack of product competitiveness, and the main battlefield will become an overseas market with weaker competition. 」
Li Xiang's judgments are considered by some people to be the statement that Wang Po sells melons.
But if we face the profitability and life and death of the enterprise, we don't talk about the trend, don't draw the pie, and only torture a little-
Are hybrids and range extensions a useful realistic route at the moment?
This answer, we can get clarity in car companies such as Deep Blue, AVATAR, Leap, Nezha, and VOYAH this year.
Entrepreneurship emphasizes unique ingenuity and needs to use painting cakes to win the favor of investors.
In the first 20 years of the 21st century, China's Internet has made some achievements in leading the global market by burning money and subsidy.
For profiteers, there may be problems of inertial thinking and path dependence.
Everyone talks about ideals and trends, but no one takes profitability seriously.
But the cruel thing is that most of the chaos is not relied uponPersistenceWhat ends, but mergers and acquisitions and liquidation.
For example, Didi first acquired Kuaidi and then Uber China, ending the subsidy war.
Bike-sharing ended the battle because ofo's capital chain was broken and Meituan entered the game to acquire Mobike.
It is difficult to determine whether the entrepreneur wants to win the battle on his own or wait for the appearance of the white knight.
But what is certain is that from the point of view of making money,The smell of gasoline is really fragrant.
But only the living can smell it.
February** Dynamic Incentive Program