"Fighting the best battle in the inclusive market, relying on strong R&D and overall production capacity; In the mid-to-high-end market, technology research and development and product strength are the only keys. ”
Wenba Jiuling
On February 19, a new round of involution of China's new energy vehicles kicked off.
On the same day, BYD dropped a bombshell, announcing that the Qin plus and destroyer 05 Glory Edition were shockingly listed, with a starting price of only 7980,000 yuan. This ** not only blinded the new energy car companies, but also made the traditional car companies feel breathless.
Source: Weibo.
From BYD's point of view, this is not only an innovation of its own product line, but also a comprehensive challenge to the entire A-class family car market.
The data will not lie, in 2023, the scale of production and sales of new energy vehicles in China has soared to 9.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 36%, and firmly occupies the top position in the world, which has been a brilliant record for 9 consecutive years. Among them, the performance of plug-in hybrid vehicles is particularly eye-catching, with the growth rate of production and sales exceeding 80%, becoming a powerful engine to promote the rapid development of the new energy vehicle market.
BYD said that this downward exploration is an important step in the implementation of the "same price of oil and electricity" strategy, aiming to accelerate the process of replacing fuel vehicles with new energy vehicles.
BYD made a move, and other car companies had to take it.
Two hours later, SAIC-GM-Wuling lowered the price of the Wuling Starlight 150 Advanced Edition by 6,000 yuan to 9The new ** of 980,000 yuan entered the "90,000-level" ultra-long pure electric range plug-in hybrid model market. In the evening of the same day, Changan Qiyuan was not to be outdone, and set the starting price of the Q05 and A05 models at 7890,000 yuan, and shouted in a high-profile manner, "Electricity is lower than oil!" Low! Low! The battle cry. In addition, Nezha Automobile has also joined the army of price cuts. Nezha X, Nezha AYA, Nezha S and many other main models have been announced, ranging from 5000 yuan to 220,000 yuan.
Source: Weibo.
Of course, joint venture car companies are also considering response, according to industry sources, several of the most core joint venture car companies, on the evening of the 19th, have been in an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures.
This series of price cuts by domestic car companies triggered by BYD has pushed the competition in the new energy vehicle market to a new climax.
Why did BYD cut prices first?
The previous big V dismantled the car ** show, only this time the price reduction of the Qin plus DM-i model, all the core spare parts, including motors, electronic control, batteries and dedicated DM-i engines, gearboxes, core control chips, etc., BYD all its own research and development, its own production, its own assembly.
Relevant data show that more than ninety percent of BYD's vehicle parts are developed and produced by itself. Even the small parts of automobile shock absorption, BYD has done research and development, and has a special first-chain subsidiary responsible for production.
BYD auto parts production workshop.
Source: CCTV.
According to Douyin car V "@板儿姐聊电车", this price is 7980,000 yuan Qin PLUS DM-i Glory Edition, the actual vehicle cost should be 6About 20,000 yuan. As a new energy vehicle R&D engineer, she has done technical exchanges with relevant personnel of BYD.
She provided some information: BYD has a very core understanding of the research and development of its own cars. For example, the engine, which is specially developed for extended-range cars, is subtracted by BYD to ensure its power output and stability.
For components such as motors, electronic controls, and batteries, BYD has instead increased related technology investment, hoping to reduce the cost of core components through large-scale production.
On the basis of achieving the sales target of 3 million units last year, the DM-i technology system built by BYD in 2022 has already amortized the relevant R&D costs, which also allows BYD to rely on the subsequent R&D and production of models developed and produced by this technology system to reduce costs to the greatest extent.
This is the reason why BYD has the confidence to take the lead in the new energy vehicle war.
And now the first few domestic car companies to follow up, whether it is Wuling, Changan, or Leap, are all car companies with full-stack or core component R&D and production capabilities.
For example, Wuling Motors, took out the Wuling Starlight that benchmarked BYD's price cut, this car is based on Wuling Motors' new native new energy architecture, equipped with "Wuling Lingxi hybrid system" and "Shenlian battery" two self-developed core technologies, and finally achieved 398L 100km fuel consumption (WLTC).
Another example is Changan Qiyuan A05, which participated in this price reduction, and its digital intelligence AI electric drive system applies a series of cutting-edge technologies such as the world's first 10-layer hairpin flat wire oil-cooled motor technology, a single computing power of 300 trillion quad-core MCU main chip, the industry's first electric drive constant temperature system, and IEM intelligent driving management mode, and has successively won authoritative honors such as "China's Top Ten Engines and Hybrid Systems in 2023" and "The Second World's Top Ten Hybrid Power Systems".
Of course, Leapmotor is also one of the car companies with the most self-developed technology among the new car-making forces, and it basically develops and produces its own products from batteries to motors, so that it can quickly follow up the price reduction frenzy.
Therefore, these car companies can, like BYD, reduce the amortization of R&D investment through large-scale production, and then control the actual cost of products.
If 2022 is still a year for China's new energy vehicles, then in 2023, China's new energy vehicles have become the mainstream of China's auto market, starting a fierce competition for market share among car companies.
Starting from the beginning of 2023, BYD launched the super hybrid system, and lowered the ** of Qin PLUS DM-i to less than 100,000 yuan, and by 2023, Huawei and Cialis jointly launched the Wenjie M7 intelligent driving version, which completely defines intelligent driving, intelligent chassis and intelligent cockpit as the standard configuration of medium and high-end new energy vehicles. China's new energy vehicle market is already showing signs of polarization.
After the Spring Festival in 2024, this trend will be completely finalized.
On the one hand, this time BYD held high the banner of the first battle, and triggered the follow-up of domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers.
This means that China's new energy vehicles will enter the era of popularization, the competition between various car companies will be fierce, inclusive models will become the mainstream of the market, and car prices will be readjusted to a range acceptable to all consumers.
Although the best selling domestic new energy vehicles were models below 100,000 yuan, most of these models were A0-level cars such as Wuling Hongguang MINI and BYD Dolphin.
And this time the big price cut, in fact, is to drag the A+ class sedan into the A0 class ** range, its practicality and influence on the family is not comparable to the original models.
It's a market scene that consumers love to see.
On the other hand, more than 150,000 yuan of high-end new energy vehicles, especially in the range of 200,000 yuan to 350,000 yuan, will become the most technology, design, service, value of China's new energy vehicles product cluster.
For new car-making enterprises, as well as manufacturers such as Wenjie and Zhijie empowered by Huawei, since they cannot explore the first range to join the first battle, they can only work product strength and service, and build their own cars into a benchmark for the development of new energy vehicles to meet the growing demand for cars in China's new middle class.
However, no matter what level of the market, it is foreseeable that the competition will become increasingly fierce in 2024, which requires car companies to invest huge funds and energy in technology research and development, quality control, and production management.
BecauseFighting the best battle in the inclusive market will inevitably rely on strong R&D and overall production capacity; In the mid-to-high-end market, technology research and development and product strength are the only keys.
This will also force further technological upgrades of Chinese auto companies.
Of course, for consumers, this is another great thing.
From another point of view, the time may have come for Chinese cars to go overseas on a large scale.
On the one hand, the start of the first war will make the profits of many companies far less good than in 2023, and they urgently need to find new markets with more lucrative profits; On the other hand, car companies that have increased investment in technology and industrial chains need huge production capacity to amortize their new technology expenditures, and entering the overseas market will definitely be a useful supplement to the sales volume of the domestic market.
In addition, the technology and R&D capabilities of international car companies in the field of new energy vehicles are far lower than those of Chinese new energy vehicle companies. After a round of extremely harsh market competition, it will inevitably give rise to the huge competitiveness of these Chinese car companies in the international auto market.
In other words, new energy vehicle companies that can survive in such a harsh Chinese auto market will enter the international market, and their product strength and technical capabilities must be in a high-dimensional and low-dimensional state.
Therefore, the model with the ability to fight hard, similar to BYD's Qin PLUS DM-i, which took the lead in cutting prices this time, has a very mature intelligent cockpit and voice service, which has the advantage of generation difference for the products of overseas automobile companies, and will definitely bring more lucrative profits to car companies overseas.
And those models that are struggling in the mid-to-high-end field, their technical content and product performance will also conquer the original BBA audience in the overseas auto market.
Coupled with the huge automobile production capacity that we already have completely, this time the involution and war of China's new energy vehicles triggered by BYD is likely to become an opportunity for China's new energy vehicles to go overseas in large numbers.
Perhaps the next global "Toyota" to come out of China will be grateful to BYD for this round of auto war triggered in 2024.
Now the situation is that the attention of consumers has been attracted and the new energy vehicle market is reactivated in 2024.
The author of this article |Walker |LiabilityEdit |He Mengfei.
Editor-in-Chief |He Mengfei. |Image source |vcg