Wen Leju Finance Zeng Shujia
The battle of new energy vehicle companies is gradually heating up.
The judgment of the industry is that the market competition has entered the "knockout" stage, and 3 to 5 leading enterprises may be formed in the future. Therefore, it is very important to seize market share now.
As Wang Chuanfu, chairman and president of BYD, said, the development of new energy vehicles will only run faster and faster, and will not give them the opportunity to stop, slow down, and take a breath.
After the Spring Festival, BYD intensively released new cars, not only launched the Qin plus and destroyer 05 Glory Edition, but the starting price was as low as 7980,000 yuan, and in just two days at the end of February, several models such as the glory version of Han and Tang were released, playing the slogan of "electricity is lower than oil".
But BYD will also face more fierce competition.
Before and after the release of the new car in full swing, Geely, Wuling, Tesla, etc. also followed, or offered car purchase discounts, and the cannon sound of the ** war resounded. And Xiaomi, which is about to launch a new car, is also gearing up.
In the process of catching up, some small car companies, if the cost control is not good, may be forced to follow, and then sell at a loss, which accelerates the market reshuffle.
Building a car has always burned money, so there are also companies that retreat in the face of difficulties. Recently, Apple announced internally that it would shelve and cancel all development plans for self-driving electric vehicles, giving up a decade-long effort to build cars.
However, it is not easy for the main body to stay in the competitive field. Taking BYD as an example, its R&D expenses will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2022, reaching 1865.4 billion yuan, an increase of 133% year-on-year. In recent years, BYD has been burdened with an increased asset-liability ratio and has taken the lead on the track.
Seize the right to speak
BYD's new cars have been released intensively, stirring up the new energy vehicle market.
At the end of February, in just two days, BYD first released the "King Bomb" and launched the glory version of Han and Tang, and then the Seal DM-i Glory Edition and Song Plus Glory Edition were also officially launched.
Among them, there are 4 models of the Han EV Honor Edition, 5 models of the Han DM-i Honor Edition, 1 model of the 2024 Han DM-P God of War Edition, and 4 models of the Tang DM-i Honor Edition. The minimum selling price is $16980,000 yuan, with a maximum of 25980,000 yuan.
Previously, just after the Spring Festival, BYD announced on February 19 that two plug-in hybrid models, Qin plus and destroyer 05 Glory Edition, were launched, with a starting price of 7980,000 yuan.
BYD related sources disclosed that in order to grab the first shot and win the lottery, the internal market time of these two cars was actually advanced by one day. In the first week of listing, Qin plus won nearly 240,000 orders, dealer inventory is often emptied.
Such an ultra-low price fired the first shot of this year's "oil and electricity war", which caused heated discussions. Some people even joked that the owner who bought a BYD Qin for 150,000 yuan two years ago lost 70,000 yuan in just two years, and became a "A-share shareholder" when he bought a car.
According to the production and sales report, BYD's passenger car sales in February were 12170,000 units, a year-on-year increase of -365%, -394%。Among them, pure electric plug-in hybrid passenger cars were 55/6.70,000 units, a year-on-year increase of -394%/-33.8%, and -479%/-30.2%。
Passenger car sales totaled 32 percent from January to February30,000 units, a year-on-year increase of -56%, of which the cumulative sales of pure electric plug-in hybrid passenger cars were 160/16.30,000 units, a year-on-year increase of -11%/-9.6%。
The phased decline in sales includes the factor of the Spring Festival holiday during the period. But BYD's series of actions may have the idea of further opening up the situation in the follow-up.
At present, BYD's car series has formed two series of products, including the "Dynasty" named after the dynasty, and the "Ocean" series named after "Marine Creatures" and "**", covering the entry-level to the mid-to-high-end market.
The "Dynasty" series has five family-style products such as "Han, Tang, Song, Qin, and Yuan". Among them, Han and Tang, as BYD's 200,000-yuan leader, shoulder an important sales task.
Compared with last year's "oil and electricity at the same price", this year's BYD Glory Edition has further increased the allocation and reduced the price, playing the slogan of "electricity is lower than oil", which has become a typical epitome of the car company's first-class war.
On March 1, the Han family, a subsidiary of BYD Dynasty, started a new car test drive activity in Yunnan. This is only two days after the launch of the 9 new cars of the Han Family Glory Edition.
The relevant person in charge of the communication meeting before the departure of the direct exertion: "The era of buying oil vehicles will not be wrong has passed, and the era of new energy has fully arrived", and the company will launch a comprehensive impact on joint venture fuel vehicles in the 200,000-level market.
In 2024, BYD has not hidden its goal of continuing to expand the market share of the Chinese auto camp, but this means that it will face more fierce competition.
Set off a ** war
* The war has almost run through the whole year of 2023, and the battle of various car companies has entered a white heat. I never thought that soon after the start of 2024, the offensive momentum of car companies is still unabated.
Some people in the industry regard this year as a key year for the brand to break through, and only by desperately grabbing market share and staying at the table can we have a future.
Therefore, after the Spring Festival, BYD 7The launch of the 980,000 yuan Qin plus and the glorious version of the destroyer 05 directly triggered a chain reaction of Geely, Chang'an Qiyuan, and Wuling following.
For example, on the evening of February 29, Geely Automobile issued a document saying that it would launch a time-limited subsidy of 2 billion yuan in March, with the lowest price of 2990,000 yuan, while providing up to 470,000 yuan limited-time cash gift, up to 100,000 yuan interest-free loan, up to 10,000 yuan replacement subsidy.
In addition, other brands in the Geely series have also reduced prices, among which the new pure electric luxury hunting coupe Zeekrypton 001 has been reduced to 2690,000 yuan to 3290,000 yuan, and ZEEKR 007 also dropped to 20From 990,000 yuan, Geely Galaxy E8 17From 580,000 yuan.
Even the Lynk & Co 07, which is expected to be on the market soon, is said to have adopted a more radical ** plan.
Wuling and BYD have also confronted each other many times. In the BYD Qin plus Glory Edition dropped to 7After 980,000 yuan, Wuling Xingguang also responded, putting the high-end models from 10580,000 yuan dropped to 9980,000 yuan.
The upcoming BYD Dolphin and Wuling Binguo PLUS may inevitably have a competition.
Only one day after the launch of BYD Han and Tang Glory Editions, Tesla launched insurance, time-limited subsidies for car paint, and low financial interest rates for some models of Model 3 and Model Y.
The new energy vehicle manufacturing track is becoming more and more crowded.
Three years ago, Xiaomi announced that it would build a car, and in the first half of this year, Xiaomi cars may be officially launched. According to Lei Jun, Xiaomi's first car invested 3,400 engineers, and the entire R&D investment exceeded 10 billion yuan.
According to reports, Xiaomi has entered the field of smart electric vehicles and will invest $10 billion in the next 10 years, which shows how much money is burned to build cars.
Some people rush to the field under the stars, and some people resign and return to their hometowns. Recently, Apple announced internally that it would shelve and cancel all development plans for self-driving electric vehicles, and that some of the more than 2,000 project members would be laid off, while most others would be transferred to generative AI projects.
This means that Apple may feel that building cars is not in line with its current profit strategy, so it has given up on its decade-long efforts to build cars, retreated from the difficulties, and focused on artificial intelligence.
In addition, Mercedes-Benz has also abandoned its all-electric vehicle plans, while Ford, GM, and Volkswagen have postponed the expansion of electric vehicle production capacity.
Urgently lay out the market
Wang Chuanfu, chairman and president of BYD, expressed his judgment at a forum at the beginning of the year: at present, the transformation of the automobile industry has entered the deep water area, the electrification transformation continues to drive in the fast lane, and the intelligent transformation has begun to shift gears and speed up.
The development of new energy vehicles will only run faster and faster, and will not give us the opportunity to stop, slow down, and take a breath. ”
In other words, the reason why BYD is speeding up to seize the market may be because it does not want to fall behind others in the competition and leave opportunities for opponents.
For example, last year BYD pulled the starting price of the Han DM-i to 18980,000 yuan, the market response is greater, everyone thinks that this ** will definitely be able to subvert the joint venture automobile enterprises, but in fact, there is still room for joint venture brands, and they have run to the 15-170,000 level.
Therefore, this year, BYD once again lowered the starting price of Han DM-i to an unprecedented level - 16980,000 yuan, the ** of a C-class luxury car, reduced to the range of B-class cars, the purpose is to achieve the dimensionality reduction of trams to oil vehicles.
The confidence of car companies lies in cost control.
According to the disclosure, in the first half of this year, BYD will reduce the cost of batteries to 9% in 2023, and in the second half of the year, it will be discounted by 9% on the basis of the first half of the year.
If it is estimated that the battery accounts for 30% of the cost of the whole vehicle, BYD will be able to save nearly 6% of the cost in the second half of this year compared with last year.
The reason why Wuling can carry out the best war with BYD is mainly to control costs by integrating the industrial chain, realizing the integration of industrial chain resources such as three electrics, core chips, and body materials, and holding the initiative of reducing costs and increasing efficiency in their own hands.
BYD's 2023 performance report shows that its net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies last year is expected to be 29 billion yuan to 31 billion yuan, an increase of 74 percent over the same period last year46% to 8649%, net profit increased by 70% year-on-year.
With the trend of performance growth, it may be easier to make progress by accelerating the layout.
In order to convey confidence to the market, from August 31 to September 11 last year, the company's senior vice president Luo Hongbin, vice president and chief financial officer Zhou Yalin, vice president Yang Dongsheng and other senior executives increased their holdings of the company's A shares by 5,200 shares, 13,500 shares and 18,600 shares respectively.
In December last year, Wang Chuanfu, the actual controller, chairman and president, also proposed that the company repurchase A shares with a total capital of 200 million yuan through centralized bidding transactions, and the repurchased shares would be used for employee stock ownership plans, equity incentive plans or reduction of registered capital.
However, in the process of "running fast", BYD's asset-liability ratio has continued to increase. In 2021, 2022 and the first three quarters of 2023, its asset-liability ratio will be ., respectively37%, an increase.
During the same period, its current ratios were66, showing a downward trend.
Related company: BYD SZ002594