The title image is from the movie "Cars".
Author: Jia Hehui |Editor: Ge Weiwei.
"There are cards to play, but not many. ”I originally thought that the rim in 2023 was enough to roll, but I didn't expect it to be even worse in 2024!
On February 19, BYD shouted the slogan "electricity is lower than oil" and lowered the listing price of its model "Qin Plus". Soon, a number of car companies seemed to be ready and followed up with the official announcement of price cuts. As soon as the new year started, the rim fell into a scuffle.
Although it already has a huge scale and industrial chain system, BYD is still accompanied by some hidden worries.
Combined with the financial report, BYD's net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of 2023 increased by 204% year-on-year68%, however, according to the performance, the annual net profit growth rate is expected to decline to 7446%～86.49%, which is reflected in the sales volume, the growth rate has also declined significantly.
It is not difficult to find that in order to maintain the rapid growth trend and complete the target of delivering 4.5 million new cars in 2024, BYD did not hesitate to play a "seven wounds" - price reduction.
What needs to be figured out is whether BYD's crazy price cuts are losing money or full of confidence? In the auto market that is destined to be bloody in 2024, what are the advantages of traditional fuel vehicles that can effectively resist the attacks of new forces?
At the beginning of 2023, Tesla fired the first shot of price reduction during the decline in subsidies and purchase tax reductions, stirring up the new energy vehicle market, followed by BYD's 9With a starting price of 980,000 yuan, the "Qin Plus DM-i Champion Edition" was launched, which shocked the entire automobile industry and even triggered a wave of price reductions by major brands.
I originally thought it was 9The starting price of 980,000 yuan has hit a fracture, and it is unexpected that BYD, which has long been the champion of new energy vehicle sales, has released a bombshell soon after the start of construction this year, and the official guide price of the newly launched "Qin plus glory version" and "destroyer 05 glory version" has been further lowered to 7980,000 yuan, compared with the previous champion version of the model price reduction of 20,000 yuan.
Source: BYD's official Weibo.
According to Yicai, the price reduction has played an immediate role in stimulating consumption. BYD 4S store sales staff said that on the eve of the listing of the two new cars, many customers received the news and placed an order on the day of listing, although it was only the second day after the Spring Festival, but the reception of test drive customers has exceeded 8 groups, like a scene like a market.
Seeing that the industry sales champion has put on a posture of "flipping the table", including other car companies that belong to the same independent camp and joint venture brands, they have also followed. Changan Qiyuan, Wuling Motors, Nezha Automobile, Beijing Hyundai, and SAIC-GM have all made price cuts.
At the beginning of the new year, the major car companies have been fighting a big battle, obviously with their own careful thoughts, but it is undeniable that the competition between car brands is becoming more and more fierce. As the simplest and crudest way to drive sales, exchanging the market for the market has naturally become the preferred killer for many car brands.
It's just that, to some extent, the price reduction of fuel vehicles seems somewhat passive, after all, there was a considerable profit margin in the past, and no one wants to take the initiative to spit out the fat in the mouth. However, for new energy vehicle companies, price reductions have their own confidence.
Why is the domestic automobile market set off by new energy vehicles?
From a strategic point of view, the struggle between joint venture brands and independent brands in the automobile market has been going on for many years, and independent brands have always been overwhelmed by joint venture brands. In order to completely reverse this situation, independent brands can only rely on the opportunity to overtake in corners brought by new energy.
The second is the competition for the market by major car companies. In fact, since the beginning of the first war, in order to maintain their dominant position, many joint venture brands have put down their bodies to join this battle.
On the surface, the whole 2023 will be dominated by new energy vehicles, but in the more popular A-class sedan market, according to the statistics released by the car emperor, the highest sales in the past year are Nissan Sylphy and Volkswagen Lavida, respectively 3760,000 and 3510,000 units, BYD Qin plus with 32Sales of 30,000 units ranked third.
The source understands the car emperor.
The continuous hard price reduction has also failed to hit the joint venture brand, which makes BYD nervous.
Of course, most of the major domestic new energy vehicle brands, including BYD, are still in the upward channel, and naturally have their own sales and growth targets. BYD, for example, has a sales target of 4.5 million units in 2024, a 50% year-on-year increase compared to 2023. In the market that is already extremely involuted, it is not so surprising that BYD took the lead in setting off a ** war.
However, in comparison, we should pay more attention to the confidence of new energy vehicle price reduction.
First and foremost, the reasonNew energy vehicle companies have gradually mastered the vertical integration capabilities of the whole industry chain, so that they can stand out from the encirclement and suppression of joint venture brands.
Unlike many car companies that choose to hand over parts to a third party for R&D and production, BYD has been developing its own spare parts and building a vertical industrial chain since it entered the new energy vehicle market, including core batteries, motors, low-voltage electronic and electrical, etc.
In this development model that is not subject to external constraints, BYD has gradually formed a strong vertical integration capability of the whole industry chain, which is why many people in the industry believe that this price reduction is a first-class battle on the surface, but it is actually a competition for the ability of the whole industry chain.
Source: BYD's official Weibo.
In fact, not only BYD, Great Wall Motors is also continuing to increase investment in parts, as early as 2019, it unveiled its six major parts companies, including Honeycomb Yichuang and Honeycomb Energy; At the end of 2022, Changan Automobile began to promote the construction of the new energy auto parts industrial park; Geely Automobile previously officially announced the establishment of a powertrain joint venture with Renault of France, successfully realizing the reverse output of Chinese car companies in the field of key components.
At the same time, the scale effect can effectively control the cost of car manufacturing. As the world's highest-selling new energy vehicle company, BYD can further reduce the cost of parts after large-scale production.
This is also true for other new energy vehicle companies that follow up with price reductions, increasing their scale by exchanging price for volume, and then reducing costs with scale expansion, thus forming a virtuous circle. For example, Changan Qiyuan A05, which followed BYD to reduce the price this time, although the current monthly sales are less than 3,000 units, but after the price reduction**, the sales have been steadily increasing.
AbsolutelyThe decline in battery costs is also one of the key factors in the price reduction of new energy vehicles. In the past year, the core raw material of lithium carbonate has dropped from 500,000 tons in 2022 to 80,000 tons today.
In this way, BYD no longer needs to be "merciful" to joint venture fuel vehicles, and the automobile market pattern will once again usher in subversion. However, this does not mean that traditional fuel vehicles can only be passively beaten.
It is undeniable that the layout of the whole industry chain, the scale effect formed in the process of rapid development and the decline in battery costs can indeed make new energy vehicles have more controllable price adjustment space.
In comparison, the update and iteration of traditional fuel vehicles are slow and the degree of product intelligence is not high, but if you can get rid of one of the reasons for its high level - the dealer system covering the whole country, like the major new energy vehicle brands, you may not have a license to play at all.
For example, Lexus, the "highway lightning" in the mouth of many keyboard car gods, had the halo of pure imports earlier, and could only rely on dealers for domestic sales, and arbitrarily increased prices and did not accept the guidance of manufacturers at all**. Imagine, if the direct sales mode is opened in the mainland market, how much dimensionality reduction will it have on other models of the same price?
Source: Lexus official Weibo.
Moreover, there is still a certain gap between the independent brands represented by the new forces and the joint ventures or purely imported brands.
As we all know, the development history of traditional fuel vehicles has been more than 100 years since the advent of traditional fuel vehicles, and new energy vehicles have only been more than 10 years to meet the majority of consumers.
First of all,The most important factor for many consumers when buying a car is the brand effect。After years of seizing the minds of consumers, joint venture brands have a very high advantage in terms of brand effect, and German and Japanese auto brands that have been calling for wind and rain in the market are often easier to gain the recognition of the majority of audiences.
To this day, there are still many people who ridicule the "refrigerator color TV sofa" of Li Auto, spend BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) to buy Tailifan OEM cars, and also include Weilai OEM by JAC, Xiaopeng is Haima OEM, and so on. Even if BYD has become the sales champion in the field of new energy vehicles, it is still not called a real big brand by consumers.
Secondly,We need to focus on the actual market performance. Although the new domestic car-making forces have seized some advantages in market share and have good development prospects, they are still not as good as traditional fuel vehicles in terms of sales data.
In addition to the aforementioned Nissan Sylphy and Volkswagen Lavida, which dominate the annual sales list in the A-segment car market, the gap is even more obvious if the performance of the high-end and luxury markets is counted.
According to public data, the sales volume of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi in the Chinese market in 2023 will reach 82 respectively50,000, 7650,000 and 7290,000 vehicles, more than 300,000 mid-to-high-end ** segment rarely rivals. After all, if you are ready to buy your first car with hundreds of thousands of cash, how many people can completely put aside BBA?
Then there is the cost control aspect. After years of precipitation, the cost of fuel vehicles is relatively stable under the premise of no absolute technological innovation, and new energy vehicles are greatly affected by the fluctuation of raw materials.
Although large car companies such as BYD can achieve scale with their strong vertical integration and full industry chain capabilities, this is based on a large enough sales volume, and for some small and medium-sized car companies, it is impossible for everyone to "make dumplings for a little vinegar".
It is true that the general trend of the entire automobile market is the replacement process of new technologies replacing old technologies and new forces gradually crushing old traditions. Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, once said: "China's new energy vehicle production and sales have been the world's first for 9 consecutive years, accounting for more than 60% of the world's proportion, the development of new energy vehicles will be further accelerated, and it is expected that the monthly penetration rate of new energy vehicles will exceed 50% in 2024." ”
It's just that no matter what, the actual damage caused by the war to the major car companies cannot be ignored, although in the face of the increasingly volatile automobile market, this move has to go, but in the future, there is a high probability that a new balance will be reached between new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles.
Today's topic: Which car will you choose?