On March 1, a number of car companies successively announced their sales results in February, and most of the new energy vehicle companies' sales in February showed a month-on-month increase. The Federation of Passenger Cars pointed out that unlike last year's month-on-month increase, February this year will be the lowest point of the year's auto market. The retail market for passenger cars in the narrow sense was about 115 in February00,000 units, a decrease of 43 month-on-month5%, showing a regular seasonal trend. Among them, new energy retail sales are expected to be 3800,000 units, -430%, with a penetration rate of about 330%。
The decline in auto sales in February was closely related to the impact of the Spring Festival holiday. On the one hand, this year's Spring Festival holiday is relatively long, with only 18 working days in February, and consumers returning to their hometowns to travel and dealers taking holidays have affected the transaction volume of the auto market to a certain extent. On the other hand, the first-class war throughout last year was further intensified at the end of last year, releasing part of the demand ahead of schedule. Under the fierce competition, the sales of new energy vehicles of various car companies have shown an accelerated differentiation.
Drafting: Che Yun.
In the first echelon, traditional manufacturers BYD and Geely led the way with monthly sales of 122311 and 111398 units respectively. In February, the delivery volume of Wenjie was 21,142 vehicles, exceeding the ideal monthly sales for two consecutive months.
In the second and third echelons, the sales of brands such as Aion and Weilai in February have declined to varying degrees year-on-year, and only the ideal monthly sales in February exceeded 10,000 units in "Wei Xiaoli", of which Xiaopeng's sales in the first two months of this year have been cut in half, and Nezha, which has vigorously reduced prices, has fallen into a bitter battle.
February is also a concentrated outbreak node of "product war" and "** war". On the one hand, BYD, Geely, and Ideal have launched new models with strong comprehensive competitiveness, and on the other hand, the wave of "electricity is lower than oil" will push the first battle to a new climax. The trend of "fast fish eating slow fish" will become clearer and clearer in the coming months.
No matter how ideal the world is, seize the day, and it is not a small account
According to data released by AITO, the brand delivered 21,142 new cars in February, ranking first among new power brands. Although compared to 3 in January30,000 units decreased month-on-month, but the year-on-year ratio was 5032% increase.
It is worth noting that of the 21,142 new cars delivered, 18,479 are the new M7, accounting for 87%. Since its launch in September last year, the new M7 has been delivered with a total of 100,000 units, becoming the absolute main force supporting the sales of the company.
Another key factor supporting the sales volume of Wenjie is the acceleration of delivery. Known as the "King of Science and Technology Cars", the M9 has exceeded 50,000 units in 62 days on the market, and large-scale delivery has officially started on February 26. Wenjie also announced that the delivery of all versions of the M5 and the new M7 has been accelerated, and the car can be delivered and picked up in 2-4 weeks at the earliest. On the basis of excellent product strength, the efficiency of the whole process from sales, delivery to service has been improved.
With the acceleration of delivery, the sales volume of Wenjie is expected to continue to climb.
In February, Li Auto sales lost by 891 units. According to Li Auto, in February 2024, Li Auto delivered a total of 20,251 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 218%, down 350%。
But this is not enough to mask the energy that the ideal has accumulated. On February 26, Ideal announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. According to the data, Li Auto will achieve revenue of 1238 in 2023500 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1735%。This means that Ideal has become the first new power car company in China with annual revenue exceeding 100 billion yuan. In addition, Li Auto will achieve annual profitability for the first time in 2024, becoming the third new energy vehicle company in the world to achieve profitability after Tesla and BYD.
On the same day that the sales volume was released, Li Auto officially released the first pure electric MPV that has been warmed up for a long time - MEGA, which is priced at 55980,000 yuan, delivery will start on March 11.
The 2024 facelifted models of the L series (L9, L8, L7) were also released on the same day, still focusing on the family scene, and the 2024 ideal L7 is priced at 31980,000 yuan-37980,000 yuan, the price of the 2024 ideal L8 is 33980,000 yuan-39980,000 yuan, the price of the 2024 ideal L9 is 42980,000 yuan-45980,000 yuan, the 2024 Ideal L series will be delivered on March 3, 2024.
Several new cars were launched, which was the beginning of a big year for ideal products. In 2024, Li plans to release 8 new models, 4 range extensions, and 4 pure electric models to achieve the annual sales target of 800,000 units. For the ideal of "extended range" route, the performance of pure electric products will greatly affect the direction of the ideal future.
Although there is an obvious benchmarking trend in marketing and products, and "setting targets" has also become an effective means to attract traffic, the relationship between the two is not "needle-to-wheat". It's more about learning from each other's strengths, making up for their own shortcomings, and speeding up on the way to a larger market share, in order to maintain the first-mover advantage. In contrast, other players in the 25-500,000 SUV market are even more sweaty.
Geely and BYD are full of cost performance, and the system strength is accumulated
Compared with the new power brands, the new energy brands of traditional car companies have shown the strength of accumulation. In February, BYD's new energy vehicle sales were 12230,000 units, down 3684%, down 393%。In the first two months of this year, BYD sold a total of 32 new energy vehicles380,000 units, down 614%。Specifically, the BYD Dynasty Ocean brand, Denza, Formula Leopard, and Yangwang brands sold 114,060, 4,598, 2,310, and 780 new cars, respectively.
The increase in competition intensity has brought pressure on BYD to decline its market share, and BYD's defensive strategy is to launch the "Honor Edition" matrix for the eight main models. On February 19, BYD shouted the slogan "electricity is lower than oil" for the first time and directly flipped the table. As of the morning of March 4, 8 BYD Glory Edition models have been listed, namely Qin Plus, Destroyer 05, Dolphin, Han, Tang, Song Plus, Seal and Song Pro, all of which have adopted the strategy of reducing prices and increasing allocation, and the starting price has been reduced by about 20,000 yuan on average.
Price reduction is the most direct means of defense, and for BYD, which defines the benchmark of 100,000-250,000 **, defense itself is offense. In the context of the price reduction of many models, BYD's new energy model sales may usher in a new outbreak.
Li Yunfei, general manager of the brand and public relations department of BYD Group, said that thanks to BYD's large-scale effect and the advantages of the whole industry chain, BYD's plug-in hybrid can be lower than that of fuel vehicles of the same level. At the same time, Li Yunfei also said that this move will completely open the decisive battle with fuel vehicles, "next, who will buy fuel vehicles."
Geely Automobile's total sales in February were 11140,000 units (including ZEEKR), up 3% year-on-year and down 47% month-on-month82%。Geely Automobile's sales of pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in February were 3350,000 units, compared to 2270,000 units. In order to expand its market share, Geely has deployed new models with price reductions and additional configurations in different segments to achieve a jump in cost performance.
Following the Qin PLUS Glory Edition, which has a price cut of 20,000 yuan, and the Geely Emgrand L HIP Longteng Edition, which was launched on February 20, the starting prices of the two models of the 100km Transcendence and 100km Excellence are 8 respectively980,000 yuan and 9980,000 yuan.
ZEEKR 001, which has killed all sides in the high-end new energy market, also ushered in a new facelift with price reduction and additional configuration on February 27. The new ZEEKR 001, which is fully upgraded in terms of power performance, battery life, driving control, etc., and the hardware is full of sincerity, is still four versions, priced at 2690,000-3290,000 yuan. The starting price is 3.3 percent lower than the previous entry-level model10,000 yuan, the highest version of the reduction of nearly 570,000 yuan.
Traditional car companies represented by BYD and Geely have not only continued to iterate and upgrade on the road of promoting intelligent and electrified transformation, but also implemented "cost performance" to the end with their own strong accumulation and system strength. Large-scale is the simplest and most crude way to reduce manufacturing costs. However, for the new forces, this road can only be seen and seen in many cases. In the case of more and more limited increments in the automobile market, car companies that dare to reduce prices and have a family background to reduce prices will establish a voice in their own segments.
The melee on the third and fourth lines was fierce, and the process of differentiation accelerated
More second-tier new forces faced greater pressure in February, and deliveries generally did not exceed 10,000.
NIO delivered 8,132 new vehicles in February, down 19% month-on-month and 33% year-on-year. In a live broadcast in late February, Li Bin, the founder of NIO, said that his annual salary is less than one million, and the travel expenses of all the people in the company are the same. Although it can always rely on financing to recover blood, cash flow is always a knife on NIO's head.
Xpeng's situation is even less optimistic, with only 4,545 deliveries in February, down 24% year-on-year4%, down 449%。
Under Nezha's aggressive attack, Xiaopeng was obviously caught in a fierce struggle. Nezha Automobile delivered 6,085 vehicles in February, down 39% month-on-month from 10,000 units in January and 1010,000 units decreased by about 40% year-on-year, and the number of deliveries was 1,540 more than that of Xpeng.
Since the end of last year, Nezha has also been under great pressure, and a strong sense of urgency has accelerated Nezha's response. After the release of the BYD Qin plus Glory Edition**, on February 19, Nezha X all series** dropped by 22,000 yuan, and the price was 9Starting from 980,000 yuan, Nezha Aya's entire series ** dropped by 8,000 yuan, and the price was 6Starting from 580,000 yuan, Nezha S's full range of ** dropped by 5,000 yuan, and the price was 15From 480,000 yuan.
In addition to Nezha, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Changan Qiyuan, Geely and other car companies also quickly followed up after the release of the Qin Plus Glory Edition, and they have lowered their **. In March, which has just begun, the ** war ushered in another wave of acceleration, and 9 car companies including Geely, SAIC, and Changan officially announced price cuts or limited-time discounts. Up to 470,000 yuan, and other benefits are worth about 40,000 yuan.
The overall growth of the auto market tends to slow down, which is destined to have very limited opportunities for car companies to compete. In the war, the head car companies rely on the scale advantage, in order to seize the market, they can always come up with more extreme**. Under this pressure, the competition of third- and fourth-tier car companies will become more and more fierce, and some car companies that are slowly declining, limited by the limitation of scale, have begun to appear in a situation of restraint, unless they hold back a big move, it is difficult to turn over.
Che Yun summary
The accelerated differentiation of new energy vehicle sales in February has shown us the cruelty of the Matthew effect, and the concentration of the automotive industry will increase significantly in 2024. Li Xiang recently stated in the circle of friends that in the fourth quarter of this year, the new energy vehicle market of more than 200,000 will show the result that the top three brands will eat up 70% of the market share. He also pointed out that this will be more concentrated than a fuel car, and it will be no different from a smartphone.
In the coming months, the automotive market may change even faster than we expected, and it is no longer enough for the contestants to know what to do right, and more importantly, the window of trial and error on how to do it right will soon close.