Written by Qingfu.
Edited by Jia Jia.
Why do you want to build a car?
When this question is thrown to the helmsman of a number of new domestic car-making forces, most of the answers of these bigwigs are dreams and feelings:
Xiaomi's Lei Jun wants to build a dream car, Li Xiang of Li Auto wants to build a 100 billion dollar company, He Xiaopeng of Xiaopeng Motors is to build an Internet car that young people love, and Li Bin of Weilai even gave the answer of "building a car that he and his friends want to buy".
But if this question is thrown to Wang Chuanfu, the answer given must be:The degree of automation in automobile production is not as high as expectedBYD people + fixtures robot hand"The way batteries are produced can be replicated in cars.
The motivation for building a car at the beginning was not such as dreams and feelingsIt's more about whether it can be done or not。And this also lays the foundation for BYD's product characteristics, not following the trend of pursuing a certain performance index and sensory experience,It seems to be a maverick among a number of new energy vehicle companies
[1] Go against the wind, abandon procurement and assembly, and achieve self-development and self-manufacturing
BYD's car manufacturing began in January 2003, and Wang Chuanfu started with 2700 million yuan to acquire Xianqinchuan, and 7 months later, 2 billion yuan was invested in Xi'an to establish a production and research and development base covering an area of 1,500 acres.
It was in the midst of globalization,"Efficient, low-cost", "to produce, brandGiving full play to comparative advantages was the main theme of industrial enterprises at that time, and almost all industrial enterprises pursued the business model of "global bidding and global procurement". Whether it is a joint venture car or a domestic enterprise, the car company is more like a complete factory, from the early model design, car molds, to seats, dashboards and other parts are purchased externally.
But BYD chose the "Ford" production method, and all the spare parts of a car were built by itself, in the words of BYD employeesBYD is able to manufacture all parts of the car except glass and tires
Laymen make cars, coupled with the industrial trend is completely contrary, no one is optimistic about BYD to make cars, in the capital market, the best managers even said bluntly to Wang Chuanfu: "We just want to throw your **, throw to death." ”
But BYD's self-built model has its own logical basisIn order to save money, reduce costs
In order to save costs, BYD acquired the mold factory under BAIC to form a full set of mold development capabilities for the whole vehicle, which alone saved 70% of the mold procurement cost; For a coating line, Germany-related equipment costs hundreds of millions, and BYD chooses to develop and build it by itself, and the final cost is only 30 million.
*: BYD official website).
BYD is the only car company that has mastered the entire industry chain of new energy vehiclesThe teardown report of UBS analysts shows that among the seals, the proportion of BYD's self-produced parts is as high as 75%. The advantage is that in the same class of models, in terms of cost, BYD is at least 15% lower than its competitors.
Lower costs not only mean higher profit margins, but also:Stronger market competitiveness——At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, BYD's A-class car Qin PLUS and Destroyer 05 Glory Edition dropped by 20,000 yuan, and the price was 7From 980,000 yuan; B-class Chehan and Tang have reduced prices by 20,000 to 30,000 yuan.
This means that other new energy manufacturers will either reduce their profits or lose money to follow up, or they will be seized from the market.
Now BYD's asset-heavy car manufacturing model has also been verified, and the new domestic car-making forces have also expanded their self-built factories and reduced OEM, and car companies such as Great Wall and GAC Aion have also announced their own batteries, and they have changed from first-class suppliers to self-developed and self-built.
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[2] Physically solve the safety problem, and the blade battery realizes battery life and safety
In addition to the mode,BYD is even more unique in new energy technology
In 2019, with the gradual improvement of consumers' awareness of new energy vehicles, new energy manufacturers such as Weilai, Li and Xiaopeng began to take battery life as the biggest selling point, and through the improvement of battery performance, such as replacing lithium iron phosphate batteries with low capacity density with ternary lithium batteries with higher capacity and stronger density.
According to the relevant ** evaluation data, the average NEDC range of pure electric vehicles in 2018 was 364km, and in 2019, the value increased to 420km, an increase of 15%. Among them, the large-scale use of ternary lithium batteries in new energy vehicles has become the biggest promoter.
The continuous promotion of cruising range by merchants has greatly alleviated consumers' anxiety about insufficient mileage, but the ensuing safety problems have poured cold water on the market.
According to the "2019 Power Battery Safety Research Report" released by the Battery Safety Laboratory of Tsinghua University, the number of accidents of ternary lithium batteries is 570% of that of lithium iron phosphate.
On the one hand, there is the market's demand for long battery life, and on the other hand, consumers are questioning safety. Based on chemical characteristics, this is a contradictory and contradictory indicator for battery factories and new energy vehicle companies. Therefore, when promoting safety, more car companies only put forward auxiliary means to improve the safety of ternary lithium batteries, and did not make substantial changes from the physical and chemical aspects.
And BYD chose another pathPhysically and chemically alter the contradiction between energy density and safety. In 2019, when the annual profit was only 1.6 billion, BYD still invested 8.4 billion in R&D expensesConquer a series of technologies including blades, batteries, etc
*: BYD official website).
EventuallyAt the beginning of 2020, BYD released a blade battery based on lithium iron phosphate technology。Through structural innovation, the volume utilization rate has been improved, the cruising range has been increased by more than 50%, and the energy density is the same as that of ternary lithium batteries, realizing the safety of lithium iron phosphate and the high energy density of ternary lithium batteries. At present, whether it is the Qin of the A-class car, or the Tang and Han series of the B-class car, the blade battery has been widely used.
In China's new energy industry,BYD is a special existence。In just 30 years, BYD has grown from a car company giant like Volkswagen and GM: in terms of model range, from tens of thousands of A-class cars to more than one million U8, in terms ......of technology, it has contributed to the industry blade battery, E platform, CTB, Yunyuan, Yi Sifang and other technologies, and in the whole industry chain model, its self-developed and self-built model to reduce costs has been imitated by more and more peers
In 1997, after the return of Steve Jobs, Apple launched the most classic advertisement "Think Different", paying tribute to Einstein and Picasso, who were mavericks and unruly people in the eyes of the world, and it was because of them that they changed the world and changed lives.
For domestic new energy vehicles and even the entire automotive industry, BYD is the one who is out of place, but it is this company that does not have so many dreams and not many feelings that will achieve sales of 3.02 million units in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 334%.
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