This is a year of torrential torrents
Wen | Li Qin
Edit | Yang Xuan
It is hard to imagine that in 2021, the auto industry, which has a highly complex industrial chain and large capital needs, will start the second “Hundred Cars War”.
2020 is a watershed between the two wars. It took NIO one year to increase its market value from about US$3 billion to nearly US$90 billion, approaching the mobile phone giant Xiaomi Group. Ideal Motors and Xiaopeng Motors went public only half a year ago, and their market value has also soared from less than US$5 billion in the Pre-IPO to about US$30 billion. The upper limit of the capital influx comes from Tesla. In 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has enveloped the world, and Tesla still achieved 495,500 deliveries and recorded a full-year profit for the first time. This also pushed Tesla’s stock price all the way up, making Musk the world’s richest man.
The winners of the first round of car building battles have seen a sharp increase in market value in 2020, which undoubtedly attracts giants of all walks of life. The industry boom continues to rise, and the actual action of building cars with Apple has reached its peak. Domestic technology giants are also entering the market. Baidu and Geely have established a joint venture smart car company, and rumors of Xiaomi’s car building have repeatedly spread.
At the same time, driven by the wave of new cars, traditional car giants are also vying for the brand. SAIC, Changan, Dongfeng, Great Wall, Geely and even BYD, without exception, have established independent high-end smart electric vehicles. Brand.
The second echelon of newly built cars that have survived the cold winter of 2019, such as Weimar Motors, Leap Motors, and Hezhong Motors, also use the science and technology innovation board as a bargaining chip to obtain capital and grass in a timely manner to charge for the sinking market. Even, it is understood that the second wave of Internet cross-border car building, which is known for its product smell, is also brewing, and the legendary Li Yinan’s car building project has surfaced.
There is no doubt that a new round of “Hundred Cars War” will be unveiled in 2021. Tesla has launched a fierce attack on the Chinese market with the goal of 500,000 vehicles. The new car head camp will strengthen the moat by improving technology and services this year, and the second-tier car building project will also compete for new ones in 2021. Capital channel. The transformation of traditional car companies and subsequent car-making projects must seize this critical window period.
This is a year of torrential turbulence. It is the eve of an EV (Electric Vehicle) melee that lasts for 5 or even 10 years.
New car-head company: Assembling strategic resources
There is no doubt that Weilai, Ideal Auto and Xiaopeng Auto have established themselves as the top camp in the new car industry. Each of the three companies has their own value propositions and brand characteristics, and each has its own product appeal. Through the open market, sufficient funds have been raised to form an industry star effect.
Moreover, all three car-making projects have chosen the US stock market to be listed, and the mature regulatory mechanism of the established capital market will have a stronger drive for the core competitiveness of the company.move. This is equivalent to drawing a natural gap between the domestically marketed car-making projects.
But the three companies are not worry-free. From the perspective of public information and product rhythm, 2021 is the product gap period for the three companies, except that Xiaopeng Motors will launch the “minified” P5 of the coupe P7, and the ideal car may launch the ideal ONE The facelifted models, three major technologies and new-generation platform products are all concentrated in 2022. And 2021 will be a critical year for position consolidation, expansion of the layout, and gathering of resources.
The clues can already be seen. In early December 2020, Ideal Auto announced that it will issue additional 47 million shares and raise a maximum of 1.6 billion US dollars. Xiaopeng Auto and Weilai Auto followed closely to raise funds. In the three quarterly report call conference just half a month ago, Weilai CEO Li Bin also told major investment banks that there is no need for financing in the short term. The strategic contest will continue.
1. The top three new cars are going to be big and comprehensive
In the past normal perception, NIO’s advantage is user service, Xiaopeng Automobile’s entry point is the self-developed technology of intelligent driving, and the ideal car is the operational efficiency and product strength, so it can be foreseeable, In 2021 and for a considerable period of time in the future, the three companies will simultaneously invest in the overall layout. In the automobile industry, where consumption scenarios and chains are very complex, once NIO’s user service interface forms a closed loop, both technical and operational efficiency can be a single capability that can be embedded in it. At present, Li Bin’s strategic direction is also on this line.
On the NIO Day on January 10, Li Bin once stated to the media that he has been fully responsible for the R&D business, and the 10 R&D online persons in charge have reported to him. One of Weilai’s main strategies in 2020 is to rebuild the intelligent R&D system, including recruiting algorithm leader Ren Shaoqing, hardware leader Bai Jian, and promotion of veteran Zhang Jianyong as the system integration leader. The lower-level vehicle OS and chips are also on its research and development schedule. In terms of operational efficiency, Li Bin also intends to strengthen. A number of NIO employees revealed that Li Bin had called internally to learn about the efficiency of R&D investment in ideal cars.
In addition to NIO’s supplementary technical courses, the ideal car, known as the “factory”, has also begun to invest heavily in technology research and development. On February 2, Ideal Motors announced the establishment of a 2,000-person R&D center in Shanghai, dedicated to the research and development of high-voltage platforms and ultra-fast charging technology, autonomous driving technology, and next-generation smart cockpit technology. Excluding Ideal Auto’s R&D center in Shunyi, Beijing, Shanghai’s 2,000-person team is already very large, and Xiaopeng’s intelligent R&D team has just over 1,000. At the fourth quarter performance meeting just past, Ideal Auto also announced that it would increase its R&D investment this year from 1.1 billion yuan last year to 3 billion yuan, and its offline sales stores have also expanded to 200., And the future goal is thousands of companies.
If in 2022, the intelligent platform of Weilai Car ET7 “stacking type” is successfully implemented, and the self-developed autonomous driving capability of the ideal car is also delivered, then the corporate profile of Xiaopeng Motors is inevitable and blurred . Of course, in the opinion of Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng, its self-research system that has been built since 2017 still has the first-run advantage. “It will take 2-3 years for other companies’ self-research to take shape.” He Xiaopeng told the Guangzhou Auto Show in September last year.
During this time window, Xiaopeng Motors is bound to do more explorations on user operations, services, and community levels. For example, Xiaopeng Motors has resumed the construction of self-operated overcharging stations, and the goal is to cover 200 cities across the country by 2021 to ensure the quality of charging for its own users.
At the same time, at the channel level, Xiaopeng Motors has also switched to a direct sales model. Several Xiaopeng Auto sources told that the current strategy is to strengthen user services and touch points. “There were many franchise stores previously opened. Now third-party franchise stores will be carefully considered. The new stores will basically be directly operated. In 2021, small 60% of Peng Motor’s sales will come from direct sales.” According to reports, Xiaopeng Motors has followed the example of Weilai and established a first-level department UDS (User Development Service) at the end of last year to coordinate user operations, sales, and delivery. And service system.
2. Batteries and manufacturing, seize rigid resources in the industry
In addition to strengthening internal power, another focus of the new car head company’s layout in 2021 is the integration of manufacturing and industrial chain resources. From the sales data, the three new car manufacturers have sold more than 6,000 units in a single month, and Weilai has stabilized more than 7,000 units. It is learned from the industry chain that Weilai is already stocking up with the sales volume of 100,000 units this year. Both Xiaopeng Motors and Ideal Motors have launched facelifted models, and there is a high probability that they will sprint towards this goal. This is equivalent to three times the performance of each company in 2020, and both manufacturing and production capacity need to be expanded.
In order to match the production capacity demand in 2021, NIO has started the construction of the second phase of the plant, and learned from the ideal car that the construction of the second phase of its Changzhou plant has also started.
As for 2022, when heavy vehicles and technologies will land, and even the fiercer competition in the next five years, another complete manufacturing base is needed. Nowadays, local governments have rekindled their enthusiasm for the car industry, and generous bargaining chips are thrown out. The second production base of the new car head company is also likely to surface in 2021. This will be a huge gathering of industrial resources. .
Of course, with the increase in sales, the industry’s most scarce power battery production capacity also needs to be hoarded. It is learned that in early January, Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng stayed in CATL for a few days to secure supply for Xiaopeng Motors. Wei Lai is also inThe layout is infrastructure, and production capacity, channels and services are all supported. This can also be seen in the current series of official information. On February 3, the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System showed that the second-phase environmental assessment report of the Tesla Gigafactory project (Phase I) has been approved, which means After the second-phase plant for the production of Model Y was put into production, the first-phase plant also began to “expand”. The environmental assessment report also shows that the construction of the second phase of the first phase of the plant is to increase the production capacity of the domestically produced Model 3 models and to increase the production of Model Y, Model 3 and related derivative models.
Charging supplementary energy is known as the “three meals a day” of electric vehicles. Tesla’s action is very direct. It has established a charging pile factory in Lingang and will produce at least 10,000 V3 supercharged piles in 2021. , This production target is almost the sum of the number of charging piles built by Tesla in the 7 years of entering China. This move by Tesla will inevitably lead to follow-up by Weilai and Xiaopeng Motors. After all, ground parking space resources are limited. If Tesla’s charging piles still insist on the strategy of not opening to the outside world, then each Car companies are declining to replenish energy resources.
2, sales stores are sinking, word of mouth urgently needs to be boosted
In addition to charging facilities, sales and service stores also need to expand rapidly. Tesla’s sales system employees revealed that Tesla’s sales stores have expanded by more than three times in 2020, and the coverage of first- and second-tier central cities has been basically completed. Then it will continue to sink into the city and penetrate.
Infrastructure is just a hardware facility for Tesla to guarantee sales. In terms of upper-level user services and technology research and development, Tesla also needs to increase its strategic weight in 2021. After all, in this special market of China, there are a number of high-quality and tenacious local competitors who have outflanked services and technology, and each hold more than 30 billion funds, and they have enough ammunition to support this tough battle. It is understood that Tesla has also been recruiting a person in charge for the design center in China, and this fast business will jump out of the jurisdiction of Greater China and report directly to the chief designer Franz in the United States. If this structure is followed, the formation of Tesla’s localized autonomous driving team may be expected in 2021.
In 2020, Tesla’s delivery of nearly 500,000 vehicles has its “cost”. Behind it is the cost advantage brought by China’s manufacturing, continuous price stimulus, and sales expense control that is so strict that it is difficult to balance word-of-mouth . Faced with the million-level sales volume in 2021, Tesla urgently needs to effectively improve service and product quality, especially in China, a fierce market. If Tesla continues to ignore user value, it will soon fall into trouble. situation.
As a representative of the smart electric vehicle industry, Tesla has entered the deep waters of the market. Its technology research and development system, business model, service system construction, operation strategy, etc. are all very goodIndustry represents meaning. Although both Weilai and Ideal Auto have left Tesla aside and listed Apple as their public relations rhetoric, it is undeniable that Tesla’s continuous proliferation of sales has allowed the market to see the definite prospect of smart electric vehicles. This family bears the glory of the industry and the brand of predicament, which is worthy of attention and reflection.
Later entrants: the final decision-making period
2021, for the second echelon of new cars and carmakers who enter the game later, it may be the window period for making the final decision.
Ideal Automobile has made it clear in its internal letter that it will enter the broad market range of RMB 150,000 to RMB 500,000 in the next 5 years, and strive to achieve an annual delivery of 160 units. This undoubtedly shows that smart electric vehicles will soon enter the year of outbreak. In terms of a three-year product cycle, then from 2021 to 2022, all car manufacturers need to start R&D investment in the product matrix of the entire category.
The first test is the second-tier car manufacturing company. In the past 5 years, it has been struggling for a long time on the line of life and death, with limited investment in research and development. After opening the capital channel with the help of the science and technology innovation board in 2021, it will require product positioning and technical routes As well as channel strategies, make decisive decisions.
Under the shadow of the head company, it has been difficult to re-establish brand recognition. Therefore, it can be seen that, in the product line, whether it is Hezhong or Runaway Auto, as well as Skyrim Auto, will launch extended-range models with lower purchase thresholds to ensure the company’s cash source.
In terms of market positioning, the market range of 250,000 yuan to 600,000 yuan will be fully divided by Tesla, Weilai, Ideal Auto and Xiaopeng Motors. The market below 250,000 yuan will be a zero run The main battlefield for cars, Weimar cars and Hezhong cars. In this market with low profit margins and price-sensitive markets, low-margin or even abandoning of margins will become the norm.
Of course, there are Tesla’s price weapons. Even in the mid-to-high-end market area, Weilai and Ideal Auto have already shown good gross profit levels, and it is not ruled out that they will lower their gross profit margins to ensure competitive chips . As how Xiaopeng said before, “I think technology-based car companies will have high gross profit in the long run, but it is wrong to pursue too high gross profit in the short term.”
In addition to the second-tier car manufacturers, the high-end electric car brands of traditional car companies, and the cross-border car manufacturing of technology giants such as Baidu and Xiaomi also need to complete organizational restructuring, product definition, and branding in 2021. Key actions such as strategy and large-value financing input.
This is a wave of car-making opportunities driven by consumer attributes. The core capabilities required are product definition and brand value reshaping, which are incompatible with the professional managers of traditional giants. If you miss this intermittent period when the enthusiasm for funds is still continuing and the products of leading auto companies are exerting strength, whether it is the crossover of technology giants or the high-end transformation of traditional auto companies, they will all be put to nothing in a new round of fighting.
2021 is undoubtedly a turbulent year, and the global auto industry has already rolledTo advance the vortex of change, the only way to break through is new value creation.