Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

U. S. stock Tesla closed down 8.61% on Monday, the biggest one-day drop in nearly four months. Two days ago, Tesla released delivery figures for the third quarter of 2022, with delivery of 343000 vehicles, below Wall Street expectations of about 358000.

In China, however, it is a different picture: recently, the new car-building forces particularly like to use the word "bend" to refer to some of the problems encountered, especially Lai Lai and Xiaopeng cars. Li Xiang did not say, but from the actual situation, the ideal car is also in what they call "bends."

In the past, "bend" was a preferred term for Internet companies, which generally meant "corner overtaking".

In fact, "overtaking at corners" is a bad driving habit and is not worth advocating, because it is prone to accidents, and normal traffic management requires you to slow down at corners. From this point of view, the "bend" mentioned by the new cars is closer to reality.

In 2020, with Weilai's successful financing in Hefei as the starting point, the force of new cars has just crossed the line of life and death. In 2021, the representatives of Weilai, Xiaopeng Automobile and ideal Automobile, the annual sales almost reached the threshold of 100000 vehicles. It seems that behind the prosperity, why did they collectively enter the corner in 2022?

At both ends of the bend: no take-off sales, users complain that Porsche is the benchmark of the fuel era, Xiaopeng G9 is the benchmark of this era, and the last generation of smart cars before they move towards driverless cars.

In 2023, it will sell more than 10,000 vehicles a month, surpassing Audi Q5.

G9 is the best SUV in 500000.

On the evening of September 21, he Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile, made some bold words on the launch of the fourth model, Xiaopeng G9, but did not win applause from the whole house. On the contrary, in addition to the cold blessing, he heard more complaints-"the configuration is too complex to understand" and "since there is no smart configuration for the basic model".

The next morning, in an interview with the media, he was asked the most questions, which also had something to do with the doubts of these users. At that time, he patted his chest and said, "Xiaopeng can optimize the SKU in two days."

After staying up for two nights in a row, Xiaopeng did complete the optimization of SKU, which looks less complicated and difficult for users to understand. At the same time, it also relied on "no price increase" to quell some skeptical voices.

It was a rare scene in Chinese car history when a car company changed the SKU and added the configuration of the vehicle just two days after the launch of its flagship model. This scene happened to the new power of car-building, which is both lucky and unfortunate.

Fortunately, Xiaopeng was able to recognize the problem immediately, then quickly corrected it, and won back the favor of some users; unfortunately, as an eight-year-old new force in car building, in the so-called flagship model, still make the same mistakes.

Feats are often a collection of luck and lessons.

Xiaopeng car is not the only one. Before Xiaopeng, the ideal car had encountered various problems more than once, such as "sales lagging behind", "new product weakness" and "big loss", while the ideal car, from the listing of the ideal L9 to the suspension of production of the ideal ONE, and then to the release of the ideal L8, appeared in a short period of three months, making many old car owners feel dissatisfied and "thought they had been cut leeks."

These voices are even more acute at a time when the sales of the new car-building forces of the three heads are not growing step by step with the market.

According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to August 2022, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China completed 3.97 million and 3.86 million respectively, an increase of 1.2 times and 1.1 times respectively compared with the same period last year.

Xiaopeng delivered 90085 vehicles in the first eight months of 2022, a year-on-year increase of 95.87%. Among them, Xiaopeng's sales declined month-on-month in July and August this year. "it is almost impossible to achieve the annual sales target of 250000 vehicles." An employee of Xiaopeng Motor said.

From January to August of 2022, ideal delivered a total of 75396 new cars, an increase of 66.89 percent over the 45176 in the same period last year. The worst result was Weilai, which delivered 71600 new cars in the first eight months of 2022, an increase of only 28.3 per cent year-on-year.

By comparison, BYD's sales grew by 164.03% over the same period. The combined delivery volume of the three is not as good as that of Tesla's Model Y model, which grew by 248.5 per cent in the first eight months of this year.

Sales volume is only one of the most intuitive manifestations. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National passenger car Market Information Association, believes that the product layout of the new forces of car building is still in the early stage and is not a particularly complete genealogical layout. In the process of adjustment, they will take some detours. "they need to replan and sort out the product system." Compared with traditional car companies, the new power of car building does not have enough buffer to tide over these pains.

Objectively speaking, Cui Dongshu believes that at present, the industrial chain of new energy vehicles is still not perfect, and because the new car-building power is still relatively small, the bargaining power of the industrial chain and the upstream protection power are relatively weak, so it will also lead to the new car-building forces in a relatively passive situation.

On the other hand, a person who once worked in a number of car companies and worked in the middle of the new car-building forces said bluntly that today's "bend" is more like an excuse for the new car-building forces to make their own rhythm adjustment.

In an interview with Sina Technology, he Xiaopeng said bluntly that Xiaopeng cars are still in corners and that the first generation of new forces are in corners. "products and technologies will enter the next generation, but the needs of customers are changing, so how to control the speed in the corners and bend too fast is an immediate challenge."

Boosting sales is still a top priority. Sales are not only a sign of entering a corner, but also a symbol of driving out of a corner.

Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of Weilai, said that in the past year, when the Chengdu auto show opened on Aug. 26, Ulai failed to catch up with dividends despite the rapid growth of the terminal market. In 2022, Wei delivered three new cars and laid out popular brands, just like on the race track, Weilai was the first to enter the curve, and the product replacement was the first big bend. The speed will be adjusted in the bend, and the speed will go up again after getting out of the corner, and now Weilai is driving out of the corner.

Correspondingly, the delivery volume of Ulai reached 10677 in August 2022, the second best monthly delivery in history, and returned to the top three of the new car-building forces on the list.

The delivery volume in the first eight months is less than half of the target of 150000 vehicles for the whole year. "in the last four months, Weilai will make an all-out sprint and there will be a big breakthrough in sales." An employee of Xilai talked about. After ET7, two other new models of Weilai, the ES7 and ET5, entered mass delivery in the fourth quarter of this year. However, there are still great challenges for Xilai to achieve its goals.

Sales are also the primary target of the other two new car-building powers. In particular, Xiaopeng Automobile, the Xiaopeng employees interviewed above talked about Xiaopeng's hesitation on the G9. "the P5, which is positioned as a volume model, does not meet expectations, and if the G9 is not available, then Xiaopeng will easily enter a stage where the product is not available, so there is a lot of pressure on pricing." He said.

Even Xiaopeng has reduced the cost of its battery in order to gain an advantage over other competitors in the G9. Ningde era is no longer Xiaopeng's first choice, but turned to second-line power battery manufacturers such as China Chuangchuang Xinhang, compressing the highest battery life to 702km.

"the price of this car still needs to be raised, and at the same time, it has to take more volume." The Xiaopeng automobile employee said. He Xiaopeng also has a high goal for the G9, "selling more than 10,000 vehicles in 2023, surpassing Audi Q5." This is the standard he proposed at the launch ceremony of the G9.

Ideal car has advanced the release time of the ideal L8 by more than a month-from "delivery in November" announced on September 1 to September 30, just over a week after the launch of the Xiaopeng G9. It means to open up and grab potential users.

In June 2020, he Xiaopeng, Li Bin and Li Xiang met, and then he Xiaopeng posted a photo of the three in his moments, with the caption "three bitterness, thinking hard to change."

From then on to the beginning of 2021, it was a sweet period for the three new forces of head car building, whether it was word-of-mouth or in the capital market.

Now in the bend, finally entered a "thinking of change" cycle. Whether it is Li Xiang, who is controversial online, he Xiaopeng, who really supports Xiaopeng, or Li Bin, who is opening up the European market with senior executives, they already have their own feelings.

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