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

Would you like to buy a two-wheeled electric car for 10,000 yuan?

In 1983, Shanghai permanent Bicycle Factory launched the DX-130, an independently designed and energy-produced two-wheeled electric vehicle in China.

Although this two-wheeled electric vehicle with 150W column motor and 24v ordinary lead-acid batteries has a range of less than 30 kilometers, poor climbing ability, easy to wear and many shortcomings, it has also produced 45000 vehicles in eight years, of which 805 have been sold abroad to earn foreign exchange.

Although permanent DX-130 has not caused much waves, the magic box of two rounds of electric change has been opened. With the opening of the demand for short-distance trips in Chinese cities, there is a torrent of trends from hundreds of billions of markets.

In 2021, despite a 13.9 per cent year-on-year decline, the two-wheeled electric car market still sold 41 million vehicles, compared with the rapid growth of new energy vehicles last year.

Data source: public data collation and mapping: insight into the new research agency in the world of two-wheeled electric cars, both Emma Chairman Zhang Jian and his daughter Zhang Gege sat on the 2022 Hurun Global Rich list as the richest man in Shangqiu, Henan Province. There is also China's pride that Yadi sells 38000 units a day, ranking first in global sales for five years in a row.

As a result, some media have labeled the two-wheeled electric cars as "China's fifth greatest invention".

With the progress of history, after a series of complex and fierce competitions such as scale war, price war, technology war and so on, we are surprised to find that "high-end" seems to be a pseudo-concept in the two-wheel electric vehicle industry. Many brands want to "touch high", but do not get anything, and the user level is not interested in the so-called consumption upgrading.

Under the extreme inner roll, which direction will the next wind of the two-wheeled electric car blow to?

01, "28 Law" failed two-wheeled electric vehicles, 4000 yuan is a threshold.

According to the survey data of Master Lu, the largest number of users have a price of 2000-3000 yuan, accounting for more than 30%; those with a price of 3000-4000 yuan account for more than 25%; and those with a price of less than 2000 yuan account for more than 25%.

A rough calculation shows that the market share of so-called "high-end" products worth more than 4000 yuan is less than 20%.

It is right to classify the market by price, but from the perspective of the current price level and the degree of development of the national economy, a two-wheeled electric car worth 4000 yuan wants to be labeled as "high-end". I believe many people will not recognize it.

After all, there is more than that price for any mainstream mobile phone these days, and with a comparative reference, it is difficult for two-wheeled electric car users to recognize the high-end defined by manufacturers at the price level.

In another dimension, although two-wheeled electric vehicle manufacturers have been instilling the concepts of consumption upgrading and high-end transformation into the market, their main source of profit still comes from middle and low-end products, specific to the product layout, its downward infiltration trend is becoming more and more obvious.

Let's first take a look at the high-end company 9. The price of its E200P ONE, E125 and other products is close to or reaches 10,000 yuan. Last year, it also achieved sales of 420000 vehicles and revenue of 1.2 billion yuan.

As far as the company itself is concerned, this result seems to be quite good, but if you put the company's sales data into the market of 41 million two-wheeled electric vehicles in the whole year, the market share is almost negligible. Compared with Yadi's mid-and high-end product crown energy series (priced between 5000 and 7000 yuan), there is also a huge gap compared with the data that sold more than 4 million vehicles last year.

Perhaps seeing the resistance encountered by the high-end, Mavericks, another two-wheeled electric car manufacturer that started with high-end products, launched a sub-brand GOVA that locates the sinking market. The product layout has been improved. It has more than ten new GB electric models, including NQi, MQi, UQi series covering electric motorcycle, electric light motorcycle and electric full category, and G, F, C series of GOVA brand, but under the strategy of "exchanging price for market". The average price of bicycles in China has also dropped to 2959 yuan.

Data source: Guohai Securities Cartography: insight into the new research agency and Mavericks launched sub-brands to focus on the sinking market, the traditional two-wheeled electric car manufacturers represent Yadi and Emma's basic market in the middle and low-end market, they use sub-brands to hit the high end.

In 2021, Yadi launched a new high-end urban brand "VFLY". The VFLY claims to be derived from Porsche design and includes six sub-series products. Some models provide intelligent functions such as central control and real-time navigation, with prices ranging from 6999 yuan to 19800 yuan.

Emma, on the other hand, has a sub-brand Xiaopa as a counterpart, launching a light luxury two-wheeled electric car priced from 4999 yuan to 9999 yuan.

However, from the market performance point of view, Yadi's high-end road is not smooth, from the average price of Yadi product line can be seen, although the average price of Yadi electric scooter rose from 1552 yuan to 1662 yuan last year; the average price of electric bicycles increased from 1118 yuan to 1265 yuan, but still did not break through the all-time high, which also shows that Yadi can not complete the high-end upgrading of brands and products in a short time.

Data source: Guohai Securities Cartography: insight into the retreat of the "new forces" from the high-end market on the one hand and the "traditionalists" on the other, when both meet in the sinking Red Sea, the law of two-eight seems to have failed for two-wheeled electric cars.

02. "High-end" is a false proposition. Why is the high-end road of two-wheeled electric cars so difficult?

From the point of view of the demand side, there is no demand; from the perspective of the supply side, there is no power.

We might as well think about this question from the first principle: why do people buy two-wheeled electric cars?

The answer is simple, the need to travel. Up compared with cars, cheaper; down compared with bicycles, comfortable.

The research report of Ai Media Consulting pointed out that efficient and labor-saving travel, no traffic jams and parking problems, and environmental protection are the three main reasons for people to buy two-wheeled electric vehicles; the latter reason is to use low-cost and high-priced cars as a supplement to other means of transportation.

In the eyes of many users, two-wheeled electric vehicles are mainly suitable for short-distance transportation, and private cars are the main daily trips. Two-wheeled electric vehicles are used only in scenes such as picking up and picking up children, shopping, and weather permitting. The sun is too big, driving; windy and rainy, driving; freezing cold, or driving, since it is only a supplement to many ways of travel, then there is no need to spend more money on high-end.

When the perspective goes down to third-and fourth-tier cities and towns, users do not need a stronger demand for high-end, but only need to meet the lowest demand for transportation with the lowest price.

The hot sale of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV can provide the best speculative perspective for two-wheeled electric cars that do not need high-end.

The 28800 yuan entry-level model has no air conditioners and airbags, no reversing images, and does not support fast recharge. the interior can be called the compact version, and there is only 120km in the most critical driving range. The high-end version is 170km, but it happens to be such a product full of slots, but it can sell well in the sinking market, and the most important thing is that it is cheap.

If so, we can easily sum up the core demands of users for two-wheeled electric vehicles, do not need high-end, what we really want is convenience and practicality.

Back on the supply side, two-wheeled electric car manufacturers have suffered losses in hitting the high end.

Yadi tried to open up a new income curve during the market bottleneck in 2015, shouting the slogan of "higher-end electric cars" when he was endorsed by South Korean artist Lee Min-ho, a popular idol who had just appeared in the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. Hundreds of millions of advertising money was spent to improve the brand image.

Then, hundreds of millions of yuan was invested to upgrade more than 5300 stores.

In terms of products, Yadi launched a series of models worth more than 4000 yuan, especially the 2016 Z3, which sold for as much as 8588 yuan, setting a brand record.

However, with the continuation of these three axes, sales fell instead of rising, with revenue growing by only 3.62% the following year, and share prices were also depressed at the initial stage of listing in Hong Kong.

As a result, Yadi no longer stuck to the high-end line and returned to the middle and lower end of the market in 2017. By increasing the proportion of low-cost electric bicycles, combined with repeated discounts and low-price purchases, sales surpassed Emma to become the first in the industry in 2017. the following year, Yadi's sales exceeded 5 million, its revenue approached 10 billion, and its profit increased by 300 million.

This scene is very similar to the transformation that the Mavericks are undergoing today.

Combing the development history of the two-wheeled electric vehicle industry, the high premium space left by manufacturers on high-end products has finally become a bargaining chip in the price war. The reason why this history can be repeated is that the technical content of the two-wheeled electric vehicle is not high, can not maintain the premium for a long time, and finally the core is the traditional channel and cost competition.

From 2019 to 2021, Yadi's gross profit margin was 17.4%, 15.9% and 15.2% respectively, showing a downward trend year by year, as did Emma and Mavericks Electric, with the former falling from 13.68% to 11.72% and the latter from 23.42% to 21.94%. This is the inevitable result that the industry does not fight for the high end, but the price.

Data Source: financial report / Network Cartography: insights into the new research agency: generally speaking, Yadi can steal a user of Emma or Mavericks Electric just because the store is closer to home and the models in the same price range are 10 yuan cheaper. "high-end" may enable manufacturers to improve their brand image and serve a small number of users, but the "middle and low end" is the big market where manufacturers can make money.

03. How to get out of the volume? If the pure performance-to-price ratio is achieved by manufacturers to the extreme, the room for further growth in the market is locked, and the result is that manufacturers rely on the scale of sales to dilute costs to break through. Without the determination to hit the market with the determination to get out of the inner volume, the space for manufacturers to move every step will be narrower and narrower.

Compared with the top two companies in the industry, Yadi won 27 billion yuan last year and Emma 15.4 billion yuan, but the gap between the two companies was only 6.3 billion yuan in 2020 and widened to about 11.6 billion yuan in 2021. It is not surprising that brands are becoming more and more concentrated, but it is unexpected that they are concentrated so quickly.

How to jump out of the simple low-price competition in a short period of time, quickly seek premium space, and seize the new main consumer groups with new products has become the key process for manufacturers to get out of the inner volume.

As far as users are concerned, they will want to experience more durable, secure or intelligent products at limited prices. For example, intelligence does not mean that multiple displays, the Internet of things, and the intelligence of cars will have a qualitative leap, but can bring users a sense of upgrading, as well as "better than nothing" consumer psychological satisfaction.

There are already successful examples in the electric minicar market. As we all know, under the price of 50,000 yuan, there are Wuling Hongguang MINIEV pearl jade in front, breaking the market stereotype of minicar "old man music"; and Chery QQ ice cream as a latecomer, further optimize the space and interior quality, and move intelligent as a big difference. From January to May this year, QQ sold 37414 ice creams, second only to Hongguang MINIEV among the models with less than 50,000 yuan.

For manufacturers, it is a great test of how to make the optimal solution of the product under the limited cost. The management ability of supply chain and channel is the foundation, and the new story about technical barriers and core competence is advanced in the low-tech product logic.

In the case of Hello, an attempt has been made with intelligent technology. The A80 model was launched last year, putting an electric car into a mobile phone for the first time and extending functions such as automatic unlocking and real-time cycling dashboards through smart peripherals such as the VLink, which is shaped like a mobile phone bracket. In Tmall's flagship store, we can also find that almost all models of Hello support App intelligent control.

Yadi, on the other hand, focuses on spreading long-range and durability to all models. The third generation of Yadi TTFAR graphene battery has become a testing ground for Yadi's large-scale use of long-range technology. Now, Yadi has many low-and middle-end e-bikes that can achieve the highest 100km service life, which is much higher than the "new power" 50km standard. As the "new national standard" has requirements on the quality of the whole vehicle, including batteries, it has become a "technical activity" to break through the life bottleneck under the restrictions.

But in any case, different manufacturers try different directions, always for user experience services, but also for themselves to strive for a larger premium space. After all, after a few fights, it will eventually return to price competition.

Seizing this short-term "beauty" is perhaps the happiest thing for manufacturers.

references

1. Deep sound, two-wheeled electric vehicles in the course of history

Tea appreciation House, two-wheeled electric car, the fifth great invention in China

3. Yuanchuan Science and Technology Review, Wuling miraculous car: look down on it now, but can't catch up in the future.

4. Yuanchuan Business Review, two-wheeled electric car, ten years of dragon and tiger fight

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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Dongbianxin Research Society (ID:DJXYS-0309), author: Wei Qiyang

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