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

This past December, there was a lot of bad news about the new power of car building.

On the 7th, the official announced that his NV model would no longer be delivered, officially announcing that Li Yinan's car-building trip had come to an end. However, while self-travelers like to mention the title of "the shortest-lived new force," life is not easy for other colleagues.

Since the beginning of this month, new energy car companies have released the "list" one after another-- the sales figures for November have been announced as a rule. Among them, the sales of the new forces of car building are even more polarized. Although "Wei Xiaoli" compared with October sales, stopped falling and rebounded, but the year-on-year growth rate significantly slowed down, Xiaopeng is three consecutive months of "stall".

Throughout the New Power's November sales list, the three-digit year-on-year growth rates are Polar Krypton, Cyrus and Zero, respectively. The top two rely on traditional car companies, while the latter mainly sell 80,000 yuan A0-class cars. It can be seen that the new power of car-building is facing a new reshuffle.

From the increasingly diluted "Golden Nine and Silver Ten" to the peak season at the end of the year, what is the reason behind the soaring sales of traditional new energy car companies and the poor performance of the once-glamorous "pure new forces"? Will the new power never recover?

"01" continues to be negative, hitting sales? If 2021 is the year of rapid development of the new power of car building, then the ups and downs of 2022 will more or less make the brand of the new power feel a chill to the bone. In particular, the house leakage meets the "blizzard", and the negative news of the new forces has not been reduced because of the brand "plunder".

At the Chongqing Auto Show in June, some car owners held up the words "the car was dark on the same day, repaired for half a month, replaced with two major parts, promised to return the car and went back on its promise" to safeguard its rights in the zero-running exhibition area. After the ferment of public opinion, the authorities responded that the vehicle problem had been solved and promised to give consumers a satisfactory answer.

In the same month, a test car at the headquarters of Weilai crashed from the third floor, killing two test drivers. A day later, officials issued a statement saying the fall was an accident and had nothing to do with the test vehicle itself. Was immediately accused by netizens, capital cold-blooded, caused a lot of controversy.

Li Xiang even used the remark that "the driver is of a low grade" to successfully send the ideal car to the tip of public opinion, causing dissatisfaction among car owners and netizens, and staged a big rollover. After the launch of the new car, the ideal ONE reduced its price by 20, 000 yuan, which also triggered collective complaints from car owners.

In addition, news such as the failure of the auxiliary driving system, fire, and leakage of user data also engulfed the new forces. More than one new power salesperson said that the negative nature of enterprises and products will inevitably affect the sales of new cars.

In July this year, after the incident that the ideal new car L9 broke its axle and got into a nest, sales in August immediately plummeted, accounting for less than half of July's sales, and 57% from the previous month. Although officials have given their own explanations, it is hard not to associate previous negative news.

Since it is so negative that it will inevitably affect sales performance, why can't new brands, which always boast of "attaching importance to users", be careful in public relations and do a good job in quality control?

Zhou Tao, an automobile industry analyst, believes that there are more negative news about new power brands only because compared with traditional car companies, new power brands are mostly placed in the "spotlight" by the media and public opinion, and even a little negative news is inevitably infinitely magnified.

The PPH of new energy vehicles sorted out by Automotive Science Island, the creator of the automobile field, shows that among the models with poor evaluation, not all are the products of new forces, and there are many models owned by traditional car enterprises, and there are also the shadow of the new forces of car-building in the evaluation of better products.

"as long as the product is in circulation, there will be problems more or less. Let's take the accidents of spontaneous combustion and broken axle, for example, traditional car companies have also had one or two cases, but why does public opinion only focus on new power brands? it's because it's more interesting."

Zhou Tao explained that just as cars self-ignite, fuel vehicle spontaneous combustion is rarely reported in the media, and new energy vehicle spontaneous combustion is reported one after another, just because new energy vehicles are an emerging industry, spontaneous combustion accidents are easy to attract attention and can attract huge traffic in a short time.

Compared with traditional car manufacturers, new power brands have attracted more attention like new energy vehicles in the automobile industry. "at this year's Chongqing auto show, there are two brands protected by users, and there is also a new power relying on traditional car companies. Why is the zero run reported? the reason behind it is self-evident."

At a time when new power brands are struggling to cope with frequent negatives, many traditional new energy car companies are making rapid efforts, constantly impacting the new power camp.

Do "02" traditional car companies have the strength to "counter-attack"? After several years of development, today's automobile industry has embarked on the road of the "new four modernizations", that is, taking "electrification" as the basis, realizing big data's collection through "interconnection", and finally realizing "intelligent" travel gradually. at the same time, take "sharing" as the final development trend of the industry.

After 2018, when many traditional car companies still hold a wait-and-see attitude towards the new energy industry, the new forces of car building have already taken the lead in electrification, adapting to the consumer demand of new energy vehicles, and grabbing some of the opportunities. When the traditional main engine factory began to "Suha" new energy vehicles, it quickly hit the intelligent highland.

"for a long time, Chinese people have a prejudice against their own brands, not to mention the new forces that are blank." Sun Jian (a pseudonym), an automobile R & D engineer, revealed that the reason why new forces with no experience in building cars can sell depends on their daring to take the lead in the field of automobile intelligence.

In the era when new energy vehicles are full of oil to electricity and have no intelligence to speak of, the new power is favored by many young people by virtue of a new word and an anti-traditional means of sales and service.

2018 is the first year of the delivery of new power in car building, and a survey conducted by first Electric found that more than half of the researchers said they would consider buying new power products.

Among those surveyed between the ages of 20 and 25, 72.22% said they would consider buying new power products.

Among the reasons for considering buying new power products, they are highly intelligent, cost-effective, cool in appearance and personality, ranking in the top three.

"but after several years of development, today's traditional car companies are gradually catching up with new forces in the field of intelligence." Sun Jian said frankly that with the help of the power of the Internet giant, it was once equipped with the auxiliary driving function of the new power models, but now it has become standard in the products of traditional car companies.

On the road of automobile intelligence, traditional car companies have kept up with the pace of new forces, and even achieved transcendence. Under the "enlightenment" of the new forces, traditional brands, which once gave people the impression of turning around, began to learn to perceive and understand the needs of users, and they were not inferior in the creation of a luxurious atmosphere and the accumulation of materials.

"once the traditional car companies begin to catch up with the new forces in terms of intelligence and personality, the original innovative advantages of the new power brands will naturally disappear. At this time, the decision-making conditions for users to buy cars will change to a certain extent. In any case, traditional car companies have rich experience in making cars."

Sun Jian said that they also have a high level of intelligence, and the construction of personalization and luxury is about the same. Even if the price is flat, the balance in the hearts of target consumers will inevitably slide to traditional car companies with car-building experience and perfect after-sales networks. Even in the field of car electrification, the experience of making fuel cars is not worth mentioning.

The China Automobile trend observation report released by Automobile House Research Institute shows that consumers' recognition of traditional brands has increased significantly in 2022. Compared with 2021, the preference of post-70s and post-80s for new power brands decreased significantly, and the proportion of traditional Chinese brands increased by 15% and 13%, respectively.

It is not difficult to see that with the rapid development of traditional new energy car companies in intelligence, innovation and user operation, many consumers who need to buy cars have returned to traditional brands from the new power camp.

So, in the face of the counter-offensive of traditional car companies, can the new forces still fight?

How do the new forces of "03" fight back? "it is too early to say that the new forces are weakening. It can only be said that they are going through a painful period of development." When it comes to the topic of whether the new power of car building can still play in the future, Zhou Tao, who knows a lot about the new energy automobile industry, gives such an answer.

In fact, although people are accustomed to calling the rising star of the automobile industry as the new power of car building-- the first three "Wei Xiaoli" have been developed for seven or eight years, even the younger Nezha and Zero run. It's been four or five years now.

The new power brand has passed its infancy, but there is still a big gap between the brand reputation, research and development capabilities, and sales and service channels compared with the traditional brands that have been ploughing the automobile industry for more than ten years or even decades. what's more, it is the strength for traditional brands to compete head-on with new forces.

The electrification of cars has enabled independent brands to overtake at corners in the world automobile industry, and the differences in the technical routes between new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles have also enabled new brands such as "white paper" to compete with traditional car companies. however, it seems that it will take time for consumers to completely let go of their prejudice of "car-building experience".

"but fortunately, the new power brand also seems to know its own shortcomings and began to make great efforts in research and development." Zhou Tao said that traditional brands have "stolen" new forces in intelligence, luxury, user operation, and marketing means, and new forces have also begun to "steal" traditional mainframe factories in areas such as research and development.

Relevant public data show that in terms of R & D investment, there are only three "Wei Xiaoli" in 2021, with R & D expenses reaching 4.592 billion yuan, 4.114 billion yuan and 3.29 billion yuan respectively. In the third quarter of this year alone, the R & D expenditure of Weilai has reached 2.94 billion yuan, which is higher than that of many traditional brands.

In addition to R & D investment, New Power brands have also begun to compete with traditional car companies for sales networks and coverage outlets, according to statistics from Jerland Road, a consultancy:

As of the third quarter of 2022, there are more than 400 service stores of new power brands, such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, ideal, Weima and so on.

In addition, Zero run has 589 stores, ranking second on the statistical list, while Nezha and Lantu have 375 and 346 service stores respectively. While improving the level of service, they also allay consumers' fear of brand "running away".

"traditional car brands will fall into a bottleneck period of development, not to mention new forces that have been developed for less than a decade." As enterprises increase their investment in technology research and development and service networks, and users have a deeper understanding of the field of car electrification, Zhou Tao said that the "staying power" of the new power brand is still worth looking forward to.

[concluding remarks]

Some people in the industry believe that in the face of the determination of traditional car brands to make upward breakthroughs and impact the high-end of new energy, in addition to continuing to dig deep into middle-and high-end models, they might as well consider the layout and volume of the medium-and low-end pure electric car market, such as zero running in the second echelon and the strong rise of A0-class models, which may be the best way of thinking.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: know Notes (ID:dongdong_note), author: know who you are.

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