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

Photography: IT Times Shen Yibin 2023, the national new energy subsidy withdrew for a month, the ideal departure storm, Xiaopeng's sales halved, Wei's huge price cuts, made the new energy automobile industry a hustle and bustle. "Wei Xiaoli" three new car-building forces appeared in the public view in different dilemmas.

On January 6, Tesla fired the first shot in the price war of new energy vehicles by cutting prices, followed by other new energy car companies, trying to deal with them in various forms such as subsidies, discounts and privileges. Weilai, which is known as "determined not to reduce the price", has also aroused widespread concern because it has recently been exposed that the price has been reduced by up to 100000 yuan.

Although Qin Lihong, president of Lulai Automobile, said that the 100000 price reduction was excessive interpretation, a reporter from the "IT Times" visited the three offline stores in Shanghai and found that Weilai offered the greatest concessions for specific models, with all the subsidies added up to about 70,000 yuan. Xiaopeng's highest discount was about 50,000 yuan, while the ideal stood still, with only 10,000 yuan of Shanghai blue brand for green card subsidy.

Wei came to Shanghai to reduce 70,000 yuan, and took the lead in "Wei Xiaoli". "what are the concessions now?" This is the question most frequently raised by consumers in the offline experience store of Xilai. On the afternoon of February 6, the Weilai Center of Nanxiang impression City in Shanghai was already packed with consumers who came to see the car, and even they had to wait in line for a test drive, and the sales consultant was busy introducing the car's performance and preferential policies.

"it cannot be said to be a price reduction, but only a preferential subsidy. The main purpose is to sell long-term exhibition cars with a long storage age of 90 days or 120 days or so." The on-site sales consultant told reporters that taking ES6 as an example, the discount for car display is 18000 yuan, the subsidy for new energy replacement is 15000 yuan, the state subsidy is 11340 yuan or 12600 yuan until March 31, and the subsidy for car purchase in Jiading District of Shanghai is 20,000 yuan. All these subsidies add up to nearly 70,000 yuan. With the addition of non-cash discounts such as a three-year interest-free loan, a 9600 yuan discount for self-driving packages, and some gift packages, it will be possible to put together the so-called "discount" of 100000 yuan.

The sales consultant of Xilai also said that policies such as autopilot relief and three-year interest exemption for some exhibition cars have been in place before, while the state subsidy and Jiading district subsidy belong to the extension of the policy, and only the car display discount is the new policy. If it is used as a counterbid, the current discount range of Lulai Motor is only between 10,000 and 30,000 yuan.

However, it is not easy to successfully win the subsidy of 70,000 yuan, and there are even fewer consumers who meet all the conditions of the 100000 yuan discount. "the price of the ES6 you are testing is 386000 yuan. If you remove the subsidy, you can get it for 346660 yuan." The sales consultant said that if the car buyers are neither Jiading local hukou nor meet the replacement conditions, then they can only enjoy the car exhibition discount and the state subsidy, including the three-year interest-free loan, they can enjoy a discount of about 50,000 yuan.

Subsequently, the reporter called a number of Weilai stores in Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing and other cities around Shanghai, saying that in addition to specific regional subsidies, other preferential policies are the same, and 50,000 yuan is an actual discount that most consumers in East China can enjoy. Among them, Hangzhou Lulai salesman said that there are only about 50 of the 200 cars in stock and exhibition cars in the store, while some sought-after colors such as stratospheric blue have been sold out.

As for Weilai's internal employee discount of nearly 200000, Weilai sales consultant said that as far as it knows, the only difference between internal employees and consumers is to enjoy a discount of 10,000 yuan. the rest of the car benefits need to meet specific conditions or reach a certain amount of purchase in order to enjoy.

Compared with the hot stores in Xilai, Xiaopeng car is somewhat deserted. The reporter walked into a nearby Xiaopeng car store, where there were no other customers, and two sales consultants were sitting on the sofa looking at their mobile phones. "Welcome to Xiaopeng. What kind of car do you want to know?" Seeing the reporter, the sales consultant immediately got up and introduced the latest preferential policies.

After the start of a new round of price war, the fastest response among the three Wei Xiaoli is Xiaopeng. As early as January 17, Xiaopeng officially announced a price reduction of 20,000 yuan for the whole department, including G3i, P5 and P7 models. In order to appease old customers, Xiaopeng extended the vehicle warranty and gave away 4 years of basic maintenance.

Since February, Xiaopeng has added an insurance subsidy of 7000 yuan and a final subsidy of 10,000 yuan for specific models on the basis of the original price reduction. In other words, Xiaopeng's maximum drop is about 50,000 yuan. However, from the point of view of passenger volume, the attraction is still relatively weak.

Only the ideal car "stands still" in this price war, and at the beginning of 2023, ideal topped the list of domestic new energy brands in January. Ideal car CEO Li Xiang has said that 2023 to 2025 is an extremely cruel knockout stage, and it is up to the market to determine how long the ideal can last in this smoke-free war.

In an ideal car store, the salesman told the reporter: "now L8 and L9, changing the Shanghai blue card into a green card can subsidize 10,000 yuan, but there is no other discount." This policy is paid out of the company's own pocket and can only be enjoyed by users in the Shanghai area who own the license plate of the tanker.

The new anxiety of the new power has just gone far, and what greets "Wei Xiaoli" is not a "good start", but a decline in sales.

On February 1, the new power sales data released by the Federation of passengers showed that ideal car ranked first with sales of 15141 vehicles, down 28.7% from the previous month and an increase of 23.4% over the same period last year, making it the best performing new power car company. Weilai, once the head force of the new power, ranked third with sales of 8506 vehicles in January, while Xiaopeng ranked sixth with 5218.

This ranking also corresponds to the time when the three companies take preferential measures, and it may be a helpless move to reduce the price and protect the quantity. But can it really achieve the desired results? Judging from Xiaopeng, which was the first to cut prices, sales fell by half compared with December last year, with month-on-month and year-on-year declines of 53.8% and 59.6%. A similar situation occurred in Weilai, down 46.2% from the previous month and 11.9% from the same period last year.

In contrast, Tesla, the initiator of the price war, according to the data disclosed by the HKIFA, Tesla's sales in China are estimated to reach 66000 in January this year, an increase of more than 10% over the same period last year, setting the best record in the same period in the history of the brand. According to media reports, Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed in a conference call on the fourth quarter of 2022 that in January 2023, Tesla's order volume reached almost twice its production capacity.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National passenger car Market Information Association, analyzed that Tesla himself has a large consumer group and scale, and even price reduction can ensure product profit margins in the case of strict cost control. Low prices can encourage more consumers to buy products, thus achieving a certain sense of "small profits and quick turnover".

However, domestic new energy car companies, such as Weilai and Xiaopeng, have not reached the consumption scale of Tesla, but face many challenges and difficulties. If no measures are taken, it is likely to lose market share, and price reduction and volume protection has become the most effective "delaying tactic".

A reporter from the IT Times noted in the sales data that the sales of ET7, ES7 and ET5 models, the second-generation technology platforms of Lulai, accounted for 85.6% of the total sales. Among the vehicles delivered by Xiaopeng in January, 2249 were the latest G9, meaning that all sales of other older models were less than half of the total sales.

Data from both companies point to weak sales of older models. This also confirms from the side why Weilai offers so much discount for first-generation platform models such as ES6, ES8 and EC6.

Will price reduction become the "new normal"? Battery is not only the main component of new energy vehicles, but also the key factor affecting the price of vehicles. Lithium carbonate, the raw material for batteries, has fallen since December last year after a surge in 2022.

On February 8, according to the latest data released by Shanghai Iron and Steel Federation, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was 460000 yuan / ton, down 2500 yuan / ton from yesterday's 462500 yuan / ton, while industrial-grade lithium carbonate fell 5000 yuan / ton to 428500 yuan / ton. Although the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate is still above 400000 yuan, it is down 30 per cent from its peak in 2022.

It is not difficult to find that the rise and fall of the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate is closely related to the sales of new energy vehicles. For example, in September 2022, 69 Chinese car companies sold a total of 707529 new energy vehicles, an increase of 97.9% over the same period last year, an increase of 6.2% month-on-month, and a production and sales rate of 93.8%. At this time, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate rose 2500 yuan / ton, with an average price of 510000 yuan / ton, ushering in the second surge in 2022.

The decline is also related to the decline in domestic new energy vehicle sales in January. However, it also means that battery costs will decline and the prices of new energy vehicles will be adjusted accordingly. Cui Dongshu believes that from February to March this year, the price of lithium carbonate may fall accordingly, and car companies will also launch new products, new technologies, and corresponding price reduction measures.

Mo Ke, chief analyst of True Lithium Research, also said that starting from the second half of this year, new energy vehicle manufacturers will also gradually adopt the strategy of exchanging price for quantity.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: IT Times (ID:vittimes), by Shen Yibin

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