There are still 10 days from the winter solstice. This day, 65438+February 22, will be the longest night in the northern hemisphere and one of the coldest times in most areas. This is more or less in line with the current atmosphere of China automobile market.
165438+1in the month of October, the domestic automobile sales volume was 2.457 million. Although the decline has narrowed, it is still 3.6% less than the same period last year. The year-end settlement period is approaching, and I don't know how many car companies will sigh at the sales targets that have not yet been achieved.
The new forces that once represented hope and the future were not spared in the cold night.
New car, a little cold.
There is no difference in the coldness of the whole industry. The production and sales data of new energy vehicles collectively exerted by the new forces of building cars are even more bleak. This week, the domestic sales data of new energy vehicles in June 165438+ 10 was released. The production and sales volume were 1 1000 and 95,000 vehicles respectively, down by 36.9% and 43.7% respectively.
New energy vehicles, which sold strongly in the downturn of the automobile market last year, ushered in a five-day losing streak after the subsidies fell sharply in July this year. The production and sales target of 6.5438+0.5 million new energy vehicles set by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at the beginning of the year is out of reach. The reason is that the sales of new energy vehicles flowing to the B-end (such as travel platforms, automobiles and other fields) have "lost", but the C-end market has remained stable. Products that previously anchored the new forces in the B-end market, such as Xinte DEV 1 and Nezha N0 1, all suffered from sales embarrassment.
He, the chairman of Xpeng Motors, even talked about this point "bluntly". 1June16th, he sighed in his circle of friends that "it was very heavy to read the data of the split of electric vehicles between China and the United States in the first nine months of 20 19" and found that only a few hundred thousand pure electric vehicles were actually sold to consumers in China-almost the same as Tesla's sales of140,000 vehicles in the first three quarters of this year.
Previously, Freeman Shen, CEO of Weimar Automobile, once said that the delivery volume of 65,438+10,000 vehicles is the life and death line of the new force. Now, according to He, if many new forces and traditional car companies carve up the market with more than100000 vehicles, it is really a bit too much.
Just this week, two new forces that insist on selling cars to real consumers have encountered new problems.
65438+February 1 1, according to foreign media reports, Weilai North America headquarters laid off staff again 14 1 person. Coupled with the first two layoffs this year, the number of employees in Weilai North America has dropped by 40%. Joanne Yamani, communication director of Weilai North America, responded that the purpose of layoffs is to "reduce duplication of work".
Last month, Weilai and Mobileye officially reached L4 autopilot cooperation. In other words, Mobileye got the L4 order from Weilai. The embarrassment of this cooperation is that there is no need to do a lot of work for Weilai North American Autopilot Team. In order to control operating costs, Weilai chose to slim down again.
At the same time, the routing agency learned that a supplier asked Weilai to settle the project payment on a monthly basis, otherwise the delivery processing would be stopped. According to the information disclosed in the previous Weilai financial report, Weilai's cash will be burned out by the end of this year, and new financing is urgently needed. Then, after Weilai experienced a bumpy year of financing, can Feng Ke, the new CFO last month, solve Weilai's urgent needs? It is still unknown.
Coincidentally, Li, who has just started formal delivery, is also in trouble because of financial problems.
This week, some car owners who have booked Li One reported that CITIC Bank, which cooperates with Li authorities to provide auto finance services, will not lend. 65438+February 1 1, Li officially confirmed this matter and gave a solution to modify the cooperative financial channel.
Although Li Xiang, the founder, said "I'm sorry" three times in his response, he still couldn't completely calm the anger of the owner-some owners said that the previous efforts of running thousands of kilometers were instantly zero. Some car owners also reported that the loan conditions of other financial institutions cooperating with Li were very harsh.
For Li Lai, who just started to deliver the car, this is obviously not good news-not all car owners can buy a 328,000-yuan Lee One in full. An imperfect financial plan is likely to have a negative impact on Li One's sales.
For this sudden situation, Li wants to have a sincere summary, "or our own strength is not strong enough." This may also be a depression in the hearts of many new car-making forces.
Waiting for fire
Fortunately, despite the cold weather, the survival desire of the new car-making forces is still very strong.
For example, Weilai, while optimizing cost control, is still trying to improve the user experience of car owners.
On Wednesday, Weilai and Tucki reached a cooperation, and their self-built overcharge network will be shared by each other's car owners. According to the introduction of the routing agency, apart from appreciating each other, the motivation for both parties to make this decision is that the self-built charging network of both parties still cannot fully cover the charging needs of the owners.
As an "experiential school" among the new forces, this cooperation has enabled Weilai and Tucki to have more capital to provide better charging experience for car owners. In a sense, this is an attempt by Wei Lai and Tucki to "enjoy the moat".
It is gratifying that Weilai pays attention to the operating concept of user experience and has more returns. This week, the 20000th ES8 of Weilai officially rolled off the assembly line, and the ES6 also sold 2 15 1 in June, becoming the best-selling luxury pure electric SUV in China, continuing the upward trend since September. Combined with the continuous decline of the new energy vehicle market, it is not easy for Weilai to achieve such sales results.
More importantly, Weilai's new products are already on the way. Yesterday, the preview poster of Weilai's third production car was officially released. It will be held in Neo on February 28th, 65438. Officially appeared in Japan. It is reported that this is an ES6 based on ES6? Coupe with the same price as ES6 will be delivered around the middle of next year. Obviously, before the arrival of the long-awaited Weilai "low-priced model", ES6? Coupe will continue to defend Weilai's luxury brand image and trace its genes.
If the new car-making forces are facing the cold night when Lingdong comes, then the new products are reliable fuels in their hands. One more product means a little more fire and warmth, and one more hope to survive in the cold and darkness.
For Aichi Automobile, which has been preparing its first product for four years, this fire is at least about to start. 19 February 19, the first production car U5 of Aichi Automobile will be officially launched. Perhaps in order to be isolated from the cold environment, U5 deliberately chose Hainan as warm as spring.
Previously, Aichi had held a long-distance driving test across Europe and Asia around U5, and launched a limited experience service of using a new car for 8,000 yuan for one year, but the market response was tepid. I wonder if Aichi U5 can become a "winter fire" this time. The good news is that Aichi U5? In the price range of 200,000-300,000 yuan, the competition in the domestic pure electric vehicle market is not fierce, which may be a good opportunity.
When most people in the industry think that the new energy vehicle market is "a little cold", Huang Hongsheng, founder of Skyworth Group and chairman of Kaiwo Group, does not believe this evil. He wants to tell everyone with practical actions that this industry is actually very hot.
This week, when Kaiwo Group officially announced the passenger car brand "Mei Tian", it suddenly dawned on people that apart from Dong Mingzhu, who made air conditioners, there was also Huang Hongsheng, who made TV. Mei Tian Automobile, which was formally established in June 1 65438+1October1this year, was evaluated as "entering the market in the cold winter" under pressure.
In fact, Huang Hongsheng has long coveted the new energy vehicle market.
20 1 1, Huang Hongsheng became the actual controller of Nanjing Jinlong through capital increase and share expansion. Based on Nanjing Jinlong, Huang Hongsheng established Kaiwo Automobile Group and launched new energy commercial vehicles. When the harvest is good, there will be 3 billion sales a year. In 20 17, kaiwo automobile obtained the qualification of new energy passenger car, but due to many factors such as product schedule, capital and subsidy policy changes, it was not until recently that the passenger car brand "Mei Tian" was officially launched.
165438+1October19th, the first engineering prototype car in Mei Tian officially rolled off the assembly line, but Huang Hongsheng has set a grand goal-by 2025, the annual production and sales volume of Mei Tian will reach 500,000, and the revenue will reach 50 billion. This is almost three times the revenue of Beiqi New Energy 20 18.
Conclusion:
This week, a form from Yan Yuelong, a media person, showed that the amount of financing in China's entrepreneurial field in 2065438+2009 was only 362.8 billion yuan, only exceeding 20% of the total financing last year. Faced with the bleak venture capital market, the confidence of most investors has collapsed.
Why are some entrepreneurs so confident in the cold winter of the automobile industry? Let's put aside their visions and promises and look for answers in a broader context.
On February 3rd, 65438, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (202 1-2035)" (draft for comments), and wrote in the development vision part that by 2025, "the sales volume of new energy vehicles will reach about 25%". 20 18 years, this figure is 4.47%.
"About 25%", perhaps this is the extravagant hope of some entrepreneurs.
End—
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.