The new car-making forces that announce sales on the first day of each month are forming a strong local attention effect. On November 1, Xiaopeng Automobile, Ideal Automobile, and Weilai Automobile successively announced October delivery data. Although the three companies are all trapped by the “core shortage” problem, after a long time, Xiaopeng Motors finally reached the top of the monthly sales list of new car-building forces. In October, the delivery volume exceeded 10,000 units, reaching 10,138 units; just harvested by the 360 Group The financing Nezha car squeezed into the second place with 8,107 cars; the ideal car delivered a total of 7,649 cars, holding the third place.
In contrast, Weilai Automobile can be said to have experienced two days of ice and fire. Last month, Weilai, which was still on the “championship” and sold more than 10,000, fell out of the top sales camp before the Q3 financial report was released. Only 3667 new cars will be delivered.
In fact, the short-term lag in NIO’s sales can be attributed to a large extent due to the lack of core power supply and the increase in supply chain prices. On the other hand, new second-tier forces headed by Nezha are emerging, and pure electric brands of traditional car companies headed by the Volkswagen ID. series are also rapidly increasing. On November 1, Tesla’s official website launched a new zero-down payment financial product, which further lowered Tesla’s entry barrier.
“The price of the main models of Nezha and Lingpao previously sold is below 100,000 yuan, and the Xiaopeng and Ideal models are much higher than them. The average price of Weilai’s new cars is over 400,000 yuan.” Sina Finance columnist Lin Shi It is believed that when analyzing new forces in car manufacturing, the delivery of new energy vehicles is only one of the indicators, and factors such as product positioning, bicycle prices, and profits should also be referred to. Facing the new speed brought by Tesla to China’s new energy market, the most important thing for new car-building forces is how to better seize the opportunity.
New car-making forces released sales in October
Xiaopeng leads Weilai’s “ankle chopped”
“In October, Jianghuai Weilai Hefei Advanced Manufacturing Base completed the phased transformation of its production line. Since late October, production has been gradually resumed.” This is the explanation given by Weilai, who has suffered “ankle cut”, on sales in October.
The “Securities Daily” reporter noticed that the delivery of Weilai Automobile in recent months has been like a roller coaster. Affected by the shortage of chips, Weilai Automobile experienced a continuous downturn in July and August; by September, the delivery volume rushed to 10,628 vehicles, an increase of 125.7% year-on-year, setting a monthly delivery record; and in October, the delivery volume was larger than the previous month. Fell 65.5%.
“The sales volume in October was actually very good. It can be described as a record, reaching a record high. Because the factory is being rebuilt and upgraded, it only ran at full capacity for 10 days, and there were fewer cars built, so fewer deliveries.” Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of the automobile, told a reporter from the Securities Daily that the transformation of the production line will probably start on September 28 and will be completed on October 15. It takes 18 days in total. One of the tasks was to upgrade and expand the body welding line, and more than 100 robots were added to it.
“After the equipment enters the site for commissioning, there is still a week of filling and capacity ramping time. The factory will run at full capacity for about 10 days in October.” Qin Lihong added.
According to Qin Lihong, one of the goals of the production line transformation is to be compatible with ET7 to go online on time. With the completion of the renovation and upgrading of the factory, Weilai’s first sedan ET7 will be put into production in the first quarter of next year, and the total production capacity of the Jianghuai Weilai Hefei plant will also double to 300,000 units.
In contrast, Xiaopeng Motors performed quite well. Although the delivery volume in October saw a slight drop of 2.6% from the previous month, the delivery volume exceeded 10,000 for two consecutive months. In terms of single-model delivery, in October, P7 delivered 6,044 units, a year-on-year increase of 187%; G3’s mid-term facelift model G3i delivered 3,557 units. It is worth mentioning that the third mass-produced model P5, which was launched on September 15th, completed delivery of 437 units in October. Xiaopeng Motors said, “The P5 market has responded enthusiastically and there are plenty of orders in hand.”
However, strong demand and delivery capacity are also inevitable from the lack of core haze. On October 27, Xiaopeng Motors pushed delivery plans to some Xiaopeng P5 reservation owners late at night. Xiaopeng Automobile said that due to the shortage of millimeter-wave radar supplies, the production and delivery time of some models has been affected. For customers who choose the delivery plan for reinstalling the radar after picking up the car, Xiaopeng expects to start the reinstallation of radar in batches from March 31, 2022.
“Blowout of the smart new energy vehicle market, the ubiquitous supply chain and other pressures, the hard-won sales continued to exceed 10,000. It is difficult to understand the taste without being in it.” Recently, Xiaopeng Motors Vice President, Brand Li Pengcheng, general manager of public relations, pointed out the delivery dilemma caused by the pressure of the supply chain.
According to the “Securities Daily” reporter, the current average pickup cycle of Xiaopeng P5 is 16-18 weeks, and some models even reach 20 weeks. Not only Xiaopeng Motors, but NIO and Ideal have also caused serious delays in delivery due to parts supply problems, and may even be forced to suspend production of some models.
There are new orders, but the painful taste of not being converted into deliveries, the ideal car obviously knows best. The ideal car that was the first among the new forces to adopt “reduced allocation” delivery, the delivery results in October were hard to say. In October, Ideal Car delivered 7,649 Ideal ONEs. “In October, the number of new orders for Ideal ONE exceeded 14,500, and we are fully cooperating with suppliers to restore the supply of millimeter wave radar.” Shen Yanan, co-founder and president of Ideal Auto, said.
The second echelon of new forces is chasing after
Traditional car companies integrate resources and try to catch up
Due to the sharp drop in NIO’s delivery volume in October, the new forces delivered the second echelon of NIO and NIO’s delivery volume. In October, NIO delivered a total of 3,654 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 256%.
Due to the quiet period of the company’s IPO, Weimar, which has not announced sales for a long time, also announced delivery data. In October, Weimar delivered a total of 5,025 vehicles, an increase of 67.3% year-on-year, and has delivered about 5,000 vehicles for two consecutive months. From January to October this year, Weimar has delivered a total of 34,068 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 101.7%.
The reporter also noticed that Nezha Motors, which had been wandering in the second-line camp for a long time before, had a double harvest in the market terminal and the capital market recently. On October 27th, Nezha Automobile announced the completion of D1 round of 4 billion yuan financing, led by 360 Group, 2 billion yuan, CCB International, CITIC Securities Investment, Shenwan Hongyuan Hong Kong’s New Energy Industry Fund, Jifu Venture Capital and many other well-known Investment institutions followed the investment, with a post-investment valuation of 33.9 billion yuan. Compared with the valuation of 3.5 billion a year ago, it has doubled by nearly 10 times.
In addition, with the delivery of 8,107 vehicles in October, Nezha Automobile has continuously ranked among the first echelon of new forces. Nezha Automobile is also the only new force car company that has continued to increase monthly deliveries among new car manufacturers this year.
“With the announcement of sales in October, there are two points worth paying attention to. One is the rise of new second-tier forces, and the other is that traditional car companies are increasingly catching up.” Lin Shi said that the Volkswagen Group, which is advancing in the field of electrification, It has launched a formal challenge to various friends and merchants, and also announced that the market node of traditional auto giants is about to come.
Public information shows that SAIC Volkswagen’s Anting MEB new energy plant and FAW-Volkswagen’s Foshan MEB smart plant have a total annual production capacity of close to 1 million vehicles. In contrast, the total production capacity of the new forces after the expansion is less than 800,000 vehicles-Weilai has affected the delivery of the factory upgrade this time, and the annual production capacity of approximately 300,000 vehicles and parts after the upgrade; Xiaopeng according to the current plan, After the expansion of the three self-built factories is completed, the annual production capacity may reach 400,000 vehicles; and the new factory opened by Ideal Motors in Beijing has only a production capacity of 100,000 pure electric vehicles.
In Lin Shi’s view, North and South Volkswagen’s advantages in manufacturing and supply chains are gradually showing and playing an active role. In addition, the traditional car company’s approach of releasing the complete vehicle platform first and then releasing the new car has increasingly shown the advantages of reducing costs and shortening the development cycle. On the other hand, the new forces in car-making will face the embarrassment of product outages to a certain extent.