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Under the labor pains of the new generation, the second quarter financial report is hardly optimistic. With the launch of new products, even if the sales volume rebounded significantly, it was still plagued by huge losses.
According to the latest financial report for the second quarter, 23500 vehicles were delivered in the quarter, down 6.1% year on year; The revenue was 8.77 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.8%; The net loss was 6.05 billion yuan.
Luxury positioning does not bring high premium at present. In the second quarter of this year, both the total loss and the single car loss exceeded those of other new power rivals. The same was true for the whole first half of the year, with a total loss of 10.52 billion yuan.
In order to match the luxury positioning, we strive to create the ultimate service. On the one hand, this has become a big label of Weilai, on the other hand, it has also pushed up the operating costs of Weilai. For car brands, unique technology is the support point of luxury positioning, which is just what we lack in car skills.
Now, competitors are also following suit, learning user operation and building power stations. How to build core advantages and get rid of losses is a big challenge for the management.
In this case, we began to deploy the sinking brands "Alps" and "Firefly", and entered the mobile phone business. Can these measures get it out of the vortex?
Loss is higher than that of competitors
After experiencing the sales downturn in April and May this year, those who handed in their "answers" for the second quarter did not achieve satisfactory results.
In the first half of this year, it is in the transition period from the first generation platform to the second generation platform. At the end of the first quarter of this year, the stock of the old ES8, ES6 and EC6 began to be cleared. The second generation platform has only ES7, ET5 and ET7 on sale. President Qin Lihong once said that in May this year, there were basically only ET5 and ES7 models on sale.
Due to the small number of models available, the sales volume in April and May was low, with 6658 and 6155 vehicles sold respectively, far behind the old competitors.
However, with the launch of the second generation ES6 at the end of May this year, the new ET5 was delivered in large quantities, and the sales volume gradually recovered. From June to August, the monthly sales volume was 10700, 20500 and 19300 respectively.
Although the launch of new cars has led to the recovery of sales, it is different from other traditional luxury brands that obtain a high premium by raising the sales price of single cars. Weilai, a heavy asset model, has a higher long-term loss than other new power brands with lower positioning.
The financial report shows that the company lost more than 10.9 billion yuan in the first half of this year, the highest loss among the new forces listed in China. During the same period, Xiaopeng and ZeroRun lost about 5.1 billion yuan and 2.3 billion yuan respectively. Taking the increasing route, the company was not optimistic about the capital market at first, but took the lead in making profits. In the first half of this year, the profit exceeded 3.2 billion yuan.
At the same time, the loss of bicycles also exceeded that of other new forces. According to the sales volume, in the second quarter of this year, the single car loss reached nearly 260000 yuan. In the current period, the overall gross profit rate was about 1.0%, and the gross profit rate of auto business was about 6.2%. Although this data was better than that of Xiaopeng and ZeroRun in the same period, the excessive service investment increased the loss of single car.
Unlike Tesla, which promotes brand tonality with a sense of science and technology, Weilai reflects its luxury positioning more through hardware. Air suspension, seat massage, seat ventilation and other configurations and functions are standard on ES8.
At the same time, it also creates a moat through excellent services. The annual cost of the service worry free package is 14800 yuan. After purchase, the car owner can enjoy free vehicle repair and maintenance. Even if the car goes out for an accident dozens of kilometers, people can be sent to respond immediately and provide the car owner with a courtesy car during the repair period.
The nanny level service brings huge costs. Li Bin once revealed that a carefree user using the service would lose 4000 yuan a year.
The power exchange mode is a major signboard of ultimate service, and also a major reason why people regard it as a heavy asset mode. Accordingly, this service is extremely "money burning". According to media reports, the cost of replacing the first generation power station is about 3 million yuan, and the cost of replacing the second generation power station is about 1.5 million yuan. At present, the number of exchange stations has exceeded 1700, and the cost is conceivable.
Compared with technology, the threshold of considerate service is lower, and it is easier to be copied. In addition, it is difficult to maintain the original service quality as the number of car owners increases.
Lack of technical attainments
In fact, the considerate service of "auto industry underwater salvage" has been imitated by many auto enterprises. At the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, after the debut of the first model ZEEKR 001, Geekrypton released its user service brand ZEEKR Care, claiming that it would respond quickly to user needs in 24 hours.
There is also a power change mode. In July this year, Feifan Auto announced its plan to accelerate the power exchange, and announced that the power exchange stations in Beijing and Haikou were fully completed and put into use.
Although they are imitated by peers, they "degrade" their services due to high costs. At first, in order to obtain users, car owners can enjoy the right of free power change for life. On June 12 of this year, it was announced that the free power change service for new car owners will no longer be used as a basic vehicle right, and users can choose to pay a single fee for power change.
The smart label created by the company once made it popular in the capital market. In November 2020, the market value exceeded BYD; In January 2021, the company's share price reached 67 dollars/share.
Today, intelligent stories are gradually cooling down in both the capital market and the automobile terminal market. As of press release, the stock price of Weilai in the United States was only $10.08 per share, down sharply from the peak period.
As a result, more and more people realize that intelligence is just icing on the cake for vehicles and cannot become a killer weapon to move the market. In the first seven months of this year, the sales of BYD, which ranks first among domestic new energy brands, and the sales of Ai'an, which ranks third, are not strong in intelligent labels.
In this regard, Zhou Lijun, president of Yiche Research Institute, publicly said that the core competitiveness of new energy vehicles is "cheap" - the comprehensive cost advantage is outstanding. Those models that are expensive and whose comprehensive cost exceeds that of fuel vehicles are doomed to have no market. BYD has turned to the production of new energy vehicles, and new forces have no advantage in front of it.
In the field of technology, Weilai is not enough to be superior to its rivals, which is in line with its luxury positioning.
Tesla and BYD, which take the lead in the domestic new energy market, have developed an integrated molding technology, and can independently develop FSD chips; The other is one of the top power battery manufacturers in China, which has accumulated decades in the field of three electricity, and successfully seized the fuel vehicle market by virtue of DM-i technology polished for decades.
On the contrary, although it claims to have China's first all aluminum body architecture, the world's first ternary lithium iron power battery pack, and the world's first integrated shell coaxial induction electric drive system, these technologies themselves are not very innovative and disruptive in the industry.
In this regard, Shen Meng, director of Xiangsong Capital, said to the "Visibility of Circles" that "the new forces, including, have not made much innovation in the technical route and process of new energy vehicles. The advantages of electric vehicles, such as simple structure and low manufacturing costs, have given new forces access, but their technical reserves are doomed to be congenitally deficient."
Find another growth point
The pure electric luxury positioning has a relatively narrow market space, and I am aware of this.
After the low tide in April and May, the so-called "compromise" was the final choice. On June 12 this year, the price reduction of the whole system was announced, and the effect of the price reduction was immediate.
But that is not enough. In July this year, the Yiche Research Institute released an insight report on China's high-end new energy brands, which mentioned that the performance of high-end pure electric brands, including Avita, Zhiji, Jihu, Landu, and so on, was unsatisfactory in the first half of this year. It was suggested that high-end pure electric brands should pay close attention to "hybrid transformation".
Yi Che Research Institute pointed out that China's new energy vehicle market will form a "dislocation pattern" of small pure electricity and large hybrid, with the price ranking first among the factors concerned by high-end pure electricity product pre purchase users, followed by brand, shape, quality, etc. The budget for family users who have purchased high-end brands to purchase scooters is not high, of which 100000~200000 yuan accounts for nearly 40%, and 200000~300000 yuan accounts for more than 30%.
In the domestic pure electric vehicle market, sales are increasingly concentrated in small cars and courtesy cars. Since this year, SAIC GM Wuling, BYD Ocean and other car companies and brands focusing on pure electric transportation products have focused their market share on the small car market. Even Weilai's sales in the first seven months of this year have changed from ES6 to ET5 with lower price and smaller size, which accounts for 41% of the current total sales.
Yi Che Research Institute has analyzed that after the launch of Model Q, which costs more than 100000 yuan, it will become Tesla's new sales force.
Li Bin also realized that Ulex Pure Electric's luxury positioning has shackles on scale and profitability, and has been brewing two sinking brands.
In late July, media reported that the sub brand "Alps" adopting the single motor scheme would be launched. The brand positioning is between 200000 yuan and 300000 yuan, and its products will be launched in 2024.
In the past two days, more news came out that the new entry brand Alps will launch its first pure electric car in the second half of next year, which is based on the next generation platform of NT3.0. It may be equipped with a self-developed intelligent driving chip, a single motor, an 800V high-voltage architecture, and a shared power station.
Earlier this year, Qin Lihong revealed that the price of another sub brand "Firefly" would be 100000 to 200000 yuan, which is expected to debut in the European market in the third quarter of next year.
At the same time, Weilai also entered the mobile phone market. At the financial report conference call of the second quarter report, Li Bin revealed that mobile phone products would be delivered in late September. It is reported that the mobile phone is called NIO Phone, and the price will be about 7000 yuan. Using the UWB technology, which is currently only used in iPhone, can bid farewell to the car keys for a better experience. The early target users are mainly car owners.
To sum up, luxury pure electric brands are generally facing difficulties, not "the only one". As for how to get out of the loss mire, the Yiche Research Institute has given a "prescription" for the layout of hybrid cars. It has not waited to be killed, but is also trying to layout the sinking market. The idea that the stock price was higher than that of He Xiaopeng, which was once not favored by capital, also shows that the enterprise's own hematopoietic capacity is what the capital market likes.
As for whether the scale and profitability can be significantly improved under a series of measures, it still needs time to give the answer.
