Recently, a number of new car-making forces released delivery data in February. Affected by the Spring Festival holiday, the delivery of new car-making forces is generally less than that in January. Except for AITO and Ideal, the sales of other new car-making forces did not exceed 10,000 vehicles.
With BYD and Tesla, two new energy head car companies, kicking off a new round of price reduction on March 1st, the "price war" in the Year of the Loong auto market continues to heat up, which may further accelerate the market reshuffle. According to the incomplete statistics of the "Securities Daily" reporter, since March, nine car companies have announced price reductions or opened limited-time concessions, with the highest price reduction of 47,000 yuan.
"From an industrial perspective, the new energy vehicle market is shifting from incremental development to stock competition." Ou Yangming Gao, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, told the Securities Daily reporter that on the one hand, the new energy automobile industry itself is the survival of the fittest, and on the other hand, the game between new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles has reached a decisive stage, and the competition between independent brands and joint venture brands has also reached a white-hot level.
AITO ranks first in the world of inquiry
From the delivery data, AITO, Ideal and Ai ‘an are still stable in the first camp. In February, AITO delivered 21,100 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 503.20%, of which 18,479 new M7 cars were delivered, accounting for 87.4%. AITO ranks first among the new forces that have announced the delivery volume, surpassing LI again.
It is noteworthy that the M9, the third model of AITO, officially launched the nationwide scale delivery on February 26th. According to official data, the M9 has exceeded 50,000 vehicles in 62 days. The increase of new products has become the next sales growth point of AITO.
LI delivered a total of 20,251 new cars in February, up 21.8% year-on-year, and lost to AITO by a narrow margin. On March 1st, LI held the spring conference of 2024, and its first pure electric model MEGA and 2024 ideal L series models were officially launched. Li Xiang, Chairman and CEO of LI, said: "With the release and delivery of new models, our goal is to return to the level of monthly delivery of 50,000 vehicles in March." This means that the battle for the top spot in the delivery of new forces will continue.
As the third runner-up in the list, GAC Ai ‘an sold 16,700 vehicles in February, down 44.57% year-on-year. Compared with AITO and Ideal in the first camp, the delivery of Guangzhou Automobile’s Ai ‘an has shown signs of fatigue.
Except for AITO, Ideal and GAC’s Ai ‘an, the other new car-making forces and the "second generation" of traditional car companies have not maintained the previous trend of breaking 10,000 vehicles or hitting new highs, and the delivery volume in February was all below 10,000 vehicles.
Specifically, the other car companies that have released the delivery volume in February are Weilai Automobile, Krypton Automobile, Zero Run Automobile, Nezha Automobile, Xpeng Motors Automobile and Lantu Automobile in order of delivery volume, with the delivery volume of 8,132, 7,510, 6,566, 6,085, 4,545 and 3,182 respectively, all of which showed a decline from the previous month, with a year-on-year change of-33 respectively.
From the perspective of the whole industry, the new energy vehicle market was relatively sluggish in February, and the sales of new energy vehicles of traditional car companies such as BYD and Geely all showed a significant month-on-month decline. The Federation had previously predicted that the sales volume of the automobile market in February or the whole year was the lowest, and the domestic retail sales volume of narrow passenger cars was about 1.15 million, down 43.5% from the previous month, showing a regular seasonal trend; The domestic retail sales of new energy vehicles are expected to be 380,000, down 43% from the previous month, with a penetration rate of about 33%, and the market penetration rate has dropped significantly compared with the end of last year.
Head car companies set off a "price war"
It is worth noting that at the beginning of March, BYD and Tesla, two new energy car giants, set off a new round of "price war".
Following BYD’s continuous launch of "Glory Edition" models in several market segments in February, on March 1, BYD once again shouted the slogan "Electricity is lower than oil" and launched the glory version of BYD Song Pro DM-i, with a starting price of 109,800 yuan. This also means that the A-class SUV model equipped with DM-i technology has officially entered the range of 100,000 yuan.
Li Yunfei, general manager of Brand and Public Relations Department of BYD Group, said that thanks to BYD’s scale effect and the advantages of the whole industrial chain, the price of plug-in hybrid BYD can be lower than that of fuel vehicles of the same class. At the same time, Li Yunfei also said that this move will completely open a decisive battle with fuel vehicles. He even bluntly said, "Who will buy fuel vehicles next?"
On the same day, Tesla followed closely and announced three benefits for Model 3 and Model Y models, including 8,000 yuan limited-time car insurance subsidy, 2,000 yuan limited-time car paint preferential price and limited-time car financial low interest.
According to the reporter’s incomplete statistics, since then, car companies including Geely, SAIC Volkswagen, Feifan Automobile, Chery, etc. have successively announced price cuts and introduced preferential policies for limited-time car purchases. For example, Geely launched the Spring Car Festival in 2024, with a cash discount of up to 47,000 yuan during March; The TUANG family of SAIC Volkswagen started a limited-time discount, and at the same time, the 2.0T model can enjoy a cash voucher of 2,000 yuan or a three-year maintenance package; Feifan Automobile announced that its Feifan F7 model launched a limited-time car purchase policy, with a maximum discount of 30,000 yuan, and the advanced version, advanced Pro version, extended Pro version and performance Pro version were reduced by 25,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan.
Guan Mingyu, global managing partner of McKinsey and head of McKinsey’s automobile consulting business in China, told the Securities Daily that the development of new energy automobile industry in China and even the whole world is at a crossroads, and the cost reduction brought by technological iteration will promote the popularization of new energy vehicles into the fast lane. "At present, the new energy vehicle market is evolving at an extremely fast speed. Only by catching up with technological changes and grasping consumer trends can car companies occupy more market share." (Reporter Gong Mengze)