Taking the annual sales volume of 3.54 million vehicles as a milestone, the first year of Shanxi Guoxin Energy Corporation Limited(600617) vehicles and intelligent electric vehicles will be opened in 2021.
Standing at the top of the historic watershed, you can see the picture at the foot of the slope, such as the sea, the new forces of car making in the internet background are struggling to advance, the traditional car enterprises have turned around after several years and launched a massive counterattack, the technology companies are eyeing, and more cross industry start-ups such as crucian carp crossing the river are pouring in.
In the first half of smart electric vehicles, the new forces of car making temporarily took the lead. Volkswagen, Byd Company Limited(002594) and other traditional automobile enterprises are catching up. In 2021, the global sales volume of Byd Company Limited(002594) new energy vehicles ranked second only to Tesla. After the launch of Volkswagen ID series, the global sales of new energy vehicles also jumped to 320000.
At the end of last year, Toyota exhibited 19 electric vehicles at one fell swoop, and the first electric vehicle BZ series will also be launched in the Chinese market this year. Dongfeng lantu, Geely krypton, gac-e'an and other smart electric vehicle brands newly created by traditional car companies also made a good start. The all-round counterattack war of traditional automobile giants will start this year. The founders of the new power company often use Nokia and apple to describe the relationship between traditional automobile enterprises and new automobile companies, but in fact, Nokia is still the third largest communication giant in the world today - no one can ignore the power of traditional giants.
The integration and competition of automobile and science and technology industries have entered a new stage. Geely has made clear its plan to build mobile phones, and Tesla and velai have also been revealed to have plans to build mobile phones. Although Huawei claims not to build cars, it is deeply involved in the product research and development of Xiaokang Thalis and controls the sales channel.
2024, the official end of Xiaomi automobile, is considered to be the beginning of the decisive battle. Compared with Internet companies, technology companies integrating software and hardware not only master more advanced chip and software technology, but also have the experience and ability of large-scale manufacturing and lean production.
The three forces are intertwined on the edge of wrestling, and the new car making forces such as Tianji and Aichi are gradually declining. Their founders used to be the ceiling level figures among the executives of traditional automobile enterprises, but the automobile companies they founded are now in the dilemma of unable sales and weak financing.
Who will rise and fall in the future? It is certain that the traditional automobile giants that have taken the steps of transformation will occupy a place. Now the new forces that are smooth with the wind and water are not necessarily all successful. The entry of apple and other technology companies makes the transformation of the automotive industry in the past century still have unlimited possibilities.
elephant turns around
"There's no discount for ID. you'd better buy our fuel car if you buy ID." The sales consultant pointed to a small SUV nearby and said to Zhang Wen. At the beginning of last year, Zhang Wen, a former engineer of Volkswagen, planned to buy an ID electric car for his wife. Unexpectedly, the above scene appeared after entering the 4S store of Volkswagen brand.
Zhang Wen was very surprised. ID is the pioneer of Volkswagen Group's transformation towards intelligent electrification. The investment in product platform alone has reached tens of billions of euros, and has also formulated ambitious sales plans in China. Unexpectedly, the sales consultant of Volkswagen brand "pushed out the potential buyers of ID".
"This is a very typical phenomenon under the traditional distribution mode. The internal logic is that dealers will mainly promote products with high inventory or high rebate." Li Shan, who once participated in the public ID project in China, said.
In fact, in the early stage of the launch for the Chinese market, more than one user complained about the cold attitude of the sales consultant of the Volkswagen brand 4S store when selling ID, although it was extremely incredible to the manufacturer.
As the pioneer of Volkswagen's transformation into intelligent electrification, Volkswagen has invested huge resources in ID products. On the development side, the R & D cost of MEB platform alone has reached 50 billion yuan. At the operation end, Volkswagen imitates the new forces of car making, opens direct city exhibition halls and cooperates with the charging service network to provide users with a package of services.
In order to balance the interests of all parties and provide a better sales service experience, Volkswagen adopts an agency system different from the traditional dealer model, and provides agents with several times the profit of fuel vehicles. In order to enhance customers' purchase intention, Volkswagen also provides users with many rights and interests, including free installation of charging boxes, provision of a certain amount of electricity subsidies, insurance subsidies, used car replacement subsidies, etc.
In the main battlefield of Europe, the integrated strategy of Volkswagen ID has achieved great success. In the second month of its sale in Europe, id.3 became the champion of electric vehicle sales in Europe. In 2021, the cumulative sales of Volkswagen ID series and e-up were about 160000, surpassing Tesla.
However, in China, the start of ID series was not smooth. In the early months, the sales of bicycles continued to be hundreds. In addition to the "slack" of some sales consultants, Volkswagen ID products have also been criticized for not meeting the needs of users.
ID series products inherit the consistent product style of Volkswagen, and their advantages include the leadership of three electricity system and technology, quality and handling. ID series is a rare model in China's automobile market, the actual battery life is greater than the nominal battery life. It is also known as the electric vehicle with the driving texture closest to the fuel vehicle and does not need users to change their driving habits.
However, the users of Shanxi Guoxin Energy Corporation Limited(600617) cars pay more attention to the fast acceleration of electric vehicles and the experience of intelligent cockpit, which are relatively backward. Some customers evaluate that the car machine with ID has been stopped in the previous era. In addition, the auxiliary driving system of ID series products is also more conservative and less radical than the new forces.
"Generally, when fuel vehicles are imported into China, they will carry out localization adaptation and transformation, but in the product sequence of ID, the strategy from product definition to marketing and channel is dominated by Germany. Transplanting the overall global strategy to China has the problem of acclimatization." Wang Wu, a Volkswagen R & D Engineer, said.
The reversal of Volkswagen ID sales in China began around August and September last year. The monthly sales of id.4x and other models gradually exceeded 4000. By December last year, the monthly sales of Id family products exceeded 16000. One of the important changes is that Volkswagen began to adjust the agency system in China, strengthened the integration of contact and service ability with the traditional dealer model, and implemented more younger attempts at the marketing end.
In 2021, the sales volume of Volkswagen ID Series in China was 75500. Although the data is lower than "Wei Xiaoli", such achievements are still commendable as the first incomplete natural year launched by Volkswagen ID.
According to the number of China Shanxi Guoxin Energy Corporation Limited(600617) car insurance, the sales structure of Volkswagen ID has been continuously optimized since the fourth quarter of last year, and the proportion of sales in single cities such as Shanghai has decreased rapidly. In 2021, Shanghai, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Beijing and Henan were the top 5 provinces and cities in China with the insurance volume of Volkswagen ID, accounting for 53.88% of the sales volume. The proportion of economically developed and populous provinces was close to that of Weilai and Xiaopeng. The monthly data showed that the penetration of Volkswagen ID into the low-level market was accelerating.
progressive reform
The investor of an automatic driving company in China believes that the traditional automobile companies do not take the market as the first principle, but take self-awareness as the center, which is the chip for the new forces of automobile manufacturing to completely win the traditional automobile enterprises at this stage.
Based on this concept, it is also inevitable that the direct sales model will replace the traditional dealer system, because the former can better connect directly with users and obtain user needs.
But for Volkswagen, the interests of dealers can not be ignored. In the past few decades, Volkswagen has grown into a global giant of tens of millions of vehicles, relying on the systematic support of suppliers, channels and other partners. Because of this, there will be different interest constraints and boundary conditions in the process of Volkswagen's transformation.
In the channel mode of ID, Volkswagen pioneered the "agent system" marketing mode, which is between the traditional 4S store and the brand direct store. The agent is responsible for the display, invitation, test drive, delivery and after-sales of ID, and the manufacturer is responsible for pricing, invoicing and vehicle scheduling. According to the service quality and quantity, the manufacturer pays the agent a commission.
Compared with the traditional dealer system, under the agency system, dealers do not need to build inventory, and there is no pressure of advance funds and cash flow; The manufacturer has a direct transaction relationship with customers through app and other online systems to master user data. The offline service process still depends on dealers, saving manpower and building costs.
Volkswagen expects that the agency system can achieve a win-win situation among manufacturers, dealers and users. Manufacturers can maintain the interests of existing dealers and investors and achieve a large number of network coverage at a low cost; Dealers can share the benefits of new energy vehicles and maintain the stability of the price system; Users can get a better service experience different from the traditional channel model.
In order to regulate the behavior of dealers, while providing a higher amount of sales commission, the manufacturer also formulated detailed assessment items, including car viewing, test drive, car ordering, delivery and other links. The store is required to arrange exclusive sales consultants for new energy vehicles, and can not tie-in decoration and other additional products. A dealer revealed that if there are three violations, the manufacturer will directly cancel the agency authorization.
From the actual operation results, there is a clear differentiation between dealers and sales consultants. Some sales consultants are not good at selling electric vehicles and have weak initiative, which is one of the main reasons for the poor sales in the early stage of ID introduction into China. However, it is not correct to deny the traditional channel model.
In the automotive industry, Tesla has created a direct marketing model of new energy vehicles with the separation of exhibition, delivery and after-sales. However, Elon Musk's first choice is not direct marketing, but when the electric vehicle is in the stage of market education, Tesla does not get enough support from dealers and investors, so it is a last resort to build direct stores. Moreover, Tesla is interested in reducing the number of supermarket experience stores in first tier cities and building more outlets in the form of traditional 4S stores in the traditional automobile business district to improve the ability of exhibition and after-sales service.
Across industries, the world's leading mobile phone companies, such as apple, Samsung and Huawei, do not adopt a pure direct marketing model, but there are differences in the share given to channel providers. The difference comes from whether the product is strong and replaceable. In other words, whether the main engine factory can directly grasp the user data and develop the products required by users is the core. Who sells the products is only a tactical choice at different stages.
From the standpoint of Volkswagen, its biggest trouble is that there is no successful case matching its scale in the industry to imitate. It can only feel the stone to cross the river. While drawing on and learning from the practices of new forces, we should constantly adjust them in combination with our own situation.
For example, the North South Volkswagen did not set up an independent ID Business Department at first, and mobilized internal resources through the mechanism of soft cooperation. After February 10, FAW Volkswagen set up an independent ID operation center. Another example is that Volkswagen is negotiating with Huawei. It is said that Volkswagen is trying to acquire Huawei's intelligent cockpit business unit, which reflects Volkswagen's efforts to constantly correct and make up for its shortcomings.
From the perspective of industrial chain and market, Volkswagen's biggest challenge is not the channel model, but the supply chain relationship of traditional automobile companies, as well as the contradiction and conflict between global integration and China's demand differentiation.
The core of the reform of the automobile industry is to upgrade from the traditional distributed execution architecture to the computer central brain architecture. The traditional car is in the best state at the time of delivery, and the state becomes worse and worse with the increase of service time and mileage; Smart electric vehicles are delivered in the worst state, and then progress every day through data collection and OTA upgrade.
In order to realize the ability of continuous OTA upgrading, in addition to decoupling the software and hardware and integrating the distributed ECUs into the central brain, the main engine factory is also required to have the full stack self-research or control ability in the core technology field. Although Volkswagen ID series is an intelligent electric vehicle, it is difficult to solve the problem of continuous upgrading and optimization of products by bundling Tier1 suppliers with overall solutions in the traditional way of procurement strategy and winning with scale and cost.
According to the gap theory put forward by Geoffrey A. Moore, when innovative technologies and products enter the mainstream market stage, pragmatists and conservatives will replace early technology followers and become the main consumer group, which will be an opportunity for traditional car companies such as Volkswagen and Toyota.
maximum variable
Software defines the automotive era and is in the hands of technology companies.
The essence of this round of automobile revolution is the transformation of automobile from a collection of mechanical distributed actuators to a mobile intelligent terminal controlled by computer-based central processing unit.
In the past hundred years, the accumulation of chassis, powertrain and other mechanical fields of traditional automobile enterprises has established a technological moat. However, in the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the transformation of energy forms has reduced the threshold of machinery, and new forces of car making and science and technology enterprises are beginning to erode the moat of traditional automobile enterprises. On the other hand, software defines the automotive era. Traditional car companies appear to be faltering when they catch up with the leaders in the fields of software and intelligence of science and technology enterprises.
Programmers in science and technology enterprises tend to get in touch with top technologies in software, chips and other fields earlier than engineers in automobile enterprises. In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, automobile products are getting closer and closer to it products. The lack and backwardness of traditional automobile enterprises in software and intelligence in the past are gradually widening.
At present, the most advanced Tesla FSD chip still adopts the 14 nm manufacturing process; Qualcomm's Xiaolong 8 has begun to use the 4nm process. 8 million pixels is the ceiling of the current car camera, while in the field of mobile phones, tens of millions of pixels have become standard.
Last September, Hubei Xingji times Technology Co., Ltd., co founded by Li Shufu and Shen Ziyu, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone and officially announced its entry into the field of mobile phones. Close to the time, Tesla was said to be developing a mobile phone called model π. This mobile phone can use the satellite chain for direct satellite communication. It can surf the Internet freely without the support of ground communication equipment. The download speed is up to 210mbps. It supports Cecep Solar Energy Co.Ltd(000591) charging, ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, remote control of vehicles and other functions, as well as brain computer connection function. In February this year, Weilai automobile was revealed to be setting up a mobile phone development team.
There are a lot of analysis on the end of mobile phones made by automobile companies. The core point is that automobile companies need to build an ecological closed loop of mobile terminals, but in essence, this is a competition for software talents and technology commanding heights.
An obvious fact is that under the same revenue scale, the software talents of science and technology enterprises are far more than those of traditional automobile enterprises that need to take into account more hardware. In this case, when mobile phone companies end up building intelligent electric vehicles, it has formed a dimensionality reduction blow to traditional automobile companies in the field of software.
The gap in manpower makes it difficult for traditional car companies to catch up. With a global revenue of more than 200 billion euros, Volkswagen can support a team of 5000 software engineers. It is difficult for more car companies to support the cost of a large number of software engineers by relying on the existing business scale. Cutting into mobile phone manufacturing is not only the need to break through the bottleneck of software talents, but also the need to enter a higher-level consumer electronics value chain and contact more advanced technologies and products.
Another impact of technology companies on the automotive industry is that their costs, development concepts and models are completely different from the underlying logic. Traditional automobile companies should calculate the cost, calculate the market and spread the product line as much as possible. Technology companies pay attention to the needle tip piercing effect and pursue single product explosion around several core products.
Xiaomi and other mobile phone companies are used to C2B mode, that is, order driven production. They respond to customer demand through pre-sale system and fast dynamic response supply chain to reduce the impact of demand changes.
According to the analysis of a person from JD supply chain, C2B pre-sale mode ensures Xiaomi's capital flow in the supply chain, drives production with order information, and organizes supply chain operation with intensive demand information. For Xiaomi, it realizes almost "zero inventory", and every dynamic inventory belongs to customers.
Order driven production is the ultimate dream of all automobile companies, which can greatly reduce the waste of intermediate links and greatly improve the operation quality. But in reality, except for Toyota, the vast majority of automobile enterprises can not achieve the ultimate lean production. They adopt a planned approach to reduce costs and improve competitiveness through scale. When the expansion of sales scale is blocked, in order to maintain the low cost of the upstream, they will match more promotion costs and reduce inventory to achieve the set goal, This is a long-standing contradiction and conflict in the automotive industry.
Compared with Qi Weilai, ideal and Xiaopeng automobile, Huawei, apple, Xiaomi and Baidu are considered to be real technology manufacturers. Huawei has a complete ecological chain technology of intelligent electric vehicles. Baidu's research and development of automatic driving has been implemented for 9 years. Apple's automobile project is said to be launched in 2024. The game of the third stage of intelligent electric vehicle will start from this time node, which is likely to be the start of the final showdown.
