The highlights of new energy vehicles over the past two years have gradually dimmed, and it seems that the chill is being passed on to every Autobot.

Tesla

Tesla, Inc., which has become the ceiling of the industry and keeps breaking through the ceiling, its share price has fallen 55 per cent from its peak. Like all American technology companies, the rise and fall of share prices are inseparable from the Fed's release of water, shrinking tables and raising interest rates. In addition to monetary policy factors, there are also Tesla, Inc. 's own reasons.

Delivery fell quarter-on-quarter for the first time since 2020. In July, Tesla, Inc. 's second-quarter production report showed that 258000 vehicles were produced worldwide, up 25% from a year earlier, but down 15% from a month earlier; 254000 vehicles were delivered, up 26.5% from a year earlier and down 18% from a month earlier.

Although before the release of the quarterly results, some analysts in the market lowered the delivery volume from the previous high forecast of 310000 to 270000, but unfortunately, it is still miss, lower than expected. So much so that analysts can't even say "as we expected" to come to the road show.

It is quite helpless to fall short of expectations, looking at both supply and demand:

On the supply side, the new factory has to climb, as Musk said in an interview in June"the factories in Berlin and Austin are now huge melting pots of money, and they make a huge roar, and that is the sound of money burning. "At the same time, the epidemic has also caused instability in the supply chain.

On the demand side, there were rumors that the Shanghai factory would cut production due to lower-than-expected demand, but the company quickly dismissed the rumors as untrue. But the withdrawal of subsidies for new energy vehicles is really happening. Some of the risks brought by the single-pedal model are also being re-evaluated by some consumers. But Tesla, Inc. 's brand is still a charisma. This is especially true when Musk becomes the big boss of Twitter, the world's largest social platform.

Musk's eloquence on Twitter has broadened the circle of personal charm, but it is also worrying Tesla, Inc. 's investors:

Tesla, Inc. shares sell, Twitter internal reform, time management master's energy is really enough?

Electric car Tesla, social platform Twitter, brain-computer interface Neuralink, star chain Starlink, humanoid robot Optimus, solar SolarCity, space SpaceX, tunnel BoringCompany, grocery store (mobile phone, dog coin, flame gun), etc.

As soon as there is a proper publication of the Nine sons, history also tells us that there will be chaos in this way. Especially for this new energy vehicle, its own war is not over yet. The train runs fast and depends entirely on the front of the train. If the business is to develop, Musk needs to be loved.

But if you think Tesla, Inc. is miserable, it's not.

New forces

There are Tesla, Inc. in the United States and new forces in China. Ideal, NIO Inc., and XPeng Inc., as representatives of new forces, have "enjoyed" together with Tesla, Inc. in the United States. But now we are also in "adversity" together.

The stock prices of the big three companies are the most significant feedback. Although XPeng Inc. 's share price has almost doubled recently, it is still only 20 per cent of its peak. NIO Inc. is also almost 20% of the highest point, and ideal because the previous increase is small, so the pullback is also small, is 50% of the highest point.

The greatest pressure in front of the new forces is still sales volume, gross profit margin and loss.

XPeng Inc. is adjusting. XPeng Inc. held several management meetings around October to reflect on issues such as the company's operation and product strategy, according to a 36Kr report. It is even rumored that at the internal conference, founder he Xiaopeng once choked up.[1]. The trigger point is related to G9. Configuration and other factors fall short of consumers' expectations, causing dissatisfaction. The failure of product power is very serious for the popular style strategy of single product.

However, the delivery volume in August and September still did not exceed 10,000, and there was a month-on-month decline. Sales fell another 40% month-on-month in October. 2022 is drawing to a close, but it is almost impossible for sales of KPI to be completed.

If the sales volume is not enough, it will be very difficult to make a profit. Coupled with the shrinking valuation of autopilot, weak product premium, obsession with autopilot research and development also increased the pressure on XPeng Inc.. For every car sold, XPeng Inc. lost 68000 yuan, and XPeng Inc. made a net loss of 6.7 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2022.

This figure will enable Li Auto Inc. to lose ten times in the second quarter.

In the second quarter of 2022, the ideal net loss of 640 million yuan, the figure is not much, the gross profit margin is also about 22%, the new power is relatively good. Therefore, ideal founder Li Xiang also said on Weibo Corp that when the L9 and L8 products are delivered at the same time, it is time to say goodbye to the lossmaking operation for seven consecutive years.

With the bravado of "the best SUV in 5 million", the goal of ending the loss seems to be a lot of plain. In order to get rid of losses, apart from controlling costs, the current sales volume of 10,000 may have to double in order to be more secure. But taking into account the sharp decline in sales in August, ONE also made a bit of trouble and other factors, to make a profit, the product power is still the test.

For profit, NIO Inc. also put forward the goal.

NIO Inc., who takes the high-end line and attaches importance to user service, the number of cars sold is increasing, but the loss in a single quarter has also increased, losing 4.1 billion yuan in the third quarter of this year alone. For all kinds of pressure, NIO Inc. founder Li Bin said in the internal speech that "do not forget the original ideal and ambition and forge ahead", "do not have the right to wait and see, let alone shrink." Persist in research and development and enter more national markets.

NIO Inc. also said that he plans to make his own batteries and chips, hoping to make a profit in 2024. Indeed, with the price of lithium mines high, automakers complain that the money has been made by batteries, and battery owners complain that they have been earned by mine owners. In that case, do it yourself. And BYD, which insists on integration, has also made a profit of 10,000 yuan on its bike, which proves this point.

To tell you the truth, it took Tesla, Inc. more than 16 years to make a profit, and in terms of time, the new forces don't have to worry about it. However, in the case of too fierce competition, persistent losses may not be a good sign, or even lag behind.

For NIO Inc., who has experienced a "desperate situation" in 2018, he is particularly concerned about whether he is left behind or not. In his internal speech, Li Bin also mentioned repeatedly"(gross profit is less than 25%), if you don't get there, you won't have a chance."2024 and 2025 are the finals of electric vehicles. If you reach the second phalanx, it is almost impossible to catch up with the first phalanx.[2]The feeling of urgency is beyond words.

But if you think the new power is miserable, it's not.

Second square matrix

What is the standard of the second phalanx and what are the companies? each may have a different view. As the saying goes, as long as the field is subdivided and the angle is novel, every company can be number one.

But if you take "whether you have enjoyed the highlight of the stock market in 2020" as the standard, zero-running cars must be in the second phalanx.

It is not too late to set up zero-running cars, and the new power is basically a foregone step at the end of 2015. But the market momentum is relatively small.

Zero sales are okay. The trial and error model S01 tossed around for about four years, and then the T03 for the A00 class was recognized by the market, with a price of about 80,000 yuan, which really grabbed a lot of markets. The C series can also be noted. The price strategy allowed Zero to gain 100000 sales in the first 11 months of 2022.

The company's product promotion is "the expectation of level 500000 can be realized in less than 200000", which is as good as the original intention of 5 million SUV. Consumers are very popular, but the company's shareholders are under great pressure. At this price, the gross margin of the product is not optimistic.It is-44% in 2021 and still around-9% this year.

The gross profit margin also puts a lot of pressure on the zero run of the listing. Zero-running cars have nine rounds of financing, with a maximum of 2.5 billion yuan, which is not big compared with Wei Xiaoli. On September 29, 2022, Zero finally listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but it fell 35% on the day of its listing. Nine trading days later, the share price halved.

For the listing time, the company's founder Zhu Jiangming said frankly, "it is really not a very good period of time, in the downward channel." But the main reason we choose to go public is that we don't care about the current period of time, and we are more concerned about getting our market share as soon as possible. "[3]。

In vernacular, if you want to compete, you need money and you have to go public as soon as possible. After all, investors dare not take over assets that banks and trusts dare not take.

The sentence zero running car is very sincere. Although it was broken after listing, the situation is still better than Weima, which can not go up.

Weima, which was also founded in 2015, is second only to NIO Inc. in sales in 2019, and its continuous financing is about 30 billion yuan. with money and products, it should also be an one-dollar general among the new forces.So that founder Shen Hui once sent a bet to Wang Xing every other time, if Weima advanced into the top three of the new forces, he hoped that Wang Xing would personally deliver a takeout to his door.You can see that you are in high spirits.

In the subsequent development, whether the factory investment is too high, intelligent can not keep up with the pace, as well as litigation disputes with Geely, etc., in short, in front of us, Weimar sold only 30,000 vehicles in the first three quarters of this year. The capital flow is already very tight.

In 2020, Weimar Planning Co., Ltd. failed to list on the board, and in December 2022, there were rumors that Weimar borrowed the shell "Apollo Travel" to achieve the listing of Hong Kong stocks. The company has not made a decision. But for Weimar Development, listing is really important. In other words, money is really important.

When the times abandon you, you won't even say hello. And when the second phalanx is about to abandon you, it will not consider whether there is a "golden spoon" at that time.

But if you think the second phalanx is miserable, it's not.

Squeeze into the poker table

Too many players want to squeeze into the poker table.

Some successful cars, such as Nashi, relying on B-end and G-end, also sold 144000 cars in the first 11 months of 2022, the second most sold in China.

There are also those who are difficult to build cars, not to mention listing and selling. For example, Li Yinan's self-traveler. Niu Technologies of Li Yinan has made a lot of achievements in the field of two-wheeled electric cars. As a result, the genius also set his sights on the four rounds and set up Niuchuang Company (Martian Stone Technology). In October 2022, since the release of the traveler's NV model, the 20, 000 intention gold order also caused a lot of repercussions in the car circle.

The contract factory of Zi Youjia is the Changzhou factory of Mahayana, while the factory of Mahayana is the "family background" of Zhongtai Motors. Think of Zhongtai Motors' previous high-imitation models, and listed companies have just taken off their hats from ST, so some people say that this is a "stockade" and that quality control needs to be extra cautious.

As a result, less than two months, not to mention quality control, now even made, has become a problem.

The problem is the production qualification. China needs qualification examination and approval for automobile production, and new players can obtain production licenses through the acquisition of qualified companies. For example, Li Auto Inc. spent 650 million yuan to acquire Lifan automobile production qualifications; it can also allow qualified factories to contract manufacturing, but the latter needs to specify the foundry at the rear of the car, just like NIO Inc. 's Jianghuai car logo.

However, the qualification standards for contract manufacturing also changed in early 2022. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on carrying out the pilot work of commissioned production of new energy vehicles, in which entrusted enterprises are more stringent than previous regulations and are also required to have new energy-related production qualifications. In other words, new players can no longer adopt the cooperation model of NIO Inc. and Jianghuai.

The original intention of the notice is to reduce waste of production capacity, to urge enterprises to plan reasonably, and to put forward the idea of merger and reorganization. The release of the notice is not a sudden attack since the tourist home released it. But it does bring stricter standards for contract manufacturing, such as borrowing a vest, which is essentially not allowed. This requires Li Yinan to consider longer-term and more determined cooperation with Mahayana.

Considering the debt problem of Mahayana itself, when quality control, qualification, brand and so on are intertwined, it is indeed easy to "cut the mess quickly and not cooperate" and fall at the door of mass production. As a result, there are rumors that travelers have "closed down". A user letter on the 7th also illustrates the problem. The issue of qualification has also given rise to rumors that XIAOMI has been instructed to build cars.

Mahayana issued a notice on the 7th, saying that the car could not be delivered in a short period of time and would be fully refunded.

When it comes to falling at the door of mass production, we have to mention China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle. Crossing the border is difficult, not to mention the real estate business is already beset with difficulties.

But just like the richest man in 2017, the passive Waterloo at that time became an act of knowledge in hindsight. Now the decisive stop loss, may also be a good choice.

After all, if 2024 and 2025 are the finals, companies without brands and appeal have just started, and the money and time invested is just a prince to accompany them.

Not to mention, in addition to the new forces, the second phalanx, BYD is a brand that has been in the lead in sales and gross profit margin for more than 20 years, and has been opened by Buffett. There are also Apple Inc, Huawei, XIAOMI, these enterprises that have proved brand strength, are also coming to an end.

But if you think the squeeze table is miserable, it's not.

The darkest hour

Everyone came to squeeze the card table, there is no doubt that there is room for the development of the industry.

In three years from 2020, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is close to 30%, more than two years ahead of schedule. In the market of less than 10-200000 yuan, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is 19%. These are all room for industry growth in the future. And there are intelligent imaginative scenarios.

Although the stage of barbaric growth is over, each player has his own chill: Tesla, Inc. needs more love from Musk to maintain the lead; the new power needs production and sales to make a profit; and the second phalanx needs to get the money quickly to ensure that it will not be left behind.

However, from the perspective of development space, new energy vehicles are still much better than many industries and fields, and there are many bright spots. For example, XPeng Inc. 's three new cars next year will fill the market with expectations; the zero gross profit margin is also improving; NIO Inc. is expanding the European market; and the lithium mine is also cutting prices, and the gross profit margin will improve.

However, on the other hand, in the face of fierce competition, some people will certainly be left behind. The founders and entrepreneurs of electric cars do need to be less big, less conceited, more cautious, and try their best to balance demand:

Investors need a return on share prices, the government needs momentum for industrial development, consumers need quality and low prices, employees need a stable company, and companies need money and profits to keep going.

When the wind is gone, those without wings will fall; when the tide goes out, skinny swimmers will be ashamed; when winter comes, thin clothes will be cold. It's not realistic that everyone wins at the poker table.

The word "darkest hour" is often heard this year. Many people use it to describe the environment, but it is not complete. In fact, it is more about describing the inside.

Just like Churchill in the darkest hour movie, although the Nazi attack was fierce and oppressive, the king's mistrust, the people's lack of confidence and preparation, and even wavering himself, this is the darkest, Churchill needs courage to cheer up.

Therefore, it is still what Autobots need to maintain confidence, patience, initiative and determination. This is true in the automobile industry, and so is it in many industries. There are many such moments in the light and shadow of history, and then there is the dawn, the morning light and the rising sun.