On February 18, Hillhouse identified $200 million to participate in BYD's H-share placement.

At the close of trading on April 16, BYD's H shares fell back to HK $176.2, down 30% from the fixed price, and Hillhouse was briefly trapped during the "spring pullback."

The decline in BYD's share price is not really big. The losses to investors are also far less than the gains over the past year, when BYD's shares were only about HK $40 in April last year.

by contrast,The "new power of car-building" is much more affected.The share prices of several companies have fallen continuously, with the decline among the highest in the US stock market.

As of April 16, NIO Inc. 's share price fell 42.57%; XPeng Inc. began to fall at the end of November last year, with a maximum drop of 57.16%; and Li Auto Inc. also fell from November last year to now, down 56.14%.

Among the drastic fluctuations in the capital market, the "new forces" with the shallowest roots in the industry have become the most vigilant objects to be treated by the market and the first to abandon them.

althoughThe change of stock price can not reflect 100% of the actual situation of the enterprise, but it can clearly reflect the change of capital's confidence in the enterprise.

Corresponding to the sharp fall in the share prices of the new forces, the share prices and market capitalization of traditional car companies have swept away the decline and rebounded quickly. And this happens not only in the A-share market, but simultaneously around the world-Great Wall Motor's share price rose from 7 yuan to more than 51 yuan, Daimler Mercedes-Benz nearly quadrupled, General Motors Co hit an all-time high. Volkswagen shares rose from 100euros to as high as 350euros.

The pressure on the new forces is no longer as life and death as it was two years ago. But the intensity of competition is much stronger than before. The counter-offensive of the "old car enterprises" has already begun in an all-round way.

A sharp increase in pressure

It is hard to see Nokia and Motorola-style defeats in the automotive sector.

Judging from the sales data, the sales of new energy vehicles in China are very good.

According to the China Automobile Association, sales of new energy vehicles in China rose 2.4 times year-on-year to 226000 in March, including 190000 pure electric vehicles, up 2.5 times year-on-year, and 36000 plug-in hybrid vehicles, up 1.9 times year-on-year. Both set new records for the month's sales.

The replacement trend of new energy vehicles to fuel vehicles has become very clear after entering 2021. More and more consumers accept new energy vehicles and regard them as the first choice for car replacement. But more fierce competition followed: traditional car companies no longer wait and see.

Great Wall Motor is one of the most typical competitors.

In addition to continuing to make efforts in the traditional strong project, SUV fuel vehicles, Great Wall Motor's most important move is to greatly strengthen the shortcomings of new energy through the Euler brand and hit a blank part of the market-women's positioning electric cars.

In the ranking of new energy vehicle sales in March, Euler Black Cat has ranked fourth in the market, second only to Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, Tesla, Inc. Model3 and ModelY, while Q1 sales ranked third in the country.

For a long time, traditional car companies (including BYD) were mentioned, and many people regarded them as objects that would be subverted by "new forces". ButThe appearance of Euler and Biadihan broke this perception.It also proves that the products of traditional car companies are strong enough to meet the challenges of the new energy era.

A similar situation is happening in Europe. The German, British and French markets basically kept pace with China's growth, whileTesla, Inc. is not the only one who occupies the dominant position in the market.。

In Germany, for example, Volkswagen's e-Golf and Renault's Zoe surpassed Tesla, Inc. 's Model3 respectively, becoming the top two in the market. It can be seen that the so-called "old car companies" still occupy the vast majority of its sales list, and there is no situation dominated by Tesla, Inc..

BBA's expansion in new energy routes has begun. Audi focused on new energy luxury cars and launched several domestic Audi "e-tron" models in mid-April, starting at 546800 yuan. BMW plans to sell 100000 new energy vehicles worldwide in 2021, while Mercedes-Benz will launch three new energy vehicles this year.

Through the solid sales data, we can find that it is very difficult to see Nokia and Motorola-style rout in the automotive industry, and the so-called "old car companies" can still be recognized by consumers as long as they can launch new energy vehicles with sufficient product power.

European consumers are relatively conservative and pay more attention to traditional brands.The situation in China is different-most traditional car brands choose to set up new brands to distinguish them from traditional brands.Great Wall uses Euler, Geely founded Polar, Lecker, Geometry and other brands, BAIC not only adopted the "Beijing" brand, but also operated a new high-end brand "ARCFOX".

Autopilot: cooperative VS self-research

The market has a relatively clear understanding of the mode of cooperation between operating system software enterprises and traditional car companies.

The recognition of traditional car companies turning to new energy in the capital market has been very high, and the share prices of related companies have had a clear response.

Before July 2020, Great Wall Motor was more regarded as one of the representatives of "traditional car companies" in the capital market. The main SUV products include Harvard H9, Gun pickup truck and high-end brand "Wei". Although the new energy brand "Euler" was established as early as 2018, it was lukewarm in the first two years.

Since the beginning of 2016, Great Wall Motor's A-share price has not risen for four years. By the fourth quarter of 2018 to the first quarter of 2019, its price-to-earnings ratio had fallen below 10 times.

With the popularity of Euler and the popularity of the "Tank 300" as an off-road fuel vehicle, its share price and price-to-earnings ratio soared, and the market began to recognize the position of the Great Wall in the new energy pattern.

Geely has a similar situation. After two and a half years of dormancy, the H-share listed Geely Automobile has rebounded sharply since the second quarter of 2020, rising more than 200 per cent at one point, after plunging 60 per cent at the end of 2017 as the car cycle peaked.

The one share price that has soared recently is BAIC Langu. One of the important reasons for attracting the attention of the capital markets is the joint launch of the new model Alpha S in mid-April and the launch of the "Alpha S Huawei HI version" with Huawei, which is equipped with Huawei's lidar autopilot program and Hongmeng OS Smart connected cockpit.

This is Huawei's first product demonstration since it announced its foray into the car-building field. In an actual driving demonstration video, Huawei's driverless operating system helps drivers drive intelligently on narrow roads mixed with cars, bicycles and pedestrians.

The video shook the market and quickly pushed the share prices of traditional car companies such as BAIC Blue Valley, Changan Automobile and Guangzhou Automobile Group to soar, while the share prices of self-driving and intelligent cockpit companies such as Huayang Group, Luchang Technology and Siwei Tuxin rose one after another. the self-driving sector continued to be strong after the opening of trading on Monday.

Coupled with the previous software and hardware cooperation between Baidu, Inc. and GeelyThe market has a relatively clear understanding of the mode of cooperation between manufacturers who master self-driving technology and traditional car companies.

In this mode, self-driving technology suppliers and vehicle companies can focus on their own areas of advantage. Traditional automakers lack research capabilities in intelligence, while Huawei and Baidu, Inc. provide them with self-driving capabilities and operating systems, and have made it clear that they will not build cars directly.

The "new forces" mostly rely on self-research.While spending a lot of money to build cars, operating systems and autopilot are also investing aggressively. Although it can bring a more distinctive user experience, it also requires a lot of capital, which is a lot of pressure for startups.

In order to support a large amount of R & D investment, NIO Inc., XPeng Inc. and ideal all carried out large-scale financing.These include the issuance of new shares in the United States, the granting of bank loans in China, and the planned return to Hong Kong for a secondary listing, and so on.

Over the past six months, with the sharp rise in stock prices, valuations and market capitalization, what the new power has done most is not only building cars, but also changing tricks to raise funds to support its large-scale R & D investment.

Transportation demand or intelligence requirement?

The three new forces + BYD will no longer be the only choice for investors.

The struggle between "new forces" and "old car companies" has become more subtle with the entry of Baidu, Inc. and Huawei.

People are used to referring to electric vehicles as "new energy vehicles". In fact, the connotation of electric vehicles is not only to use electric energy as driving energy, but more importantly, to realize the intelligence of cars from now on, including self-driving and application ecology.

This is a change that expands the scale of the auto industry.The traditional "hardware industry" has suddenly increased the space for the software market represented by autopilot.But it is by no means easy to occupy these market spaces.

From Microsoft Corp's rout in the smartphone operating system, some people push and perform, there is a good chance that there will only be 1 or 2 winners in the "software battle" of smart cars in the future.

In the PC era, the communication between people and computers needs to be realized with the help of DOS and Windows, while users need to pay the time cost to learn and adapt to the operating system, and the rich software application ecology also needs less operating systems.

Nowadays, we can no longer imagine that if we change the brand of computer, we will have to learn a new operating system. The same thing has happened in the mobile Internet era. Android and Apple Inc IOS have become the two major operating systems that carve up the market, based on which a series of software applications have been rolled out.

The actual situation is different. Most people buy new energy vehicles not because of the strong demand for self-driving and software ecology, but more concerned about good policies and saving the cost of refueling and maintenance. therefore, the demand for operating system, self-driving and software ecology has not been increased.

That is to say,At present, the demand for "transportation" of new energy vehicles is far stronger than the demand for intelligence.This can be clearly seen in a large number of small cars (such as Hongguang MINIEV, Volkswagen UP, Great Wall Euler Black Cat, etc.) in the sales list of new energy vehicles in China and Germany.

At the operational level, both new power and old car companies are very clear about the future consumption trend of cars: only "new energy" is not enough, and new energy + operating system is not enough.Integrating autopilot into the operating system of new energy vehicles is the most important capability of automobile companies in the future.

The new power chooses to do it on its own, and the old car companies choose to embrace Baidu, Inc. and Huawei, all have their own considerations and opportunities. It is not known who will win and who will fall behind in this process.

At least we can be sure that in the capital marketsThree new forces + BYD will no longer be the only choice for investors.With Huawei and Baidu, Inc. for technology blessing of the traditional car companies, also began to be valued by the capital. The counterattack of "old car companies" against "new forces" will also become more violent.

Write at the end

As a durable consumer product, automobile has a very obvious periodic attribute.

Around 2018, driven by auto finance, China's last car cycle came to an end as auto consumption infiltrated into low-line cities and township markets. The share prices of traditional car companies represented by Changan Automobile have plummeted. Tesla, Inc. and NIO Inc., two listed new energy car companies, are in trouble, and their stock prices are under great pressure.

What's different is thatThis cycle of car depression did not last long.Only two years later, it began a global rebound, the cycle reversal led to a sharp rise in the share prices of car companies, and new energy has become one of the most flexible varieties.

After 2021, a large number of new car companies will enter the bureau, Internet companies will enter the bureau in an all-round way, and old car companies will build new energy brands to release production capacity, and the whole industry will change from complete cyclical attributes to "cycle + growth", mixed with new energy and self-driving bubbles. The situation is a mess.The once magnificent "new forces" are no longer the only protagonists on this stage, although they are still growing rapidly.