The delivery performance of the new car making forces in February has not yet recovered.
On March 1st, new car manufacturing forces such as AITO Wenjie and Ideal successively announced delivery information for January. AITO achieved the top spot with a total delivery of 21100 vehicles across the entire lineup, while Ideal Automobile ranked second with 20300 vehicles.
Overall, due to factors such as the Spring Festival holiday and relatively few working days in February, the delivery volume of new car manufacturers in February is generally lower than that of January. Except for the two leaders of Wenjie and Ideal, the sales of other new car making forces have not exceeded 10000 units. Among them, Xiaopeng Motors once again ranked bottom with sales of 4545 vehicles.
BYD and Tesla, two leading new energy car companies, launched a new round of price cuts on March 1st, which may further accelerate the market reshuffle.
Sales data of new car making forces in February (unit: vehicles)
All month on month declines, with sales of multiple car companies not exceeding 10000 units
Specifically, in February, AITO WENJIE remained the sales champion with a sales volume of 21100 units, of which WENJIE's new M7 delivered 18500 units per month. By contrast, in February 2023, AITO Wenjie's sales were only 3521 vehicles.
According to official data, since its launch in September last year, the WENJIE New M7 has exceeded 150000 units. As of now, the cumulative delivery of WENJIE New M7 has exceeded 100000 units, which means that there are still tens of thousands of orders in hand for WENJIE New M7. In addition, Wenjie M9 has already started large-scale delivery recently. The Wenjie M9 has exceeded 50000 units in a total of 62 days since its launch.
Ideal Automobile once again lost by a narrow margin to Wenjie in February, delivering 20300 units, a year-on-year increase of 21.8%. Since self delivery, the cumulative delivery volume of Ideal Automobile has reached 684800 units.
Li Xiang, Chairman and CEO of Ideal Automobile, stated that in February, despite experiencing an 8-day Spring Festival holiday and some models of the Ideal L-series model year being sold out, the daily delivery of nearly a thousand vehicles (excluding the Spring Festival holiday) was still achieved, a significant increase compared to February last year. He expects that with the release and delivery of the Ideal MEGA and 2024 Ideal L-series models, it will return to the monthly delivery level of 50000 vehicles in March.
Except for Wenjie and Ideal, the delivery volume of the other new car making forces that were counted in February fell below 10000 vehicles.
NIO has delivered 8132 new cars. As of now, NIO has delivered a total of 467800 new cars, a decrease of 19% month on month and 33.1% year-on-year.
Extreme Krypton delivered 7510 vehicles in February, a year-on-year increase of 38% and a month on month decrease of 40.1%.
The delivery volume of Zero Run cars in February was 6566 units, a year-on-year increase of 105.31% and a month on month decrease of 46.52%.
Nezha Motors delivered 6085 vehicles in February, a decrease of 39.34% compared to January's 10032 vehicles, and a decrease of about 40% compared to February last year.
In February, Xiaopeng Motors once again ranked bottom, delivering a total of 4545 new cars, a year-on-year decrease of 24.38% and a month on month decrease of 44.91%. Among them, the Xiaopeng X9 delivered 1448 units and nearly 4000 units were delivered within two months of its launch.
Xiaopeng Automobile expects that with the ramp up of production capacity after the Spring Festival and the resolution of individual supply chain bottlenecks, the production capacity of Xiaopeng X9 will be significantly increased and delivery will be accelerated from March onwards.
According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, February may be the lowest point in the car market sales for the whole year. In February, the retail sales of narrow passenger cars were about 1.15 million units, a decrease of 43.5% compared to the previous month, showing a regular seasonal trend. Among them, the retail sales of new energy vehicles are expected to be around 380000 units, a decrease of about 43% compared to the previous month.
BYD launches another price war, accelerating market reshuffle
It is worth noting that since the beginning of March, two new energy giants, BYD and Tesla, have launched a new round of price reductions.
On March 1st, BYD once again shouted the slogan "electricity is lower than oil" and launched the BYD Song Pro DM-i Honor Edition, with a starting price of 109800 yuan. This also means that A-class SUV star models equipped with BYD DM-i technology have officially entered the 100000 yuan range. Since February, BYD has continuously launched multiple "Honor Edition" models in multiple segmented markets, causing quite a stir in the industry.
On the same day, Tesla announced three discounts for the Model 3 and Model Y models, including an 8000 yuan limited time car insurance subsidy, a 2000 yuan designated car paint limited time car discount price, and a low interest rate for limited time car finance.
Subsequently, Feifan Automobile followed up with a price reduction and announced on its official WeChat account the launch of a limited time purchase discount policy for the Feifan F7, with a maximum discount of 30000 yuan.
In fact, on February 19th not long ago, BYD's price reduction triggered a large number of car companies to follow suit. The BYD Qin PLUS Honor Edition has been launched, with a starting price of 79800 yuan. Compared to the previous version of the Champion Edition model, the price of the new version has decreased by 20000 yuan. Subsequently, SAIC GM Wuling, Nezha Motors, and others immediately followed suit to lower prices.
Li Yunfei, General Manager of Brand and Public Relations Department of BYD Group, said that thanks to BYD's economies of scale and advantages in the entire industry chain, the price of BYD plug-in hybrid cars can be lower than that of gasoline cars in the same class. At the same time, Li Yunfei also stated that this move will completely open up a big battle with gasoline cars, "Who will buy a gasoline car next?"
A marketing manager from a car company told a reporter from Pengpai News that in the current market, the price reduction of top companies can be seen as a "strangulation" of small and medium-sized enterprises. Although it may seem like a "boss" or "boss" fight, it is actually the bottom companies that have been killed. The significant increase in the concentration of the automotive industry in 2024 is an irreversible trend.
Stimulated by the BYD Honor Edition, more car companies may join the price war one after another, and the sales and ranking of the new energy vehicle market in March may be reshuffled.
