Tesla's price cuts, where will the new domestic car-making forces go

Domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers urgently need to improve product quality and innovation

  At the beginning of the new year, Tesla cast a "blockbuster" for the auto market. Its domestic SUV model Model Y began to be officially launched, and the price dropped by 140,000 to 160,000 yuan, which is cheaper than many domestic new energy vehicles.

After the news of the price cut came out, many Tesla store customers were overwhelmed, and its official website was once paralyzed because of the excessive number of visitors.

  This undoubtedly further squeezed the space for new forces to build cars.

Where will the newly improved domestic new energy vehicles go?

  30% off domestically produced Tesla's new car

  Tesla's second domestically produced car, the Model Y made in China, once again cut prices significantly.

The new car is available in two versions, the long-life version and the Performance high-performance version, priced at 339,900 yuan and 369,900 yuan.

The long-endurance version has a maximum cruising range of 594 kilometers, and the Performance high-performance version is 480 kilometers.

  In terms of pricing, the domestic version of Model Y has been significantly reduced compared to the imported version. The price of the long-life version has been reduced from 488,000 yuan by 148,100 yuan, and the high-performance version has been reduced by 165,100 yuan from 535,000 yuan. Just hit a 30% discount.

  According to statistics, before this announcement of the Model Y price cuts, Tesla's Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y models had a total of 7 price cuts since May last year.

  Tesla store bookings and test drives are hot

  After the news of price cuts spread, Tesla's offline physical stores in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and other places were extremely popular in the past two days, and the official website was directly paralyzed because of the excessive number of visitors.

It is understood that the crowds at Tesla's Guangzhou experience store are comparable to the iPhone’s sales. In Shanghai’s Taikoo Hui experience store, people directly book the show car before it arrives.

  A salesperson at Tesla’s Beijing Fangcaoyuan Experience Store told reporters, “Since the price announcement on New Year’s Day, the consultation call has not stopped. The number of people in the store is also increasing day by day. We have no data on how many people there are. Thousands of customers have arrived in the store in almost three days."

  Earlier, Tesla also announced on the social platform that the official website order page could not be refreshed due to the surge in traffic.

In response to this response, Tesla internal staff said: "Model Y bookings and test drives are very popular, there will be a lot of people in the store in these two days, and consumers can go to the peak."

  Tesla grabs market share

  As of the end of 2020, Tesla has built more than 600 super charging stations in China.

Tesla invested in the construction of a super charging pile factory in Shanghai that integrates R&D and production. It plans to officially put it into production in the first quarter of 2021. The initial plan is to produce 10,000 super charging piles per year.

In addition, Tesla plans to set up a product design center in China to conduct local product design and research and development.

  It is understood that from January to November 2020, the cumulative sales of Tesla Model 3 have exceeded 110,000. This model alone accounts for about 12% of the market share of China's new energy passenger car market.

  Cui Shudong, secretary-general of the Travel Association, said that considering that SUVs are very popular in the Chinese market, Model Y may sell better than Model 3 in China, and Tesla's sales this year are expected to reach 300,000.

  In contrast to the new domestic car manufacturers, Ideal Auto’s sales volume in 2020 is only 32,621 units, Weilai Auto delivered 43,728 units in 2020, and Xiaopeng Auto delivered more than 20,000 units from January to November. It hasn't been announced yet, but it is estimated that the three major new domestic car manufacturers will sell more than 100,000 units in the whole year.

  In 2020, although the stocks of Xiaopeng, Weilai Automobile, Ideal and Tesla have risen astonishingly, they have also seen substantial retracements.

Take Weilai as an example. Since it peaked at 57.2 yuan at the end of November, its stock price has begun to fall. Although it has rebounded in recent trading days, its current stock price is still down 14.79% from the highest price.

  Whether in terms of sales volume or stock price, Tesla has exerted tremendous pressure on new automakers, and with the further implementation of the subsidy policy, domestic electric vehicle manufacturers will also be forced to improve the quality and innovation of their products.

  Response

  Wei Lai Automobile: large-scale chargeback information has been sued related platforms

  The price cut of the domestically produced Model Y puts a lot of pressure on new domestic car manufacturers.

Take Weilai Automobile as an example. Its official website shows that the three ES6 models, which are the same SUV as Model Y and are of similar level, are priced at 468,000 yuan, 398,000 yuan, and 358,000 yuan respectively.

The price of Model Y was reduced to 339,000 yuan this time, which is even cheaper than the price of Weilai. Coupled with the influence of the brand effect, news of large-scale cancellations of Weilai users has spread on the Internet.

On January 2nd, on the Weilai EC6 forum, there was also a post about the transfer of orders.

  Weilai responded to this, saying, “The news that the official website system has encountered a large-scale chargeback is untrue, and we have filed a complaint against the relevant platform.” Previously, Weilai’s chairman Li Bin mentioned Tesla’s price cuts. He believed that Tesla Constant price cuts will hurt consumers' brand loyalty. Weilai hopes to increase user loyalty and satisfaction through more service innovations.

  On the afternoon of January 1, Wei Lai released a message saying "Be loyal to your choice of'calling', don't ask'Why'". In the picture below, it said, "It is an opponent and a teammate. 2021, together Power up and go ahead".

Moreover, Wei Lai gave additional preferential policies for Tesla owners.

"Welcome to test drive NIO, even if you choose Tesla, you can still get 3 free one-key power-on services of NIO Power.".

  This group of articles / our reporter Wang Ronghui