The controversy within the industry over whether releasing weekly sales charts constitutes "low-level internal competition" has not yet dissipated. On August 1st, the monthly sales competition among new car manufacturers once again took place.
The promotional activities in June and the half year surge have released some potential demand ahead of schedule. In July, OEMs and dealers entered a seasonal rest period, which is considered the off-season for traditional car sales. However, some new car manufacturers saw a double increase in monthly delivery volume compared to the previous month, seemingly proving that the off-season is not weak.
Specifically, Ideal Automobile has maintained its position as the top delivery company, with a delivery volume of 50000 units after a six-month hiatus; The sales battle between Wenjie and Ideal is still ongoing, with the former lagging behind Ideal by 9500 units; NIO and Leapmotor have stable monthly sales of over 20000 vehicles, which has become a new threshold for new car manufacturers to compete; Xiaopeng Motors, Nezha Motors, and Xiaomi Motors are still hovering around 10000 vehicles.
The car market entered the traditional off-season in July, with overall stability. The summer tourism boom and the 'trade in' policy incentives injected new vitality into the car market and promoted the release of some consumption. Overall, it is expected that the terminal sales of passenger cars in July will be around 1.75 million units, which is basically the same as June, "said the China Automobile Dealers Association.
According to statistics from 21st Century Business Herald reporters, from January to July this year, there was a significant differentiation in sales among new car manufacturers, with market share accelerating towards the top - both Ideal and Hongmeng Zhixing exceeded 200000 vehicles, firmly occupying the first tier; Zero Run, NIO, Deep Blue, Extreme Krypton and others followed closely behind, all exceeding 100000 vehicles; Xiaopeng and Nezha hover around 60000 vehicles; Jihu, Zhiji, Lantu and other new energy brands incubated by traditional car companies that have not yet exceeded 40000 vehicles are worth paying attention to.
Wei Xiaoli's "end-to-end" competition has begun
After experiencing the failure of its first pure electric model, layoffs, model upgrades and iterations, and organizational restructuring, Ideal Auto once again crossed the 50000 monthly sales mark in July, six months after breaking through 50000 units in a single month last time. In July, Ideal Auto delivered 51000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 49.41%, setting a new historical high. From January to July this year, Ideal delivered approximately 240000 vehicles, achieving 42.9% of its annual target (560000 to 640000 vehicles).
Leapmotor surpassed NIO and closely followed, delivering over 20000 vehicles for two consecutive months, with 22000 vehicles in July, a year-on-year increase of 54.12%, and a record high monthly delivery volume. According to the official statement of Leapmotor, the first month of release of the Leapmotor C16 exceeded 10000 orders and deliveries began nationwide, further boosting Leapmotor sales. In the first seven months of this year, Zero Run Motors delivered a total of 108800 new cars, achieving 43.5% of the lower limit of the annual sales target (250000 to 300000 vehicles). In the expectations of Zhu Jiangming, founder, chairman, and CEO of Zero Run Technology, Zero Run Motors is expected to achieve monthly sales of 30000 vehicles in the price range of 150000 to 200000 yuan.
NIO has delivered over 20000 vehicles for three consecutive months, with approximately 20500 new cars delivered in July, a year-on-year increase of 0.18%, but a decrease of 3.35% compared to the previous month. NIO Chairman Li Bin mentioned in two employee letters in November last year and January this year, "ensuring that sales and service capabilities can cope with fierce market competition" and ensuring that sales can be quickly converted into sales. Currently, NIO's efforts to sell more cars are being reflected. From January to July this year, NIO delivered nearly 108000 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 43.85%, achieving 47% of its annual sales target of 230000 vehicles.
Xiaopeng Motors maintained a level of 10000 vehicles in July, delivering a total of 11100 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 1.24%; From January to July, a total of 63200 vehicles were delivered, a year-on-year increase of 20.46%, and only 22.5% of the annual sales target (280000 vehicles) was achieved. Xiaopeng Motors sees the MONA M03 as the next lever to boost sales. On August 1st, the first batch of exhibition cars of this model arrived at its stores in 100 cities across the country. It is expected to be officially launched and the selling price will be announced in August, and its contribution to its annual sales remains to be tested by the market.
Nezha Motors, which had been experiencing negative year-on-year growth for five consecutive months, has finally turned positive, but its ranking remains at the bottom. In July, it delivered over 11000 vehicles, compared to about 10000 vehicles delivered in the same period last year; In the first seven months of this year, Nezha delivered a total of 64800 vehicles, only achieving 21.6% of the annual sales target of 300000 vehicles. It is reported that Nezha will comprehensively upgrade its brand in the second half of the year and plans to launch a new sedan in the third quarter. At the same time, Nezha Motors is accelerating its globalization strategy. According to official data, the pure electric SUV Nezha X has exceeded 1000 orders within 72 hours of its launch in Thailand.
"Americans are thinking about how to make the end-to-end automated driving assistance technology better and how to do it better than people. While Chinese technology companies are still 'rolling' weekly sales charts and trying to make money." Regarding the recently heated topic of "weekly sales charts", He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile, said frankly that this is not the way science and technology competition should be. On the same day, Ma Lin, Assistant Vice President of Brand and Communication at NIO, said, "Rolling up the weekly ranking somewhat implies a low-level 'internal competition'." Subsequently, Li Xiang, Chairman of Ideal Automobile, responded on social media with a story of "covering his ears and stealing the bell".
It is worth noting that although there are different attitudes towards the weekly sales chart, the new forces of car manufacturing have already started the competition of end-to-end big models: Recently, Xiaopeng announced that it will fully push the AI Dimensity system XOS 5.2.0 version to global users, and XNGP will achieve full opening of "unlimited cities, unlimited routes, and unlimited road conditions" nationwide; NIO has released its intelligent driving technology architecture NADArch 2.0, which upgrades the algorithm layer to an end-to-end architecture that introduces a world model. It directly generates driving decisions from raw sensor data, reducing information loss in traditional solutions; Earlier, Ideal Auto released a new autonomous driving technology architecture based on end-to-end models, VLM visual language models, and world models.
The penetration rate of new energy is expected to further increase
As new car manufacturers delivered in June with a month on month growth, new energy brands such as Xiaomi, Lantu, and Deep Blue also continued to rebound.
The highly popular Xiaomi car has delivered over 10000 units for two consecutive months. Xiaomi founder Lei Jun revealed that Xiaomi Auto is expected to achieve its annual delivery target of 100000 vehicles ahead of schedule in November, aiming to deliver 120000 vehicles annually. So far, Xiaomi Auto has delivered over 30000 vehicles.
Since June, Xiaomi's car factory has started implementing dual shift production, with delivery cycles for various models shortened by about two weeks compared to before, but the waiting period is still relatively long. At present, the delivery cycle for both the standard and Max versions of Xiaomi SU7 exceeds six months, and the long waiting time and competitive discounts have diverted some users of Xiaomi SU7. A Xiaomi car salesperson told 21st Century Business Herald reporters that "the volume of new orders has significantly slowed down compared to before.
Since the beginning of the year, Wanjie, which has been competing with Ideal Motors, delivered 41500 vehicles in July, slightly lower than the previous month. Among them, Wanjie M9 delivered 18000 vehicles, Wanjie New M7 delivered 16600 vehicles, and Wanjie New M5 delivered 6926 vehicles in a single month. Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, Chairman of Terminal BG, and Chairman of Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, previously revealed that the Wanjie brand will impact monthly sales of 50000 vehicles in the future.
The WENJIE series models also boosted the sales performance of SAIC Motor, with sales of new energy vehicles reaching 42000 units in July, a year-on-year increase of 508.25%; The cumulative sales of new energy vehicles from January to July this year were 243000 units, with a year-on-year increase of 369.95%.
According to official data from Hongmeng Zhixing, 2555 units of the Zhijie S7 were delivered in July. However, in recent days, multiple users have revealed that after a long wait, the delivery of the Zhijie S7, which has been listed for the second time, is still far away, and the relevant responsible parties have not provided a reasonable explanation. It is reported that the difficulty in delivery this time is mainly reflected in the entry-level version of the Zhijie S7 model (Zhijie S7 Pro).
Several sales personnel from HarmonyOS told 21st Century Business Herald reporters that the Pro version does not come with Huawei's intelligent driving system, and there are few car buyers. The Max and Max+models equipped with intelligent driving are selling better. Several salespeople also prioritize recommending the intelligent driving version of the car to consumers.
It is worth mentioning that in the first seven months of this year, the sales of Ideal and HarmonyOS only differed by more than 1000 units. With the release of new cars such as the HarmonyOS Enjoy S9 and R7, the competition between the two sides will become increasingly fierce, and their positions may be reversed.
Some are happy while others are worried. The Guangzhou Automobile Aion, which has been selling well in 2023, experienced a decline in sales in July, delivering 35000 vehicles, both on a month on month basis. In the first seven months of this year, its cumulative sales volume was 213000 vehicles, only achieving 30.4% of the annual sales target of 700000. In July, Aion launched the second generation AION V Tyrannosaurus rex, with a total of 7 configurations available. The price range is 129800 yuan to 189800 yuan, and the starting price has been lowered by more than 20000 yuan compared to the current model. Considering the delivery cycle, the contribution of the new car to sales will be reflected in August.
The all-new AION V has a lower price with the aim of gaining a larger market share, and aims to be among the top two pure electric A-class SUV segments with a price range of 130000 to 190000 yuan, "Xiao Yong, Deputy General Manager of GAC Aion New Energy Vehicles Co., Ltd., told 21st Century Business Herald reporters.
Jike Motors delivered over 15600 vehicles in July, a year-on-year increase of 30% and a month on month decline of over 20%. In mid month, Jike launched the new MPV model 009, with a large order volume exceeding 6000 vehicles within ten days. Jike stated that it is taking advantage of the summer high-temperature equipment maintenance period to carry out a production line upgrade and renovation that will last for about three weeks (late July to mid August), and is planning ahead to meet the production capacity demand of 30000 units in a single month for delivery in the fourth quarter of this year. From January to July this year, Jike delivered over 103500 new vehicles, achieving 45% of its annual sales target of 230000 vehicles. In the second half of the year, Jike will also launch its first mid to large sized SUV, Jike 7X, and the large five seater Jike MIX.
Other new energy brands have shown varying degrees of growth: Deep Blue Motors sold 16700 vehicles in July, a year-on-year increase of 26.94%. The upgraded version of the Deep Blue S7, the Deep Blue S07, was recently launched, offering both pure electric and extended range power options. The price range is 149900 yuan to 212900 yuan, with a slight price reduction for the top of the line model. Some models are equipped with Huawei Qiankun intelligent driving assistance system. Deep Blue CEO Deng Chenghao stated that "we will achieve monthly sales of 30000 vehicles in the fourth quarter of this year.
Jihu sold 8017 new cars in July, a year-on-year increase of 329%; Lantu Automobile and Zhiji Automobile delivered 6015 and 6017 vehicles respectively in the same month, an increase of 97% and 249% year-on-year, respectively. The cumulative sales of the two in the first seven months of this year were 36400 and 29000 vehicles, respectively, achieving 36.4% (Lantu 100000 vehicles) and 24.2% (Zhiji 120000 vehicles) of the established targets. Lantu Automotive CEO Lu Fang stated that Lantu's fourth model, Lantu Zhiyin, plans to start pre-sales in August this year.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, preliminary estimates show that in July, the retail sales of narrow passenger cars in China were about 1.73 million units, a slight decrease of 2.0% compared to the same period last month. Among them, the sales of plug-in hybrid models have grown rapidly, providing strong support for the new energy market. In July, the retail sales of new energy vehicles in China are expected to reach 860000 units, which is basically the same as June and a year-on-year increase of 34.1%. The penetration rate is expected to further increase to 49.7%.
Selling tens of thousands of vehicles in the current month has become the norm, and the sales ranking of new forces tends to stabilize. A very small number of rear end new forces are still struggling to survive, and the knockout stage is gradually turning into a large-scale competition. The competition among top new car manufacturers will become increasingly fierce.