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write an article/ meng huiyuan

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recently, relatedbmwthe different opinions on returning to the "price war" have aroused great concern. regardless of the actual situation, one fact that cannot be concealed is that bmw without price reduction does not have any brand advantage in the domestic new energy vehicle market.

as competition continues to intensify, almost all car companies are facing severe market challenges. according to statistics from the passenger car association, 136 models have seen price cuts in the first five months of this year alone. the scale of price cuts exceeds 90% of the price cuts for the whole of 2023 and exceeds the total price cuts for the whole of 2022. the overall average purchase price of new energy vehicles in the market dropped from 191,000 yuan in march 2023 to 172,300 yuan in march 2024. the selling price of new energy vehicles fell by 9.8% year-on-year in one year.

not only is it “price-boosting”, it has also become a new marketing trend for car company executives to act as car anchors and drive family cars into racing tracks. this has also caused relevant car companies to fall into public opinion controversies of “gaining attention” and “generating traffic”. however, whether it is "rolling up prices" or "rolling up marketing", to some extent, they are all superficial "rolling up". as the industry enters the second half of its development stage, both car companies and consumers should re-examine "internal rolling" the concept is not limited to short-term interests, but also focuses on long-term development.

“asking about the latest discount price is our most common question.” a salesperson revealed that every time a car company announces a price cut or a new product is launched, it will increase the number of customers who come to the store for consultation or test drive. “there is no discount. it’s difficult to attract customers to take the initiative to inquire about models.”

it is not difficult to see,the "price war" that has lasted from 2023 to now with no sign of stopping seems to have "spoiled" consumers, and the "killing one thousand enemies and losing three hundred" war between car companies is still intensifying.。

according to data provided by lu jinghong, a smart travel analyst at bloomberg new energy finance, the average price reduction of domestic new energy vehicles has increased from 6,700 yuan in the first quarter of last year to 16,000 yuan in the first quarter of this year. this has also led to the decline of new energy vehicles in the first quarter of this year. the weighted average selling price is almost the same as that of traditional fuel vehicles, and two-thirds of new energy vehicles on the market are priced lower than fuel vehicles of the same category.

“this round of price cuts in the first half of the year mainly put huge pressure on products priced between 80,000 and 200,000 yuan on the market.” some industry analysts said that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in this price range is relatively small, and various brands are competing for it. the main battlefield.

xpeng m03 further lowers the price of smart driving to 100,000 level

looking at the entire industry, sinceteslain january, it was announced again that its models would be reduced by up to 15,500 yuan; in februarybydin just half a month, honor versions of more than 10 main models were released intensively, with the largest price reduction exceeding 30,000 yuan; and within 12 hours after the honor version was launched,wuling starlightplus announced that it has dropped from the previous 105,800 yuan to 99,800 yuan;changan qiyuan a05the official starting price has dropped from 89,900 yuan to 78,900 yuan;nezha carthe prices of many of its main models have been reduced, with the highest price reduction reaching 22,000 yuan;dark bluecar launchSL03, s7 honor edition, price reduced by 10,000 yuan; until aprilxiaomi su7going public has triggered the "catfish effect". brands such as xpeng, wenjie, jikrypton, jiyue, and haopin have cut prices or launched limited-time benefits. faw toyota, chery, geely, nio and other car companies have launched replacement subsidies...

amid the continued intensification of competition, even mercedes-benz, bmw, and audi (bba) have had to put aside their modesty and drastically cut prices at channel terminals. for example, the price of the two-wheel drive version of the mercedes-benz smart elf 1 ranges from rmb 179,000 to rmb 225,900. compared with the old model, all three models have a price reduction of rmb 10,000 to rmb 20,000. netizens even joked that it is as low as "cabbage" price".

recently, bmw, which was revealed to have returned to a "price war" three months after announcing a price increase, has unprecedented discounts on its electric vehicle terminals, including ix1, i3, ix3, i7, etc., with reductions ranging from 100,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan. wait. taking the bmw i3 as an example, its terminal discount has exceeded 150,000 yuan, which means that its actual naked car price in some markets has reached the real 200,000 level. in the domestic independent pure electric vehicle market, it is equivalent to one ji krypton 007 produced by taiwan geely.

bmw i3 related quotation news

although relevant sources from bmw china responded that bmw has not made any adjustments to the recommended retail price recently, it is obvious that the authorized dealers have independently decided to lower the retail price based on market conditions. the reason for all this is that it is too difficult for bmw to break away from the price reduction discount. sold - in august this year, bmw's total sales in the chinese market were 34,800 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of approximately 40% and a month-on-month decrease of approximately 30%.

"not to mention the models that were launched before, now new cars have to face stock competition as soon as they are launched, and the market growth is very limited. in this zero-sum game, everyone is fighting for this bit of food, and only new energy vehicles get a share. the probability of getting the cake is just greater,” a practitioner said.

if "price volume" and "marketing volume" are powerful means to keep car companies at the poker table, then"volume technology" is the key to helping car companies win this decisive battle in the new energy vehicle industry。

from a practical point of view, although there are frequent news that car companies are engaged in marketing traffic wars and brand price wars, and the situation is almost intense, this battle will not be over in one or two years, but will last for many years. it also means that the decisive battle in this industry will be a continuous long-distance race. although some car companies have greater depth in technology accumulation, and others are better at marketing or closer to user needs, there is still no car company that can completely occupy a leading position. to break this stalemate, perhaps we are missing a moment of technological breakthrough and innovation.

at present, technology has become a must-talk topic for car companies in various public occasions: he xiaopeng said at the mo3 press conference, "xpeng motors will become a global ai car company"; lang xianpeng, vice president of intelligent driving research and development of li auto, said , "when we were doing wutu, we were already pre-researching end-to-end. now we are doing end-to-end, and we are actually pre-researching the next generation technology." yu chengdong, chairman of smart car solutions bu, said, "this industry is very complicated, and we provide technology helps everyone to write papers together”…

taking byd auto as an example, when it was not producing new energy vehicles, its r&d investment accounted for less than 3% of its total revenue. after byd announced full-scale production of new energy vehicles in 2023, the company's r&d investment accounted for 6.6%. it can be seen that the importance of technology research and development to new energy automobile companies.

source: rongzhong finance

compared with the first half of the automobile industry's transformation, the "style" of the second half has changed - on the product side, the focus of car companies is no longer limited to aspects such as cruising range, appearance design and power performance, but instead focuses more on displaying its technical strength; on the consumer side, consumers have become more rational in their car purchasing decisions. price is no longer the only criterion, and safety and quality have also become important considerations when purchasing a car.

in other words, once a company can make significant breakthroughs in areas such as battery life, autonomous driving technology, or in-car intelligent interaction, it will directly win market recognition and get rid of a simple "price war." however, in reality, many companies still have to participate in brutal price competition in order to survive, but they also realize thatonly those companies that focus on technological innovation can stand out in the market and truly promote the development of the industry.。

"the second half of the 'volume' starts with a price war, but in the end it will be a 'technical war' and a 'value war' that will decide the outcome." as wang xia, chairman of the automobile industry committee of the china council for the promotion of international trade, said, there is still a long way to go in the exploration of technological routes, such as tapping the potential of hybrid technology, commercialization of solid-state batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, and ai cars, etc., these are technological depressions with huge potential. "we must make breakthroughs in core technologies to bring consumers a differentiated value experience. we cannot let the 'price war' drag us back to the old path of homogeneous competition and lose the ability to sustain development."