Today is New Year's Eve, the last day of the Lunar Year of the Rabbit. It's time to do a review. When it comes to the automotive industry in 2023, many people may not miss it. Because this year was so miserable, executives changed frequently, and marginal companies were forced to lay off large-scale layoffs. Price wars force companies to survive without success. If companies fail to meet their KPIs, their profits cannot be optimistic. But the wheel of history is rolling forward, and the new energy industry is rushing towards the next competition.

This year has been particularly exciting. No one wants to miss the autonomous driving qualifying competition. The battle without a map has officially begun. The collective overseas trip has also made Chinese cars a well-known business card.

Difficulties mixed with unwillingness have become the best footnote for car companies to explore and move forward in 2023.

How should we summarize the cycling world in 2023?

In the face of this complicated business war and industry rules, finding certainty from uncertainty is always the right answer, so we have screened out the top ten "unexpected" events in the 2023 car circle, trying to gain insight into the future through history.

01. The era of "reverse joint venture" has arrived

The most exciting thing in 2023 must be an unprecedented event - overseas giants proactively seek cooperation with Chinese car companies.

In July 2023, Audi and SAIC first reached a consensus that the two parties would jointly develop electric vehicles. This was followed by Volkswagen spending US$700 million to acquire 4.99% of Xpeng Motors and reaching a strategic cooperation agreement to enhance the electrification and intelligent competitiveness of the Volkswagen brand in China.

In October, Stellantis Group announced that it would invest approximately 1.5 billion euros to acquire approximately 20% of the equity of Leapmotor, and would establish a joint venture company called "Leapoo International" at a ratio of 51:49 to jointly launch an electrification offensive on a global scale.

Overseas giants cooperate with Chinese car companies in the form of investment, and Chinese companies become teachers and teach them how to build electric cars. This is something that was never imagined in the era of fuel vehicles. After years of accumulation and precipitation, Chinese automobiles are finally proud and embarked on the road of conquering the market with technology.

02. If you don’t have money, you can only buy BBA.

“In the past, people had no money to buy domestically produced cars, but now they have no money to buy domestically produced cars.”

Previously, domestically produced cars have always been synonymous with low prices and people-friendliness. Without core technology and R&D talents, Chinese car companies can only enter the market with high cost performance.

As independent brands have a stronger voice in the new energy market, prices are also rising. For example, looking up to the U8, it entered the million-dollar club with a price of 1.098 million. It was once regarded as the "domestic SUV ceiling." The price range of GAC Aian's Haobo SSR is RMB 1.2 million to RMB 1.6 million.

In the last two weeks of December 2023, Weilai ET9, Wenjie M9, and Xiaomi SU7 have been launched or unveiled one after another, and the prices are not low. Among them, the pre-sale price of Weilai ET9 new car starts at 800,000 yuan, and Wenjie M9 is also 400,000 to 600,000 yuan.

Even Xiaomi SU7, which was previously known as "young people's first car", may also fail. After all, Mr. Lei has said more than once that SU7 will be a bit expensive, so don't even think about it at 199,000.

For Chinese car companies, high-endization is a path that must be taken. Only in this way can they have the opportunity to enter the global market. But joking aside, low-priced electric vehicles still account for the majority of the current market. For example, BYD Qin PLUS, GAC AIONY, Geely Galaxy L6 and other major market players are basically priced below 200,000 yuan.

03. Don’t even give up profits for share.

In 2023, we could imagine that car companies would engage in a price war, but we did not expect that it would be so thorough and reckless.

At the beginning of last year, Tesla lowered the prices of its products globally, which was like a cannonball hitting the already turbulent automotive industry. Other car companies first criticized the company and then followed up with price cuts. There are also endless ways to reduce prices. Now that the price system has collapsed, various car companies can only bite the bullet and follow up.

In July last year, 16 mainstream car companies, led by Tesla, BYD, Great Wall, and SAIC, jointly signed the "Automotive Industry Commitment to Maintain Fair Competition Market Order." One of the most watched items is that "manufacturers promise not to disrupt the market order of fair competition with abnormal prices."

This move was interpreted by the outside world as a sign that new energy vehicle companies are making peace and will no longer engage in price wars.

But two days later, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers issued a statement, saying that the commitment letter "not to disrupt the order of fair competition in the market with abnormal prices" involves the expression of "price", which is inappropriate and violates the spirit of the Anti-Monopoly Law. The above clause is now deleted from the commitment letter.

After the "truce agreement" was invalidated, brands such as Jikrypton, Nezha, Great Wall, and NIO successively launched price reduction promotions, ranging from 8,000 to 57,000. Until now, the price war is still continuing.

According to incomplete statistics from Chaodian Laboratory, as of the beginning of 2024, more than 50 car companies have participated in price cuts and promotions this year, and hundreds of models have launched discounts of varying intensity.

04. No longer be soft on the "maritime army"

As the market becomes more and more complicated, there are also more and more attacks on car companies being smeared by trolls.

However, car companies have begun to fight back against the "cyber trolls" with a tougher and higher-profile attitude, and the legal departments of car companies have also stepped from behind the scenes to the front.

In May 2023, Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Leapao successively opened exclusive "Legal Department" accounts on Weibo, while Geely and Great Wall Motors established online reporting centers respectively, which are mainly responsible for handling false information on the Internet that damages the brand image.

BYD also opened the official Weibo of the Ministry of Justice and struck hard. The first post announced that it had collected a large amount of evidence and formally sued a self-media, requiring it to delete relevant infringing remarks, publicly apologize and pay 5 million yuan in compensation. BYD even offered a reward of 50,000 to 5 million yuan for clues.

The current public opinion environment is becoming increasingly mixed, and it is reasonable for car companies to use "reverse rights protection" to set the record straight. However, we also hope that car companies will use the power of "rights protection" in the right place.

05. Car companies build ships and buy fleets

In fact, as early as October 2022, BYD ordered at least 6 cargo ships, each of which can carry 7,700 cars. These cargo ships are worth up to 5 billion yuan. These ships will also be put into operation this year. Immediately afterwards, SAIC Group also invited bids for seven additional cargo ships, each with a transport capacity of 8,900 vehicles.

Entering 2023, many independent automobile brands have begun to increase their investment in overseas transportation capacity and have established their own "ocean shipping fleets."

The reason behind Chinese automakers' choice to build ships and buy fleets is that China has become the world's largest auto exporter.

In 2023, China's automobile export volume increased by 57.9% year-on-year to 4.91 million units, setting a record high. my country's automobile export volume surpassed Japan for the first time, becoming the world's largest automobile exporter and the largest exporter of new energy vehicles.

This is also the first time since 2016 that Japan has fallen from the top spot in automobile exports.

06. Asking the world and becoming the biggest dark horse

Who would have thought that it only took four months for Wenjie to go from being a newbie to being the best-selling new force of the month.

On September 12, 2023, Huawei released the new AITO Wenjie M7 and started delivery. It was launched for 64 days and exceeded 90,000 units. It strongly reversed the sales decline of the Wenjie M7 series. Yu Chengdong lamented in the circle of friends: "It is not easy to come back from the dead."

You must know that in the first half of last year, Wenjie's situation made many people think that it could not continue. According to data from the Passenger Car Association, sales of the Wenjie M7 exceeded 1,700 units in January last year, but fell to 769 units in July.

Now Wenjie has become the biggest dark horse in the automotive industry in 2023. Thanks to the blessing of the new M7, it has become one of the leading new forces and has become one of the few car companies to achieve its annual sales target this year.

Especially in the first month of 2024, Wenjie ended Ideal's leading position throughout 2023. With monthly sales of 32,973 vehicles, it became the monthly sales leader of a new car-making force for the first time.

07. “Huawei Series” Automobile Alliance

Although Huawei does not build cars, its ambitions are greater than building cars.

On November 9, 2023, Huawei and Chery Automobile's "Luxeed" S7 launched pre-sales, and said that the smart car selection business will be upgraded to "Hongmeng Zhixing". The so-called "Hongmeng Zhixing" refers to the Hongmeng Smart Car Technology Ecological Alliance, which also marks the beginning of Huawei's creation of an automotive technology ecological alliance.

After the official debut of Hongmeng Zhixing, Yu Chengdong revealed that after the cooperation with Cyrus Automobile on "AITO Wenjie" and the cooperation with Chery Automobile on "Zhijie", there will be two more "intelligences", from BAIC and JAC.

A few days later, Changan Automobile announced that it signed an "Investment Cooperation Memorandum" with Huawei in Shenzhen on November 25. "After consultation, Huawei plans to establish a new company to focus on the research and development, production, sales and services of intelligent driving systems and incremental components for intelligent connected vehicles."

Cyrus, BAIC, Chery, and JAC, which have previously cooperated, are also interested in following up. Yu Chengdong revealed that in the future, partners in Huawei's smart car selection business will gradually join the joint venture.

Huawei's two paths are actually very clear. Car companies that don't want to be deeply tied to Huawei will choose Car BU, but they will choose Hongmeng Zhixing. Huawei intends to create two mature models for car companies to choose from and form their own automotive alliance as quickly as possible.

08. Car company CEOs are no longer arrogant

The price war is so intense that the CEO of a car company can no longer act as a hands-off shopkeeper. Since the people who hear the gunfire are allowed to direct the battle, the CEO of the car company should go deep into the front line to listen to the gunfire.

For example, NIO Li Bin set the precedent for CEOs to continuously live stream live tests. He personally drove ET7 from Shanghai to test the cruising range of a 150kWh ultra-long-lasting battery pack. After more than 14 hours of driving, he achieved a mileage of more than 1,000 kilometers on one battery.

For the sake of authenticity, Li Bin's full name was broadcast live, eating snacks, making phone calls, and having family activities... all in front of the audience. Li Bin also shouted to CEOs of other car companies, saying that CEOs should personally test their own products.

Li Bin's live broadcast harvested a large wave of traffic, and Jiyue Auto CEO Xia Yiping followed suit and also conducted a CEO live test. The theme was the first cross-city autonomous driving live broadcast on a purely visual network. It was also a full live broadcast, lasting 3 hours and 200km, and the entire journey was completed by intelligent driving.

Looking back on the past, the bosses and senior executives of various car companies often bickered in the air on the PPT of the press conference. Nowadays, CEOs have begun to come to the stage and become the super IP representing the enterprise. From the perspective of avoiding risks and improving marketing efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the effect is self-evident.

09. Refrigerators, color TVs, and large sofas have become mainstream

In the era of fuel vehicles, the three major components we emphasize are the engine, gearbox and chassis. Even for pure electric vehicles, we will focus on the "three electricity", namely the battery, motor and electronic control.

However, at the new energy vehicle launches in the past year, car companies began to focus on promoting the "refrigerator color TV and large sofa". More and more new cars are beginning to be equipped with various large screens, and refrigerators have become fashionable features.

Many people think this is a technological regression. After all, car refrigerators have been a feature for a long time.

In fact, in the new energy era, the logic of traditional fuel vehicles emphasizing the three major components has been overturned. In the era of new energy vehicles, although "three electrics" are still very important, thanks to China's strong new energy vehicle supply chain, the level of our three major components will not differ greatly.

At this time, if car companies can meet consumers' more experiential needs, such as "refrigerators, color TVs and large sofas", they will be very successful. After all, for most people, driving a tram is not to set lap times or go fast, but to make themselves as comfortable as possible.

10. AI starts to get on the bus

As ChatGPT explodes in popularity, the popularity of large models continues unabated. AI technology is accelerating to disrupt all walks of life, and the automotive industry has also begun to change.

Whether it is the currently popular urban NOA or smart cockpit, they can directly benefit from large models. Car companies are also embracing large models. Ideal announced the large model MindGPT in June 2023, Great Wall also officially announced the establishment of AILab, and Geely also established a similar organization, the AI ​​Intelligence Research Department, under the Automotive Research Institute.

Many people call 2023 the first year of large models, but the technology wave of AI large models has just begun. We should not have too high expectations for car companies to develop self-developed large models.

Bill Gates has a famous saying that people always overestimate the achievements in the next one or two years and underestimate the changes in the next ten years. This sentence is also applicable to large models.

The introduction of AI into cars is just the beginning, and there will be more for us to explore in the future.