New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China
- Thread starter supercat
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I can accept all others, but M8 is 400k segment at a run rate of 200k+ per year and M9 is 550k at a run rate of around 150k in its second year. Besides, Maextro S800 has over 10k firm orders with over 1000k average. Those segments had been in the BBA printing press ("the check from China") until those 3 models have cracked the monopoly. All other Chinese brands have tried with marginal results at best. Here is the kicker: the success of Lexus started from LS400 about 35 years ago and Lexus was the only luxury brand that has established itself against BB in US since LS400 was introduced in 1989. All other so-called luxury brands have faded. Since Audi A6 was introduced in 1994 and bet its farm in Le Mans 24 in 2000, Audi had been creeping into the ranks of BB and Lexus. What took Audi to surpass Lexus on a global basis was its huge success in China, until China NEV rise and HIMA M9/M8/S800 production. In US it is BBL while in China it is BBA, as first-tier luxury brands. In the minds of automotive people in China, cracking BBA was always a pipe dream. Not even first 2 years of Tesla could crack that perception. Until now, you are still in self-denial of this HIMA cracking BBA miracle in the 300K+ luxury segments. I guess I have to throw my hands up ...
actually, we do not know for sure about things like "firm orders", because those can get changed to order models later. What we do know is monthly sales and weekly registrations. This past week, sales for S800 was 110.
Su-7u was getting several hundred per week when it first got launched. So, it is in fact not accurate to say "All other Chinese brands are marginal".
Here is Su-7 ultra in May with 2400 sales
here is Su-7 ultra in its first few weeks. Quite a few weeks with > 500 sales
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As for the stuff about BBA, AITO M8 & M9 have been very successful as I said above, but they are certainly not the only factor in the weakness facing BBA.
In fact, I wrote about the demise of BBA sales in China in September last year due to the collapsing numbers in summer time
Even then, we were seeing sales weakness from 56E
Keep in mind that this was happening before direct Sedan options came to the market like S9, Z9 & ET9 and such.
Which points to just how profound the effect of Su-7 on the luxury sedan market was last year. It not only overtook Model 3, but also had huge effect on BBA and Porsche sales. You can take a look at the Porsche sales numbers last year in China to see just what kind of affect Su-7 had on the market.
And again, Xiaomi Su-7 deliveries really didn't get started until April of 2024. That's right before 56E started seeing weakness.
Even if we discuss SUVs, Li Auto's L7/8/9 were the first Chinese options to really win shares against BBA. Of course, M9 was an even bigger game changer. But even know, Li Auto sales are still quite high. So, it would be inappropriate to dismiss what they have achieved.
Well, he did say that he just kept scrolling through YouTube without looking into things much so....yeah probably FLG.
First half 2025 retail sales of NEV in China
so you can see the pressure on BBA from domestic automakers here. These are really low prices for 34C series. And it's been going down for a couple of years now, but A4L at basically 200k at this point is ridiculous pricing when you consider it's probably closer to $50K ASP in America.
What is more ridiculous than A4l at 200k is Jaguar XEL at 160k (not including tax and others though).
However, despite the price drop, sales volumes of 3 series and C class hasn't really droped yet. Sales drops are seen on GLB glass, A class, BMW X1, BMW i3.
Xiaomi SU7 ASP is around RMB250k, YU7 ASP is right below RMB300k, while Xiaomi the company is at the mercy of US/China relationship. Xiaomi has been a very successful enterprise, more so than Legend in my mind. But unfortunately neither internal nor external political or regulatory trend is favorable for its growth. And this is the first time I made my comments on Xiaomi in a public forum.
China NEV 2024 was a shakeup year, 2025 is going like an adjustment year. With the beginning of government crackdown on 内卷 in the past few weeks, it is very less likely we will see bloody price wars by Tesla, BYD et al. in 2023/2024. As the NEV ecosystem matures, early-mover advantages of Nio/Li/Xpeng are fading gradually, which listed US shares could serve as some confidence indicator in the past 3 years.
In short, traditionally in China auto markets, 300K was entry to luxury while 1000K was ultra-luxury. In the whole addressable luxury segments, 300K~500K is the volume while 500K+ is the money. Xiaomi pricing its YU7 below 300k and SU7 right around 300K for reasons, which is a huge psychological barrier in Chinese consumer perception of luxury.
Yes, they are trading ASP for volume. If you look at revenue for BBA in China, it has dropped a lot
sales drop, revenue drop and ASP drop for BBA in 1st half of this year.
Xiaomi Yu-7 price range is 253.5k to 329.9k RMB. Since it's fully sold out, Xiaomi doesn't need to offer discount to sell its vehicles. As such, it's ASP will be higher than Model Y. Which is extremely impressive.
Su-7 Ultra has entry price of around 529.9k and all higher specs variants are more than that.
Lei jun said 50 to 60% of Su-7 Ultra customers were previous 56E owners. So, they saw Su-7 Ultra as trading up. 80% of customers selected long range version, which means the ASP should be quite a bit higher than 500k.
So, it is very strange to say Su-7 Ultra is not affecting China's luxury market.
Prices are dropping in China. 300k+ is no longer the luxury market due to the discounts. It is more around 250k now. Keep this in mind since BMW ASP is going to drop below 300k pretty soon
