Looking back on the year 2022, the automotive industry has experienced unprecedented difficulties, from frequent epidemics to rising raw material prices, from chip shortages to unstable supply chains. Against the background of "black swans" superimposed on "grey rhinos", companie

Category：car

2025-10-26

Looking back on the year 2022, the automobile industry has experienced unprecedented difficulties, from frequent epidemics to rising raw material prices, from chip shortages to unstable supply chains. Against the background of " black swan " superimposed on "grey rhinoceros", companies are struggling and under great pressure. But we should also see that the automobile industry in 2022 will be more resilient and vital than before. Automobile exports have grown significantly, surpassing Germany and already ranking second in the world; new energy vehicle sales are rising rapidly, with a market share of 25%; independent brands are even more brilliant, almost equal to joint venture brands...

Under the intertwining of numerous challenges and unlimited opportunities, market competition has further intensified. In 2022, domestic car companies will also show different states of uneven hot and cold and polarization. Some went from being far ahead to suddenly "falling behind"; some were so successful that their market performance far exceeded everyone's expectations; others, after experiencing painful efforts and struggles, finally chose to retire sadly...

Between frustration and success, it is foreseeable that after this round of baptism, the Chinese automobile industry will have renewed vitality and vitality, thus ushering in higher-quality development.

Frustrated, new force: Is the

highlight just a flash in the pan?

Since 2021, many people have believed that the top position of new domestic car-making forces has been determined, and "Wei Xiaoli" is expected to become the "Big Three" now and in the future. This view has not changed until the first half of 2022, when Weilai is slightly weak.

data shows that in June 2022, the sales volume of Xiaopeng Motors reached 15,200 units. The sales volume of increased by 132.9% year-on-year. Not only did it win the new force sales championship in June, it also sold a total of 68,900 units in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 124%. It won the sales championship in the first half of the year. For a time, it was unparalleled and was known as the "double champion." "; Li Auto , which ranked behind Nezha, won the third place with a monthly sales of 13,000 units. Similarly, the cumulative sales in the first half of the year reached 60,000 units, and it also secured the third place in the cumulative sales in the first half of the year; In comparison, Weilai's performance was somewhat unsatisfactory, with sales in June of 12,900 units, a year-on-year increase of 14.4%, and cumulative sales in the first half of the year were 50,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 21.1%, ranking fourth.

However, at the beginning of the second half of 2022, the sales ranking of new car-making forces has suddenly changed. Nezha Automobile became the sales champion of new forces in July with a monthly delivery result of 14,000 units; Leap Automobile Xiaopeng followed closely, with a total of 12,000 vehicles delivered in July, ranking second; Xiaopeng , the sales champion in 2021 and the first half of 2022, fell to third place, with 11,500 vehicles delivered in July 2022, a year-on-year increase of 43%. Lideal and NIO ranked behind Xpeng Motors. Compared with June, both Nezha and Leapao achieved growth, while the former "Big Three" - Xpeng, Ideal, and Weilai all experienced month-on-month declines.

By November 2022, the top three sales rankings of new car-making forces have become "Nali Wei". If viewed from the perspective of the entire automobile industry, the results of "Wei Xiaoli" are even less ideal. Once upon a time, these three car companies were regulars in the top 10 sales rankings of new energy vehicle manufacturers, but starting from the second half of the year, they often "failed". In July, only Xpeng Motors was on the list. In August, "Wei Xiaoli" were all eliminated. In September, only Li Auto entered the top 10. In October, only and NIO were on the list. What is even more worrying is that in October and November, Xpeng Motors failed to enter the top 15 new energy vehicle sales. It is particularly worth mentioning that "Wei Xiaoli" is still suffering huge losses: in the third quarter of 2022, Weilai Automobile's net loss was 4.11 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 392.1%;

Why did "Wei Xiaoli", which was still in the leading position in 2021 and the first half of 2022, begin to show "fatigue" in the second half of the year? Some analysts say that the main reason is that the supply chains of these three car companies are "controlled by others." Soochow Securities pointed out in a research report that in addition to self-developed operating systems and related software algorithms, the chips of the three companies all use NVIDIA solutions. Qualcomm chips are generally used in the cockpit. In terms of sensors, millimeter wave radar , brakes and other components mainly use Bosch products. In terms of batteries, they all cooperate with CATL. In other words, the risk of core components being "stuck" is higher than that of other car companies; secondly, with the rapid expansion of the new energy vehicle market, "Wei Xiaoli" is encountering a difficult situation from above and below. Traditional car companies represented by BYD and GAC Aian are coming fiercely, and the second echelon represented by Nezha and Leapo are closely following. The highlight moments once created by "Wei Xiaoli" are fleeting, and then the new car-making forces behind them gradually lose their luster. Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of

Weilai, once said that they are two positions ahead and have entered the "curve" from the "straight road". Many players are still on the "straight road". However, it is worth being vigilant that the "curve" is often the stage where problems are most likely to occur. If a series of problems caused by the replacement of new and old models cannot be dealt with well, it will only be a matter of time before we fall behind.

Those who get what they want, traditional independent car companies:

are rising and are waiting to counterattack.

If you are frustrated, you will be happy. At a time when the leading position of new car-making forces may be lost and the new second-tier car-making forces are chasing after them, the new energy vehicle brands of traditional independent car companies have begun to go all out and achieved enviable results in 2022. The best performing company in

is BYD, an established new energy vehicle company. This independent car company, which was once labeled as having "poor quality, ugly appearance, cheap price, and low quality", has now become a veritable "Independent Brother". Data from the National Passenger Car Market Information Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Passenger Car Association") show that in November 2022, BYD once again topped the list with outstanding monthly sales of 229,000 vehicles. As of November 2022, BYD's cumulative sales have reached 1.628 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 155.8%. The gap with the first-ranked FAW-Volkswagen (sales volume in the first 11 months of 2022 is 1.6473 million vehicles) is already very small. Some analysts say that based on BYD's monthly sales in the past two months, it will not be a problem to exceed 200,000 vehicles in December 2022. If FAW-Volkswagen sells 120,000 vehicles per month, it is entirely possible for BYD to successfully "overtake" in December. This will also be the first time that the annual sales volume of my country's independent brands exceeds that of all joint venture brands.

Why can BYD take the lead? First of all, this stems from years of technological accumulation and precipitation. In March 2020, BYD officially released the blade battery technology, which greatly improves the safety of the battery by changing the battery structure. This is also one of BYD's most typical achievements in the power battery field. Secondly, in terms of platform, BYD's e-platform has experienced many update iterations, from e-platform 1.0 in 2009 to today's e-platform 3.0, which has achieved leapfrog development; thirdly, BYD has also made achievements in the hybrid field. So far, in BYD's product system, the sales ratio of DM plug-in hybrids and EV pure electric models basically account for half each, showing a comprehensive development trend of "walking on two legs, walking together". According to statistics, BYD has applied for a total of 38,000 patents and authorized 26,000 patents around the world. With the moat built by technologies such as blade batteries, DM-i super hybrid, e-platform 3.0, CTB battery body integration and DM-p king hybrid, BYD has been able to firmly occupy the industry's leading position in the field of new energy vehicles.

Frustrated, new force: Is the

highlight just a flash in the pan?

Those who get what they want, traditional independent car companies:

are rising and are waiting to counterattack.

In March 2022, General Manager of GAC Group Feng Xingya once said: "We will turn the current 'Wei Xiaoli' into 'Ai Xiaowei'." Inspired by this goal, GAC Aian did hand over a beautiful report card in 2022: since Since May, the sales volume of Aian has stably exceeded 20,000 and continues to rise, setting the brand's best sales record in a single month. By October 2022, Aian completed the annual sales target of 200,000 vehicles two months ahead of schedule; in November, Aian's monthly sales reached 28,800 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 91%. So far, from January to November 2022, Aian's cumulative sales have reached 241,100 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 128%, doubling the annual sales ahead of schedule.The counterattack is no accident. Like BYD, Aian has always made a solid layout in the technology field. In 2021, the "magazine battery" was released, which for the first time achieved a complete package of ternary lithium batteries that does not catch fire. Half a year later, GAC Aian launched original technologies such as super-speed batteries and sponge silicon anode batteries. Coupled with autonomous driving technologies such as NDA and AVP and a new capital operation model, Aian's next performance is worth looking forward to.

Represented by BYD and Aian, traditional independent car companies have begun to launch a "general attack" in the field of new energy vehicles, and with the support of stronger technical strength and capital, they have achieved better and better results. In November 2022, 11,000 models were delivered, a year-on-year increase of 447.3%. increased by 48.8% month-on-month, with a total of 66,600 vehicles delivered in history. It is reported that this is the second consecutive month that the delivery of and has exceeded 10,000. What’s more worth mentioning is that the average order amount of Jikrypton exceeds 336,000 yuan; as of November 2022, the total delivery volume of the cooperation between , Huawei, and Cyrus is approximately 66,000 vehicles. Since the launch of the Wenjie M7, Wenjie sales have continued to exceed 10,000 units starting in August 2022. In this regard, Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the Passenger Car Association, believes that although new car-making forces and traditional car companies have their own advantages, traditional car companies will still be stronger in the future. In addition to advantages in capital, technology, R&D, channels, etc., the main market for new energy vehicles in the future will be the A-class market, which is conducive to the development of traditional car companies.

Struggling, Joint venture car companies :

The transformation is still in a confusing period

I am afraid it is difficult for anyone to predict that under the severe situation in 2022, independent brand car companies are making great strides, but joint venture car companies are losing ground. It is estimated that the market share of independent brands in the fourth quarter of 2022 is likely to reach 52.9%. Under the rapid development of independent brands, major joint venture brands have experienced varying degrees of share shrinkage: German brands have shrunk from 22.3% in 2021 to 21% (January to November 2022); Japanese brands have shrunk from 22.6% to 20%; American brands shrank from 9.6% to 8.6%; Korean brands shrank from 2.7% to 1.7%; although French brands expanded from 0.3% to 0.6%, because the base is too low and the overall scale is small, there is not much value for discussion and research.

As the "evergreen tree" in China's passenger car market, the Volkswagen brand, one of the representatives of German brands, has always been the "leader" in the Chinese automobile market. At its peak from 2017 to 2019, Volkswagen set a record of the peak sales of a single brand in the Chinese market - 4.23 million units, and a market share of 18.4%. However, starting in 2019, the sales of the Volkswagen brand began to decline year by year. From 2019 to 2021, Volkswagen delivered 4.2336 million new cars in China, 3.85 million vehicles and 3.3 million vehicles respectively. From January to November 2022, FAW-Volkswagen's sales fell by 1.4% year-on-year, SAIC Volkswagen fell by 16.5% year-on-year, and both "North and South Volkswagen" fell. The same is true for

American brands. According to statistics from the Passenger Car Association, sales of and SAIC-GM in November 2022 were 73,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 27%. From January to November 2022, SAIC-GM’s sales were less than one million, a year-on-year decrease of 21.2%. You know, SAIC-GM's cumulative sales in 2021 have reached 1.3316 million vehicles. Judging from the current situation, it may be impossible to reach the level of 2021 in 2022. A large part of the reason for the decline of

virtue brands is the rise of the new energy vehicle market, but the main sales models of these brands are still fuel vehicles. For example, the sales volume of FAW-Volkswagen's Sagitar 4 and Bora 4 from January to November 2022 reached 195,000 units, but compared with 2021, this result still fell by 7.2% and 17.3% respectively; as the main sales force of SAIC Volkswagen, in addition to the Passat 4, it achieved 21.2% in the first 11 months of 2022. In addition to the 5% sales growth, the Lavida 4 and Tiguan both experienced declines of more than 20%; SAIC-GM's sales are also mainly fuel vehicles, including Buick Envision Plus, Buick GL8, Buick Verano, Cadillac CT5, Cadillac XT5, and Chevrolet Cruze.

Japanese brands that have been performing increasingly well in recent years will also have a difficult time in 2022. According to data from the Passenger Car Association, Japanese brands’ market share of in November was only 15.4%. In the manufacturer's retail sales rankings in November, only two joint ventures of Japanese brands and Toyota entered the top 15.Among them, only GAC Toyota maintained positive sales growth in November, with a figure of 3.5%. In addition to failing to catch up with the wave of new energy vehicles, another important reason for the decline of Japanese brands is that the production capacity of and is limited. Due to their proximity to the local market, the supply chain layout of Japanese car companies is not as deeply rooted in China as that of European and American car companies. This has also led to more serious supply chain problems for Japanese brands. In the first 11 months of 2022, almost every month we can see production reduction announcements by the five major Japanese car companies in local companies.

Another thing worth paying attention to is the luxury car market. Data shows that from January to November 2022, the cumulative retail sales of models worth about 300,000 yuan were 2.25 million, a growth rate of 18.8%. But correspondingly, the cumulative retail sales of luxury brands (BBA, Cadillac, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo, Infiniti, Tesla) were 2.447 million units, with a growth rate of only 1.4%. Although compared with the -12.2% of mainstream joint venture brands, the performance of luxury joint venture brands is much better. However, judging from the current development trend, independent brands have begun to actively deploy and seize the luxury market. It is probably only a matter of time before they conquer this market. Joint venture car companies also need to prepare responses in advance to avoid regrets in the near future.

Earn nothing, marginal companies:

What should be withdrawn should be withdrawn, what should be dispersed

In 2022, there are still some car companies that will be even worse than the struggling joint venture car companies, and have given up "resistance" in the fierce market competition. Some are still waiting to be eliminated from the market, while others have officially announced their exit.

On July 18, 2022, Stellantis Group announced that due to the lack of progress in the previously announced plan for Stellantis to obtain a majority stake in GAC FCA, a joint venture with GAC Group, Stellantis will adopt a light asset approach to develop the Jeep brand in China and negotiate with GAC Group to terminate the local joint venture. In the future, Stellantis will focus on distributing Jeep brand imported cars in China. At this point, GAC FCA, which was established in 2010, sadly left the market. On October 31, 2022, Stellantis Group officially announced that shareholders of GAC FCA, GAC Group and Stellantis have approved a resolution agreeing that GAC FCA should apply to the court for bankruptcy despite being in losses. The fate of GAC FCA is really sad. At that time, by adopting the imported + domestically produced sales model, GAC FCA introduced the Jeep Cherokee, Renegade and Compass models within one year. At that time, it coincided with the golden development period of the domestic SUV market. GAC FCA achieved sales of 179,900 units and 222,300 units in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. After various quality problems were exposed in 2018, GAC FCA began to decline, with sales in the first half of 2022 being less than 2,000 vehicles.

In April 2022, GAC Acura officially announced that starting from 2023, GAC Honda will no longer produce and sell existing products under the GAC Acura brand. This means that 16 years after entering the Chinese market, the GAC Acura brand has come to an end. Compared with GAC FCA, the exit of Acura seems to be an inevitable result. Since its domestic production in 2016, GAC Acura has only achieved sales of 16,300 units in 2017 and 14,800 units in 2019. In the remaining years, it either hovered at the threshold of 10,000 units or did not even reach the 10,000 unit threshold. In this regard, Cui Dongshu used the words "acclimatized" to explain Acura's poor market performance. In his view, Acura is not a brand tailor-made for Chinese consumers. After localized production, the technical features are not outstanding and the brand accumulation is not enough. Although China's luxury car market has been growing rapidly, in order to open up the Chinese market, car brands still need to adapt to the needs of Chinese consumers and do a good job in electrification and intelligence. Acura, which fails to meet these needs of consumers, will naturally find it difficult to achieve better market performance.

In addition to GAC FCA and GAC Acura, there are also some car companies that have been lingering on the edge of the market for a long time. They have also come to an end: On April 8, 2022, Foton Motor issued an announcement stating that due to Beijing Borgward's financial depletion, its inability to pay off its due debts, and its assets were insufficient to pay off all debts, it applied for bankruptcy liquidation .On November 29, Beiqi Foton Motor Co., Ltd. officially issued an announcement about the court's declaration of the bankruptcy of Beijing Baowo Automobile Co., Ltd., ruling that Beijing Baowo Automobile Co., Ltd. officially declared bankruptcy; in December, news showed that Qoros Automobile's production line equipment was being publicly auctioned by the People's Court of Wuhu Economic and Technological Development Zone, Anhui, with a starting price of 123 million yuan. According to public information, Qoros Automobile has only 2,651.3 yuan left in its name.

At the same time, the new car-making forces that are becoming more and more fiercely competitive have also seen a group of "eliminates": In July 2022, due to arrears in cooperation payments, Divi Automotive Engineering Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. applied to the court for a lawsuit against Zhiche Youxing Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. ( Singularity Auto Parent The company) was forced to go bankrupt and reorganize; in December, the new car-making force Ziyoujia issued a "Letter to NV Users", saying that due to the company's own reasons, NV would not be able to deliver in the short term, and said it would provide a full refund within 48 hours; the most regrettable thing is the former leader of the new car-making force - WM Motor . Recently, the Shanghai Higher People's Court has made a first-instance judgment on the intellectual property dispute between Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd. and WM Motor. According to the verdict, WM Motor needs to compensate Geely Holdings 47 million yuan, including 5 million yuan in economic losses and 2 million yuan in various expenses to stop the infringement. Misfortunes never come singly. Recently, the non-litigation preservation review rulings of Anji Zhixing Logistics Co., Ltd., WM New Energy Vehicle Sales (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and WM Motor Technology Group Co., Ltd. were made public, showing that the applicant Anji Zhixing Logistics Co., Ltd. requested the court to seize and freeze the property of the two respondent companies, WM Motor, worth 76.52 million yuan. All of this makes Weimar, which is left behind in the new car-making forces, even worse. Whether it can survive this crisis will largely determine Weimar's life or death.

Although it is a pity, it should be noted that after the exit of lagging car companies, strong car companies will usher in a broader space for development, and the Chinese auto industry will also squeeze out the bubbles, wash out the real gold, and usher in a brighter future.

Text: Shi Yunyun Editor: Sun Huanyu Layout: Liu Xiaoye

Add a chicken drumstick to the editor!

Among them, only GAC Toyota maintained positive sales growth in November, with a figure of 3.5%. In addition to failing to catch up with the wave of new energy vehicles, another important reason for the decline of Japanese brands is that the production capacity of and is limited. Due to their proximity to the local market, the supply chain layout of Japanese car companies is not as deeply rooted in China as that of European and American car companies. This has also led to more serious supply chain problems for Japanese brands. In the first 11 months of 2022, almost every month we can see production reduction announcements by the five major Japanese car companies in local companies.

Earn nothing, marginal companies:

What should be withdrawn should be withdrawn, what should be dispersed

Text: Shi Yunyun Editor: Sun Huanyu Layout: Liu Xiaoye

Add a chicken drumstick to the editor!

car Latest News

Site article recommendation