比亞迪引發電動車行業內捲令北京警醒 (2/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

BYD Unleashes an EV Industry Reckoning That Alarms Beijing (2/2)

Bloomberg News - With assistance from Yasufumi Saito and Chester Dawson.

Sun, June 8, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. PDT·5 min read

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Others leave no room for doubt that BYD, China’s No. 1 selling car brand, is leading the way on price cuts.

“It’s obvious to everyone that the biggest player is doing this,” Jochen Siebert, managing director at auto consultancy JSC Automotive, said. “They want a monopoly where everybody else gives up.” BYD’s aggressive tactics are raising concerns over the potential dumping of cars, dealership management issues and “squeezing out suppliers,” he said.

The pricing turmoil is also unfolding against a backdrop of significant overcapacity. The average production utilization rate in China’s automotive industry was mere 49.5% in 2024, data compiled by Shanghai-based Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute show.

An April report by AlixPartners meanwhile highlights the intense competition that’s starting to emerge among new energy vehicle makers, or companies that produce pure battery cars and plug-in hybrids. In 2024, the market saw its first ever consolidation among NEV-dedicated brands, with 16 exiting and 13 launching.

“The Chinese automotive market, despite its substantial scale, is growing at a slower speed. Automakers have to put top priority now on grabbing more market share,” said Ron Zheng, a partner at global consultancy Roland Berger GmbH.

Jiyue Auto shows how quickly things can change. A little over a year after launching its first car, the automaker jointly backed by big names Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. and technology giant Baidu Inc., began to scale down production and seek fresh funds.

It’s a dilemma for all carmakers, but especially smaller ones. “If you don’t follow suit once a leading company makes a price move, you might lose the chance to stay at the table,” AlixPartners consultant Zhang Yichao said. He added that China’s low capacity utilization rate, which is “fundamentally fueling” the competition, is now even under more pressure from export uncertainties.

While the push to find an outlet for excess production is thrusting more Chinese brands to export, international markets can only offer some relief.

“The US market is completely closed and Japan and Korea may close very soon if they see an invasion of Chinese carmakers,” Siebert said. “Russia, which was the biggest export market last year, is now becoming very difficult. I also don’t see Southeast Asia as an opportunity anymore.”

The pressure of cost cutting has also led analysts to express concern over supply chain finance risks.

A price cut demand by BYD to one of its suppliers late last year attracted scrutiny around how the car giant may be using supply chain financing to mask its ballooning debt. A report by accounting consultancy GMT Research put BYD’s true net debt at closer to 323 billion yuan ($45 billion), compared with the 27.7 billion yuan officially on its books as of the end of June 2024.

The pain is also bleeding into China’s dealership network. Dealership groups in two provinces have gone out of business since April, both of them ones that were selling BYD cars.

Beijing’s meeting with automakers last week wasn’t the first attempt at a ceasefire. Two years ago, in mid 2023, 16 major automakers, including Tesla Inc., BYD and Geely signed a pact, witnessed by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, to avoid “abnormal pricing.”

Within days though, CAAM deleted one of the four commitments, saying that a reference to pricing in the pledge was inappropriate and in breach of a principle enshrined in the nation’s antitrust laws.

The discounting continued unabated.

Translation

比亞迪引發電動車行業內捲令北京警醒 (2/2)

（繼續）

其他人毫不懷疑，比亞迪作為中國銷量第一的汽車品牌，在減價方面正處於領先地位。

汽車諮詢公司 JSC Automotive 的董事總經理 Jochen Siebert表示: 「顯而易見，最大的那個參與者正在這樣做」; 他又表示: 「他想要壟斷，讓其他人都放棄」 。比亞迪咄咄逼人的策略引發了人們對潛在汽車傾銷、經銷商管理問題以及「排擠供應商」的擔憂。

價格動盪也是在產能嚴重過剩的背景下展開的。上海Gasgoo汽車研究院的數據顯示，2024年中國汽車產業平均產能利用率僅49.5%。

同時，AlixPartners 4月份的一份報告強調了新能源 (NEV)汽車製造商, 即生產純電動車和插電式混合動力車的公司之間開始出現的激烈競爭。 2024年，新能源汽車市場首次出現品牌整合，16個品牌退出，13個品牌推出。

全球顧問公司 Roland Berger GmbH 的合夥人Ron Zheng表示： “儘管中國汽車市場規模龐大，但增長速度正在放緩。各汽車製造商現在必須把搶佔更多市場份額放在首位。”

Jiyue汽車的上市證明了情勢瞬息萬變。在首款車型推出一年多後，這家由浙江吉利控股集團和科技巨頭百度聯合投資的汽車製造商開始縮減產量並尋求新的融資。

所有汽車製造商都面臨兩難處境，規模較小的汽車製造商尤其如此。AlixPartners 顧問 Zhang Yichao 表示: 「如果領先企業一旦調整價格，你不跟進，你可能會失去立足的機會」。他還補充説，中國低產能利用率「從根本上加劇了」競爭，如今出口的不確定性更是雪上加霜。

雖然為過剩產能尋找出路的措施正促使更多中國品牌進行出口，但國際市場也只能提供些少緩解。 

Siebert 表示: 「美國市場已經完全封閉，如果日本和韓國看到中國汽車製造商的入侵，它們可能很快就會關閉」; 「去年最大的出口市場俄羅斯，現在也變得非常艱難。我也認為東南亞是不再一個機會」。

成本削減的壓力也引發了分析師對供應鏈金融風險的擔憂。

去年年底，比亞迪向其一家供應商提出的降價要求引發了外界關注，人們懷疑這家汽車巨頭可能正在利用供應鏈融資來掩蓋其不斷膨脹的債務。會計諮詢公司 GMT Research 的報告顯示，比亞迪的實際淨債務接近人民幣3,230億元（約450億美元），截至2024年6月底，其帳面公開債務為人民幣277億元。

這種影響也蔓延到了中國的經銷商網路。自4月份以來，兩個省份的經銷商集團已經倒閉，而這兩家集團之前都在銷售比亞迪汽車。

北京方面上週與汽車製造商的會談並非首次去嘗試達至停火。兩年前，也就是2023年年中，包括特斯拉、比亞迪和吉利在內的16家主要汽車製造商在中國汽車工業協會 (CAAM) 的見證下簽署了一項協議，以避免「不正常定價」。

然而，幾天之內，CAAM 協就刪除了四項承諾中的一項，稱承諾中提及定價的做法不恰當，違反了國家反壟斷法所確立的原則。

折扣行為並未減退的。

So, the price war within China’s electric vehicle industry has already sent share prices tumbling and prompted an unusual level of intervention from Beijing. It is believed that a combination of weaker demand and extreme overcapacity is cutting into profits of the strongest brands and forcing weaker competitors to fold. Even after the number of EV makers start shrinking, the industry is still using less than half of its production capacity. Apparently, over capacity is a major cause of the problems. In my mind, over capacity in China has created huge financial burdens in other industries too, such as housing constructions and the high-speed rail system.