On February 26, 2020, people who had been waiting for two years for new energy vehicle indicators sat in front of their computers, rapidly clicking on their mouse buttons and continuously refreshing the “Beijing Motor Vehicle Lottery Results Inquiry Official Website”.
Everyone was thinking whether their “application code” would appear as scheduled in the “indicator configuration list”.
In the afternoon of the same day, as people continued to click on “results inquiry,” the webpage suddenly began to lag. A few seconds later, a line of smiling red font appeared on the computer screens of everyone, reading:
“Congratulations, the number has been selected in February 2020!”
At that moment, people who had been waiting for a long time either clenched their fists and shouted “Yes,” or jumped up from their computer chairs with their hands raised, shouting “It’s finally my turn!” Others calmly took out their phones to check the selected message, and continued to work at their desks.
In this way, 54,200 new energy indicators gradually flowed into households.
However, regardless of everyone’s reaction, they finally got the new energy indicators. Compared with many people who have to wait for five or six years, or even seven or eight years, they have already got the ticket to enter Beijing as a car owner.
Two months later, by April 30, 2020, about 14,966 of the 54,200 new energy indicators released by Beijing were used up (the indicator usage on February 27, 28, and 29 is unknown).
In other words, nearly 40,000 users did not directly purchase a car after the indicator was released, but anxiously went back and forth between various 4S shops, waiting for the final decision.
What are these users waiting for? Do they not trust the new energy vehicle market, or products have not met their needs? Are they pressured to buy a car due to the expiration of new energy license plates, or do they really want to buy new energy vehicles? These series of questions left me puzzled.
Until I interviewed a car owner from Beijing in the 42 Garage car owner group. Every time I opened the group, I could see his posts.
I added him as a friend and chatted with him, and found that he had been looking at cars for two months after obtaining the indicator, but still in a wait-and-see state. So, I decided to conduct a telephone interview with him, expressing my desire to turn his car selection story into an article, to which he readily agreed.
The entire interview lasted nearly 2 hours, and the following is his story.## Tesla Made Me Interested in New Energy Vehicles
He is called Lu Dazheng (alias) and is a doctoral student majoring in aerospace in Beijing. He studied automobile-related majors in his undergraduate years. In two months, he will end his studies and embark on his career.
Before starting work, he wanted a car to commute to work and travel with friends around Beijing on weekends. The lottery in February happened to help him realize this small wish.
Lu Dazheng is not a native of Beijing, as mentioned earlier, he is a student and has moved his household registration to the school when he studied in Beijing. Therefore, according to the regulations of Beijing, he is eligible for the lottery.
In 2014, Lu Dazheng joined the army of fuel car lotteries. However, until January 2018, four years later, Lu Dazheng still did not win the lottery. It is normal for ordinary lottery players to not win the lottery in four years.
Lu Dazheng told me that at that time, he felt that it would be even more difficult to win the lottery for fuel cars again because the policy changed in 2018. The quota for fuel cars was reduced every year, while that for new energy vehicles increased. He thought that the probability of winning the lottery would become lower and lower, so he directly switched his fuel car quota to a new energy vehicle quota.
In January 2018, Lu Dazheng joined the queue for new energy vehicle quotas.
After switching to the new energy vehicle quota, Lu Dazheng found out his ranking, which was approximately close to 170,000. He estimated that he would get the new energy vehicle quota around 2021.
Lu Dazheng said, “In fact, I started paying attention to new energy vehicles in 2015. At that time, I was mainly interested in Tesla. I think the Tesla Model S is very cool and powerful.”
“Because Musk himself also makes rockets for Space X, and I also study rocket technology, so I pay a little more attention to him.”
“After I saw the Model S online, I thought at the time that I would buy one when I have enough money. Oh, I also became interested in Model X later, its falcon-wing doors are very cool.”
Regarding his impression of new energy vehicles, Lu Dazheng said he began to learn about them from Tesla.
Before getting the new energy vehicle quota, Lu Dazheng told me that he only knew about three brands of electric cars, Tesla, BYD, and BAIC New Energy.
Once, he accidentally saw an advertisement for BAIC, “I forgot where I saw it. After seeing it, I casually asked a dealer about the situation online. The car had a short range and was quite expensive, more expensive than other cars in the same class. It seemed to be called EU260 and could only run for more than 200 kilometers.”More than 200 kilometers is still inconvenient for me. It’s difficult to go out for a trip. I thought it would be great to drive my car with a non-local license plate because the restrictions on non-local license plate cars weren’t so severe at that time. Besides, it wasn’t possible to get a new energy license plate until 2021, so I stopped paying much attention to it afterwards.
This continued until February 26th, 2020, when Ludazheng realized that he needed to pay attention to the new energy quota and cars.
On that day, he was a bit nervous because he had seen a message on the official website before, which roughly meant that the new energy quota queue system would change before 2020. He estimated that he should be able to get the quota in 2021, and if some people quit midway, it would be fast enough to get it in 2020. So, he was afraid of something unexpected, such as the reduction of the total quota by the authorities.
Early that day, Ludazheng was constantly refreshing the official website but didn’t find any news until 2-3 pm. Finally, he found out that he won the application code for the new energy quota, which made him relieved.
After obtaining the new energy quota, Ludazheng started to search online for information and asked around about the new energy cars. Since he was going to graduate in a few months, he wanted to be able to drive his own car before he started working.
He told me that he knew a friend who sold second-hand new energy cars, and after talking with him, Ludazheng became interested in BYD (a Chinese car brand).
“I asked him which cars are relatively better in terms of second-hand new energy cars, with fewer problems and more reliable. He told me that Byd was good. Later, I searched on the internet and found out that Byd started with battery manufacturing, and many of its components were self-developed. It has been a player in the new energy car market for many years, and its sales volume has been fairly high. So, I thought that Byd should be good.” Ludazheng said.“`
After gaining some understanding of BYD, Lu Dazheng determined his budget, which was around 100,000 to 150,000 yuan. “Although I am a PhD, I am still a student and have not started making money yet, so the money will come from my parents and my wife. My wife has started working and has some savings. I roughly calculated it, and it should be within 150,000 yuan.” Lu Dazheng said.
Lu Dazheng doesn’t plan to pay for the car in installments, but pay the full amount upfront. The reason is that he thinks installment payments are not cost-effective and there are various fees and no discounts. So he thinks that a one-time payment is more cost-effective, and the range of 100,000 to 150,000 yuan is affordable.
After looking at BYD’s cars, Lu Dazheng was attracted to the Yuan EV. The reason is that he thinks the price of the Yuan EV is not expensive, it is only around 110,000 to 120,000 yuan. At the same time, the area where he lives is an older community and parking is not convenient. The shorter length of the Yuan EV’s body would make it easier to park.
However, Lu Dazheng did not try driving the Yuan EV first. The first car he test drove was the Xpeng G3. He told me that because the epidemic was very serious in February, he dared not go out and stayed at home every night watching car review programs on Weibo, browsing platforms such as Zhihu, and learning about cars through some online pictures and videos.
Not until mid-March, when the epidemic improved a lot, did Lu Dazheng come across a test drive event for the Xpeng G3 by chance while browsing online. “The meaning of that test drive event was that after the test drive, they would give you reimbursement for your electric bill, and JD.com cards and so on.”
Because Lu Dazheng lives in the Shijingshan district, he chose the Xpeng Shijingshan store nearby for the test drive. However, although the epidemic had eased somewhat, he was still somewhat scared and uneasy.
But in order to get a JD.com card with a limit of 200 yuan, he had to put on a brave face and go. We both laughed over the phone at Lu Dazheng’s candidness.
The Xpeng Shijingshan store is not far from Lu Dazheng’s home, so he chose to ride his bicycle there. After about 20 minutes, he arrived at the Xpeng Shijingshan store.
“Because of the epidemic, there weren’t many people there. After I arrived, Xpeng’s staff arranged a car for me directly. Xpeng P7 was also there, but because it was a display car, I couldn’t test drive it.”
“`Actually, to be honest, I thought G3 was quite good when I first drove it. Regardless of its appearance, space, driving experience, including its particularly large central control screen, I felt that it was quite intelligent. And when I stepped on the acceleration pedal (throttle) during the test drive, it was particularly powerful. But it uses an 811 battery, which is one of the reasons why I wouldn’t buy it.
Secondly, I’m still not confident in new energy vehicle manufacturers. Although I feel that it is not easy for these new car-making forces to emerge in our country, if they are manufacturers who are devoted to making cars, they should be supported. However, from a personal perspective, there is still a bit of mistrust.
For example, what if they go bankrupt and what about the car warranty? Also, I think making cars is a systematic engineering project, and manufacturers need to have some accumulation to create more stable cars, that’s what I think,” said Lu Dazheng.
At this point, I was curious and asked him why he felt that the 811 battery was not good?
Lu Dazheng said that he was concerned about the safety of new energy vehicles because he had seen some cases of self-ignition. But at first, he didn’t know anything about battery knowledge, only that there were ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate batteries for automotive power.
Out of safety concerns, he looked up a lot of battery images and videos online. Then he found out that batteries can be further divided into different types according to the proportion of positive electrode materials (such as nickel, cobalt, manganese, aluminum, etc.), such as 811 and 523.
The higher the proportion of nickel, the stronger the endurance, but the stability and life of the battery will be worse. Conversely, the higher the proportion of cobalt and manganese (aluminum), the better the stability of the battery and the longer its service life.
Therefore, in Lu Dazheng’s car purchase decision-making process, he would give priority to considering the 523 battery, which he believed was safer. This meant that he was not interested in a new energy vehicle equipped with an 811 battery.
Afraid of self-ignition and dare not sit in the car while charging
After test-driving XPeng G3, it was about ten days later when Lu Dazheng went to test-drive BYD Yuan EV.
I jokingly asked him on the phone, “Is it still because of the JD card this time?”
He laughed and said, “No, no, no, this time it’s mainly because I am interested.” Two people laughed again.
Lu Dazheng was very frank, answering my questions seriously regardless of what I asked him.
Because he was still interested in BYD Yuan EV, Lu Dazheng went to the BYD store to test drive it. The test-drive location was also not far away, in the Haidian district. He still rode his bicycle to get there on the same day, which was also a journey of more than 20 minutes.
Landazheng picked a weekday to test drive cars, and there weren’t many people in the store that day. “At that time, I not only looked at the Yuan EV, but also learned about other models such as the Tang, Song, and Qin. But in the end, I only test drove the Yuan EV and the Qin, because they were both within my budget,” said Landazheng.
After test-driving the cars, Landazheng still liked the Yuan EV more because he preferred SUVs and felt that they were more comfortable to sit in and had a better view.
But after discussing with him on WeChat, I found out that he had still not considered the Yuan EV. So I asked him why he gave up on the Yuan EV.
Landazheng replied, “The reason why I didn’t consider it later was because I saw a video online that said the Yuan EV’s range performance in winter was particularly poor. Also, I remember that the linkage under the steering wheel of the Yuan EV was not sealed, so cold air would come into the car when driving in winter weather. Even if you set the air conditioning temperature very high in winter, the actual temperature is not that high. So I think this car is not as good as I imagined.”
By now, Landazheng had test driven three cars, but he had rejected all three and was still hesitant.
Ten days passed. Landazheng saw a free test drive activity in a WeChat group, where he could test drive the car for free for five days. This car was none other than the once popular MaiMai.
Thinking that it was a free test drive and he could experience the use of an electric car as a daily driver, Landazheng decided to give it a try.
Looking back on the days he test drove the MaiMai, he had two main impressions. “One was the problem of charging. Because I had never charged a car before, when the battery was at 30%, I found a charging station to charge the MaiMai. It was quite hot that day, and I didn’t dare to sit in the car while charging, so I stood outside waiting. The process was quite difficult. I used fast charging, and it took about 40 minutes to charge from 30% to 80%. Charging the car is still not as convenient as refueling a gasoline car, as gasoline can be quickly refueled at a gas station.”The second point is about the return rate. When it comes to the return rate, Lu Dazheng is quite excited because he didn’t expect the return rate of the Mai Mai to be so high. “One time when I was sitting in the car, I looked up and saw several people taking pictures, which was very impressive. The return rate is really high. Then I heard many girls say that this car is very beautiful,” Lu Dazheng said.
But he didn’t initially consider the Mai Mai, just because of the opportunity for a free test drive. Moreover, he thought that this small car was not crash-resistant. He himself drove more steadily and slowly.
“But what if someone hits me? This small car will be gone in one hit. It’s better to have some buffering redundancy with a slightly larger car,” Lu Dazheng said. At this point, I couldn’t help but laugh again, but he still told me seriously, “I’m really worried.”
Missing out on the 80,000-yuan Lang Yi Electric
During the 5 days of test driving the Mai Mai, Lu Dazheng was not idle. He drove the Mai Mai to test drive other cars, including the Beijing Auto New Energy EX3 and the Beijing Hyundai Angsino.
Lu Dazheng told me that he wasn’t planning to buy a car from Beijing Auto, just wanted to try it out. After reading online comments, he felt that Beijing Auto’s workmanship reputation was particularly poor, but because the EX3 was relatively cheap, had good endurance, and he heard that it used a 523 battery, he went to experience it.
After test driving it, he felt that the EX3 was not as good as the Yuan EV, so he didn’t say much more about it with me.
And because the Beijing Auto store was next to Hyundai’s, he also took a look. As a result, he found a car he really liked – the Angsino.
At first glance, Lu Dazheng felt that the appearance of the Angsino was quite in line with his aesthetics, and then he mentioned the 523 battery to me again.
“I like the appearance of the Angsino, its endurance is also good, NEDC 500 kilometers, and this car also uses a 523 battery, so it is quite suitable for myself.”
Before I could ask him more, he interrupted me and continued, “Later, I learned about this car and found that it is also a global model, sold in many countries. I think global models are relatively better.”
I continued to ask, how did you come to this realization?# Translation
Ludazheng replied, “First, globalized car models have higher sales and ownership, which means that at least a significant population is driving them. If there are any problems, they should have been discovered. This is mainly based on this understanding.
On the other hand, including gasoline cars, such as Volkswagen’s global car model, the Golf, has been very successful. I think it will be better. This is my subjective feeling.”
The most important point is that the Hynix Nexo has a larger discount. According to Ludazheng, he was interested in the 2020 GLS Intelli version of Hynix Nexo, which had a discounted price of over 30,000 and a final price of around 160,000. However, 160,000 is slightly over his budget of 150,000, so he decided to wait.
However, Ludazheng did not test drive the Hynix Nexo, but only test-rode it. He told me that since the Hynix Nexo was not registered, it could only be driven inside the park. Therefore, the seller took him for a ride, so he did not have a clear experience, mainly gaining some basic knowledge of the vehicle hardware.
After learning about the Hynix Nexo, Ludazheng also learned about the Volkswagen Lavida and Dongfeng Honda X-NV in his WeChat group.
“At that time, the news in the group said that the Lavida could be purchased for over 80,000 which also had a 523 battery. Moreover, the Lavida’s safety configuration is also good. The most important thing is that it is too cheap.
I thought 80,000 would also work. Even if the driving range is short, it is suitable for driving within the city if charged frequently. But while I was hesitating, the price increased by four to five thousand.
But I don’t want to buy it anymore. It was originally a little over 80,000 when purchased and registered, but after the increase, it is almost 90,000, so I feel a bit of a loss and don’t want to consider it,” said Ludazheng.
Regarding X-NV, Ludazheng said that it appeared after the Lavida, and he was somewhat interested in this car, as the driving range of 400 kilometers was sufficient. Yes, you may have guessed it, he still did not consider it in the end, and his decision had been fluctuating.
The reason is that after asking a colleague who works at Dongfeng Honda about the X-NV, he was told that some of the core components, such as the battery pack and motor, were outsourced. Ludazheng felt uneasy about the quality of these outsourced components.
So, X-NV was rejected again.
The dilemma caused by JD Card
In mid-April, JD Card continued to tempt us.
Luda told me that he learned about another car in the group chat – Chevrolet Changchun, just like Xpeng G3, also offered JD Card. With the attitude of taking the opportunity to test drive and get the JD Card, Luda went to test drive Changchun.
After arriving at the Chevrolet store, Luda felt the desolate atmosphere there. “Hardly anyone was looking at the cars at the time, and there were few employees.”
But despite this, Chevrolet’s sales staff still served him with warm enthusiasm.
After test driving Changchun, Luda seriously said to me, “I feel that this car is different from other electric cars, it drives more like a fuel vehicle, which makes me feel quite familiar with it, and it’s pretty good.”
Afterwards, I went online to learn more, and saw a teacher’s video on batteries, where he mentioned Weilan (a battery supplier), saying that it had adopted some technologies that gave the battery good heat insulation and high-temperature resistance. This made me feel more at ease.
Because Weilan and Changchun are sister models under the General Motors group, their three-electric systems are basically the same, and I think it’s feasible.
In addition, Changchun also uses the 523 battery, and its low temperature performance is better, making it more practical in northern regions. Overall, I feel that the stability and safety of using the 523 ternary lithium battery is better.
Before I could even interject, Luda continued, “By the way, it also has a temperature monitoring system. This way, I think it can provide better protection for the user. You can check the temperature at any time, and you have more peace of mind.
Furthermore, Changchun uses double-layered glass, and its sound insulation is particularly good. Finally, it also has a panoramic sunroof, which I really like.”
After test driving many cars, Luda finally found two cars that were more suitable for him – the Honda Elysion and the Changchun.
However, Luda is still undecided between the two.
The reason for the dilemma is that Elysion exceeds his budget by a little, while Changchun has a discount of only 10,000 yuan. Compared to the more than 30,000 yuan discount for the Elysion, he thinks that there may still be room for a price reduction for the Changhun.
When I asked Luda when he planned to make a decision, he said he would wait until the last minute when the quotas are about to expire if the two cars still haven’t reduced their prices.
At the interview, Lu Dazheng said to me seriously, "There will be a clear answer by the end of July, because I will start my new job in August. If both models have not reduced their price at that time, I will buy the Chang Xuan. But if one of them reduces the price, I will not hesitate to buy the cheaper one. "
---
**At the End**
In the end, Lu Dazheng talked about his opinion on new energy vehicles. From a personal point of view, he mainly purchase new energy vehicles based on the brand (excluding budget), and having the endorsement of a big brand will make him trust more.
He gave an example of Dongfeng Honda X-NV. Although it is a Dongfeng Honda car, it has a Zeppelin label on it, which makes him feel somewhat mistrustful.
He thought that if it had a Honda label, Honda would not damage its own reputation. Therefore, he believes that the brand is the most important.
**There are many users like Lu Dazheng who strive to find a car model with higher cost performance before the new car indicators expire.**
If it is not a rigid demand, they will mostly continue to wait until the indicators expire. They will only act when the car model they like becomes cheaper, or if they really like a certain car model and can ignore the extra cost.
From Lu Dazheng and some users' understanding of new energy vehicles, I can feel that they attach great importance to the basic safety capabilities of vehicles. This reminds me of a sentence Li Xiang said in a live broadcast: Safety will make us (Li Auto) die.
This also reminds all automakers to pay sufficient attention to the safety of vehicles, especially in the new energy vehicle market prone to spontaneous combustion.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.