Dao Ge said car original Text /Zhang Yue
Every year NIO DAY, NIO is like a parent who carefully prepares for the birthday of the child, even if it is the "darkest moment" on the verge of closure in 2019, NIO is still happy to make the overall appearance of the brand year as scheduled at the end of the year, NIO DAY is both a display of WEILAI's product system and a review of the service ecology.
A Weilai car owner volunteer who picked up the machine on the day of this year's NIO DAY event told the editor of "Dao Ge Said Car" that Weilai Automobile is the first new energy vehicle purchased by himself, although there are many friends around him who have purchased other brands of electric vehicles, but in comparison, Weilai is still doing a good job, where to do better than others, the owner directly calls Weilai's car to give people the feeling that although it is on the line, specifically, Weilai Automobile does not have to worry about maintenance, insurance, insurance and other chores like other brands.
Judging from the contact with nio DAY car owner volunteers and the experience of the whole event, Weilai car owners have a strong sense of collective identity, both like partners working together and fan support groups that chase stars together. In addition to the continuous increase in user operation, at this year's NIO DAY, the most discussed by everyone is the release of the intelligent electric coupe ET5, which was previously kept secret about its specific news, and now the comprehensive release of its various information has caught everyone off guard.
ET7 hasn't delivered ET5 yet?
Since the debut of NIO ET7, everyone has been waiting for when it can be delivered, and at this year's NIO DAY, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, finally gave a letter of approval, and the first batch of car owners will start delivery on March 28 next year. Also announcing delivery dates is the just-unveiled ET5, which will be delivered in September next year. The delivery time of the two cars is only half a year apart, is Weilai not worried that the two products may have some intersection at the user level? After all, the editors on NIO DAY have heard the owners say that they plan to exchange the ET7 order for ET5.
In this regard, Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of Weilai, said in an interview with the editor of "Dao Ge Said Car" that the two cars have some crossovers, but after all, the price difference is 120,000. In addition, ET7 is more than 5 meters of medium and large cars, the style is more elegant and business, while ET5 is younger, more dynamic, the use of these two cars is still not the same, I believe that after a certain precipitation, especially after the exhibition car, test drive, users will make appropriate choices.
Qin Lihong stressed that in China, about 300,000 is a very active market, and Weilai wants to enter a larger market segment through ET5, and this segment is that Weilai has not been involved before, just like how BMW deals with the 5 Series and 3 Series. "Et5 positioning is towards the Audi A4L, BMW 3 Series, Tesla Model 3, Model Y this range, there are ET7 to ET5 this idea of the user is after all a minority, I believe that the vast majority of our harvest should be non-original Weilai users."
What kind of car is the ET5?
Judging from Qin Lihong's reply, he does not seem to be worried about the release of ET5 and affecting the sales of ET7. And in fact, the emergence of ET5 really has no impact on ET7? First of all, from the price point of view, this is the cheapest car launched by Weilai, the price before et5 subsidies is 328,000-38.6 million yuan, the price before the BaaS program subsidy is 258,000 yuan, of which the monthly rental cost of 75kWh batteries is 980 yuan / month, and the monthly rental cost of 100kWh batteries is 1480 yuan / month, the difference between the two is mainly reflected in the mileage. The price of its battery rental plan is directly in the market competition with domestic Tesla, BYD Han, Xiaopeng P7 and other competitors.
Secondly, several product highlights of ET5 are also worth paying attention to. In terms of appearance design, ET5 body color up to nine, including cloud white, star gray, deep space black and other colors, of which mirror powder and cloud yellow are exclusive to ET5 personalized color choices, the annual color aerospace blue will also be installed on ET5.
In terms of configuration, it is equipped with 256-color digital light curtain atmosphere lights, immersive panoramic digital cockpit using AR/VR technology, the world's first vehicle artificial intelligence system NOMI, 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos sound system, 5G car networking, etc. In addition, the whole car is equipped with intelligent frameless electric suction doors and hidden door handles as standard, with digital keys based on UWB technology.
Among them, the NIO panoramic digital cockpit of AR/VR technology is a very heavy and forward-looking innovation of NIO. NIO and innovative AR equipment company NREAL have jointly developed exclusive AR glasses that can project a large screen with a visual distance of 6 meters and equivalent to 201 inches; and have also cooperated with NOLO to develop NIO VR Glasses, equipped with ultra-thin Pancake optical lenses, which can achieve binocular 4K display.
In terms of intelligent driving, ET5 is equipped with NIO's latest automatic driving technology NAD, through NIO super sense system Aquila and supercomputing platform Adam, ET5 will gradually realize high-speed, urban area, parking, power exchange and other scenarios, the whole process of safe and relaxing point-to-point automatic driving experience.
In terms of power, the car provides three versions of endurance of 550 km, 700 km, 1000 km and 8 driving modes, using dual motor drive standard intelligent four-wheel drive system, maximum power 360 kW, peak torque 700 Nm, vehicle 0-100 km / h acceleration can reach the fastest 4.3 seconds, using front and rear five-link independent suspension, front and rear axle load ratio 50:50.
Compared with ET7, ET5 is much more affordable, but also maintains a high level of appearance, configuration and performance, it can be understood that ET5 will rob away the ET7 business, after all, this kind of left-right hand combat field is not the first time for Weilai, the last time was after the ES6 conference, many ES8 booking owners switched to ES6.
Can ET5 go?
Previously, Li Bin had publicly stated that the brand would not explore too low a space, Weilai would maintain its high-end market positioning, Qin Lihong also told the media that Weilai did not do less than 300,000 yuan of cars, ET5 is the cheapest car in Weilai in the foreseeable future. Although the price of ET5 has dropped a lot compared to other models of Weilai, but still maintain their own "stubbornness", even if it is an entry-level model, the price of ET5 is still more than 300,000 yuan, only by using the battery rental program, the price will be lowered to 250,000 yuan.
Can ET5 achieve the vision of volume under this price layout? In the face of other electric cars with their own advantages on the market, the advantages of NIO ET5 or brand tone and after-sales service, at the same time, the ET5's long endurance and a series of the latest technologies on board have also formed a certain attraction.
According to Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of WEILAI, the number of orders on the day of et5 release exceeded expectations, because users were too enthusiastic about ordering too many orders, so that the WEILAI App collapsed for more than ten minutes. But he also pointed out that the ET5 life cycle peak may come in the second half of 2023, of course, the final result will be affected by factors such as capacity and supply chain run-in. "Our expectations for the ET5 are still quite high, and unlike other models, the ET5 is produced by another specialized factory, that is, a new factory completed and put into operation in the Hefei Xinqiao Intelligent Industrial Park, which is the first plant of the ET5." Qin Lihong said to everyone.
In addition to the release of new models, NIO also announced the official launch of the ecological co-construction plan Clean Parks, which will invest 100 million yuan in the next three years to support global natural ecological reserves, the use of smart electric vehicles, and the construction of clean energy infrastructure. In addition, in 2022, 1300+ substations, 6000+ supercharged piles, and more than 10,000 destination charging piles will be completed in the Chinese market. In terms of the international market, after entering Norway this year, WEILAI plans to enter Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and other countries next year, and plans to provide services for users in more than 25 countries and regions around the world by 2025.