On December 17, Mercedes' new EQS was officially launched, priced at 1.0796-1.5186 million. The Mercedes-Benz EQS under the EVA large pure electric architecture is priced at more than one million.
Unexpectedly, a day later, on the 2021 WEILAI Day, the WEILAI medium-sized intelligent electric coupe ET5 opened pre-sale, with a starting price of 328,000 yuan before subsidies and 258,000 yuan before the BaaS program subsidy, and is scheduled to start delivery in September 2022.
Once, the start-up was to benchmark the BBA, and after 7 years, it finally reached a settlement with itself.
Seven year itch
In November 2014, NIO was born.
The following year, NIO won the first drivers' championship in the history of the FIA Formula E Championship. Since then, Weilai has been busy running the track while pushing mass production.
In May 2017, the WEILAI EP9, priced at more than 9 million yuan, set a record for the historical lap time of electric vehicles at the circuit at that time with a time of 6 minutes 45.90 seconds at the New North Circuit.
Nio's brand tone was established in this way, until the ES8 sold well, and we were convinced that in the field of pure trams, NIO was a place where we could have an equal dialogue with the BBA.
Time is like a white colt passing by, 7 years have come.
Weilai has experienced doubts, wandering, affirmations, and glory, and now, it is facing embarrassment.
The embarrassment of Weilai is that while we are still convinced that Weilai is the first brand of independent new forces to build cars, we cannot find a large Number of Weilai products.
Xiaopeng has P7, ideal has ideal ONE, Tesla has Model Y/3, and who does Weilai have?
Even the most capable ES6, the monthly delivery volume is difficult to break 5000, in terms of bicycle delivery, Weilai even lags behind the second-tier new power brands, compared to Zero Run and Weima.
Weilai has a reason for Weilai - I am expensive!
After all, leaving the price to talk about sales is a hooligan.
As of now, the average transaction price of Weilai is about 420,000 yuan, slightly lower than Mercedes-Benz, slightly higher than BMW, and much higher than Audi.
Of course, the price of NIO's products is not limited to the product itself.
We all know that in order to maintain service and reputation, Weilai has made a lot of investment, charging piles, power stations, car friends social...
Judging from the financial report of Weilai Q3, the speed of Making Money in Weilai is significantly lower than the speed of spending money, and the loss is intensifying.
The main culprit dragging down NIO's finances was the increase in sales and administrative expenses – due to the cost of sales and service function personnel, as well as the costs associated with the expansion of sales and service networks. At the same time, it is also reflected in the construction of energy supply, including substations and supercharger piles.
The flat bottom has been raised, and it is a little difficult to go up to the upper floor, which is the most embarrassing place for Weilai at present.
——If you insist on playing like this, limited by the price, Weilai's sales will definitely be a problem. If you change a set of ways to play, the price is lower, and Weilai's sales will definitely rise, but the brand's color will be a problem.
How Weilai got out of the strange circle, ET5 gave the answer.
Kill out of the dawn
What kind of product ET5 is, we can look at it from two aspects.
Let's start with the price. The ET5 starts at 328,000 yuan, which is very clever.
First of all, more than 300,000 yuan, benchmarking a medium-sized car, maintaining the brand tone of Weilai.
The BaaS program is a good thing, not only to let Weilai enjoy the afterglow of the subsidy policy, but also toss and turn in terminal sales.
Once the BaaS program is fulfilled, the initial price of ET5 even came to the range of 250,000 yuan, if you add Weilai financial policy, it is not difficult to open ET5 for tens of thousands of yuan.
In fact, the sales of ES6 are also piled up.
In the face of ET5, which has a more advantageous price, Weilai moves are not old, more powerful and effective.
Look at the product again. The reason why ET5 was able to launch quickly and the delivery period was only 9 months was thanks to ET7.
It can be boldly said that compared with ET7, ET5 in addition to the difference in design and size of the interior and exterior decoration, in terms of configuration, in the common rate of parts, the two are almost fit.
——In terms of endurance, it has three different power battery capacity options of 75 degrees, 100 degrees and 150 degrees, and the maximum cruising range can reach 1000 kilometers.
——In terms of intelligent and assisted driving, it is equipped with NAD automatic driving assistance system, with the supersensitive system Aquila and the supercomputing platform Adam. With 33 high-performance perception hardware, the final force reached 1016 TOPS, 4 NVIDIA Orin chips, equipped with 19 auxiliary driving functions as standard, and then gradually realized high-speed, urban areas, parking, power exchange and other scenarios, the whole process of point-to-point automatic driving.
——In terms of performance, it has a dual motor layout, the maximum power is 360kW, the maximum torque is 700N m, the zero hundred acceleration is 4.3s, the hundred zero braking distance is 33.9 meters, and the wind resistance coefficient is as low as 0.24.
The reason why the subject is not added to the above three short paragraphs is because the subject is arbitrarily switched between ET7 and ET5 is the correct description.
Undoubtedly, ET5 will most likely become the most popular and popular product in the 7-year history of WEILAI.
ET5's hot booking scene has even threatened ET7. In the face of this concern, CEO Li Bin said that the two children in the family can do anything.
Li Bin's words, with 5 points of joy, but also with 3 points of helplessness, but also with 2 points of tragedy.
On the one hand, it means that Weilai has begun to ground up, and it is necessary to cut with the previous Weilai who only talks about forced grids. On the other hand, Weilai wants to explode, sell sales, turn financial positive, and achieve profitability.
Behind all this, Weilai wants to survive and grow.
The arrow is on the string
Admittedly, ET5 is competitive with the Model 3, posing a direct threat to the Xiaopeng P7 and even the BYD Han EV.
The threat moves from theory to practice, and WEILAI needs to face two passes.
Subjectively, Weilai must pass through the bullet rain of bullets without cores and power batteries, and complete mass production at the new Neo Park Xinqiao base in Hefei, and the capacity problem needs to be overcome.
Objectively, comparing ET5 with existing competitors to gain an advantage to masturbate, after all, in the category of smart trams, comparing new generation products with previous generation products is also a hooligan.
On the one hand, the Tesla Model 3, which is not played by common sense, may be the biggest enemy of ET5.
Between 2022 and 2023, it is difficult to say whether the Model 3 has major adjustments in hardware.
With Musk's attitude towards the product, once there is an opportunity, it will use the killer - price reduction. If in the future, the price difference between Model 3 and ET5 is getting bigger and bigger, and the variables will increase a lot.
On the other hand, the Xiaopeng P7 and BYD Han EV had to be defended.
Both have basically been determined to complete the upgrade and change in 2022. Xiaopeng and BYD will do their best to ensure the competitive advantage of products, and will never let ET5 be unscrupulous in the market segment.
That's when ET5 really starts delivering, and we'll see what the real landscape will look like.
Weilai ET5 arrow on the string, had to be sent.
But whether it can eat up and down, whether it can kill a dawn, are all subjective and objective levels that make people doubtful.
The growth logic of the new car-making forces has moved from the capital logic full of bubble valuation to the market logic of performance cash.
Weilai's white moonlight is not bright, et5's cinnabar mole is not red, which is related to whether Weilai can go to a higher level.