Car Review Observation, Car Review Agency, No. 503
Foreword: Li Bin is a successful person.
In addition to being the "boss" of Weilai Automobile, there are also multiple identity tags such as the chairman of Yiche, angel investors, and the godfather of travel, which can be said to be a celebrity spanning the automotive, financial, and Internet fields.
Since he is a celebrity, his words and deeds to the outside world will affect many people.
Recently, Li Bin at the NIO Day media communication meeting, a golden sentence exploded on the Internet:
"I just don't understand at all, why are you still buying fuel trucks now?" And joked"How nostalgic is this to buy a gas car?"
In Li Bin's view, buying a traditional fuel vehicle, in addition to being able to smell some gasoline, has no other benefits.
Some people say, let's not talk about the intention of Li Bin's words, as long as you are "successful", you say so, some people think it is right.
There is some truth to this, because behind the "success" of celebrities, there is a set of their own success logic. For example, he is not a self-made man, not relying on anyone, we do not need to be more truthful.
However, some people say that Li Bin "sells himself and boasts" a lot, just like Ma Yunfei said that he is not interested in money, Xiao Sa almost laughed.
In fact, Li Bin's "amazing words" is not the first time, and he has also thrown out "Porsche's factory, which is definitely not as good as Jianghuai's factory (Weilai's OEM production line)" and so on.
In this era of unsurprising death, as the "big brother" of the car company, it is natural to work hard to create topics, otherwise how to pave the way for their own products and be a dedicated "melon seller" person.
1
Where does diss fuel come from?
Frankly speaking, the new forces of head car manufacturing led by Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal and Nezha have lit up the light of hope for the rise of independent brands in this energy war. They are not only different from the tradition in marketing, but also spare no effort in product technology innovation.
Take Li Bin's Weilai ET5 on this platform as an example, this is a model positioned in the 300,000 yuan range, it is said that there are many competitors at this price point, there are Tesla Model 3 Xiaopeng P7, Han EV and other new players in the field of new energy, and traditional fuel vehicles have BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi A4L and other hot models.
It can be seen that IT5 wants to stand out from many opponents, which is not an easy task.
However, Weilai has another way of "means", first of all, the power exchange mode.
Power exchange means that the battery and the vehicle manufacturing are decoupled, the design of the car no longer considers the battery, only needs to be designed in accordance with the integrated technical requirements, and the battery can be developed and upgraded according to the calibrated specifications.
First of all, the life cycle of the whole vehicle is improved, and the technical "battery" can also be upgraded separately, which is undoubtedly more thorough than other OTAs.
Secondly, in terms of the product strength of new energy vehicles, the characteristics of "power exchange" have no competitors. With the large-scale popularization and application of substations, once WEIlai is successful, it can formulate battery specifications to become industry standards, and substations become industry standards, which means obtaining substantial market leadership.
In addition, the price of the whole vehicle has been reduced. At present, the pre-subsidy price of NIO ET5 is 328,000 yuan and 386,000 yuan.
However, after adopting the battery rental solution BaaS, both the original price of 328,000 and 386,000 models were priced at 258,000. At this point, the price is not similar to the after-driving version of the Model3, and a direct competitive relationship is formed in the price range.
These are Li Bin's confidence, and they are also the "capital" he is proud of.
At present, the monthly rental price of the battery pack rented by the NIO model is a battery pack with a battery capacity of 75kWh for CLTC with a battery life of 550 kilometers, and the monthly rent is 980 yuan; Battery pack with a battery capacity of 100kWh for 700 km of endurance is 1480 yuan per month.
At the same time, the plan to rent batteries can enjoy 6 free battery replacement services per month. If you want to install a charging pile, there is a free battery replacement service 4 times a month. Weilai said that the follow-up will also launch a solid-state battery pack with a capacity of 150kWh and a range of about 1,000 kilometers, and users who use the rental power plan only need to adjust the monthly rental plan in the App to enjoy the new battery pack.
It is understood that next year, Weilai will continue to lay out the charging and replacing service network, and plans to have more than 1,300 substations, 6,000 supercharge piles and 10,000 destination charging piles nationwide, and open up more than 30 destination charging routes such as the Silk Road and Xishuangbanna Tropical Rainforest.
According to the calculation of the owner of Weilai, it only takes 5 minutes for the Weilai second-generation replacement power station to replace the Weilai battery, which is similar to the time for refueling the oil truck. However, this also depends on enough power replacement infrastructure, in 2021 NIO Day, Weilai Auto revealed that up to now a total of 733 substations have been built, and it plans to build 1300 substations next year. However, this number is still difficult to support its current delivery.
But some netizens also questioned that the cost of electric vehicles is mostly batteries, and ET5 is only a bare car and 25.8W, which is very insincere.
In addition, some netizens said that whether the battery monthly rent is 980 yuan or 1480 yuan, it is actually not cheap. The cost of a general fuel vehicle for a month is also 600-1000 yuan.
In addition, the ET5 is more homogeneous than the same class of models, and there is no place to scream. If you still have to find any reason, it may be Weilai's brand tone and community service to the user group.
2
High-end social circle
This kind of "customer group" may be what the capital market values, and it is also Li Bin and the Weilai he controls that have been operating with care.
It is worth mentioning that before Weilai's "high-end social circle" became popular on the network, according to the car review agency, this high-end social circle is "Weilai EP Club", Weilai said that it is "the most high-end user club in NIO brand in China"; The "cow value" called by the sales staff is more officially called "Weilai value".
According to the 2021 EP Club membership rules released by WEILAI, if you want to enter the club, in addition to spending more than 10 million yuan to buy EP9 to become a ten-year member, there are two kinds of annual membership and experience membership: the annual member is the top 100 users of the annual WEIlai value ranking, and the quarterly experience member is composed of the top 10 users with the fastest growth in the value of Weilai in each quarter.
According to the data provided by Weilai Automobile, among the EP Club members in 2021, there are 108 new members, accounting for more than 60%. The top five cities with the largest distribution of member cities are Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Shenzhen, covering the four first-tier cities. Compared with last year, there were 16 women in the membership, for a total of 26, and the current gender ratio of men to women is 5.8:1.
It is worth noting that in 2021, the members have a total of 397 NIO cars, of which the ES8 is the most, with a total of 216. The average recommended car is 25, and the most recommended car is 95.
Weilai CEO Li Bin once bluntly said that buying Weilai Automobile is not just a car, but "a ticket to a new way of life". Relevant media previously reported that Li Bin learned from the success of Starbucks that no matter how advanced the Internet is and how developed e-commerce is, people's inner demand for social networking will not decrease, and they are willing to pay for services other than product functionality.
It can be seen that Weilai's sword has indeed tasted sweetness in terms of overall sales and customer circle.
However, due to Li Bin's personal "high profile" and this controversial "golden sentence" is too hot. Li Bin, who could not bear the "pressure", quickly responded in the Weilai user group.
3
Li Bin's response
Li Bin said, "In the past few years, the charging and replacing infrastructure is indeed not convenient enough, and there are few good electric vehicles. Now that infrastructure is developing rapidly and there are many good products to choose from in various price segments, it is time to choose electric vehicles, and the sharp increase in electric vehicle penetration in China this year also illustrates this trend. ”
It is true that Li Bin's words are somewhat reasonable, but they do not mean that they are correct.
An industry insider also added that the current development of trams is indeed very fast, and infrastructure construction is constantly improving. However, at present, it is not possible for trams to replace oil trucks in a short period of time, and oil vehicles are still the mainstream.
For the "sell melon" type of speech, everyone is used to it, and don't be misled.
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