Introduction: The expansion of the new energy market has brought vigorous vitality to the development of new forces, but under the full speed of sales and layout of various car companies and related enterprises, Weilai and Ideal have gradually revealed their own problems.
(Text/Zhang Jiadong Editor/Lou Bing) The magic car market sales competition in 2021 is coming to an end, although under the external factors of chips and epidemics, the year-end sales ranking of car companies has almost lost its meaning, but for many car companies that are moving towards electrification and intelligence, the mutual pull between them seems to have just begun.
Only two years after 2019, which is known as the first year of the new forces, the first batch of new forces led by Wei Xiaoli have already walked out of their own different paths on the road of step-by-step delivery and pushing new roads. On the other hand, Huawei, Xiaomi and other technology companies are eyeing the automotive market, which has once again cast a war fog over the war war that has just calmed down.
In the penultimate week of 2021, NIO held NIO DAY as scheduled. However, the remarks of founder Li Bin show the "deviation" of Weilai on the road of development; in addition, the ideal founder Li Xiang responded to the spit of Volkswagen China CEO with sales; Huawei finally extended the ecological chain to the whole vehicle at the winter new product launch.
In the long-distance running of the era of automobile change, who can persist to the end, the variables are still the same.
Huawei released the AITO Q&A M5
On December 23, Huawei spent only half of its time at the winter flagship new product launch conference to release the first product of the new brand AITO in cooperation with Xilisi, the Q&I M5, with a pre-sale price of 250,000 yuan to 320,000 yuan for the new car.
Auto Market Observation: Whether Huawei will threaten the traditional automobile manufacturing industry has been widely concerned by public opinion before Huawei announced its cooperation with Xilis this year. Although Huawei has repeatedly stressed that it will not build cars, I believe that all car manufacturers will be a little entangled after watching Huawei's new product launch yesterday, because even if Yu Chengdong, who is the CEO of smart car solution BU, is not very professional in the vehicle speech session, Huawei still pre-sold a new car at its new product launch.
Different from Apple's entanglement and Xiaomi's caution, Huawei is more like the actual combat faction under the new era of car building. Refusing to touch the production of the whole vehicle has made Huawei cleverly exclude itself in each "car-making" public opinion. But the actual result is that Huawei controls the decisive position it plays in every partner car company.
Whether it is Xilix or ARCFOX (Polar Fox), the electric drive, motor, or Huawei HI provided by Huawei have become the core marketing selling points of the corresponding products. And this penetration is more vividly displayed in the AITO brand.
The release of AITO's first model, the M5, is fully dominated by Huawei, and perhaps the two parties hope to use Huawei's influence to increase the breadth of new cars. However, judging from the results, the decentralization of Cyrus is almost equivalent to giving up the control of the M5 vehicle. At the whole press conference, Yu Chengdong explained the new car in accordance with the process of an automobile conference from design to configuration to power.
Perhaps Huawei is not skilled enough in the publicity of the whole vehicle today, but since Huawei has chosen to provide a stage for the automobile products, the future is destined to understand the details of the production and manufacture of the whole vehicle. Obviously, Huawei, which says that it does not want to build cars, but has mastered electronic control and intelligent technology, and has the integration process of releasing the whole vehicle to the sales, is still the "partner" that has the greatest threat to automakers at that moment.
But on the other hand, Huawei, as a vehicle electronic control solution and intelligent solution provider, at this stage, has not brought too much gain to the products. Regardless of whether Huawei enters the field of vehicle manufacturing in the future, Huawei still needs to think about market expansion in the automotive industry.
As mentioned earlier, Yu Chengdong comprehensively talked about the product strength of the M5, but in the details, Yu Chengdong is more like a layman in the automotive industry. The lack of endorsement has become the biggest obstacle for Huawei to assist in the implementation of vehicle products.
In addition to not knowing enough about product details, Huawei's own support for automotive products is also very limited. Today, in the market, only the small sales of the Xilis SF5 equipped with Huawei electronic control system, and the ARCFOX Alpha S using Huawei's intelligent solution has not been officially delivered. As Yu Chengdong said, "consumers can experience high-speed driving and open and close doors to understand product quality", but consumers are difficult to reach the product, and the sense of trust in the brand is naturally difficult to establish.
At the same time, as of now, Huawei's proud ecosystem is still focused on household appliances and some wearable devices, and its systematic construction is still in the preliminary stage, and consumers can experience UI interaction and screen-cutting response on Harmony OS, which can also be obtained in the first-line car and machine products on the market. This also means that at this stage, Huawei's platform to car companies may be difficult to become the endorsement of the vehicle product force in the eyes of automobile consumers.
Li wants to pay tribute to Volkswagen China's CEO
On December 22, Li wanted to compare the sales of Volkswagen SUV and ideal ONE on his personal Weibo, with the text "Thank you for the encouragement, continue to work hard". It is suspected of recalling the previous claim by Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan that "range-extended electric vehicles are the worst solution".
Car market observation: As the second person second only to Musk in the public opinion war in the car market in the past two years, Li Xiang is not active on social platforms. But whether it is the reply to the "mercury seat" incident in July, or the offline scolding of the shelling experts last year, Li Xiang, who did not publish much, can always accurately ignite the enthusiasm of public opinion.
On the issue of extended-range electric vehicles, Li Xiang is by no means the first time to carry out a retraction. From last year's offline first thought that experts do not understand technology, to now use sales to respond to the public, Li Xiang's response is more mature, but the guidance of public opinion has never changed.
From the perspective of use, the vigorous promotion of new energy at the national level provides a good space for the development of range extender technology. Because the ideal ONE and other PHEV models can be on the green new energy license plate, and can enjoy the purchase tax exemption, some cities free of single and double number restrictions, parking discounts and other benefits, and in the early stage to solve the problem of some users of the mileage anxiety of electrified products, the first recommended range extender technology Ideal ONE has obtained a good market space.
After the new energy vehicle subsidy policy was adjusted again in 2020, the ideal ONE priced at more than 300,000 yuan was completely kicked out of the subsidy list. As policies become more inclined towards pure electric vehicles, range-extending technologies as a transition are destined to gradually slow down in competition.
Interestingly, without subsidies, the sales of the ideal ONE did not decrease but increased. Since March this year, the sales of the Ideal ONE have skyrocketed, and in November, the sales of the Ideal ONE hit another 13,438 monthly sales peak. At this time, Li's desire to bring the public eye back to the discussion of extender technology seems to be somewhat deliberate.
Fundamentally, the success of the ideal ONE in the market may be difficult to attribute to the range extender technology. Hengbi also chooses products with range extender technology in the market, whether it is the long-born Xilis SF 5, Buick VELITE 5, or the new Lantu FREE that has just been launched this year, in this track that few car companies choose, the above products have no direct competitive pressure in the market. Even as Li Xiang said, the extender product that solves the endurance anxiety should be more competitive when compared with the same level of pure electric products.
However, the products of the same track, which have an average monthly sales volume of 1,000, confirm that the power route is not the decisive factor in market sales. If you look at the sales growth of the ideal ONE through the product, only the ideal of one product depends on the ability to control the market sensitive and accurately.
In the prospectus, Ideal estimates that chinese families are more inclined to choose SUVs for daily commuting and weekend family travel as spending power increases, so Ideal Auto's strategic focus is on SUVs of 150,000 to 500,000 yuan. According to the positioning of the ideal starting price of 320,000 yuan, whether it is Mercedes-Benz, Audi, or Weilai and Toyota at the same price, the ideal ONE can use "cheaper than me is not bigger than me, bigger than me is not cheaper than me" to show advantages. The target customer is clear, and the actual consumer demand to make product iterations is the ideal ONE's secret weapon to pick off the public with only one product.
However, in the face of the continuous decline of new energy policies and the convergence of more and more competitors, the most realistic and conservative ideals, how long can one foot be used on the new energy track, perhaps only Li Xiang himself knows best. But the current situation is, does Li want to continue to struggle with the feasibility of the extender technology?
Wei Lai's paranoia
On December 18, NIO Day 2021 was held as scheduled, and NIO's second car, ET5, officially opened pre-sale, with a starting price of 328,000 yuan before subsidies and 258,000 yuan before subsidies for BaaS scheme, and is scheduled to start delivery in September 2022. At the same time, Weilai founder Li Bin's remarks about BBA and oil trucks have aroused extensive discussion among users.
Car market observation: Like Li Xiang, Li Bin, who is also born in the auto media, has some axes in the concept of car manufacturing, the difference is that Li Bin is usually better at packaging his own views. Just like the insistence of the NIO brand on high-end positioning, Li Bin has created a unique service in the industry, so that more and more consumers have accepted THE SETTING OF WEILAI. But at this NIO Day, Li Bin, who is good at packaging, has rarely hardened.
Many people reacted after watching this year's NIO Day: "It doesn't feel like 2019 is interesting." The implication is that the surprises that Weilai can bring to consumers are getting less and less, although this has not resisted the enthusiasm of users to buy cars and the growth of Weilai's sales, but the story of Weilai is indeed becoming more and more difficult to tell.
In order to maintain service and reputation, WEILAI has made a lot of investment in the service side, charging piles, substations, car friends social, at the same time, NIO also needs to continue to fill the parallel businesses such as supercharging stations and substations promised by Li Bin at NIO Day a year or two ago. 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.
But Li Bin did not stop there, this year's NIO Day, Weilai will be endurance, intelligent auxiliary driving, performance and other hardware and parameters, completely copied from ET7 to the lower price of ET5. The price difference is only 100,000 yuan, but the same performance configuration is used, and Li Bin, who is in urgent need of sales and financial normalization, is obviously in a hurry.
After NIO Day, he openly delivered speeches on "5 is greater than 3" and "BBA should be changed to NBA", and even in order to convert users in the luxury car market, Li Bin did not hesitate to openly talk about "fuel vehicles are useless except for the smell of gasoline". And do not consider that Li Bin ignored that BMW has been firmly seated in the top of this year's luxury car market, as well as a century of brand and technology accumulation to do a bonus, even if Weilai in the face of most of the electric vehicle charging difficulties, mileage discount, poor retention rate of the premise, Li Bin has no reason to kill the fuel car, let alone to step on the BMW.
Therefore, when faced with the convergence of electrification and intelligent processes today, Li Bin's passionate speech on the stage can no longer resonate with consumers for future technology. From the euphemistic comparison of friends and businessmen to the bluntness of pointing directly at fuel vehicles, Li Bin is more like making up for the momentum after the empty speech of NIO Day.
At the same time, Li Bin's urgency is also reflected in his attitude toward the propaganda meeting. If Yu Chengdong's speech is caused by the unfamiliarity of the automotive industry, then Li Bin's re-mention of "automatic driving" on this year's NIO Day is a taboo committed by an auto marketer this year.
Since Tesla was punished for false publicity of Auto Pilot, "autopilot", a technical term that originally existed only in the field of autonomous driving, has entered the public eye. In July this year, an NIO ES8 had an accident under the condition of opening the NOP (Nio Pilot Auxiliary Function), which once again pushed the marketing of "automatic driving" by car companies to the cusp of the storm.
After the accident, the head of the new force car companies Ideal, Nezha, Weima and Xiaopeng have modified the names of the assisted driving systems on their official websites, removing modifiers such as "advanced" and "automatic". However, Weilai, where the accident occurred, has never made an explanation for the misleading of consumers.
Until the pre-sale of the ET5 model on NIO Day, in order to stimulate and guide consumers in the senses, Li Bin and Weilai continued the "autopilot technology NAD" words and techniques display. Although Qin Lihong, president of Weilai Automobile, said in an interview that manufacturers should be responsible for the driving safety of users when they use the term "automatic driving", when the complete functions of NAD are fully open to users, how to detect and determine accidents at the technical end, there is no clear legal provision or third-party departments can define it, and the rights and interests of consumers are still difficult to protect.
Perhaps as Qin Lihong said, the "automatic driving" function will become a watershed between Weilai and other car companies, but behind the word game, the paranoia of Weilai and Li Bin will take Weilai to where it will be, it needs to be handed over to time and the market to witness.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced without authorization.