IAUTO
Speed Depth Attitude
Introduction |
2022/1/8
"To reshape the pattern of the mid-level car market occupied by the joint venture luxury brand for a long time, do a smart electric vehicle brand that has never tried before."
Reporter 丨 Cui Liwen
Responsible editor 丨 Du Yuxin
Editor 丨Zhu Jinbin
At this moment, nearly half a month has passed since the end of 2021 NIO Day. Whenever I think back to that night, as the lights of the stage gradually focus, Li Bin slowly drove out of the two Weilai ET5s behind him, that inexplicable excitement will still come to mind again. As for the reason, it is very simple.
"The brand has been established for 7 years, and NIO always has to learn to grow up on its own."
As a bystander, in the ET5 launched after experiencing enough precipitation, I saw the determination of this new force to build a car and show no reservations to the outside world. The significance of the former for the enterprise itself, as well as the mission shouldered after the listing and delivery, is equally significant and profound.
Just like the theme of 2021 NIO Day, it was identified as "Hello World" early.
A sentence of "Hello, world" can already be understood as: with the addition of ET5, in the new track spawned by the wave of electrification transformation, Weilai is facing all the fierce enemies, politely greeting, and then starting a "decisive battle" without mercy.
Determination to win
To be fair, the style of play used by ET5 is still a familiar and habitual way for Weilai.
From 2017 NIO Day, as the flagship SUV ES8 turned out, standing on the "high-end, luxury, technology" product sequence label, to the lower price, including a wider range of users ES6, EC6 successive arrivals, and then to 2020 NIO Day, the flagship of the sedan sequence as ET7 stunning debut, are the arrival of ET5, do a very good job of warming up and paving.
What is surprising is that looking back at the entire release process of the latter, we can feel some changes that have quietly taken place in Weilai.
First of all, in terms of the price that everyone is most concerned about, the starting price of ET5 75-degree battery packs before subsidies is 328,000 yuan, and the price before 100-degree battery packs is 386,000 yuan, respectively, after the use of BaaS vehicle-electric separation scheme, the starting price before subsidies has dropped to 258,000 yuan.
To be honest, behind such pricing, it is more the "sincerity" that comes from Weilai, and Li Bin seems to have let go of the "obsession" of excessive pursuit of brand high-end.
In fact, as early as the start of 2021 NIO Day, I had discussed the price of new cars with friends around me. At that time, the common concern was focused on the fear that ET5 and ET7, similar to ES6 and ES8, would not open up a large price difference and lose the opportunity to momentum.
But as it turned out, some of the concerns proved to be completely superfluous. After ET5 has a sufficiently competitive price advantage, and then look at the product power it shows, it has played a positive superposition effect.
Specifically, it has a dual motor layout, the maximum power is 360kW, the maximum torque is 700N·m, the acceleration of zero hundred kilometers is 4.3s, the braking distance from 100 kilometers to zero is 33.9 meters, and the wind resistance coefficient is as low as 0.24.
With 75 degrees, 100 degrees and 150 degrees three different power battery capacity options, the maximum cruising range can reach 1000 kilometers.
It has NIO's proud NAD autonomous driving assistance system, with NIO Aquila supersensitive system and 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.
The body color, mood lights, full car audio, including the panoramic digital cockpit PanoCinema that successfully landed AR/VR technology, can find that ET5 is still evolving in multiple dimensions, as far as possible to "please" young consumer groups.
Obviously, in addition to sincerity, you can also see this new car, the determination to go all out.
At the event site, Li Bin promised to all users that the ET5 delivery date will be in September next year. Even if he knows it, this will really test Weilai's own supply chain and production capacity. In the end, after the release of the new car, the Weilai APP, which was "squeezed", also proved that ET5 has been warmly sought after by end users.
The meaning of impulse
I would like to ask, for a long time in the past, what is the biggest pain point of WEILAI itself? In my mind, there is no incubation of a real "blockbuster", or one of the answers.
Especially when Tesla Model 3 and Model Y are located in China's new energy market, showing a harvest trend, monthly sales have already exceeded 10,000, and the contrast is particularly obvious.
Therefore, the significance of ET5 for Weilai is to become a blockbuster and help it achieve greater quantitative changes.
"Definitely the car we've issued the most orders ever. For Weilai, everyone understands that we do not send specific numbers. But what can be said, including starting with the ES8, is the one with the largest order volume of new cars released by NIO Day in the past five years. ”
Early the morning after the event, I had the honor of conducting a small interview with Li Bin. He can obviously feel that the order volume of ET5 is good, which makes him very happy.
Later, when asked about next year, with the help of ET5, coupled with the addition of another product born from the second-generation platform to join the sequence, Weilai's delivery target will be how much, Li Bin also admitted: "In 2021, from the sales side, although it still maintains a rise of nearly 100%, it still has not outperformed the market." So after cutting into more market segments next year, I hope to maintain a little more upward momentum. ”
Between the words, there is more humility. However, in the eyes of more people, even if it encounters many unfavorable factors such as the epidemic and lack of core, with the three products of ES8, ES6 and EC6, weilai's delivery volume this year is still infinitely close to the 100,000 mark.
Then, we can't help but boldly predict that with ET7, ET5 and another new car born from the second-generation platform, it will join the product sequence and deliver 200,000 new cars, or a milestone that is very likely to be touched.
The protagonist of this article will inevitably be one of them, providing the strongest support for sales. And constantly use actual performance to prove what is: "If there is no blockbuster, go and create a blockbuster." ”
A mission of change
"What do you think Weilai has done right in the past seven years?"
Perhaps, someone will vote without hesitation, and it will successively launch ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7 four products focusing on the high-end market.
Perhaps, someone will vote for it, since the beginning of the creation of the brand, it firmly wants to become a user enterprise, and has built a complete service system for this purpose.
Perhaps, some people will vote for it, and when the technical route of replenishment is first established, they will unswervingly incorporate the "power exchange mode" into it, and stick to it to achieve differentiation with other friends.
Even, some people will vote for Li Bin, as the founder, his own personality charm, a steady stream of multi-dimensional blessings for this company.
It is undeniable that behind the above four choices, there are indeed their own reasons and starting points, but they always feel a little one-sided. On the contrary, after seven years, if you want to choose the most precious thing on Weilai, individuals will firmly vote for the shaping of this "high-end new energy brand".
Because in the whole process, there is no template to refer to. After decades of development in China's automotive industry, no one has been able to touch the dual targets of an average product price of more than 400,000 yuan and selling 100,000 vehicles at the same time.
At this moment, with the official entry of ET5, my answer has added another one: to reshape the pattern of the mid-level car market occupied by the joint venture luxury brand for a long time, and to do a smart electric vehicle brand that has never tried.
In fact, "5 is greater than 3" is always mentioned in the process of spreading on NIO Day 2021. The former number is well understood and refers to ET5. The latter number, in the eyes of some people, may be considered to be the tesla model 3, the biggest competitor on the same track.
As everyone knows, looking deeper, the same as a member of the intelligent electric vehicle, the fight between ET5 and Model 3, although inevitable, but more often the common enemy, or the traditional fuel vehicle. Therefore, the number "3" refers more to the BMW 3 Series, and even includes the Audi A4L and Mercedes-Benz C-Class.
In fact, according to the high-end car sales rankings released by the Association of Passenger Vehicles from January to November, the top two are not surprisingly occupied by the BMW 5 Series and BMW 3 Series. At the same time, in the top 10, no product of the smart electric vehicle brand has been seen.
Therefore, when the comprehensive strength is enough to compete with it, the support provided by the architecture is enough to give strength, whether IT7 or ET5, in multiple dimensions such as design, configuration, and sense of technology, it not only realizes the transcendence of luxury fuel cars such as BMW 5 Series and BMW 3 Series, but also successfully leads the design trend of autonomous driving flagship cars.
And the mission they shoulder is to make the above list appear in the above list next year, firmly occupy a place, and even impact the position of the pin crown. Judging from the current trend, the mission of change can only be undertaken by this new force car.
"One of the words we often say internally is NBA, and everyone says BBA. As we enter the high-end, for the replacement of high-end mainstream luxury fuel vehicles, we also hope that Weilai will join the ranks and turn the BBA pattern into an NBA pattern. ”
In the same interview, compared to Li Bin's modesty, Qin Lihong may be more sharp. There is nothing wrong with placing it at this moment of decisive battle that is about to begin. On the contrary, it may be that we have not seen the smart electric vehicle brand for too long, full of confidence to Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi declared war, so we feel at a loss.
At the end of the article, I want to emphasize again that the brand has been established for 7 years, and the arrival of ET5 is more like the best birthday gift for this new force to build a car. Looking back on the past, there are pains, regrets, losses, and unwillingness, but in the end they will be washed away by relief, surprise, excitement, and excitement.
Wei Lai, really grown up...
| Cui Liwen |
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