This article is from the WeChat public account "Sina Technology", author: Hua Zijian, editor: Han Dapeng, Pencil Road is published with permission.
Highlights:
1. Li Bin caused controversy after disclosing diss fuel vehicles. Sina Technology conducted a small-scale survey, and the results showed that in the 300,000 range, consumers still tend to choose fuel vehicles.
2. On many occasions, Li Bin always expressed that "Weilai's opponent is not Tesla, but BBA". But the reality is that most people still benchmark the Weilai eT5 with the Tesla Model 3, because the two positioning is the closest.
3, eT5 is the beginning of Weilai to put down the body, has been walking high-end to compare with BBA Weilai, and now finally turned to the track of volume.
Many people who have come into contact with Li Bin have a consistent impression of him, "He has the experience of media, investors and entrepreneurs, he knows what the media wants, and naturally what it will provide." ”
This can be seen as a kind of alternative frankness, in the impression of many Weilai car owners, Li Bin is also a person who is frank enough.
After the release of the Weilai eT5, Li Bin said a sentence in an interview - "I can't understand at all, why do you still buy it now, in addition to being able to smell some gasoline, what else is good?" Listen to the ring", if considered in this context, it is not surprising.
Perhaps he was also moved by the audience and weilai eT5 at that time. Many people at the scene, or see weilai eT5, sigh "this is an impulse that has not been seen in five years", referring to the time point is probably the release of Tesla Model 3 in 2016; or call eT5 "Weilai's annual kill, explosive debut".
This seems to have become part of NIO's car culture, and many people's emotions have been condensed for a long time and finally gushed out on the annual NIO Day.
In the face of the audience who brushed up on the circle of friends with a small value of 2,000 yuan, Qin Lihong echoed, "Overall, this is the car with the largest order volume ever in Weilai. The influx of orders once caused the WEILAI app to crash for more than 10 minutes. ”
NIO always likes to mention orders, but never says how many orders there are. Just like those who post small orders, there may not be many people who can post photos of themselves picking up their cars.
Make a BBA an NBA? Or the hard-hitting Model 3
At NIO Day in Chengdu in January 2021, Li Bin also had a surprising statement: Musk does not understand automatic driving.
When he said this, Li Bin could not help but be suspected of carrying smuggled goods. Because NIO just released a new NOP (Pilot Assisted Driving System) in September 2020. Unexpectedly, in less than a year, NOP has become a negative textbook for the popularization of autonomous driving technology.
In August 2021, a car owner surnamed Lin was driving his own Weilai eS8 on the Shenhai Expressway, and when the NOP was turned on, the vehicle had an accident, resulting in the death of the owner. This is also the first car accident fatal case of the new car-making forces. The case also led to Li's personal call for the regulation of the classification and terminology of autonomous driving.
This time, after Li Bin fired the cannon on the fuel car, he aimed the crosshairs at BMW, "We are very confident to fight with bmw, Mercedes-Benz, Audi oil cars, it is really not possible to buy BMW's electric vehicles, and do not buy BMW's oil cars." ”
Qin Lihong is more direct, "We hope that in the future, we can turn the BBA into the NBA." Combined with Li Bin's words, Mercedes-Benz may be trembling.
Comparable to BBA, it has always been the constant slogan of Weilai, from the beginning of the development of eS8, it is this goal within Weilai. Before nio day in Chengdu in January 2021, Qin Lihong said bluntly in the Weilai community that Weilai's first car eT7 was benchmarked against the BMW 7 Series.
On many occasions, Li Bin and Qin Lihong have never thought that Weilai's opponent is Tesla, and have always emphasized that the opponents are BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, which are fuel vehicles, and they are to grab market share from fuel vehicles together with other new energy vehicle brands.
It is not difficult to understand that the average invoice price of WEILAI is more than 350,000, which is higher than the price of the long-range model Y, which is currently the highest price on sale in the Chinese market. Weilai, which is bent on taking the high-end comparable to the BBA, naturally does not want to be pulled down to the same level as Tesla.
The eT5 is the beginning of Weilai's body.
Although Li Bin is still in denial, many people who watched the car on the spot regarded the car as a competitor to the Tesla Model 3. The eT5 with NIO Battery Rental Service (BaaS) is priced at just 258,000 yuan, slightly higher than the price of the Chinese-made Tesla standard endurance Model 3.
"The intention of the eT5 is very clear, to enter the mainstream mid-level sedan market, to differentiate the existing mainstream high-end brands and leading smart electric vehicle brands in this market share." In an interview after NIO Day, Qin Lihong said, "The eT5 is a comparison between the BMW 3 Series and the Tesla Model 3. ”
Pure electric vehicles in the same price range as the Weilai eT5, in addition to the Tesla Model 3, also include Xiaopeng's P7, Polar Fox's Alpha S, BYD Han EV and other models, in addition to the Alpha S that has just been delivered for a long time, the other three models are the main sales models of their respective brands.
Taking the Tesla Model 3 as an example, according to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, by the end of 2021, Tesla Model 3 sales in the Chinese market will be about 150,000 vehicles. In addition, official data shows that the cumulative sales of Xiaopeng P7 in 2021 exceeded 60,000 vehicles. From September to December 2021, BYD Han's EV series models sold more than 10,000 models for four consecutive months.
The sales of new energy cars in the price range of 200,000-300,000 continue to blowout, which is a market that is difficult for Weilai to ignore.
In particular, NIO is the only car company among several new car-making forces that does not have new models delivered in 2021. Although there are objective factors such as the transformation of the production line and the recurrence of the epidemic, there are no new models delivered, which has already had a certain impact on THE SALES OF WEILAI. If we continue to focus on high-priced models, it will be more difficult to attract consumers in 2022, when subsidies are declining.
Among the models delivered by NIO, the main force is still the eS6 released at the end of 2018 and the delivery began in mid-2019. In the fourth quarter of 2021, WEILAI's delivery volume not only lagged behind Xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile, but even surpassed by Nezha Automobile. In October and November, WEILAI's delivery volume stabilized at the fifth place in the list of new energy vehicles of domestic manufacturers.
From the perspective of boosting sales, Weilai's goal of "turning the BBA into an NBA" is still too far away. Sina Technology conducted a small-scale survey on "how to choose 300,000-priced fuel vehicles and pure electric vehicles without considering the license plate", and the results showed that consumers still tend to choose fuel vehicles.
Even if Li Bin is reluctant, for Weilai, it is the realistic goal to put down his body and Tesla's hardness.
Weilai sedan's tortuous four years
Because of the crisis of NIO's former capital chain, its car has undergone five years of twists and turns.
At the end of 2017, NIO began to discuss the sedan model internally to become the third product after the NIO eS8 and eS6. Starting from eS8, NIO will launch a new model every year, which is THE PRODUCT PLANNING ROUTE OF NIO.
At a seminar, the product department, based on preliminary estimates, believed that the car project would require an investment of about 5 billion yuan from project establishment to delivery. At that time, although Weilai's cash flow was still stable, there were still many voices inside who were worried that the project would have an impact on cash flow, including Qin Lihong. However, Li Bin still insists on advancing the car project, and he has only one goal, and Weilai needs a product that is eye-catching enough.
According to Li Bin's vision, this car will be the protagonist of 2020 NIO Day (actually held in Chengdu on January 7, 2021), with 5 billion yuan and 36 months to make it. After the project was established, the product department and the project department worked overtime to make a complete definition of the eT 7 project in just one month, which was 3-5 months shorter than the traditional OEM process.
But in the middle of 2018, NIO suddenly began planning a fourth model, code-named BT One, internally. In the planning, this is a more radical product than the FF91, and the product concept is ahead of the curve. Although the priority of the project is not particularly high, the emergence of this project is still surprising to many people.
The price of NIO's products triggered by this project is also worthy of attention. Some of the senior management of Weilai believe that since this car is so advanced, the price should be more than one million; others believe that the price of Weilai's eS6 and eS8 is already very high, and the price of the BT One project cannot be too aggressive, and the price should be around 300,000 yuan.
But even so, the eT 7 project has been steadily advancing. Until the end of 2018, the sound of the project may be stopped began to be heard internally, because the capital chain of Weilai was already very tight and could not cover the originally planned investment.
In September 2018, NIO successfully went public, but with the $1 billion Series D financing at the beginning of that year, NIO raised at least $2 billion in 2018. On the other hand, NIO's net loss in 2018 was as high as 23.328 billion yuan.
WEILAI has always insisted on high investment, "don't talk about cost, take the user as the center." "Although the amount of financing is high, NIO's operating costs are higher. The grand launch of eS8 and the 5 billion yuan investment of the eT7 project all highlight the arrogance of WEILAI in investment. Because of this, as early as the beginning of the project, some people worried that the project would eventually be abandoned because of the high investment.
At the time of THEO listing, the completion of the eT7 project was already quite high, the pre-planning and engineering scheme were preliminarily determined, and the supplier inquiry was introduced, the engineering feasibility analysis was carried out, and the eT Preview (weilai called the eT preview version) also came out. In March 2019, as long as Li Bin gave an order, the car could enter the mold opening stage, which also meant that it had mass production capabilities.
But what ended up waiting was an internal mailing of "project delays." Many people involved in the project understand that the so-called "delay" is just a euphemism, because the capital chain is tight, and WEILAI has no money to invest in this project. Also terminated was the BT One project.
On April 16, 2019, at the Shanghai Auto Show, NIO unveiled the eT Preview in the atrium of the exhibition area, and the onlookers were amazed. Although this show car does not have an interior style display, the product team has already set up the interior, and the UI and UX in the car have been completed by about 70%, which is more complete than many concept models.
However, the Weilai employees at the scene had mixed feelings in their hearts. Five days later, the news was reported that the eT7 project was shut down due to insufficient funds.
But in 2020, WEILAI still needs a new car. Therefore, in August 2019, Li Bin held a product meeting and clearly stated that "there must be a new car in 2020." "However, at that time, Weilai's cash flow was very tight, and it had begun to lay off employees in a large area.
This proposal is also opposed internally, and the most fierce opposition is Nick, vice president of finance of Weilai, who has always stressed to Li Bin that "there is no money". It can be said that he is one of the people who knows the financial situation of Weilai the most besides Li Bin. Unless he had to, he would not block Li Bin's plan.
But Weilai really can't come up with more money to continue to do the eT7 project, and there is no money and time to do another new car.
In the end, the product department proposed a money-saving and time-saving plan for Li Bin, that is, to make a change on the basis of eS6, with the B column as the dividing point, the B column remained basically unchanged before, and the B column was later changed to slip back. The eC 6 project was named Fury (from the film Fury starring Brad Pitt) and cost only $150 million to develop.
The pricing of this car also has two different voices internally: one is that the eS6 was not selling well at that time because it was too expensive, and it was at the same level as BMW X3 and Mercedes-Benz GRC in terms of price, but the Weilai brand was slightly inferior; the other was to add some configurations to the eC6, priced at more than 300,000, enhancing user perception.
At NIO Day in Shenzhen in December 2019, the car that was originally rumored to be unveiled did not appear, and was replaced by the eC6. At the end of September 2020, NIO eC6 began to be delivered.
It wasn't until January 2021, at NIO Day in Chengdu, that NIO's first car, the eT7, was finally unveiled. In December of the same year, the eT5, also based on the NT 2.0 platform, was considered to be a miniature version of eT7. Deliveries of the two sedans will begin in March and September 2022, respectively. In contrast, the eT5's cycle from release to delivery is 5 months shorter than that of the eT7.
Weilai, which chose to return to the mainstream price of the car, in addition to the urgency of increasing sales, may also lack enough confidence in the order volume of the first car, eT7.
At Nio's second-quarter earnings report meeting, Li Bin said that in 2022, three new models based on the NT2.0 technology platform, including eT7, will be delivered, and eT5 is the lowest price model of NIO, if the price is lower, NIO will enter with a new brand.
At the press conference on the development of the automobile industry in 2021, the data provided by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that the sales of new energy vehicles in China in 2021 reached 3.521 million units, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, ranking first in the world for 7 consecutive years, further indicating that China's new energy vehicle market has shifted from policy-driven to market-driven.
Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Automobile Association, predicts that China's new energy vehicle sales will reach 5 million in 2022, an increase of 42% year-on-year, and the market share is expected to exceed 18%. The Association gave a more optimistic forecast, raising its annual sales to 6 million units from the previous 5.5 million units.
In any case, as the market tends to be fully competitive, it is inevitable that growth will stabilize. The new car-making forces, including Weilai, can no longer take small steps and run fast, and must determine their own place in the market as soon as possible, and the amount of travel has become the only choice for the new car-making forces.
At the end of 2019, Weilai, which was in financial difficulty at the time, could only invite Deng Ziqi, and at the end of 2021, Weilai, which had tens of billions of cash in hand, invited Allan Walker. But on the contrary, Weilai, which has been going to the high end to compete with the BBA, has finally turned to the track of volume.