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Now into the new energy vehicle market, is it too late? Although as soon as a new brand comes out, this question will be asked again. But in fact, this problem is no longer a problem, for new brands, how to position is the key.
After all, with the advent of the era of intelligent electrification, many new brands are pouring into the market every year. Tesla and Wei Xiaoli, who poured into the car-making battlefield with a lot of enthusiasm in the early days, also proved with practical actions that in the new energy vehicle market, the high-end market seems to be easier to operate than the entry-level market, so that the later new forces 2.0 have focused on the high-end market.
But can the transformation of the high-end market be unfavorable? The answer is obviously no, and cases of failure abound, such as Byton, The Future, etc. Even Tesla and Wei Xiaoli, who are now infinitely beautiful, have struggled on the edge of life and death, and even now, it cannot be said that they have succeeded.
High-end models are difficult to walk, which is the truth that everyone understands. How to get more market recognition in the first round of cards is the key to determining the life and death of new forces. Zhiji Automobile, which has recently paid a lot of attention, has not hidden its ambition to conquer the high-end market since its debut at the Shanghai Auto Show last year.
As a new smart pure electric brand jointly funded by SAIC Motor, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech and Alibaba, Zhiji Automobile is young and mature.
Youngness is because of seniority. According to the data, on January 13, 2021, Zhiji Automobile was simultaneously released in Shanghai, China, CES in Las Vegas, usa, and London, England: high-end intelligent pure electric vehicle brand - IM Zhiji, and at the same time released two models that have been confirmed for mass production, pure electric sedan L7 and pure electric SUV LS7.
In April of the same year, the Zhiji L7 debuted and opened reservations at the Shanghai Auto Show, and in December of the same year, the first batch of Zhiji L7 Beta Experience Editions was delivered at SAIC's Lingang plant. According to the information disclosed in a recent interview by Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, it is expected that at the end of April, the first batch of mass-produced versions of zhiji L7 Pro will begin to be delivered.
Mature is experience, set SAIC Group, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech and Alibaba Group three companies strength, there is technology, capital, there is a scientific and technological reserves, zhiji auto "background" does not need to be questioned.
But can a good "origin" have a good market performance? What exactly does Zhiji L7 want to use to support its 400,000 yuan price? And how to persuade consumers to spend 400,000 yuan to buy a brand that is uncertain of life or death? And how to get the recognition of the capital market?
Only by answering these questions can this "newborn calf is not afraid of tigers" brand be able to take the first step to success. In this world, there is never a shortage of a good product, nor a good brand, in order to survive in the high-end intelligent electric market, it is impossible to do without its own "killer".
Advantages and innovations of the L7
On March 29, Zhiji Automobile announced the final price of the first mass-produced version of the Zhiji L7 Pro version of the model at 408,800 yuan, and opened the lock single link for angel wheel and A-round users. As a pure electric model positioned as a medium and large sedan, the price of 408,800 has entered the price range of luxury brands such as BBA.
Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, also said in an interview with reporters that this pricing anchor is some users of luxury brands. And what zhiji L7 wants to compete with luxury brand models, the answer he gives is "performance and handling".
Liu Tao said that when the first model was approved, he only proposed three hard indicators for the research and development team: one is the performance of the supercar; the second is the stunning appearance; and the third is the most human-like high-end intelligent driving assistance function.
This advantage of performance has recently been proved by data at the Shanghai Tianma Mountain Circuit. In the track challenge of the day, the Zhiji L7 with a wheelbase of up to 3.1 meters set a record of 1 minute, 12.94 seconds fastest lap time of 1 minute 12.94 in the original factory production electric vehicle. It is not easy for medium and large cars to run such results.
It is reported that Zhiji L7 adopts the front and rear dual permanent magnet synchronous motors, which can release 425kW/725Nm power, accelerate to 3.87 seconds per 100 kilometers, and reach more than 2 times the power of luxury fuel vehicles of the same level.
The matching chassis is specially tuned by the Williams Forward-Looking Engineering Team with F1 racing genes and top chassis tuning technology, using an all-aluminum chassis and a "front double wisharm + rear five-link" structure, at the same time, Zhiji L7 also has the unique "electrified four-wheel vector drive" technology of the same level, the rear wheel can achieve a two-way total of 12 ° super turning angle, and the minimum turning radius of the vehicle is only 5.4m, which is more flexible.
According to Liu Tao's words, "Don't look at the fact that he has more than 3 meters of wheelbase, but the turning radius is similar to Golf." ”
In addition, the "0.21Cd" drag coefficient, the "Brembo four-piston caliper", "Pirelli P Zero high-performance tires", these are also the "labels" of the Zhiji L7 high performance.
At the level of autonomous driving, the intelligent driver assistance technology (IM AD) of Zhiji L7 adopts a vision-based and radar-supplemented perception scheme: the hardware equipment includes NVIDIA Xavier, with a computing power of 30-60TOPS, 12 high-definition vision cameras, 5 millimeter-wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic radars.
Compatible with the redundancy scheme of lidar hardware and software architecture, namely Nvidia Orin X, with a computing power of "500-1000+TOPS", and equipped with 3 lidars, it can achieve the Advanced Driver Assistance Driving Capability of Doorto Door Pilo T.
According to zhiji's official introduction: "IM AD adopts the underlying logic of the whole process data drive, through massive data reflow, annotation, training and updating models, efficiently solves the problem of low probability long tail of intelligent driving, and enables the vehicle to automatically iterate." ”
The ability and data source of IM AD's underlying data analysis and processing come from Ali. Relying on Alibaba Cloud's supercomputing platform, Zhiji not only has the ability to process data, but also can upgrade the database in real time to complete the system upgrade.
Judging from these data, Zhiji L7 has the "hardware" conditions to enter the medium and large luxury car market, but the challenge has just begun.
The 400,000+ high-end new energy market is also rolled in
It is an indisputable fact that the "inner volume" of today's 400,000-level high-end new energy vehicle market is also very serious.
The Zhiji L7 and NIO ET7 in the medium and large luxury pure electric sedan market; the ideal L9 in the large SUV market; the ideal ONE, Lantu FREE and Xiaopeng G9 in the medium and large SUV market; and the Lantu Dreamer and the unnamed Krypton new car in the medium and large MPV market, etc.
The higher the homogenization of the product, the greater the competitive pressure in the market.
Therefore, we can see that Zhiji Automobile in Shanghai, even at the moment when the epidemic in Shanghai is so severe, is still intensively carrying out the final sprint before delivery.
At present, Zhiji L7 is a big competitor of Weilai ET7, in order to make up for the lack of brand power, Zhiji Automobile has made concessions in pricing. The Zhiji L7 Pro is priced at 408,800, and the starting price of the ET7 is close to 450,000.
In order to show the sincerity of users, Zhiji L7 Zhiji also provides angel round customers with a lifetime free IM AD rights, for A round customers, the first three years IM AD is free to use, and in the fourth year, it can be directly bought out with a price of 8800 yuan or user data rights. The NAD intelligent driving function of NIO ET7 adopts a service subscription model, "opened monthly and paid monthly". The user will incur a long-term additional overhead.
In addition, Zhiji also promised to give users a free benefit package of 3,000 kWh electricity every year, which can be exchanged for crystals if used up; the vehicle warranty also provides two options for lifetime and 8 years and 240,000 kilometers, and the latter will also come with 20,000 crystals.
These "crystals" can not only be exchanged for brand peripherals, but also can be exchanged for chips in the process of future product upgrades (batteries, lidar, etc.), which is equivalent to the hard currency of "rmb" in the intellectual world.
These are the most intuitive offers. But even so, whether the Zhiji L7 can tear open the cracks of 400,000 luxury medium and large cars is still uncertain.
After all, in the past year, consumers do not know much about Zhiji L7, from product pre-sale to official delivery, product promotion has experienced a long period of empty window. Coupled with the uncertainty of the current epidemic, test driving activities may also encounter obstacles, and how to better convey product advantages and brand confidence to the media and users is facing greater challenges.
Secondly, the construction of infrastructure construction, including experience stores, delivery centers, after-sales service and charging network expansion, etc., these are still much more promising than the new power brands such as Weilai and Xiaopeng.
It can be said that the pit that Wei Xiaoli has traveled through, and Zhiji is likely to have to do it again, but the "window period" and tolerance given by the market are not as good as before. Zhi ji must hurry up and whip in order to get the final spot before the "closing".
epilogue
New cars have entered the second half finals, how can late-starter traditional car companies compete? The answer given to us by zhiji L7 is the combination of strong and powerful, and the breakthrough of technology.
From the perspective of products alone, backed by SAIC, Ali, and Zhangjiang Technology, Zhiji L7 has a very high starting point in the field of product strength and intelligence. Whether or not the ideal market feedback can be obtained depends on the reputation of the first batch of angel wheel users, which is not only a test of product strength, but also a test of whether Zhiji Automobile can cope with market adjustment in the post-epidemic era in terms of service and marketing.