It is rumored that in the early days of Weilai, when Li Bin sought financing from Lei Jun, the latter intended to let Xiaomi invest, but Li Bin refused.
In March 2015, Shunwei Capital participated in the A round of investment of NIO Automobile, and in July 2016, it continued to support NIO's Series B financing.
It is interesting to note that Shunwei Capital was founded by Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Group.
As we all know, Xiaomi has locked up with the "cost performance" label.
There are also rumors that a certain executive of Weilai took photos of the ES8 sample car that was not officially listed at that time and sent it to the circle of friends, which caused Li Bin to be dissatisfied, because the reason was: "The photos disseminated by Weilai must be good-looking and refined."
The anecdotes circulating in the car circle are half-true and half-false, but looking at the essence through the phenomenon, people can't help but sigh: "Independent brands really fight hard in order to stand firm and high-end."
01
Why do independent brands fight so hard?
Since Tesla entered China in 2013, the wave of electric vehicles has begun to sweep.
Compared with foreign countries, Chinese brands have responded very quickly to the wave of electric vehicles.
In 2014, there was no second and third Tesla in foreign countries, and domestic electric vehicle brands have mushroomed.
In the 8 years of domestic bucket rolls, what degree has the independent brand reached?
From January to March this year, the ideal ONE sold 31,716 units, an increase of 152.1% year-on-year compared with January-March last year.
In addition to the Tesla Model Y, the rest are veteran players of traditional luxury brands, namely Mercedes-Benz GLC, BMW X3 and Audi Q5.
With an average monthly sales volume of 10,000+ and an average price of more than 340,000, the ideal ONE has become a fragrant feast that has both sales and can support "high-end luxury".
Weilai is known as "pet fans", they independently position the consumer population, with user experience and user ecology to shape the sense of "high-end luxury".
Nio's proud cow house is the most important place to connect with car owners.
Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, said: "In the past, in the present, and in the future, the moat of NIO is a user."
Last year, in the high-end luxury category track, the "like to create" HiPhi X successfully ran out.
From January to March this year, the HiPhi X delivered 550, 355 and 459 vehicles respectively, once again surpassing luxury brands such as Porsche and Mercedes-Benz and winning the first place in the sales list of luxury brand electric vehicles.
With the marketing slogan of "crushing Porsche", Gaohe has indeed created a wave for itself.
In order to stand in a high-end position, brands have done everything in their power.
Why did they get together to eat this cake?
First of all, the cake of the high-end car market is getting bigger and bigger.
Since the beginning of 2018, under the background of three consecutive years of negative growth in China's passenger car market, the luxury car market has maintained an average growth rate of about 11%, reflecting the trend of "rising against the trend".
According to data from the China Automobile Association, high-end brand passenger car sales in 2021 will be 3.472 million units, an increase of 20.7% year-on-year, and consumption upgrades are making the domestic high-end car market share continue to rise.
In April, Volkswagen CFO Arnold Antriz said that Volkswagen intends to focus on the high-end car business with higher profits in the future.
Brand upward and high-end, at this stage has become the only way for independent brands to survive in the automobile market.
Secondly, it is the independent brands that have discovered the "get rich routine" of high-end luxury brands.
Tesla as a successful model, let the later brands continue to "copy the work", Xiaopeng P7 positioning is directly benchmarked Tesla Model 3.
When Tesla entered the Chinese market in 2013, it also focused on high-end luxury positioning.
Since 2018, Tesla has begun to sacrifice the production of Model S and Model X to increase the delivery of Model 3, although at that time, the Model S was Tesla's key model.
At that time, everyone did not understand Musk's "strategy". By the end of the second quarter of 2021, the Tesla Model 3 became the world's first electric vehicle to sell more than one million.
What was once a "rich toy" became a "street car" .
Musk said: The problem is not big. Whether it's X or Y, what can sell money is a good car.
The core purpose of shaping the brand upward and high-end is actually to lay a premium foundation and ability for the later mass production cars.
At this stage, the automotive market is divided into three routes:
1. Sub-brands of traditional automobile groups represented by Daimler Benz and BMW group BMW. From top to bottom, the joint venture brand has successfully achieved high-end brand;
2. Emerging foreign electric vehicle brands represented by Tesla. From top to bottom, as a benchmark for electric vehicles, global sales have exceeded one million;
3. Domestic independent brands represented by Weilai, Ideal and Gaohe. Has been based on the high-end, between the downward probe and the no-dip to test the market;
In order to share more market share, traditional luxury brands have conducted product exploration.
Some people don't despise luxury brand starter cars, but others think it's "really fragrant".
"Some features or configurations may shrink accordingly, but without compromising the tonality of the surface," they say. If the cost of repair and maintenance can be reduced again, and a Dongfeng Nissan and a BMW are in front of me, why don't I choose BMW?"
BMW and Tesla know the consumer psyche: No one can turn down a luxury car of two or three hundred thousand.
In essence, their business path is the same: there are million luxury cars such as BMW Seven Series and Model S as flagships, and there are entry-level models that sell 200,000 to 300,000 to make a lot of money.
Has been high independent brands, Wei said will not produce cars below 400,000, the ideal L9 price is also straight to the 45-500,000 range, Gaohe has released three high-end models.
According to Musk's belief in the "first principles", I am afraid that he also borrowed the work of BBA to pave the way for Tesla.
Nowadays, independent brands have understood the routine of getting rich of high-end luxury brands, and it is only a matter of time before they end up together.
02
Our distance from "high-end" and "luxury"
Replicating the way of luxury veterans "holding high and playing low", independent brands have made a good start.
However, from the perspective of product attributes, the distinction between independent brand electric vehicles and traditional old fuel vehicles is self-evident, not to mention the definition of "high-end luxury"?
According to the definition of the association, according to the starting market guidance price, it is a high-end car above 300,000 yuan.
Luxury is high-end, but high-end is not necessarily luxurious.
Regarding the definition of luxury cars, since German cars were the first to joint venture with China and occupy a certain market, we mostly use the German classification method:
Luxury car is the English translation of Luxury Cars or Limousine, usually referring to the D-Class car.
Conventional D-class cars typically have a wheelbase of more than 3000mm and an engine displacement greater than 3.0 litres.
With the differentiation of traditional luxury brands and the advent of the era of electric vehicles, the boundaries of the luxury car market have become increasingly blurred.
Tesla as a representative, with a "sense of technology" and "trendy design", broke the solidified impression of "high-end luxury" in people's minds.
Luxurious appearance and interior, superior performance is no longer just needed and key selling points, intelligence has become a more important indicator to measure whether electric vehicles are "high-end".
Shi Pengze, head of retail business development and user service at Audi China, believes that today's customers value the modern luxury of the future. The classic value, craftsmanship spirit and high-quality touch of traditional luxury brands are important, but they must have high technology, otherwise they will become "old-fashioned luxury".
Audi CFO ArnoAntlitz said Audi will invest 35 billion euros in electrification and digitalization over five years, of which 17 billion euros will be used for future technology research and development.
As a traditional luxury brand with the label of "technology", Audi is more likely to make strategic adjustments in line with the trend. Another traditional luxury brand has a different focus on "high-end luxury".
BMW Group CEO Chiptzer once commented: "Tesla does not belong to the high-end market, they have achieved very strong sales growth by cutting prices, and we will not do this for the sake of the longer term."
"What makes us different is our standards in terms of quality and reliability. We have higher expectations for customer satisfaction." He also puned on the flaws in Tesla's product quality and service.
Some auto analysts expressed their views on independent brands: "The high-end of independent brands does not equal luxury, it is a subdivision between ordinary brands and luxury brands."
Whether Tesla and independent brands are high-end luxury brands or not is due to the difference in the understanding of "high-end luxury" between traditional brands and emerging independent brands.
Li Bin believes: "High-end is not pricing, but service and quality. If the service and word of mouth are done, they can be positioned."
NIO focuses on user service, while Gaohe opens the high-end market with the concept of "technology luxury".
Ding Lei believes: "It is necessary to use luxury and technology to meet the more personalized needs of users, and create with users, so as to subvert the competitive landscape of the high-end electric vehicle market."
Avita takes a different approach, with CEO Tan Benhong arguing:
"Luxury" products may satisfy consumers' momentary vanity, but they often expect symbols of personification, so Avita takes "emotion" and "understanding you" as the starting point of high-end luxury positioning.
The definition of "luxury" by traditional luxury brands often lies in terms of brand and technology, including material texture, design quality, NVH, driving quality and so on.
The emerging luxury brands take Tesla as an example, and its definition has risen from the traditional experience demand to the level of thinking, which is a comprehensive measurement of services, intelligence, technology, responsibility and other dimensions.
Judging from the existing judging standards, the independent brands of electric vehicles are already "high-end", and "luxury" still needs time to precipitate.
03
Why we need it
A local high-end luxury car brand?
In fact, in the era of fuel vehicles, independent brands have tried to impact the high-end, but the results are not satisfactory.
Consumers often have a preconceived impression of independent brands, after all, they have always been building cars of more than 100,000 or less, and suddenly want to build 300,000 or 400,000 cars, who is willing to pay?
The bottom-up road is destined to be very difficult.
In 2009, Chery launched two high-end brands, Ruiqi and Weilin. However, at that time, Chery and the Chinese auto market could not support the ambition of Chinese auto brands to impact the high-end car market, and finally ended hastily.
At that time, major brands released more than 200,000 "high-end" models to impact the market, such as Dongfeng A9, Great Wall Haval H9, Changan CS95, did not stir up too much splash.
In 2017, the Great Wall had a Haval brand to gain a foothold and launched WEY in line with the trend. Lynk & Co has Volvo's fame bonus, and it has also attracted much attention for a while.
Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, even made a bold statement that year: "WEY's product power can completely compete with BMW X3."
However, the data shows that in the first four months of 2021, Great Wall Motor's WEY brand sold 29,000 units, far behind the 72,700 units sold by competitor Geely's Lynk & Co.
On the major car complaint websites, WEY brand owners have also reported a series of accessory problems encountered, including engines, car noise, gearboxes, central controls, doors and other different faults.
In addition to the core technology can not keep up, the influence of consumers on the "low-end" and "poor quality" solidification ideas of domestic brands.
At that time, consumers were not as confident as they are now in "Made in China" and "National Tide", coupled with the long-term encroachment of traditional luxury brands such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi on the domestic market, which led to the failure of domestic fuel vehicle brands to impact the high-end.
Think back to the high-end luxury car brands in various countries:
Ashkenazi has Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi;
Japanese have Infiniti, Lexus;
The American system is Cadillac and Lincoln.
Every country has its own high-end luxury car brand, but China is vacant, or rather, not enough.
The red flag that is most qualified to be called "China's high-end luxury brand", the high starting point of the "official car" did not make it stand, but gradually drifted away.
Hongqi's 2017 reform launched low-price models H7 and H5, which directly pulled the million-level product positioning down to more than 100,000 "" Products and services could not keep up, and repeated complaints were made; with online ride-hailing cars to increase sales and other operations, the image of Hongqi became more and more depressed.
Brands do not exist in isolation, to a certain extent, they represent the ceiling of the country's comprehensive capabilities.
The significance of creating a local electric vehicle luxury brand is not to be luxurious for the sake of luxury, but to prove that it has the ability to create high-end, and at the same time create local car culture, it can create and output value.
Qin Lihong publicly stated in last year's NIO Day 2021:
"We often say NBA internally, and with our replacement of mainstream high-end fuel vehicles, we hope that WEILAI should improve to this level and turn the BBA pattern into an NBA pattern."
Weilai's expectations for itself are also our expectations for our own brands.
We want to go out, just like the BBA went to China.
04
How to build a high-end luxury electric vehicle brand?
"As a new brand, the price is close to the luxury brand, we provide new experience, new value, new performance, new configuration including new technology, must be far more than the original traditional luxury brand, consumers will give you a choice." 」 Zhiji CEO Liu Tao said.
The implication is that there is no short board, but also a long board.
Compared with traditional brands, independent brands lack historical precipitation. In this case, it can only be broken through user services and product technology.
First of all, it is necessary to identify the real high-end users in China, circle the people that the brand should serve, and establish a brand label.
Some Tesla owners have said that when Tesla first entered China, driving on the road will be "polite", meet other Tesla owners at the gas station, and each other will take the initiative to get off the car and talk.
When Audi promotes its brand and products, it chooses to use "Premium" (premium) instead of the more straightforward Luxury (luxury).
"Because when it comes to high-end or luxury, it's not just about the product itself." It [brand] already represents an identity or a way of life."
Zhang Junyi, global managing partner of Oliver Ypresent and former founding and managing partner of NIO, said.
Different luxury brands have their own label attributes, such as Mercedes-Benz main luxury comfort, Audi main sense of technology, BMW main control, Volvo main safety.
Users buy not only a car, but also a "lifestyle" behind the brand label.
Second, it is to focus on user experience. What is directly related to the user experience is the product power.
It's easy to fall into the "pile-up" misunderstanding here.
The real strength of the product can not be achieved by stacking materials, but by relying on its own core technology to improve the user experience. For example, the in-car audio and smart cockpit will be the focus of the brand.
The product is better than that of traditional luxury brands: "I think it is more tragic and more helpless to spend more than 400,000 plus taxes to buy BBA users close to 500,000." Liu Tao said, "(Zhiji L7) from the perspective of configuration level, from the perspective of design luxury experience, from the perspective of performance, it is far beyond the 5 Series."
The product really pays attention to the user experience: "High-end luxury is no longer the exclusive property of some traditional big brands. As long as young brands pay close attention to design innovation and user experience, they can still create high-end luxury products that are favored by users." Tan Benhong said.
The needs, experiences and product capabilities of users are closely related.
"Users can truly appreciate the spiritual value that the product really brings to him, and can also appreciate the experience and co-creation value that the product really brings to him in the process of use." Ding Lei has repeatedly emphasized the importance of user experience.
The third is the quality of service.
In the era of electric vehicles, the sales model of automobiles has changed.
In the previous car purchase model, after the consumer purchased the car, in addition to maintenance, he rarely returned to the sales showroom to communicate with the brand side.
However, the owners of Weilai will take the initiative to participate in various activities in the cow house, and even apply to come to the store as volunteers on weekends to do voluntary explanations for friends who watch the car.
Users actively participate in the activities of the brand side, indicating that users have a high degree of liking for the brand. The positive reviews of old users will positively affect the experience of new users.
In addition, everything for independent brands starts from scratch, and the direct sales channels are transparent and efficient compared with the huge and complicated dealer system of traditional brand BBA.
The advantages of information symmetry, unified price and direct connection to users are more conducive to brand operation management and improve service quality.
When the connection between users and brands becomes deeper and deeper, the service content of the brand is not only "selling the car", but also the communication with the user before and after the sale is the embodiment of the quality of the brand's service.