Xiao Peng, must "gamble" again

Lead

Introduction

The development of any emerging industry will experience various adjustments, changes and even swings. As for the final result? Time will tell.

Author 丨 Cui Liwen

Responsible editor 丨 Cui Liwen

Editor 丨Zhu Jinbin

"Building a car is like a big gamble, as long as you get on the gambling table, what do you get when you die?"

As early as a few months ago, when writing the year-end inventory of the new forces, such a sentence became the main theme of the entire group of manuscripts. Indeed, for several head members who have taken the lead in achieving a breakthrough, after experiencing the darkest moments of 2019 and the rebirth of Nirvana in 2020, 2021 is undoubtedly a smooth and promising year.

With the rapid expansion of China's new energy market, they have also gained enough considerable quantitative changes and end-user recognition. After winning the game for a while, everything is moving towards the bright light.

Among them, Xiaopeng Automobile has undoubtedly become the most typical representative.

As an argument, in addition to the delivery level to surpass Weilai in one fell swoop, to win the new force to build the car "sales crown", P7 under the pressure of Model 3 did not sink, but the heat gradually increased; NGP high-speed pilot auxiliary function after the launch, harvested positive feedback from many car owners; "rushing work" Xiaopeng G9 debuted, applause is greater than questioning, are its biggest gains in the past year.

Unexpectedly, since entering 2022, due to some well-known force majeure, the general environment has undergone a completely unpredictable mutation, which in turn has caused a series of chain reactions such as the pace of promotion and dissemination being seriously disrupted, the surge in production costs for the models on sale, and the huge fluctuations in terminal sales.

Obviously, in order to resolve the current dilemma, it is time to make another "big gamble" and seek a breakthrough to a certain extent. As everyone knows, on May 6, Beijing time, Xiaopeng officials suddenly announced several adjustments to car purchase policies, which immediately triggered discussions in the entire industry.

First of all, on the basis of the original product matrix, several new models were added, including: P7 625E priced at 285,900 yuan, P7 480E+ priced at 262,900 yuan, P7 586G priced at 259,900 yuan, P7 480G+ priced at 239,900 yuan, and P5 460P priced at 209,900 yuan.

At the same time, the price adjustment of P5 550P and P5 600P, which were already on sale, rose to 225,900 yuan and 249,900 yuan respectively.

Seeing this, there will inevitably be readers who are confused about Xiaopeng's slightly cumbersome and complex naming system, and do not understand what the numbers and capital letters behind the model name represent.

To put it simply, the number in front corresponds to the mileage under the comprehensive working conditions of the model, and the letters in the back represent the auxiliary driving ability that the model can achieve, and decrease step by step in the order of "P, E, N, G".

For example, P models support XPILOT 3.5 hardware system, which can realize urban NGP and other functions; E models support XPILOT 3.0 hardware systems, which can achieve high-speed NGP and other functions; N models support XPILOT 2.5 hardware systems, which can realize ACC+LCC and light lane changes; G models only support basic functions similar to fixed-speed endurance.

And it should be noted that the software systems required for the above-mentioned respective driving assistance functions have long required corresponding payment to open, with the P version of the model being 25,000 yuan and the E version of the model being 20,000 yuan.

This also leads to the second main content of this car purchase policy adjustment, which is also the most important one in my opinion: starting from May 9, Xiaopeng will be equipped with a driver assistance software system as standard, and will no longer take the form of charging.

In other words, in the future, as long as the corresponding model purchased by the user has a hardware system of XPILOT 3.0 or XPILOT 3.5 or even higher, the software will also be donated directly.

In fact, when the era of intelligent electric vehicles gradually came, in the originally recognized business logic, enterprises with corresponding technical reserves have "made money" through the software subscription system, which has long been one of their respective profit points.

Last year, I vaguely remember that in the Q1 earnings conference call, He Xiaopeng also disclosed that the XPILOT 3.0 payment rate had exceeded 20% at that time. But this year, electric vehicles collectively ushered in a "wave of price increases", which has become an indisputable fact. Prior to this, Xiaopeng also inevitably followed up.

It is precisely based on such a background that if the original software payment system continues to be adopted, it will inevitably increase the cost of car purchase for potential consumers to a greater extent, and the terminal order volume is likely to increase but decline.

Therefore, choosing to be free and open, from the perspective of Xiaopeng, on the one hand, can balance the difference brought about by this round of price adjustment; on the other hand, it can also greatly improve the loading rate and penetration rate of its high-end auxiliary driving system, and further increase the share occupied by the terminal, thus forming a feedback on the brand and sales level.

However, in the adjustment of this car purchase policy, there is also a more pessimistic one: from May 9, Xiaopeng New Car will no longer provide free charging services of 1,000 degrees per year and free household charging piles and installation rights, and the cost of subsequent installation of private charging piles will be 4,000 yuan.

To be sure, the above adjustment can already reflect the pressure of this new force to build cars, from the manufacturing cost side, otherwise it would not have made such a decision.

At the end of the article, it is more important to say that the development of any emerging industry will experience various adjustments, changes and even swings. Compared with the reduction of rights and interests in the energy supplement dimension, Xiaopeng's choice to open the assisted driving software system for free is undoubtedly the "big gamble" mentioned above.

As for the result, did it hurt some of the old car owners who have already chosen to pay? Or do you get positive feedback from enough new users? In the midst of endless debate, I believe that time will give the answer.

Finally, I still can't help but ask, from a personal point of view, how do you judge the series of operations that Xiaopeng has sacrificed? See in the comments section...

| Cui Liwen |

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