This article is from the WeChat public account: Judge Old Driver (ID: panguansays), author: Judge, title picture from: Visual China
The day after Xiaomi released the Mi 14, I predicted in the article "Xiaomi Launches a New Machine, Fruitful" that Xiaomi's first car will be tributed to Model S and Porsche Taycan:
I really know Mr. Lei so well.
Mr. Lei also understands me very well and blocked my Weibo.
As an old fan who has insisted on caring for Xiaomi and Mr. Lei since Mi1, we can't miss such a big event as Xiaomi making cars.
Although the launch of this "Mi Shijie" is still far away, according to Xiaomi's practice, all parameters must be far ahead, so that yesterday's press conference copywriting was full of various extreme words, and the advertising law was called an expert.
I don't really care about the technical details. As we all know, I have never lost in parameters. I'm sure you, like me, are most concerned about the pricing strategy of this car.
Of course, Mr. Lei also knew that everyone cared about this, so he sold Guan Zi very considerately. Otherwise, how to convince executives overnight during the official press conference?
Interestingly, at the press conference, Mr. Lei focused on the integrated casting equipment called "super large die casting", which claims to be able to provide 9,100 tons of clamping force, which is 100 tons more than the most advanced equipment of competitors.
I am also convinced that Mr. Lei is facing far more pressure than 9,100 tons in the matter of building cars, especially in terms of pricing strategy. Because, the matter of building a car is a super big bet by Mr. Lei.
Mold is an indispensable basic industrial equipment in the manufacturing industry, and it is used to efficiently and mass-produce parts and parts in industrial products, so it is also known as the "mother of industry".
Speaking of the basics, Xiaomi's "mold" is his mobile phone business. All of Xiaomi's software and hardware businesses have grown out of the mobile phone business.
But this business has not been smooth over the years, and the reasons I have analyzed many times before include many factors such as brand, channel, technology, and geopolitics.
Even, in Huawei's most unsuccessful years, Xiaomi failed to eat much of the market ceded by Huawei's mobile phone business.
is as shrewd as thunder, and is also thinking about Xiaomi's way out of the mobile phone business:
It is not enough to rely on power banks and power strips, and there are no moats for household appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners.
In the field of civilian manufacturing, only automobiles are more complex than mobile phones, and only automobiles are civilian products that are larger than mobile phones.
What's more, Weilai and Xiaopeng, which Mr. Lei have voted in, have already made proofs in front, and Musk on the other side of the ocean has also become an Apple in the field of electric vehicles.
loves to benchmark Xiaomi, which is the first in the industry, and making a car has become the only choice.
However, in the past three years since Xiaomi entered the car industry, the automotive industry has gradually become bloody, and the degree of involution is comparable to that of the mobile phone market.
On the one hand, traditional car companies have transformed into new energy, and on the other hand, new forces are catching up.
There is also a volume king like Huawei, which has also set its sights on the automotive business after the mobile phone business has suffered a heavy blow.
In the first half of this year, traditional oil vehicles began to play a price war, and in the second half of the year, new energy vehicles began to reduce prices and grab land.
Then Xiaomi's first car is a sedan again, which belongs to the hardest hit area of models with price reductions and trampling.
This kind of "Misjie", which is listed at this moment, will be violently beaten by full-level players from all walks of life before it leaves the novice village.
Why is everyone staring at Xiaomi's selling price?
Because the stereotype of the brand Xiaomi has been formed. Xiaomi should build a cheap car, and even Xiaomi's first car should be an old man.
Even if the SU7 is a car with a full configuration, 199,800 make a friend, and 299,800 "rely on the defense".
As far as I know, Mr. Lei gave a dead order this fall: the high-end of the Xiaomi brand should be completed within three years.
Each business has its own tasks and decomposes strategies. It doesn't matter how to do it, anyway, Mr. Lei is determined to get rid of Xiaomi's low-end brand positioning.
Mr. Lei personally grasped the car-making business, and he must not drop the chain at this time.
Careful veterans must have noticed that at yesterday's press conference, Mr. Lei never mentioned "cost performance", which has never been the case at Xiaomi's conference for many years.
So the question is here: for the time being, I think that the starting price is 300,000, which is considered a high-end ticket for the Xiaomi brand, but how many customers can recognize it?
If the starting price is 200,000 yuan, or even 159,800 yuan, rice noodles are happy, but selling a car eats up the profits of hundreds of mobile phones, and what is even worse is that there is no play in high-end.
Cost is a thing that only looks at two things in the manufacturing industry: technology and scale. The more advanced the technology, the larger the shipment scale and the lower the cost.
What's worse is that the time window is also closing. If the car cannot be delivered in the first quarter of next year, the car will not have to be sold.
Xiaomi can't afford to lose when it comes to building a car. It is necessary to float the brand again, but it cannot be lost. It is unlikely that the first car will make money, but it can't even be put into the mobile phone business, and the first shot must be fired.
It's hard, it's so hard.
So what if you compromise and start at about 250,000?
Let's go to any 4S store and ask, whether it is new energy or oil vehicles, to see what the discount has become recently.
250,000 is not only high or low, but also will be swept to death by friends.
Cars are different from cell phones. If you have a high mobile phone and can still play games, what do you want to do if your car has high performance? How many people are willing to pay a premium for high performance?
Most car shoppers are just a substitute. What intelligent cockpit, assisted driving, zero hundred acceleration, if these things are really more important than price, there is no way to explain BYD's sales dominance in recent years.
Finally, if you ask me how much the starting price of the SU7 is appropriate, I can't say. If you want to balance the cost, brand, and selling price, it is too difficult for the current Xiaomi.
And, Xiaomi's sales and after-sales network are not optimistic at present, where will everyone pick up the car when the time comes?
Mr. Lei gambled on everything from Xiaomi in the matter of building a car, and I admire it. Next, as Xiaomi continues to show its chips and hole cards, I will continue to pay attention to the follow-up of Xiaomi's first car.
After all, I am not very confident in the environment of selling cars next year.
Judge: Senior Product Manager, WeChat public account: Judge Old Driver (ID: panguansays)
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