Li Xiang confessed his mistake for the 500,000 "highway high-speed rail".

01, Li Xiang's "review book"

If you want to say that since the beginning of the year, who is the most traffic and hot search physique, there are probably only two cars that can compete.

One is Xiaomi SU7, Lei Jun has been sharpening a sword for three years, from the technical conference, to paying tribute to friends, and then to triggering the whole network to guess the pricing...... It has done enough warm-up for the launch of new cars. The other is the ideal pure electric MPV model - MEGA.

This MPV, which is called "highway high-speed rail" by netizens, has been full of controversy since it was born. Although it is regarded as the first shot of Li Auto to enter the pure electric market, it has not been able to enter the high-speed development lane with ideal sales like high-speed rail.

With the traffic blessing of Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, MEGA has almost become an Internet celebrity product that "thunders but doesn't rain".

More than half a month has passed since the Ideal MEGA press conference, but the official data has only been announced once: after the start of delivery on March 11, the first full delivery week delivery exceeded 1,000. It wasn't until March 21 that Li Xiang took out a letter to all employees, which was a "real hammer" for MEGA's unfavorable start.

In the letter, Li Xiang reviewed the problem that happened to MEGA in March. "This is our misjudgment of the rhythm of the pure electric strategy. He wrote.

Li Xiang said frankly that MEGA itself is a stage from 0 to 1, but it is treated as a stage from 1 to 10. As a result, the sales team's service quality to the company's main L-series users has declined, and even the location of the store has to make way for MEGA.

Second, the whole company paid too much attention to the sales and competition of MEGA from top to bottom, but ignored the product value, and did not give full play to the user value and management efficiency that it is best at. "The pursuit of desire makes us become the person we hate. Li Xiang said.

If you find a problem, you need to solve it in time. Li Xiang's solution is to first operate MEGA according to the rhythm from 0 to 1, focus on the core user group, concentrate on large retail centers in head cities for product experience and test drive, and accelerate the construction of supercharging stations in these areas, first complete the transition from 0 to 1, and then seek full flowering.

In fact, before the release of this all-staff letter, the whole network had already felt Li Xiang's low pressure.

Since MEGA's release on March 1, it has sparked a heated discussion among users, filled with a lot of frustration from users and criticism of MEGA's appearance.

According to "Late Auto", the expected order for MEGA within 24 hours was originally about 3,000 units, but only half of it was actually reached. Within half a month of the launch of the new car, there were only 4,000 orders, which did not reach the factory's production capacity of 5,000 units this month.

In the face of many spoofs and user unsubscribing, Li Xiang, who is good at the war of words, did not choose to fight against crime on Weibo, but posted on the circle of friends on March 11 that the ideal is to be attacked by some people in an organized manner, and he is determined to protect his rights and interests by legal means. At that time, he said, "After careful consideration, we decided to start fighting back, using light to fight back against darkness", but after more than ten days of painful thinking, Li Xiang chose to point the problem at himself.

After the "review" was announced, Li Auto issued an announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, saying that due to sales orders falling short of expectations, the company now expects vehicle deliveries in the first quarter of 2024 to be 76,000~78,000 units. Previously, the company's outlook was to complete the delivery of 100,000~103,000 units.

02. Behind the overturn of the most bullish "product manager".

As the first product of Li Auto to enter the pure electric market, not only the company has high hopes for MEGA, but the market is also full of expectations.

The most eye-catching of the many attacks on MEGA is nothing more than saying that it resembles a "hearse", but the honey of A is arsenic, and the arsenic of B. Some people think that the appearance of MEGA is unlucky, but in the eyes of some users, it does not lose its sense of futurism and uniqueness, and the appearance is a plus. MEGA is not a good player, and appearance is not an Achilles' heel.

A clear example is that funeral homes across the country still use specially modified Buick GL8 as hearses, but this has not affected its position in the MPV market in the slightest. According to the statistics of Chedi, in 2023, the terminal sales of Buick GL8 will reach 118906 units, ranking first in MPV sales for 23 consecutive years.

An industry insider also expressed a similar view on the "city boundary": "What kind of hearse, everyone is just ridiculing, the core problem still comes from the product itself." ”

The most feedback from the market for MEGA, which is priced at 559,800 yuan, is that it can't understand its positioning. The MEGA is known to be about 5.35 meters long, but such a large car has given up the rear-wheel steering function.

It is important to know that rear-wheel steering allows the rear wheels of the car to steer at a certain angle like the front wheels, thereby reducing the turning radius and making it easier to turn or make a U-turn. Generally speaking, rear-wheel steering is just needed on large-size MPVs, which is nearly 200,000 yuan cheaper than MEGA and is relatively smaller in size Xpeng X9.

In this regard, Hou Yue, the person in charge of the L series products of Li Auto, once explained that the production and research team had demonstrated the rear-wheel steering at the beginning of the project, and at that time, it mainly considered the impact of the three-row riding space and the selection of front and rear motors on driving stability. They believe that rear-wheel steering is good for the driver, but not friendly to third-row passengers.

Although the designer has his own considerations, it has become the most complained about point of MEGA.

In terms of interior design, the third-row design of MEGA is a bit similar to that of Buick GL8, the seats can only be folded and cannot be hidden in the rear floor, to put it bluntly, the third row is uneven, so that the space flexibility and utilization rate in the car are not as good as the third-row flattenable car.

Speaking of the interior of the luxurious atmosphere that is necessary for luxury cars, the MEGA is also a little "lazy". People who have seen the MEGA real car are easy to be in a trance, as if they have seen the ideal L9, and the interior is not much different. In addition, some bloggers who have seen the actual car and test driven have also reported that the details of the MEGA interior are not delicate enough, such as seat stitching, air conditioning outlets, seat flatness, etc. Especially in comparison with luxury cars in the same price range, it looks a little rustic.

To summarize in the words of the above-mentioned industry insiders, the use scenarios of MEGA are not clear enough.

But on this basis, the retail price of MEGA is 559,800 yuan, plus the purchase tax is almost 600,000 yuan, even if it is a loyal fan of Li Auto, it is difficult to do it without a brain.

Where is the way out for the 500,000-level high-end pure electric MPV?

Since the second half of 2023, the MPV market has seen a phenomenon of bunching, and many car companies have launched corresponding products, and the entire market has also ushered in expansion. In 2022, domestic MPV sales reached a record low of only 960,000 units. In 2023, domestic MPV sales will reach 1.093 million units, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%, outperforming the market.

However, from the perspective of power structure, plug-in hybrid MPVs are more popular. In 2023, the sales volume of plug-in hybrid MPV models in China will be 164,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 430%. The sales volume of pure electric MPV models was only 81,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 40.9%, and the sales volume and growth rate were not as good as those of plug-in hybrid models.

According to the statistics of Jayland Road, in 2023, the total sales of new cars with a ticket price of more than 500,000 yuan in mainland China will be 559039 (excluding some niche brands such as Bentley), of which 52,401 will be MPVs, accounting for about 9.3%.

If you divide it more carefully, it has been reported by the media before that there are a total of 4,054 domestic brand pure electric MPVs priced at more than 500,000 yuan, which accounts for a smaller proportion.

It is difficult for MEGA to create a hit model in the sesame market and achieve the first sales volume in the automobile market of more than 500,000 yuan. I hope that after returning to user value this time, Ideal can bring surprises to the market.

In the past few years, Li Auto has become the first new power car company to turn losses into profits because of its extended range route and accurate family market positioning, and has gained a large number of fans. His technical route and the industry standard of "refrigerators, color TVs, and large sofas" have taught the market a lesson.

In MEGA, the ideal also wanted to become a pioneer of pure electric MPV of more than 500,000 yuan, but he didn't expect to encounter turbulent waves as soon as it came out.

Author | Liu Dongxue

Edit | Tian Yanlin

Operations | Liu Shan