On March 21, according to a report by Phoenix.com Technology, Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, issued an internal letter to all employees. In his internal letter, he reviewed the problems that arose in Li Auto in March and proposed solutions. Li Xiang believes that there is a rhythm problem with Ideal MEGA, and he mistakenly treats the operation of Ideal MEGA from the 0 to 1 stage (commercial verification period) as the 1 to 10 stage (high-speed development period). In addition, Li Auto pays too much attention to sales and competition from top to bottom, allowing desire to outweigh value.
On the same day, Li Auto announced that due to sales orders falling short of expectations, the company now expects its vehicle deliveries in the first quarter of 2024 to be 76,000 to 78,000 units, compared with the previous delivery expectation of 100,000 to 103,000 units.
Source: Phoenix Technology
On March 19, Li Auto announced its delivery data for the 11th week of 2024. This is the first week of the official delivery of the ideal first pure electric car MEGA, according to official information, the first week of the delivery of the ideal MEGA exceeded 1,000, but no specific number was given.
According to the report of "Late Auto", the expected order for the MEGA within 24 hours is about 3,000 units, but the final result did not meet expectations, only half of the target. MEGA received orders for nearly 4,000 units within half a month of its release, and the production capacity of the factory MEGA this month is 5,000 units.
Before the release, Ideal internally expected the annual sales of MEGA to be 70,000-80,000 units, which is an important increment in Ideal's annual sales target of 800,000 units.
In the face of the sales situation, the core management is considering lowering the sales target to 50,000 to 60,000 units, but the specific figure has not yet been determined.
MEGA is expected to be high
In 2023, Li Auto will deliver a total of 376,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 182.2%, ranking first among new EV manufacturers in terms of sales. The operating income was 123.85 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 173.5%. The net profit was 11.81 billion yuan, achieving annual profit for the first time.
Entering 2024, the data shows that Li Auto's sales in the first two months will be 51,400 units, lagging behind the 54,100 units of Wenjie. As a comparison, Li Auto sold 50,500 units in a single month in December last year. Li Auto's full-year sales target for 2024 is 800,000 units, and Li Auto's sales in the first two months have only achieved 6.25% of the annual sales target.
According to the plan, Li Auto will usher in a big year of products this year, and there will be 4 extended-range models and 4 pure electric models.
Source: Ideal official website
On March 1, 2024, Ideal released its first pure electric MPV product, Ideal MEGA. As the first 5C high-voltage pure electric model of Li Auto, Ideal MEGA is an epoch-making product born for large families, with 100 super flagship configurations as standard, and a unified retail price of 559,800 yuan nationwide.
As the first pure electric model of Li Auto and a new category other than its SUV models, Li MEGA is not only pinned on the hope of expanding its territory, but also shoulders the important task of boosting sales. "Ideal MEGA will become the next explosive product of Li Auto, and it will also completely subvert the sales pattern of more than 500,000 cars. Li Xiang said.
The number of orders after listing was lower than expected
According to Late AUTO, before its launch, MEGA had already questioned that its products and technology were not enough to support pricing. For example, the MEGA does not have a rear-wheel steering function, which is available on the Xpeng X9, which is nearly 200,000 cheaper than the MEGA. In addition, some users believe that the MEGA's interior details do not match the pricing.
According to the ideal product team, the MEGA has abandoned rear-wheel steering for reasons such as interior space and body stability. For the interior, the Ideal product team wanted to create a sense of home, so the MEGA cockpit did not use the wooden interior that BBA is accustomed to, and many users responded that it lacked luxury and monotony.
In addition to reasonable product discussions, after the official release of MEGA, more fierce attacks were directed at MEGA's styling design.
In addition to being "negatively" affected by sales, new energy MPVs have suddenly become popular in the past two years, and the niche market has gradually become a "red sea", which also squeezes the market space of MEGA. According to Autohome's statistics, in January 2024, there are not only evergreens such as Buick GL8 and Toyota Sena, but also upstarts such as Denza D9, Blueprint Dreamer, and Xpeng X9.
The Denza D9 sold 8,360 units, the highest sales volume of the month, and the Trumpchi E8 sold 3,470 units, becoming the top 10 "goalkeepers" in terms of sales. From this point of view, MEGA is set at more than 3,000 units, which can already rank among the top ten, and the key depends on the performance of the market outlook.
Source: Autohome
However, it can be seen from the MPV sales list that most of the good sellers are fuel vehicles or hybrid models, and there are fewer pure electric vehicles, and the price is mostly in the range of three or four hundred thousand yuan. In other words, users are still rushing to be oily and electric, business-friendly, IKEA, and cost-effective.
According to China Economic Net, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the passenger association, said that the poor sales of pure electric MPVs are due to the large quality of vehicle equipment and the problem of battery life to be solved.
This article is synthesized from Ideal Official Data, China Economic Net, The Paper, "Late AUTO", etc.