Since the release of the Ideal MEGA and 2024 L series products, Li Xiang has not spoken publicly for nearly 20 days. As the founder, chairman and CEO, his most recent important speech was a self-"review".
In an all-staff letter sent to colleagues on March 21, Li Xiang reflected on the problems and reasons faced since the launch of the new car, and emphasized the need to reduce the blind pursuit of sales and competition, and return to healthy growth and user value. Prior to this, Li Auto suffered the worst online violence in the automotive industry, and some self-media accounts compared Li Xinche to a rather despicable comparison.
Li Xiang himself and Li Auto have stood in the eye of the storm of public opinion several times, and most of these discussions are aimed at technical routes, product positioning, etc. Li Xiang didn't dwell too much, and later facts proved that he made the right choice. However, the target, severity and irrational methods of this online violence were beyond everyone's expectations.
This is a new test for Li Auto. From an innovator of new forces to the vanguard of China's new energy enterprises, from an obscure last-tier brand to a Fortune 500 company. Li Xiang and Li Auto have gone all the way, and the courage to face public opinion and reflect is Li Auto's strength, which also makes the public opinion war encountered by MEGA after its listing more like a "cold spring".
In the face of the "inverted spring cold", many people often choose to back down and dodge, but Li Auto chooses to face the severe cold. However, Li Xiang and Li Auto are not stubborn, but dare to self-analyze, self-review, and make changes in time, which has also repeatedly achieved their growth. Between change and change, Li Auto is moving towards a more mature stage.
Is Ideal MEGA wrong?
As a model with a high degree of attention, the Ideal MEGA has been repeatedly criticized after its launch.
First of all, it is reflected in the price: the ideal MEGA is priced at 559,800 yuan, which exceeds a number of hot-selling new energy MPV models, and the current price range of new energy MPV in the domestic automobile market is concentrated in 250,000-500,000 yuan. Therefore, some netizens said that the price of Ideal MEGA is too high, resulting in a decrease in its competitiveness.
In fact, the Ideal MEGA is outstanding in terms of space, performance and safety.
Ideal MEGA is positioned as a large pure electric MPV, equipped with dual-cavity air springs and CDC shock absorbers as standard, and with self-developed control algorithms, the comfort has reached the industry's first-class level. At the same time, the Ideal MEGA has excellent safety performance, and the 25% offset collision on both sides of the main and auxiliary drivers has obtained a G score. The Ideal MEGA is also one of the fastest charging pure electric models on sale, which can be charged in 12 minutes and 500 kilometers of energy.
In addition to the controversy on the price side, before and after the listing of Ideal MEGA, some malicious P pictures of self-media or individuals also attracted the attention of netizens. In some of the pictures circulated on the Internet, the ideal MEGA was maliciously P-pictured, causing discomfort among netizens. Many industry insiders believe that the wide dissemination of similar pictures or videos has had an extremely bad impact on Ideal MEGA, or seriously hit its market performance after listing.
The relevant person in charge of Li Auto also said frankly that in such an online public opinion environment, the sales of Li MEGA are difficult to avoid negative impacts.
In fact, whenever a car company releases a new car, there will be different opinions and opinions inside and outside the industry. These views tend to focus on vehicle features, price, technology, etc., and the discussion is relatively rational. However, the public opinion environment encountered by Ideal MEGA is much worse, and the malicious P map is suspected of violating the law.
Lu Moran, a lawyer at Guangdong Yinggan Law Firm, told Times Finance that considering that the ideal MEGA in some pictures is an unsold vehicle and is owned by Li Auto Company, the pictures (or videos) were maliciously modified and disseminated or suspected of infringing on the reputation and honor rights of the ideal company. If the above acts constitute commercial defamation at the same time, it is also suspected of damaging the goodwill rights of the ideal company.
Online violence is never justified expression or competitive behavior. After the above-mentioned malicious attack on Ideal MEGA, many people inside and outside the industry have condemned it. Economist Ren Zeping also took the initiative to speak out for Li Auto on the Internet, and he called for "enterprise competition to be based on technology and market, above board, keep the bottom line of the law, find the right position and learn from each other, so that the industry can develop benignly." ”
Deng Chenghao, CEO of Deep Blue Automobile, who is also in the automotive industry, Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU, and representatives of many companies such as NIO and ZEEKR also expressed their solidarity with Li Auto online, condemning this kind of behavior of the Black Water Army that seriously undermines healthy competition in the market and disrupts market order.
In the face of irrational online violence, Li Auto's approach is commendable. He did not willfully "retaliate with a tooth for a tooth", but chose to resort to legal means. "We are already using legal means to deal with those organized illegal and criminal acts in the incident. On March 11, Li Xiang said.
In Li Xiang's view, the ideal car is in the dark at the moment, but it still has to choose the light.
In Li Xiang's heart, the owner of the car who loves life and shares life is the light, and the sailor who maliciously smears the water army is the darkness.
The ideal MEGA owner to share the life of picking up the car and hand drawings
"If I choose to compromise with the darkness, or even join the darkness, then I and the people around me will become what we hate, and the society we live in will become darker and darker. Li Xiang said: "After careful consideration, we decided to start fighting back, using light to fight back against darkness. I hope that more people can jointly create and deliver beautiful designs, unique ideas, and happy times, so that more beautiful pictures can appear in our lives. ”
Light is usually associated with good things, while darkness is reactionary and evil that cannot see the light. With the start of the delivery of Ideal MEGA, the official forum of Ideal Auto APP launched the topic of #Ideal MEGA Color High-speed Rail#, calling on MEGA owners to show off beautiful designs and unique ideas together, and to fight back against the blackwater army that cannot see the light through the light and beauty that the owners jointly convey.
The colorful personalized design makes the ideal MEGA present thousands of brilliance.
21 days later, Li Xiang spoke out again and seriously released the review conclusion to all employees - there is nothing wrong with the ideal MEGA product, and there is a serious mistake in the rhythm of the ideal MEGA.
The listing of Ideal MEGA coincides with the rise of the domestic new energy MPV market and the competition of the MPV market has entered the red sea stage. In the past many years, the domestic mid-to-high-end MPV market has been firmly occupied by overseas brand models such as Buick GL8, Toyota Alpha and Wilfa, and Lexus LM. The price of more than one million yuan at every turn discourages many family users, until the emergence of domestic new energy MPVs.
Before the launch of the Ideal MEGA, BYD, Dongfeng Motor, Geely Automobile and other car companies have launched their new energy MPV products, and have changed the monopoly situation of overseas brands with excellent intelligence level and driving experience. The emergence of the ideal MEGA is more like a fatal blow to Toyota Alpha and other products - the price of 500,000 yuan can have the MPV experience of more than one million yuan before.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the rapid development of domestic new energy MPV in recent years has reduced the cost and pressure of car purchase for consumers, and for the industry, it is also a microcosm of the rapid development and progress of China's new energy vehicle industry. However, overseas brands such as Volvo are also accelerating the deployment of new energy MPVs, intending to seize the new energy market.
In this context, the listing of Ideal MEGA is not only facing the slander of online violence, but also facing fierce competition in the industry and the wait-and-see sentiment of the market.
After the launch of the ideal MEGA, the efficient delivery made the ideal MEGA spread all over the major cities across the country in a short period of time, and the limitations of the charging network suddenly became the "heart disease" of the ideal car.
Previously, Li Auto gave priority to the layout of the charging network in the high-speed domain, saying that by 2025, more than 1,000 5C charging stations will be built in the high-speed section to achieve full coverage of 90% of the national high-speed trunk lines. In urban areas, Li Auto originally planned to build more than 2,000 supercharging stations by 2025.
However, after the delivery of the Ideal MEGA, Li Auto realized that the limitations of the current charging network scale were no longer enough to fully solve the energy replenishment anxiety of the Ideal MEGA users, so it began to further improve the expansion speed of the charging network.
According to Li Auto insiders, "Li Auto urban supercharging stations have begun to land, and will reach 600 in the second quarter of this year." By the end of 2024, the number of Li Auto urban overcharging stations will reach 2,000, and the total number of high-speed + urban regional supercharging stations will reach 2,700. "This means that in urban areas, the short-term layout of the ideal car charging network will be completed one year ahead of schedule.
In Li Xiang's view, it is not enough to accelerate the layout of the charging network, and Ideal MEGA still needs more growth opportunities - this is his key reflection in the latest internal letter.
"We mistakenly treat the 0-1 stage (commercial verification period) of Ideal MEGA as the 1-10 stage (high-speed development period) of Ideal MEGA. Li Xiang said: "Ideal MEGA and high-voltage pure electric must go through a similar 0 to 1 stage of ideal ONE and extended range electric from 0 to 1, and cannot have business potential energy from 1 to 10 as soon as the ideal L series is listed, which is our misjudgment of the strategic rhythm of pure electric vehicles." ”
Poor pacing was the essential reason why the Ideal MEGA did not perform as expected after its launch, and it also allowed the sales team to significantly reduce the time and effort of serving L-Series users. In some Li Auto stores across the country, the main models such as the Li L8 have even lost their display space, which in turn has affected the recent performance of the Li L series models.
Faced with this mistake, Li Xiang chose to slow down the pace and advance steadily. "We will patiently operate the ideal MEGA according to the rhythm from 0 to 1, focusing on the core user groups and cities with strong high-end pure electric consumption capacity. ”
It is reported that Li Auto will abandon its full-scale sales strategy, concentrate on product experience and test drives in large retail centers in head cities, and accelerate the construction of supercharging stations in these cities. When the stage from 0 to 1 is effectively completed, it will be promoted to more cities and larger user groups.
From the launch of the new car to the change, Li Auto only took 21 days. In the eyes of laymen, the ideal MEGA failed for a time, but in the eyes of industry insiders, making the most effective changes in the shortest possible time is the outstanding feature of Li Auto.
Reflection is a good teacher
If you learn without thinking, you will be reckless, and if you think without learning, you will die. In just over 20 days, reflection under adversity has made Li Xiang and Li Auto more mature.
In fact, no business grows smoothly. Those who can survive and continue to grow must be good at self-analysis and self-reflection. In the face of recent setbacks, Li Xiang chose to "stand up after being beaten" and publicly review the mistakes he made.
"Seek truth from facts, and correct when you know your mistakes. This is Li Xiang's own comment. In contrast, few business CEOs dare to stand up and analyze their own shortcomings. After experiencing similar setbacks, few executives are willing to frankly express the results of the internal calm review.
Li Xiang's reflection on himself is not limited to the rhythm of the ideal MEGA.
In the all-staff letter, Li Xiang said that the focus of Li Auto's recent focus has also deviated. "We focused too much on sales and competition from top to bottom, allowing desire to overtake value, and significantly reducing user value and operational efficiency that we were best at. The pursuit of desire makes us become the person we hate. Li Xiang said.
To a certain extent, paying too much attention to sales is a "common problem" of all domestic car companies. Under the extremely fierce competition in the auto market, occupying market share occupies an absolute dominance, which is no exception to the head car companies. However, how to balance the expectation of sales and the value of users is something that players in the industry need to think about quietly.
In March this year, Li Auto had more than 700,000 users, and this number is still increasing rapidly. The huge number of products and the extensive user base require more stable and down-to-earth maintenance and cultivation of Li Auto. This is also the basis for Li Auto to continue to move forward. In this context, while car sales are still an important target, it is also necessary to provide users with consistently high-quality services.
Li Xiang also made their choice - "We want to lower the expectations and desires of sales and return to healthy growth." Focus on users rather than competition, focus on value rather than desire. Return to the improvement of user value that we do best, and return to the improvement of operational efficiency that we do best. ”
In the face of challenges, changes and changes, Li Auto has returned to its own perseverance.
On the whole, the recent problems encountered by Li Auto are actually an enhanced version of its problems in 2022.
As early as the birth of the ideal ONE, Li Auto has faced overwhelming public opinion and slander, especially about the backward technology of range extender models. However, with the hot sales of the Ideal L series and the launch of extended-range models by other brands, "I haven't won in the comment area, and I haven't lost in sales" has become the most powerful proof that Li Auto responds to malicious public opinion.
After Li Xiang announced the organizational upgrade in December 2022, Li Auto's performance continued to improve, showing a stronger competitiveness.
According to the data, in December 2022, Li Auto set a record of more than 20,000 deliveries for the first time with the L8 and L9 models, and set a record for the largest delivery volume of new car manufacturers in the same period. For a whole year after that, Li Auto's monthly deliveries ranked first in the field of new car manufacturers, making "only ideal can defeat ideals" a reality.
In 2023, Li Auto will deliver more than 370,000 vehicles for the whole year, exceeding the target of 300,000 units set at the beginning of the year. In December of that year, the delivery record of more than 50,000 units was the highest in history. This record is likely to stand for a long time for the foreseeable future.
While the number of deliveries has reached a record, the excellent financial performance has clearly distinguished Li Auto from other new automakers – to date, Li Auto is the only new automaker in China with a positive annual net profit. In 2023, Li Auto's cumulative revenue will reach 123.85 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 173.5%, and its annual net profit will reach 11.81 billion yuan, surpassing Great Wall Motor, Geely Automobile and other established car companies.
In the eyes of industry insiders, Li Auto not only has excellent error correction capabilities, but also has error correction capital that is difficult for other car companies to match. At the end of 2023, Li Auto's cash reserves reached 103.67 billion yuan, ranking first among the four listed new EV manufacturers.
"We are confident that with the joint efforts, we will focus on user value, focus on operational efficiency, patiently control the rhythm, and serve our users in a long-term and healthy way through down-to-earth problem solving. At the end of the all-staff letter, Li Xiang wrote.
Looking back at 2014, it has been 10 years since the first batch of Tesla Model S was delivered in China. In the past 10 years, countless new energy vehicle players have come and gone, and they have verified the sentence again and again - the competition in the new energy vehicle market is about staying power, not explosiveness. Li Auto is a practitioner of long-termism.
So again, let the bullets fly for a while.