He Xiaopeng left the scene halfway, Xiaomi SU7 kept the car rim awake all night, does Wei Xiaoli want to rewrite the pattern?

Source: Visual China

Author: Wang Weikai   

Produced by | Prism Tencent Xiaoman Studio  

When Lei Jun said the pricing of the Xiaomi SU 7 standard version, the camera swept to Li Bin, Li Xiang, etc., who were sitting in the front row. Attentive viewers will notice that there is one less heavyweight guest in the front row at this time.

At 7:30 p.m. on March 28, the much-talked-about new car launch officially began. Immediately, the guest lineup of the press conference began to swipe the screen. Li Bin, Li Xiang, and He Xiaopeng of the troika of new car-making forces were naturally not absent, and even Wei Jianjun, the boss of Great Wall Motors, and Zhang Jianyong, the new chairman of Beijing Automotive Group, also came to cheer.

Some people call the press conference the Spring Festival Gala of the automobile circle, and some people say that Lei Jun opened the press conference out of the "Double Eleven" feeling, and Xiaomi won 50,000 units in 27 minutes. In the circle of friends and WeChat groups, many people also posted their order information.

It is undeniable that this was a successful launch event, which not only brought tens of thousands of orders to Xiaomi Auto, but also sucked up the traffic of the entire car market.

The price of Xiaomi SU 7 is between 215,900 yuan and 299,000 yuan, which is the most competitive price range in the automotive market, and it is active with traditional fuel brands such as Camry, Passat, and Accord, as well as pure electric sedans such as BYD Han EV, Zeekrypton 007, Xpeng P7, and Model 3.

During the press conference, some netizens made Li Bin, Li Xiang, and He Xiaopeng's live pictures into emojis, ridiculing the pressure brought to them by Xiaomi SU 7, especially He Xiaopeng, Xiaomi SU 7 and his Xiaopeng P7 formed a head-to-head competition.

In fact, the heavyweight guest who left the venue halfway was He Xiaopeng. However, according to Xpeng Motors insiders, He Xiaopeng left the scene because there were other activities the next day.

This conference is a good start for Xiaomi SU 7, but building a car is a marathon, how to manage the supply chain, how to ensure delivery, how to do a good job in after-sales service, will test Lei Jun and his Xiaomi car.

I gave a lesson on "detail management" to the car dealers

The change of clothing can be seen in the change of Lei Jun.

Lei Jun has the title of "Rebus", he regards Jobs as an idol, and often wears T-shirts and jeans like Jobs at previous Xiaomi mobile phone press conferences. At the SU 7 press conference, he uncharacteristically wore a green suit, which Musk often used to show people at the press conference.

Lei Jun is a Tesla owner, at the press conference, Tesla became the most "appearance" of the electric car brand, Lei Jun also praised Tesla as the global benchmark for electric vehicles, he wants to catch up with this benchmark.

In addition to the performance, price, space, battery life, etc., Lei Jun demonstrated the advantages of SU 7 over Model 3, Lei Jun is like a "detail control", and many car companies do not pay attention to the details of the "dead button".

For more than two hours of press conference, Lei Jun has maintained a high spirit, and he has waited for three years for this day.

However, almost everyone is more concerned about the price of the SU 7, so much so that the launch event was a little less lively at the beginning. According to people present, on several occasions, after Lei Jun finished speaking, there was a brief silence when he was expecting applause.

The emergence of mobile phone holders has changed this situation and gradually pushed the popularity of this conference higher.

"I found that all the car manufacturers have not considered how to install the mobile phone holder, I bought a basket of mobile phone holders to test, none of them are easy to use, I said we must make the best mobile phone holder. The mobile phone factory must solve this problem when it makes a car. After Lei Jun said this sentence on the stage, Li Xiang, Li Bin, and He Xiaopeng in the audience all laughed, and even Wei Jianjun felt a little sudden, and he looked at the three representatives of the new car-making forces with a little surprise.

Lei Jun also showed his control of details in many places, for example, the card slot for the umbrella, although it will only be used on rainy days, but it gives Xiaomi owners a touch of the feeling of a distinguished Rolls-Royce owner, in addition, in order to prevent the filled drinks in the car refrigerator from shaking, they also redesigned the bottom of the refrigerator.

An insider of a traditional car company told the author that traditional car companies do not consider such a detailed issue, which is related to their inherent thinking. Lei Jun has been making mobile phones for more than ten years, and has always faced users directly, has a deep user thinking, and he always thinks about solving user pain points. At the same time, he also has a deep business mindset, and he also wants to make a small profit by selling mobile phone holders.

Many people will have a feeling after watching this press conference, Lei Jun is particularly like a delivery anchor, he not only introduced the new car, but also introduced some products on the Xiaomi ecological chain by the way, and even the uniforms he wore in the factory before.

After the press conference, in an interview with the media, Lei Jun said that the earliest price of the SU 7 was 350,000, but even then it was a loss. It seems that Lei Jun wants to recover the cost of the money lost in the whole vehicle on peripheral accessories.   

In addition to the details that users can clearly perceive, the details of Xiaomi Auto's supply chain management have also made some suppliers feel first-hand. A supplier of Xiaomi cars bluntly said to the author that Xiaomi's control is very powerful, and when docking with them, Xiaomi's technology and management departments will follow up, even if it is a small supplier like them, it must be constantly tempered.

"Is the price war more volatile than the mobile phone industry?"

Price was the biggest focus of the conference. Prior to this, speculation about the price of the SU 7 sparked almost universal participation.

In August 2011, the first generation of Xiaomi mobile phones was officially released, and the price of 1999 yuan allowed it to quickly gain a firm foothold in the highly competitive mobile phone market, and was labeled as "cost-effective". After the launch date of the SU 7 was confirmed, the public hoped that Xiaomi would continue the "cost-effective" strategy of the smartphone era and provide young people with a cost-effective electric car.

During that time, some netizens suggested to Lei Jun that he set the price of SU 7 at 99,000 yuan, and the maximum should not exceed 199,000 yuan, but this was vetoed by Lei Jun early.

After the starting price of 215,900 yuan was announced, many netizens put the slogan "too expensive" in the live broadcast comment area, and some people ridiculed that they had to wait for the more cost-effective "Redmi car".

In fact, Xiaomi has long been not the Xiaomi it used to be. 5 years ago, they began to take the high-end route, and in recent years, the price of Xiaomi mobile phones has also been rising.

According to the financial report, in 2023, the average unit price of Xiaomi mobile phones in the mobile phone market in Chinese mainland will increase by more than 19% year-on-year, hitting a record high. In the smartphone market in the price range of 4,000 yuan to 6,000 yuan, Xiaomi's market share reached 16.9%, an increase of 9.2 percentage points year-on-year.

After 3 years and an investment of more than 10 billion yuan, Lei Jun obviously does not want to enter the low-cost car market as soon as he enters the game.

However, the high price means more competition, and the price of the Xiaomi SU 7 also falls into the most competitive price segment. In this price segment, pure electric sedans alone are active in many best-selling models such as Model 3, Zeekr 007, Xpeng P7, and BYD Han EV.

It is worth noting that many of these models have been launched in the past one or two years, for example, ZEEKR 007 was launched at the end of last year. In addition, there will be some new models that will be squeezed in one after another, such as the future Jiyue 02, Xpeng F57, Lynk & Co 371, Star Era ES, etc.

During the 2023 Guangzhou Auto Show, Fan Junyi, general manager of Geely Automobile Sales Company, said bluntly that the most volatile in 2024 may be the "520" market. The so-called "520" market refers to the market with a 5-meter car length, a 3-meter wheelbase, and a price of 200,000 yuan.   

In addition, the price war in China's auto market is raging. At the beginning of this year, BYD shouted the slogan "electricity is lower than oil", pushing the price war to a climax, and the starting price of its best-selling model BYD Han EV was as low as 179,800 yuan. As soon as the Xiaomi SU 7 was launched, it had to face a brutal market environment.

However, after the press conference, Lei Jun confidently said in an interview with the media that Xiaomi has enough cash reserves to cope with any fierce competition in the next five years.

"Is there a price war that is more volatile than the mobile phone industry? Lei Jun said, "We have been rolling in mobile phones for so many years, and we have a sense of cruelty. The price war is only one aspect, and the more important thing is the technological war and ecological war. As you can see, we have few opponents within 500,000, and I am still very satisfied with myself, and I believe that anyone who likes cars will like Xiaomi SU7. ”

The last piece of the puzzle

As a marketing master, Lei Jun has exerted the influence of this conference to the extreme, which can be said to be out of the limelight.

However, before that, Lei Jun had not had an easy time. During the two sessions this year, a recent photo of Lei Jun went viral on the Internet, and netizens called it "making cars to make people old". At the press conference on March 28, when looking back on his car-making past, Lei Jun also sighed: "In the past three years of building a car, my biggest feeling is that it is really too difficult to build a car, so difficult that even a giant like Apple finally gave up." ”    

In his three-year car-making career, Lei Jun has been crawling forward in controversy and competition.

At the Xiaomi car press conference on December 28 last year, Xiaomi disclosed their self-research achievements in the five major technical fields of electric drive, battery, large die-casting, intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit, and said that "the first in the industry and the leading in the world". However, it soon attracted doubts, and some industry insiders believed that the key technologies of Xiaomi cars were deeply self-developed and "lacking in quality", and they basically relied on integration.

Since the beginning of this year, BYD has shouted the slogan of "electricity is lower than oil", and Geely has launched a high-profile Galaxy E8 pure electric car, which continues to roll in this market, and there is not much room left for Xiaomi cars by old car companies.

The most striking thing is that Apple suddenly announced that it would give up making cars, which made the outside world question the underlying logic of Xiaomi's car making. Even Lei Jun sighed on Weibo: "Very shocked!"

It can be said that the success or failure of the SU 7 launch conference will have a crucial impact on Xiaomi's car manufacturing. In order to ensure that SU 7 became a hit, in the previous months, Lei Jun incarnated as a "model worker", entering the factory, self-driving, live broadcasting, talking about cars, and making jokes, all of which were warming up for this press conference.

Now, even if the press conference is held successfully, it is difficult for Lei Jun to take a breath. For Lei Jun and his Xiaomi cars, everything is just beginning.   

They got 50,000 orders in 27 minutes, but this kind of order can be refunded within 7 days, and how much of it can be converted into the final order is full of unknowns. Previously, when the Hengchi 5 was launched, it also announced that its Dading exceeded 37,000 units.

Lei Jun has publicly stated many times that this will be the last entrepreneurial project in his life, and he has gambled all his honors. However, compared with the previous entrepreneurship, Lei Jun is now more mature and has a deeper accumulation, even if it is a new car launch, competitors will be invited to support him. What's more, at this time, he still has hundreds of billions of cash in his hands.

According to the financial report of Xiaomi Group, as of the end of 2023, Xiaomi has cash reserves of 136.3 billion yuan, and its net profit for the year is 19.27 billion yuan, which provides sufficient chips for Lei Jun's big gamble.

In addition, as one of the world's top ten mobile phone manufacturers, in the past 14 years, Xiaomi has also had its own advantages in intelligence, and Lei Jun has also taken this as their biggest advantage.

In October 2023, at the Xiaomi Surging OS and Xiaomi 14 series new product launch conference, Lei Jun announced that the strategy of Xiaomi Group was officially upgraded to "people, cars, and homes with a full ecology". The official launch of the SU 7 is the final piece of the puzzle in this strategy.

"Today's smart cars are essentially automobiles plus electronics, and we and Huawei have an advantage in electronics. After the SU 7 press conference, Lei Jun said in an interview with the media, "Xiaomi's ability to use the whole ecology step by step in the car, this is our biggest competitiveness." ”