Li Auto added 20,000 new inventories in the first quarter, and a big price cut is close at hand?

A few days ago, the Passenger Association announced the latest wholesale sales information of car companies. Surprisingly, Ideal, which has always been known for efficient inventory management, actually "went wrong".

According to the data, in the first quarter of this year, Ideal produced 101,000 cars, but only 80,400 were sold, and a full 20,600 cars are still in the warehouse. Such an inventory ratio, not to mention the new forces, is Alexandria even for traditional car companies.

The previously best-selling Ideal L9 has become the "inventory king", generating an inventory of 7,500 units in the past three months. And the newly launched Ideal MEGA, with only a total of just over 5,000 units sold, has more than 2,000 units in stock.

What kind of impact will such a large amount of inventory have on the ideal business state? How will the follow-up ideal relieve the pressure? Let Kung Fu Auto take you to take a look.

(1) From the benchmark of clearing the warehouse to the pioneer of the warehouse?

For car companies, high inventory has always been a very lethal existence. On the one hand, it takes up a lot of money, and on the other hand, it has to pay high storage fees.

More importantly, once the inventory of car companies is too high, it will inevitably have an impact on the terminal strategy, after all, so many cars need to find an exit, right?

In the past, it was not uncommon for car companies to frantically "press the warehouse" in order to have good performance. Because many times, if you don't suppress inventory, it means that the data is ugly, which further affects sales. The manufacturer's performance is good, and all aspects are more confident. But the risk of doing so is also extremely great, once the dealer over-pressure leads to problems in the capital chain, it is the beginning of the entire enterprise "thunderstorm".

Because the ideal people use the direct sales model, in fact, the early pressure phenomenon is not very serious, after all, they plan to sell as much as they want to produce, which is a number in their hearts. Even in the second half of last year, Ideal also did a corresponding publicity topic, discussing how to carry out efficient inventory management, and despised a peer by the way.

In this regard, the best thing to do should be the replacement of Ideal ONE. At that time, Ideal discontinued the large product Ideal ONE, and replaced it with Ideal L8. For traditional car companies, such a replacement will undoubtedly lead to the collapse of the price of the abandoned old models, after all, they all know that they are going to be replaced, and they will definitely not spend a lot of money to buy. However, the ideal successfully controlled the output of the last agent wanted to ONE, and finally cleared the inventory with only 20,000 or 30,000 discounts.

But in 2024, things have taken a turn for the worse. The first thing to collapse is the price, in the past, there was almost no preferential ideal, but after entering 2024, the whole system is basically 30,000+, if you count all kinds of subsidies, as well as the models with the volume of the show car situation, the ideal comprehensive discount is close to 50,000.

Rao is so, and the ideal inventory is still going all the way up. In the first month of delivery, MEGA added 2,100 units to its inventory, and it was ideal to abandon this large item almost immediately, and now even the central stores in many places have withdrawn. Because the ideal knows that until there is a big improvement in product power and marketing, it is likely to crush yourself if you continue to stick to it.

Almost overnight, the ideal has changed from a benchmark for clearing warehouses to a pioneer in pressing warehouses.

(2) Sniper ideal, Huawei and Xiaomi have a share?

Of course, the reason why the ideal is so serious is because of the sniping of the opponent. The market strategy, which was invincible in the past, has been kicked to the iron plate, and the whole system is out of control.

The first to bear the brunt is the M7, a new car that was replaced in September last year, and the pressure on ideals is definitely the greatest. From the point of view of size and positioning, the M7 is the ideal L8, but the price is lower than the ideal L7. In terms of configuration, the ideal 6-seat large space, zero-gravity seat Wenjie M7 is also standard, in addition to Wenjie M7 also has a newly upgraded HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit, and takes the lead in realizing high-speed, high-end intelligent driving in urban areas that does not rely on high-precision maps.

This time, the ideal can be said to be a loss of technology, positioning, and cost performance, which is also the key to the ideal price decline from the end of last year to the beginning of this year.

As for the ideal L9 and the newly launched MEGA, they are also seriously affected by the M9. After all, MEGA focuses on technology, but in front of the M9 that was listed at the same time, the so-called black technology of the ideal is really not enough.

Another point is that the positioning of MPV is niche after all, and SUVs are still king at this stage. In the past, it was the ideal to use this ace to fight the opponent, such as the competition between the ideal L9 and the extreme krypton 009, which was to eat the small market of pure electric MPV. And now the M9 is facing MEGA, and the same is true. In just over a year, the offensive and defensive forces have changed hands, and the ideal strategy has indeed gone wrong.

The ideal L9, which has been on the market for more than a year, is more like the previous generation, and now there is no other way to struggle except to reduce the price, which is also the reason why this car has the most inventory.

At the beginning of the year, the ideal was still thinking about a long and short period of sales with the world, and almost gritted his teeth to catch up, but the result was that the inventory is not like a word now.

In addition to the old rival Wenjie, some new models are also frantically eating away at the ideal share, the most typical being the Xiaomi SU7 and Zhijie S7. Many people may wonder if these two are not sedans, and why are they still competing with ideals?

In fact, things are not so simple, Xiaomi SU7 and Zhijie S7 such C-class large space sedans, themselves and SUVs have overlapping ranges. The main practicality of SUVs is basically there, that is, there are some concessions in passability, and then there are more advantages in handling. The price of these two cars is only more than 200,000 yuan, and the brand influence is not worse than ideal, so it is natural to steal many customers.

(3) The ideal response is fast, but it is still insufficient

After the sales failure in February, Li Auto quickly adjusted its sales target, changing the previous full-year delivery target of 800,000 units to 560,000 to 640,000 units. The handling of MEGA is also vigorous, and the marketing investment was so high before, I gave up when I said I would give up.

But it has to be said that even if the ideal decision-making is still efficient, it may not be able to withstand the pressure.

In the past, Ideal was able to make great progress all the way, mainly due to two points, one is the more accurate positioning compared with NIO Xiaopeng, and the other is better marketing than traditional car companies.

The ideal is to take the extended-range electric route, which means that it does not need to build a battery swap station like NIO, nor does it need to lay out supercharging like Xpeng. All models are dominated by large-sized SUVs, which gives it a high-end impression, and the gasoline and electric settings are indeed very practical.

But now more and more car companies have embarked on this road, needless to say, several blockbuster models have hit the key point of the ideal. There are also models such as the Blue Mountain DHT-PHEV, VOYAH FREE, and Tank 400 New Energy, all of which more or less overlap with the ideal positioning.

At the marketing level, Xiaomi has shown very well what it means to reduce dimensionality. In just half a month after its release, it has formed a saturation blow to the entire automotive industry. As Lei Jun continues to make "new jobs", the former ideal of the traffic king is gradually moving away from the center of the stage.

The secret of ideal sales has been cracked, and the next road will be difficult.

(4) Kung Fu shooting

Judging from the current situation, there do not seem to be many ideal ways to deal with competition, which is basically to increase allocation and reduce prices. But even if the price is reduced, the price is still not cheap. After all, the ideal core components rely on procurement, and there is no strong integration ability like Xiaomi, which means that its cost control cannot compete with traditional car companies.

It is impossible to fight a price war, or there will be no way out of a price war. However, the huge pressure of high inventory is obvious, and if Ideal still can't come up with an effective solution, I am afraid that the product power of the 2024 L-series will still be lagging behind.

Will prices collapse, or will the whole system be reshaped? Maybe we'll see the answer before June.