Why can't the ideal be sold?
On April 22, Li Auto released a new price system, except for the newly listed L6, the rest of the car series have all reduced prices, including the starting price of the ideal L7 reduced by 20,000 yuan to 301,800 yuan, the starting price of the ideal L8 decreased by 18,000 yuan to 321,800 yuan, the starting price of the ideal L9 decreased by 20,000 yuan to 409,800 yuan, and the starting price of MEGA was reduced by 30,000 yuan to 529,800 yuan.
In 2023, Li Auto will reach its peak sales, delivering more than 376,000 new vehicles throughout the year, a year-on-year increase of 137.1%, and achieving monthly sales of more than 50,000 units in December. However, since the beginning of this year, Li Auto's sales have begun to decline sharply from their peaks, with a cumulative sales of 80,400 units in the first quarter, and only one month sales of more than 30,000 units.
Ideal MEGA, which previously shined in the field of public opinion, did not perform as expected in sales after its launch, and the first step of Li Auto's pure electric transformation was frustrated. In addition, the Ideal L6, which was launched on April 18, has a starting price of 249,800 yuan, which is the cheapest model of Li Auto, and it has begun to enter the price range of 200,000 yuan.
In fact, the ideal car, which used to announce its weekly sales on time every week, is facing a lot of challenges. Regarding the price reduction of Li Auto's products, recent sales performance, pure electric transformation and other issues, Consumer Reports sent an interview letter to Li Auto, but did not receive a reply by press time.
Li Auto released price reduction news (Source: Li Auto's official Weibo)
Ideal has not announced weekly sales for a month
When was the last time Li Auto announced its weekly sales?
At that time, Li Auto announced the sales of new car-making brands from March 11 to March 17, with ideal sales of 7,000 units, lagging behind Wenjie's 08,600 units, ranking second in the sales list. However, in the weekly sales list announced by Li Auto itself, Li Auto has been the sales champion for a long time.
Li Auto's latest weekly sales data (Source: Li Auto's official Weibo)
In fact, the outside world has never stopped questioning the weekly sales data released by Li Auto. For example, there are new energy brands born from traditional car companies such as Wei brand, Deep Blue, Jihu, and Denza in the list, but Aion, whose sales have also risen in recent years, are not among them, and there are doubts about the ideal of "customizing the sales list" for themselves.
For a year since March 29 last year, Li Auto has announced the weekly sales results of new automakers every week. Of course, in these lists, Li Auto has become the sales champion without any suspense, and the punctual and high-profile announcement of the weekly sales list has become the reserved program of Li Auto every week, and the data released by Li Auto is even detailed to the point of including the sales of each of its models.
However, the gears of fate began to turn at the end of January 2024.
In the weekly sales list from January 29 to February 4, 2024, Li Auto's sales were overtaken, 01,800 units behind the latter, and retreated to second place.
Li Auto's weekly sales were overtaken by the world (Source: Li Auto's official Weibo)
Then, in the two-week sales period from February 5 to February 18, Li Auto briefly returned to the top of the sales list. However, starting from February 19, Li Auto's weekly sales were once again overtaken by the question, and until the last time Li Auto announced its weekly sales, Li Auto's weekly sales were always suppressed by the question.
At the same time, the sales gap between the ideal and the question world is also widening. Starting from February 26 to March 3 this year, the sales gap between Ideal and Wenjie has been widening since then, and it has lagged behind Wenjie by 01,600 units from March 11 to March 17.
As a result, since March 19, Li Auto has not released weekly sales data. The former weekly sales "king" and car circle Internet celebrities chose to keep a low profile and no longer give free publicity to "friends".
Is the ideal range extender bonus coming to an end?
In the face of declining sales, Li Auto began to respond to new challenges. However, in the first four months of this year, Li Auto's new car positioning and price can be described as a "song of ice and fire".
In March this year, the Ideal MEGA was launched, which is the first pure electric model of the Ideal with a price of 559,800 yuan. However, compared with the previous ambition of "sales champion, regardless of model", the sales performance of the MEGA after its launch did not meet expectations.
Ideal MEGA (Source: Li Auto's official Weibo)
As a result, Li Auto quickly returned to its old business and released its cheapest model to date, the Li L6. On April 18, the Ideal L6 was launched. As a medium and large SUV, the starting price of the ideal L6 is 249,800 yuan, which is the first time that the model of the ideal car has entered the range of 200,000 yuan.
Only a month apart, Li Auto's high-profile new car has returned from a pure electric MPV model of more than 500,000 yuan to the ranks of medium and large extended-range SUVs that it is most familiar with.
Ideal L6 (Source: Li Auto Official)
However, the state of China's new energy vehicle market can be described as one time and another. Zerorun, Nezha, Deep Blue, Xingtu Star Era, Dongfeng Yipai...... There are also more and more car companies or brands that have deployed range-extender models, and the moat of Li Auto, which was once a dominant range-extender product, has been impacted.
Of course, range-extender power itself is not the ultimate goal of electrification. Compared with the diesel-electric hybrid model, the fuel consumption of the extended range power model is higher; compared with the plug-in hybrid model, the range extender of the extended range power vehicle can not drive the vehicle alone; compared with the pure electric model, the extended range power vehicle essentially has two sets of power systems in operation, and its failure rate will naturally go higher, and the problem of high maintenance cost of the three-electric system of the pure electric model will also appear in the extended range power model.
Therefore, Li Auto is not and cannot lie flat on the credit book of the range extender, but the unfavorable development of the ideal MEGA makes its transformation into the pure electric market full of more unknowns, and price reduction and volume exchange may be the simplest and most effective way to boost sales in the short term.
However, although Li Auto said that it will provide cash compensation to owners of the 2024 Li L7, Li L8, Li L9 and Li MEGA, and will push cash compensation notifications through the Li Auto App. However, the rights protection complaint posts of the old car owners also came as scheduled. As soon as the news of the price reduction came out, a large number of ideal car owners posted complaints on platforms such as Black Cat Complaints.
The ideal car that once dominated the field of public opinion is being eaten up by public opinion and traffic.