Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile: Zhiji L6 will not simply lose money and rush sales

Reporter Guo Yangchen and Quartz Jing report from Shanghai

On May 13, SAIC's "super smart car" Zhiji L6, which has been grinding for ten years, was officially launched, with a price of 199,900-325,900 yuan after superimposing listing rights.

In addition to the "volume" price, the Zhiji L6 also further "volume" technology. The reporter of "China Business Daily" learned that as SAIC's "No. 1 project", Zhiji Automobile enjoys the "priority right" of a series of cutting-edge technological achievements accumulated by SAIC Group's "New Four Modernizations" layout for many years. The Zhiji L6 is equipped with 6 "black technologies" as standard, including the Grey Lizard digital chassis, intelligent four-wheel steering system, ultra-long-range high-precision lidar, NVIDIA DRIVE Orin X chip, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 chip and ISC smart light system.

"The sales target of the Zhiji L6 is to enter the forefront of the industry." After the press conference, Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, told reporters that the smart electric vehicle industry generally encounters profitability problems, and the pricing of Zhiji L6 is also selling cars at a loss. However, SAIC's supply chain system has given Zhiji Automobile great support, so Zhiji Auto's profitability has an advantage at the same scale.

Regarding the previous friction with Xiaomi Automobile, Liu Tao said that simple Bo traffic is not the characteristic of Zhiji Automobile, nor is it what Zhiji Auto is good at, and Zhiji Auto should take technical strengths and user scenarios as the real focus of future marketing.

Zhiji L6 pricing "roof lifting"

On May 13, the Zhiji L6 was officially launched. The new car will be available in five versions, with an official guide price of 219,900-345,900 yuan. Since the 2,000 yuan intent money can be exchanged for a cash coupon worth 22,000 yuan for car purchases, the listing equity price of Zhiji L6 will be as low as 199,900 yuan.

In addition, Zhiji Auto also provides Zhiji L6 owners with limited-time special offers such as a 3,000 yuan personalized exterior option fund, a 3,999 yuan upgrade value of 22,000 yuan luxury configuration package, and a two-year free use right of IM AD full function package.

The pricing of the Zhiji L6 is also officially called "lifting the roof", which is inseparable from SAIC's supply chain advantages. The reporter learned that Zhiji Automobile, backed by SAIC, has mastered the production and manufacturing capabilities and technological innovation capabilities of the core components from the three-electric system, chassis system to the interior and exterior decoration system. At the same time, the world's famous suppliers such as HASCO and Yanfeng have the ability to allocate resources from the world's top suppliers, ensuring that it has the highest priority for the development and production of parts suppliers.

Liu Tao also pointed out that at this stage, SAIC's supply chain system has given great support to Zhiji Auto, so the profitability of Zhiji Automobile has advantages under the same scale.

"Reducing costs through technical capabilities is also an important topic for the industry in the future." Liu Tao analyzed for example, because the intelligent driving level of Zhiji cars is high, and there is no need to rely on a large number of stacking of perception hardware, so Zhiji L6 reduces the number of lidars used.

It is worth mentioning that due to the previous Zhiji L6 press conference marked the wrong parameters of Xiaomi SU7Max, Zhiji Automobile and the new "top stream" Xiaomi Automobile have been in constant friction. On the evening of April 8, Xiaomi Auto sent three articles in less than an hour to "angrily" Zhiji Auto to ask it to apologize. Finally, on the afternoon of April 9, Zhiji Auto officially issued a "sincere apology" to Xiaomi Auto, and emphasized that "subjectively there is really no intention to deliberately smear it, and it has no intention or ability to challenge the torrential traffic of Xiaomi Auto".

Liu Tao said that after this marketing incident, Zhiji Auto has made a review in many places. Simply to win some traffic is neither the characteristic of Zhiji Auto, nor is it what Zhiji Auto is good at, and Zhiji Auto should take its technical strengths and user scenarios as the real focus of future marketing.

"In terms of brand operation, traffic management, etc., Zhiji needs to learn from Internet companies, but this is not the only part that needs attention. Any new brand must find its own way, not simply benchmark against other brands. Liu Tao further explained.

NOA will be opened nationwide in cities without maps

In addition to "hard technology", the high-end intelligent driving ability of Zhiji L6 is also excellent, and the whole system has the ability to go to high-precision map city NOA.

According to the relevant person in charge of Zhiji Automobile, at present, the public beta of IM AD to high-precision map city NOA has been launched, and it is expected to be mass-produced in the third quarter of 2024 and open nationwide within the year.

In fact, many car companies are accelerating into the "no-map era". Not long ago, GAC Aion's high-end luxury electric vehicle brand Haobo Automobile announced that the 2024 Haobo HT will be the first to be equipped with the urban NDA function, and will immediately open the internal test in 6 cities after delivery in April, and will be opened in 41 cities in July and across the country in September.

On May 14, Xpeng Motors also announced that Xpeng's XNGP urban intelligent driving system has achieved 100% maplessness, and the available range of intelligent driving has doubled. Specifically, the available mileage in urban areas has expanded to 2.23 times, Guangzhou to 2.15 times, Shenzhen to 2.18 times, and Foshan to 1.31 times.

Xia Yiping, CEO of Jiyue Automobile, also revealed on social platforms that on May 18, Jiyue PPA intelligent driving will be officially expanded to 100 cities, which is at least a quarter ahead of the original plan. Xia Yiping will also show users the "light map" PPA capability through live broadcast on the same day.

According to the analysis of the research report of Guojin Securities, urban NOA is the focus of the next round of competition among car companies, which is essentially a competition around data. Having enough city NOAs is enough to be able to sell more cars. If you can sell more cars, you will have a better urban NOA, and at the same time, a new profit model will be born.

According to relevant data, by 2025, the number of models equipped with urban NOA in China is expected to exceed 4 million, and the penetration rate is expected to increase from 12% in 2023 to 32%. Combined with the current price range of high-level intelligent driving suppliers is 10,000-20,000 yuan/vehicle, the market size of high-level intelligent driving (NOA) is expected to reach 52 billion yuan in 2025, and the average annual growth rate from 2023 to 2025 is expected to be 105%.

The new domestic car-making forces have accelerated the pace of intelligent driving development, which is also inseparable from Tesla's catfish effect. At the end of April, Tesla passed the automotive data security compliance requirements in China, becoming the first foreign-funded car company to pass the relevant national standards. In the eyes of the outside world, Tesla's Full Self-Driving software (FSD) is also expected to accelerate the implementation in China.

"Tesla's FSD entry into China is a challenge for the industry, but there are still opportunities for Chinese EV brands." In this regard, Liu Tao said that on the one hand, (independent brands) understand the driving habits of Chinese people and understand China's road conditions better, and Chinese car companies have accumulated more data than Tesla; On the other hand, the perception capability with LiDAR as the core is more suitable for facing China's complex road scenarios.

Zhang Xiang, a visiting professor at the Yellow River Institute of Science and Technology, believes that Tesla is the first company to develop autonomous driving, and the accuracy of FSD's algorithm is relatively high. Tesla mainly collects FSD training data in North America, but China's road conditions are more complex than those in the United States, and there are more pedestrians on the road, which makes it more difficult to use FSD, and it will take a lot of time to debug and optimize FSD after entering the Chinese market in the future.

Editor: Quartz Jing Review: Tong Haihua Proofreader: Liu Jun