Recently, some media reported that the first car of MONA, a new brand of Xpeng Motors, was produced at Xpeng's Zhaoqing plant, and the trial car has been rolled off the assembly line and is about to enter the PT2 (Production Trial 2) stage, with battery suppliers including BYD. Once PT2 is complete, MONA moves on to Pre-Production (PP) and Low Batch Production (SOP).
It is understood that the general person in charge of MONA is Jiang Wen, with a rank of P9, who has served in Xiaopeng for many years. Prior to joining Xpeng, Jiang worked at Geely Automobile Research Institute and Baoneng Automobile.
Accelerate the coverage of high-end intelligence in the A-level market
On March 16 this year, He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of Xpeng Motors, disclosed for the first time that Xpeng Motors was about to release a new brand at the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, officially entering the 10-150,000 global automobile market. Officially, in June this year, the MONA brand was officially released, and it is expected that the first product will be officially launched in Q3.
He Xiaopeng pointed out that the new brand will subvert technological innovation in the price band of the market, create a new species of AI intelligent driving, and provide young people with a real AI intelligent driving car.
For a long time, Xpeng Motors has insisted on taking intelligence as its core competitiveness. At present, Xpeng's intelligent driving function has achieved the leading position in China, and the function iteration, localization adaptation and cost exploration continue to deepen the "moat" of the enterprise. In May this year, Xpeng announced that 100% of urban intelligent driving has fully entered the era of no map.
Shenwan Hongyuan Research believes that Xpeng Motors has been deeply engaged in intelligent driving for a long time, has accumulated a lot of technology and experience, and more importantly, has the ability to implement intelligent driving on a large scale. As the first car company in China to mass-produce and implement high-end urban assisted driving functions, Xpeng has taken the lead in the speed of opening the city, and is expected to take the lead in investing resources and energy in improving the coverage of roads within the city, reducing the breakpoints in the actual use of autonomous driving, and improving the driving experience.
Moreover, the non-schematic not only improves the coverage and efficiency of intelligent driving for Xpeng, but also significantly reduces costs. Xpeng plans to reduce the BOM cost of intelligent driving hardware by 50% by the end of this year, and release high bicycle profitability. At the same time, this also means that Xpeng's mapless intelligent driving can be easily applied to MONA brand models, and the MONA brand will also accelerate the coverage of high-end intelligence in the A-class car market.
In addition, the MONA brand, as a cooperative brand between Xpeng and Didi, Didi will open the full ecological empowerment to Xpeng Motors for the first time, providing MONA with strong support in multiple dimensions, including intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving and shared travel market, and helping Xpeng Motors to create explosive models in the "150,000 level" price range.
Can you shoulder the burden of sales?
As the competition for new energy vehicles intensifies, the watershed between various brands is becoming clearer. In April this year, Xpeng delivered a total of 9,393 new vehicles, an increase of 33% year-on-year and 4% month-on-month. From January to April, Xpeng delivered a total of 31,214 new vehicles, up 23% year-on-year. Despite the positive sales volume, the total sales volume has lagged behind many domestic brands and new automakers.
In this situation, Xpeng actively made strategic adjustments. First of all, in order to ensure its own market share, it adjusted its market pricing strategy in a timely manner, and a number of models followed up with price reductions; Second, enhance the rhythm and frequency of new launches, and open a new round of strong model cycle. Xpeng plans to open a new stage of multi-brand globalization strategic operation in 2024, and launch more than 10 new models in the next three years; Third, further expand the coverage of the sales network, accelerate the sinking of channels, and plan to increase the number of sales stores to 600 by the third quarter of this year.
The MONA brand focuses on the 100,000-150,000 global automotive market, and although the penetration rate of new energy in this price range market is less than 50%, the competition is very fierce. Among them, BYD is the most powerful competitor.
In the new energy market, BYD's biggest advantage lies in ultra-high cost performance and brand effect, in contrast, Xpeng needs to maximize its intelligent driving advantages. At present, the urban NOA function promotes the arrival of the intelligent singularity, and the functions that simplify driving habits such as urban NOA and AI driving are expected to become the core needs of car purchases, and intelligent functions are expected to become the core reasons affecting the sales of car companies.
He Xiaopeng said in an interview with the media in August last year that MONA's competitiveness will be far beyond the products on the market, and the conservative sales are expected to be more than 100,000 units a year.
It is worth mentioning that at present, Xpeng has achieved technical cost reduction from multi-point optimization in terms of intelligent driving hardware, electric drive system, electronic and electrical architecture, and integrated die-casting. At the same time, the cooperation with Volkswagen will enable Xpeng's R&D investment to be fed back with profits and quickly return funds, and at the same time, based on a larger-scale strategic cooperation, it will also have a positive effect on Xpeng's future profitability and optimize the operating cost structure. Xpeng will have more sufficient funds to help the development of the MONA brand, and the MONA models with leading capabilities will drive Xpeng to a new round of upward cycle.
On the whole, with the release of the MONA brand and entering the sinking market, with its leading intelligent driving advantages and brand influence, Xpeng is expected to open up more sales growth space and further accelerate the industry process of new energy intelligence.