"How's the Ledao order?" On the afternoon of May 16, at the Ledao brand media exchange meeting, the media couldn't wait to ask this question. However, NIO executives did not want to answer the question directly. "Far more than expected, 2-3 times more than expected." Ai Tiecheng, president of Ledao, said, and stressed that NIO never publishes order data.
Still, some people immediately asked what this so-called "expectation" was. However, the expected small goal is how much NIO Chairman Li Bin did not say. In addition, Li Bin also deliberately and sincerely emphasized that Ledao's current orders are currently small orders and can be refunded. Although it exceeded expectations, regarding orders, Li Bin said that NIO has not yet made efforts.
The successive follow-up questions show that the outside world has high expectations for the sales of NIO's second brand, Ledao. Behind this expectation is the concern about the development of NIO. For a long time, although NIO has been shouting the slogan of "20,000 monthly sales", there is very little time to really achieve this goal. In the impression of the outside world, NIO is obviously more in line with mainstream expectations in terms of car manufacturing and corporate values, rather than adopting a chicken-thief style of development like some new forces that take shortcuts. NIO should survive, and the premise of this expectation is that if NIO wants to turn around its losses, it must expand sales and spread costs.
As the second brand of NIO, Ledao was officially released on May 15, and the pre-sale price of the brand's first model, Ledao L60, is 219,900 yuan, which is 30,000 yuan cheaper than the direct competitor Tesla Model Y. This price is basically in line with Spiegel Pro's previous estimates. Previously, Li Bin said: "Ledao L60 is benchmarked against Tesla Model Y, but the cost will be about 10% lower than Tesla Model Y." The starting price of the latter is 249,900 per day, which is basically a decrease of 10%.
Ledao has not yet announced the price of the BaaS plan. According to the forecast, if this scheme is adopted, the price of Ledao L60 should be subtracted from about 50,000 yuan of battery, and if 2000 yuan is added to deduct 6000 yuan of pre-sale rights, the final threshold of Ledao L60 will be around 170,000 yuan. However, Ledao L60 cannot be delivered immediately after launch, and it will take 4 months to wait.
The price range planned by the Ledao brand is 20-300,000 yuan, and Li Bin said before that Ledao does not have too many models. He believes that the family market is easier to define than the high-end market, and there will not be many models for the family market. As a result, there will only be three cars in the entire life cycle, of which the brand's second car is an SUV, and the development is progressing smoothly and has entered the mold opening stage, which will be launched to the market next year. Li Bin's idea is that if the three cars are done well, they will be able to win a large share.
On the first product, L60, Weilai has also completely lifted the shackles of the previous "Weilai" brand, because of the relatively high-end brand play, the mass market no longer needs to be "end" to ensure the brand. For example, the single-motor version that NIO has not been doing has appeared. Of course, the biggest feature of the car is the battery swap. Ai Tiecheng said, especially users in third, fourth and fifth-tier cities. There is a consensus on battery swapping. Mainstream home users' desire for battery swapping is beyond my imagination, and the acceptance has increased by 10 times.
The arrival of Ledao undertakes the dual goal of increasing NIO's sales and profits. Li Bin said that in the past ten years, NIO has basically completed the development stage from 0-1, and the launch of Ledao Automobile means that NIO will enter a wider user market from the beginning of 1-100. In terms of operation, Li Bin said that Ledao will have a considerable gross profit margin, "We don't do loss-making transactions." Li Bin emphasized.
As for sales, Li Bin hopes that Ledao can increase the volume along the normal rhythm, instead of piling up a bunch of orders and creating the effect of "×× million sales in the first month". Qin Lihong, president of NIO, said that this method is tantamount to fraud, and he said that enough time needs to be left for home users to think about decision-making.
How to play Ledao?
From the product point of view, at present, Ledao L60 has three kinds of endurance: 555km, 730km, 1000km, and all systems support battery swapping. At the same time, the car is also equipped with a 900V high-voltage architecture and a fully self-developed 900V silicon carbide main electric drive system. The energy consumption of the L60 is 12.1kWh/100km, which is lower than the Tesla Model Y and lower than all NIO models.
The Ledao L60 also uses the same pure visual intelligent driving solution as the Model Y, instead of using lidar, which is based on cost considerations. Li Bin said that at present, most companies do intelligent driving based on pure vision, and sensors are to increase safety redundancy. He believes that "redundant security" will become the distinguishing point between high-end brands and entry-level brands. "In the family car scenario, the current intelligent driving hardware can meet high standards, but it also needs to balance the cost." Li Bin said.
In terms of channels, Ledao Automobile will establish independent sales stores, and will build directly operated stores mainly in the automobile city. In 2024, Ledao Auto will build an offline network of no less than 200 stores. In terms of service system, independent stores will also be developed. "The service network has already signed up for hundreds of companies. In the long run, the Ledao family positioning market will sink more. Ai Tiecheng said. However, Ledao Auto will use part of the after-sales system of the NIO brand in after-sales service.
In terms of battery swapping, NIO's current existing charging and swapping service system will also be used in part of the service Ledao models. It is reported that Ledao shares the third- and fourth-generation battery swap stations of NIO. At present, there are about 1,000 third-generation battery swap stations, and this year it is planned to lay out 1,000 fourth-generation battery swap stations. In terms of charging, Ledao will share all the charging stations and charging piles built by Wei. However, for NIO owners, they still have the exclusive right to use the original battery swap network.
For NIO users, Ledao will promote the sinking of the battery swap station to form a battery swap network with higher coverage, which is also conducive to the travel of NIO car owners. At present, NIO has established a huge circle of friends for battery swapping. This includes six companies, including GAC, Changan, and Geely. With the expansion of the alliance, the convenience of battery swapping will be greatly improved, and battery swapping may become a new growth point for NIO itself.
In addition, high-quality service used to be the golden sign of NIO. What kind of service will there be on the music road? Ai Tiecheng said that the core of Ledao's service is: saving time, worry, and money. Compared with NIO, it cannot be said that it is "shrinking", but the question of "whether it is worth it". For example, Li Bin said, for example, Ledao users are used to staying in Holiday Inn hotels when they go out to travel, but with NIO's system, they want to stay at the Ritz-Carlton once in a while, and of course there is no problem to pay for it themselves. This means that Ledao car owners can spend money on NIO's services.
As a more pragmatic brand, Ledao will not establish a model similar to Niohouse, which is mainly based on sales and service, and at the same time, "Cow House" is not open to Ledao users to form a brand differentiation. However, Li Bin said that Ledao will not be listed separately. Of course, perhaps what Li Bin didn't mention is that Ledao may adopt a more flexible price strategy - the NIO brand has insisted on not reducing prices, which has also constrained the increase in NIO's sales.
The third brand is the cheaper BMW MINI
For the launch of Ledao L60, there are voices in the outside world that it will impact NIO's own es6 and other products. In this regard, Li Bin believes that this will not happen, because the brand of NIO has already established. Li Bin said that in the era of oil vehicles, the distinction between brands is very clear, but in the era of new energy vehicles, this distinction will be more confusing in China. As a comprehensive embodiment of the brand, NIO has always maintained "determination" in terms of pricing experience, and users have gradually developed a concept of brand value and differentiation.
"So the next BBA is NIO, and that mindset has been established." Li Bin said. From the perspective of brand segmentation, Ledao dominates the family, and although the NIO brand has spillover over to family demand, in general, it is both business and personalized family, starting from both ends, and the overlap between the two is not high. From the perspective of the automotive industry, Lexus and Toyota, Audi and Volkswagen actually intersect, but the distinction is relatively clear, so they do not affect each other.
"Taking 10,000 steps back, internal substitution is always better than external substitution." Li Bin said. He believes that in the past, NIO's price starting point was high, and many people's budgets were not in this range or the demand matching was relatively poor. At present, in general, NIO's sales have formed a 1+1 greater than 2 effect due to the release of Ledao.
In terms of market strategy, the listing of Ledao did not adopt the mode of listing and delivery. Ai Tiecheng explained that it is to give home users enough time to consider. "The family user car purchase cycle is at least 3-6 months, and this rhythm is the most reasonable for us. Ai Tiecheng said. Therefore, NIO's view of sales in the first few months after listing is also more pragmatic.
"As for how many units will be delivered in the first month of September, there is no point in speculating on this matter, and it is important to continue to have real and stable demand." Qin Lihong said.
In addition to the second brand, Qin Lihong revealed on the spot that the third brand of NIO will meet with the outside world within a year. This is the firefly mentioned before, but the brand name is not "firefly", and there should be variables in reference to Ledao. What is more surprising is that Li Bin said that the positioning of fireflies is not at the level of 70,000 or 80,000, and Ledao and Weilai form a high, medium and low price band coverage. Li Bin's latest statement today is that the relationship between Firefly and NIO is the relationship between BMW and Mini, but it is definitely cheaper. This means that the Firefly project seems to be going to be a brand that is biased towards personalization?
In addition, the Firefly can also support battery swapping and battery rental. If you refer to the electric mini and electric SMART, the price of the third brand may be between 10-200,000 yuan, which is expected to grab the entry-level customers of luxury cars. What's more meaningful is that an interesting closed loop is formed between the three brands: use fireflies to attract entry-level luxury young customers, and then this group of people can grow up to buy Ledao, and then upgrade to NIO after buying Ledao.