On May 15, on the occasion of International Day of Families, NIO officially launched its new brand "ONVO" at the West Bund Dome Art Center in Shanghai. At the same time, its first product positioning family intelligent electric mid-size SUV Ledao L60 was unveiled and opened for reservation, with a pre-sale price of 219,900 yuan, and was officially launched and delivered in September.
NIO is once again on the bar with Tesla
2024 is the 10th year of NIO's establishment, and with the release of the Ledao brand, NIO has officially opened a new stage of multi-brand parallel development.
At the press conference, the Ledao L60 set its competitors as Toyota RAV4 and Tesla Model Y, two best-selling models in the world. Ledao L60 is equipped with a steel-aluminum hybrid architecture occupant protection cabin and chassis protection cabin, and the whole system is equipped with 45 active and intelligent safety assistance functions as standard; In terms of space, there is 1046 mm of headroom in the front and 160 mm of knee space in the rear, which is larger than the Model Y and RAV4. In addition, the trunk can accommodate two 28-inch, two 24-inch and one 20-inch luggage compartments. The industry's only 15-square-meter maternal and child health material is covered in the whole cabin. In terms of energy consumption, the energy consumption of Ledao L60 per 100 kilometers is 12.1kWh, which is the lowest in the industry.
In addition, in terms of energy supplementation, Ledao has a natural energy replenishment system when it is listed, that is, more than 1,000 battery swap stations and 25,000 self-owned charging piles. Li Bin, the founder of NIO, always emphasizes that Ledao is not a "rich second generation" born with a golden key, but a "creative generation". However, it is undeniable that Ledao, as a sub-brand, shares NIO's technology, energy replenishment system, channels and other resources, which greatly reduces the cost of Ledao and lays an important foundation for NIO's next profitability.
In terms of price, Ledao L60 is also benchmarked everywhere, and Ai Tiecheng, senior vice president of Weilai and president of Ledao Automobile, asked directly at the press conference: "How about this price?" It's 30,000 yuan cheaper than the Tesla Model Y. ”
Li Bin emphasized that Ledao L60 is ready to redefine the new standard of family cars, gives a clear positioning of this new brand, and reorganizes the priority needs of family cars, and sorts the needs of family cars in order of safety, space comfort, intelligent cockpit, battery life and energy supplement, driving experience and intelligent driving. And its behavior of benchmarking Toyota RAV4 shows that NIO wants to compete for market share in the same segment of the joint venture.
Ledao exchanges price for quantity
In the past two years, whether active or passive, car companies have all been involved in price wars, even though NIO has publicly stated that it will not reduce prices, but under the onslaught of other brands, it has still lowered the price of vehicles, and has also released a lot of disguised price reduction rights, such as reducing battery rental fees.
Judging from the current price range of all NIO models, it is roughly 300,000-500,000 yuan, aiming at the luxury market. The release of Ledao has been lowered to the market of 200,000 yuan or even below 200,000 yuan to fight, and it will be more flexible than the Weilai brand when dealing with the price war, and while expanding the market, it will keep the price bottom line of the pure electric market segment of the Weilai brand of more than 300,000 yuan.
Li Bin believes that starting from the high-end market, there is more opportunity to do positive research and development. On the other hand, the scale of the high-end market is limited, and it is not enough to only do high-end. If you only do high-end and do not serve the users of the broader mass market, it does not match the corporate vision and the laws of the market economy. With the Ledao brand, NIO can generate healthy competition within the company, and it is a good thing for multiple people to earn money to support their families.
Li Bin tactfully expressed his desire to seek sales by price.
Investors have little confidence in Ledao
With the rapid rise of new energy vehicles, China's own brand car companies have started a multi-brand strategy in order to accurately capture the market demand of various market segments. Everyone hopes to meet the needs of different users through the comprehensive coverage of the sub-brand strategy, and reduce market risks while enriching the product line.
BYD has Yangwang and Equation Leopard, Changan has AVATR and Deep Blue, Geely has Zeekrypton and Lynk & Co, and Xpeng Motors is about to release cheaper new brands, and the battle for market share is bound to become more and more fierce. As a new brand carrying the ambition of NIO, Ledao Automobile directly hit the most competitive 200,000 yuan automobile market, and whether it can finally carry the banner of brand impact sales still needs to be tested by the market.
It is worth noting that after the Ledao press conference, which coincided with the opening of the U.S. stock market, NIO fell sharply at the opening, with a maximum decline of 9.93%. It can be seen that investors believe that the release of Ledao will affect the development of NIO to a certain extent. Even if sales are high, it will pull down profitability to a certain extent.
However, based on the market positioning, product features, pricing strategy, and brand influence of NIO, its market performance is still worth looking forward to.