Source of this article: Times Finance Author: He Qing
"It's exactly 30,000 yuan cheaper than the Tesla Model Y." On the evening of May 15, Ai Tiecheng, president of Ledao Automobile, announced the pre-sale price of Ledao Automobile's first medium-sized SUV, Ledao L60, at 219,900 yuan.
In addition to the price, at the whole press conference, Ledao Auto frequently benchmarked the Ledao L6 against the Model Y from multiple dimensions such as size, space, wind resistance, and energy consumption. In a media interview on the 16th, Ai Tiecheng said frankly: "On the first day of product definition, I took into account the price reduction and several price reductions of Tesla Model Y. We need to be preemptive and think very clearly about what to expect in the next few years. ”
Image source: Photo by Times Finance
According to the data disclosed by Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the passenger association, from January to April this year, the Model Y ranked first in the wholesale sales of pure electric models in the Chinese market, with a cumulative sales of 167,700 units. As a challenger, can Ledao L60 take a share of the 200,000-yuan pure electric market?
Although the Ledao L60 has a price advantage of 30,000 yuan compared with the Model Y. But objectively speaking, the competition for family-oriented pure electric SUVs in the domestic market is quite fierce. In addition to the fierce competition in the category of pure electric SUV, from the perspective of consumer behavior survey, the first choice of family users in the 200,000 yuan market is still mainly fuel vehicles, or they will consider electric vehicles when they purchase more. Therefore, I am cautious about the sales of the Ledao L60. Zhang Yi, chief analyst of iiMedia Consulting, told Times Finance.
Bank of Communications International pointed out in the research report that the pre-sale pricing of Ledao L60 is attractive. Its forecast is that the monthly sales volume of Steady-State will be at the level of 9,000 to 10,000 units, which will be the key driver for NIO's sales to enter the second growth curve.
Although the pre-sale data and sales target were not disclosed, Ai Tiecheng revealed in a group interview that the order volume of Ledao L60 within 12 hours far exceeded expectations.
Comprehensively benchmarked against the Model Y
Compared with the high-end pure electric market with limited market space, Ledao chooses to make efforts in the mainstream household market with greater market potential. Ledao's first model, the L60, is also positioned as a mainstream family market, with a pre-sale price of 219,900 yuan.
Image source: Ledao Automotive
The pre-sale price is one of the highlights of the Ledao L60. Previously, Li Bin, founder and chairman of NIO, bluntly said at the "user face-to-face" event on March 2 that the opponent of the new car is Tesla Model Y, and it is an "all-round benchmark". Li Bin also shouted in the air: "Users who want to buy Model Y can wait, our car price will definitely be cheaper." ”
At the press conference, the L60 was also fully benchmarked against the Model Y. According to the official, the length, width and height of the Ledao L60 car are 4828mm, 1930mm, 1616mm, and the wheelbase is 2950mm. In terms of energy consumption, the L60 achieves a CLTC power consumption of 12.1kWh per 100 kilometers, which is officially said to be 3% lower than the latest Model Y (12.5kWh). The L60 has a drag coefficient of Cd 0.229 and the Model Y has a drag coefficient of 0.236.
In fact, the Model Y has always been a very representative model in the pure electric era, and it is also the best-selling pure electric model in the world. In the Chinese market, from January to April this year, the cumulative wholesale sales of Model Y were 167,700 units, ranking first in wholesale sales of pure electric models.
As the second brand of NIO, Ledao Automobile shoulders the heavy responsibility of volume.
Li Bin previously stressed in the earnings call that the NIO brand will continue to focus on maintaining a high gross profit margin to ensure the company's profitability, and the new product line of the second brand will mainly undertake the task of sales growth, and in the early stage, the priority of product sales is higher than the gross profit margin.
Li Bin said that the Ledao L60 will be produced at the second plant of Hefei Xinqiao NIO, so the manufacturing cost of the bicycle will be significantly reduced. Whether it is the allocation of fixed expenses for R&D or the reduction of costs in the supply chain, it can help the whole company to increase profitability. "Actually, it's a simple truth: quantity is very important. Without the support of quantity, many things cannot be done. Li Bin said.
Ai Tiecheng revealed in a group interview that L60's order performance within 12 hours far exceeded expectations. Li Bin said that the current pre-sale price of Ledao L60 itself still has a good gross profit margin. However, the official pricing of the Ledao L60 has not yet been announced. BOCOM International said in the research report: "According to our estimate of the cost of L60 BOM of about 140,000 yuan, we believe that the pre-sale price is lower than expected. Generally, the final listing price will be 5,000 to 10,000 yuan lower than the pre-sale. At the same time, the official pricing of BaaS (battery rental solution for separation of vehicle and electricity) has not been announced, and the final BaaS solution will have a great impact on sales. ”
"A multi-brand strategy is not a whim"
As the first batch of new forces in the past ten years of car manufacturing, what are the considerations for NIO to deploy sub-brands?
In the group interview, Li Bin said that the multi-brand strategy has been planned since the establishment of NIO, not a whim, and now the implementation is a matter of course.
"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 said.
In addition, Qin Lihong, president of NIO, revealed on the spot that the third brand will meet with you within a year.
"The creation of sub-brands by car companies is mainly through brand differentiation to distinguish different target consumer groups. This is done to avoid the negative impact of the market positioning and price strategy of low-end products on the main brand, and also to help reduce the diversion effect of demand for the original brand. Yang Jing, director of Fitch Ratings' Asia-Pacific Corporate Ratings, told Times Finance.
Yang Jing also pointed out that for new forces, if the main brand has not yet formed a sufficient scale effect, the launch of multiple brands may lead to duplication of resources in product development, marketing, sales management and other aspects, which will burden the company's overall profitability in the short term.
In terms of production and sales scale, as of May 9 this year, NIO's 500,000th production car officially rolled off the assembly line.
In Li Bin's view, the R&D investment in Ledao and the third brand has now reached the stage of realization. For example, in terms of sales and service network, in addition to the independent construction of the sales network, Ledao has a lot of infrastructure that is reused by NIO, including battery swap network, charging network and some after-sales service.
The official said that after Ledao was listed, it will directly enjoy the third- and fourth-generation battery swap station replenishment network of NIO, and there will be thousands of battery swap stations when the new brand comes out. In addition, Ledao and NIO have the same after-sales service network, and as of May 15, NIO has built 333 service centers.
It is reported that the L60 will be officially launched in September. Li Bin revealed that when it goes public, Ledao will have more than 100 stores.
For NIO, it hopes that the multi-brand strategy can help maximize its advantages in the whole system, form a play style of NIO + Ledao, high-end + mainstream, and achieve a market effect of 1+1>2. While ensuring the high-end brand value of NIO, it uses the advantages of scale and cost to stake its ground.
However, it should also be noted that the competition in the sinking market is more intense. Ping An Securities pointed out that although Tesla's competitiveness in China has declined in the short term, it still has a huge influence in the 20-300,000 yuan new energy vehicle market. In the ideal and Huawei ecosystems, Xiaomi has become an important increment of new energy vehicles of more than 200,000 yuan in 2024.
Yang Jing believes that in view of the current market environment, major car companies are seeking to create 1-2 popular models to achieve economies of scale and cost reduction. Especially in the sinking market, this requires brands to provide extremely cost-effective products, or find marketing strategies that can accurately hit the needs of the sinking market.