Yiche original May 15th is the International Day of Families, this day is also a big day for Weilai, Weilai's sub-brand Ledao Automobile was officially released, and the choice to be listed on this day is because Ledao Automobile will take "family fun, family care" as the brand concept, and at the same time, Ledao Automobile is also arduous to "seize" more family market responsibility.
Ledao Automobile's first model, L60, a pure electric mid-size SUV, with a pre-sale price of 219,900 yuan, will focus on the 20-300,000 level intelligent pure electric vehicle market, and for this "both familiar and unfamiliar" brand, I believe everyone is as curious as me. This time, we are very honored to interview Li Bin, Founder, Chairman and CEO of NIO, and Ai Tiecheng, Senior Vice President of NIO and President of Ledao Automobile.
Left: Li Bin, Founder, Chairman and CEO of NIO
Right: Ai Tiecheng, Senior Vice President of NIO and President of Ledao Automobile
Q1, about the battery swap, now give us a lot of information, not only Weilai has several generations of battery swap stations, Ledao will build its own battery swap station again a year, in addition to this Weilai has also signed a cooperation intention with a number of brands to jointly build a station, can you introduce how different brands of car owners in the future to distinguish different types of battery swap stations, which battery swap stations can be used?
Li Bin: Regardless of the first, second, third, or fourth generation stations of NIO, from the perspective of NIO users, he mainly looks at the application of car machines and mobile phones. Arrange the order and place the order in advance. Our information is all networked, which is very clear from the user's point of view, and the user does not need to look everywhere. Any application you use today is actually based on a cloud service, and you don't have to care about where the server is or whether your service can be satisfied. It's as simple as that from a user's point of view. From a network perspective, it's actually easy to do this. You can understand that there are only two kinds of stations, one is exclusive to NIO users, and the other is shared, including Ledao including NIO users and users who join our battery swap alliance, which are shared. Some battery swap stations are exclusive because the service capacity of this site has reached an economic benefit, and there are already so many orders every day, we feel that the exclusive is reasonable and will not affect the experience of NIO users. If there are users of Ledao and users who share in the future, it would be good for us to add another station around this point, which is very easy to layout. The sharing station is that all the cars participating in the battery swap alliance can go, including the NIO brand, the Ledao brand, and other cars.
Q2: How do we consider the channel model? In addition to the innovative form of the channel, what are the new forms to consider? Thank you!
Ai Tiecheng: First of all, we will adopt the direct sales model, in terms of sales channels, we will not only have a layout in business district stores, traditional 4S stores, including automobile city stores. Of course, if we want to target overseas markets in the future, we may consider other ways to do it in China. In offline stores, we will focus on two things, one is the sales channel, and we hope to be as close as possible to the user's car purchase. The other is that we need to ensure that the service network is worry-free after the user gets the car. As for the service network, we already have hundreds of contracts now, so there is no need to worry about it. The layout of the sales stores will be more rhythmic, and there is no specific number at the moment, but I think there will be at least 100 when the car is delivered. As a new brand, there are 100 stores, which is already very, very high.
Q3、We noticed that Ledao L60 does not use lidar,And the Orin chip has become an Orin X chip,The difference in the whole hardware configuration is still quite large,Some users are worried that an Orin chip is not enough,Or there is no lidar,Some are worried about the obstacle avoidance ability,Want to know how Ledao L60 uses such a hardware configuration?
Li Bin: Our cars are now beginning to enter the era of intelligent electric, in which high-end cars, high-end brands and Volkswagen brands, there will be a relatively large separation point in the future, in fact, we talked about at the ET9 press conference, called redundant safety. Redundant safety will be a very important differentiator for premium and mass brands in the future, or between the high line of the same brand and the entry-level standard model. There are some models that we can think of in this way. For example, the dual motor, many people see the meaning of acceleration, in fact, its biggest significance is the meaning of redundancy. This includes adapting to some more complex scenarios, such as snow mode, handling of slippery roads. In fact, in rare cases. To the intelligent part, redundant value also exists, such as radar, today we do intelligent driving, must be in contact with pure visual solutions, logically speaking, the more sensors, the better, but the more sensors, the higher the cost, different sensors solve the problems of different scenarios. The foundation is definitely visual, but LiDAR solves the problem of higher reliability of its perception in a few scenes. In fact, it is also a redundant logic, so in fact, different sensors play different roles in different climatic conditions and different scenarios. The more sensors the better, unless there are some negative gains. Traditional radar ultrasonics, millimeter waves, and millimeter waves may have negative benefits. Lidar is definitely a positive gain. One more camera is definitely a positive benefit. When it comes to the scenario of family cars, we think that it plus 8 million cameras, plus our current chips can meet the high standards in active safety and intelligent driving. Of course, we have to balance costs, and that's a reasonable trade-off. One is no problem, it is enough, of course, a few more, the upper limit will be raised. Everyone is interested in looking at the last seven layers of security redundancy when ET9 is released. ET9's seven-fold safety redundancy costs tens of thousands of dollars in BOM, which is worth half the cost of a battery. If you want to achieve that, it's money. But you said that if you put seven-fold redundant security on Ledao, the cost will directly increase by tens of thousands, and the price will go up, and what we do is to use the latest technology to balance experience and cost.
Q4, Ledao's new L60 is now the main Model Y to play, because Model Y is the SUV in the top sales, will the sedan be benchmarked against Xiaomi SU7?
Li Bin: We will not benchmark SU7 to do Ledao, because Ledao is positioned in the home market, SU7 focuses on acceleration performance, we feel that for home users, this is not the most important need. We also provide users with the best choice from these aspects in terms of comfort and space. It is still a value formula, safety, space, comfort, intelligent cockpit, battery life and energy supplement, driving experience and intelligent driving. For home users, there are a lot of trade-offs to make. For example, the more powerful the car is, the more understandable it is when possible. It seems that the probability will be a little higher, and it will have an impact on the cost of insurance, and it will also have an impact on many aspects. Its housekeeper will be worse if it has a way, which is different from the positioning of Ledao itself.
Q5、命名方面，L60后面会有L70、L90吗？
Li Bin: At least.
Q6: How is the channel construction of Ledao planned? Will there be a deeper channel than NIO?
Ai Tiecheng: In the long run, Ledao's positioning will definitely be more sinking, and it will be more suitable for the sinking market. Today, NIO already has more than 400 stores, and in terms of channels, as a new brand, we have at least 100 stores, which is one of our bottom lines. The Motor City is where the traditional 4S stores are located, and many stores of traditional joint venture brands have closed. Yesterday's press conference came with a lot of partners, many of whom are also partners of the Auto City store. We're using different ways, using their places, using their resources, but the sales stores are managed by us, which is actually a kind of cooperation, but the form of cooperation has changed a little bit.
Q7. Ledao is family-oriented, L60 is a five-seater, will there be a six-seater car in the future?
Ai Tiecheng: Six, seven are necessary.
Li Bin: We will have it next year, and the completion of the development is already very high. Medium-sized SUVs have seen the L60 medium and large, we will definitely enter this market, what car do family users mainly buy, we also see that there are still many users, who prefer the form of sedans, and we will also have. But Ledao will not have as many products as NIO, it will be more streamlined. Because NIO is relatively personalized, from the needs of business, it is indeed not the same. The need to reach users is a bit more fragmented. Ledao is a family car, a big family, a small family.
Q8, Ledao is the second brand of Weilai, it seems to be more like the first brand after the establishment of the battery swap alliance of Weilai, I want to ask Brother Bin how to understand the relationship between Ledao and battery swapping?
Li Bin: Ledao is indeed the first member of the entire NIO battery swap alliance to actually put into operation. In fact, Ledao has run through this matter, and if you add another brand to come in, it will all pass. In fact, in the past few years, NIO has realized two generations of 11 models, several battery packs, and an internal platform for three generations of battery swap stations, and this step has been completed, and there are many operational details, including operating rules and technical details, in fact, we have already iterated. Now is the time to move on to the second step and start multi-branding. We've solved the problem of multi-platform, and now we're going to start multi-branding. In the past, it could not be called sharing, in the past, it could only be said that there were multiple platforms within a brand, and multiple generations of platforms to share, but now we have to start to enter multiple brands, two too, three or four, and we have the foundation for opening up to the outside world.
Q9. If a user who buys Ledao now or picks up the car in September, can he go to NIO's Cowhouse in the future? Will the 100 stores of the Ledao brand also make their own Ledao cow houses?
Ai Tiecheng: There will be no cattle house in Ledao, and we will mainly focus on sales and service offline networks in the future. If the owner of NIO takes the users of Ledao to the cow house, it is okay, but the cow house is not open to the owner of the car of Ledao, because these are indeed two channels. For example, in the past, Volkswagen and Porsche were also the same company. Do you think Volkswagen owners can go to the center of Porsche? This is also a separation, which is more in line with the current rules.
Q10, now China's electric vehicle exports in the international atmosphere is not very friendly, this environment includes the definition of our products, as well as the international trade barriers, or the charging of energy supplements, the difference in standards, Ledao Automobile consider exporting?
Li Bin: First, we will unswervingly go to the global market without any hesitation. There is no reason why good products and good services in China cannot be accepted by users in other countries. I don't think that makes sense. Because China's products really rely on strength, those that can survive are very good companies, and they are all products that have been tested by the market for a long time. I think there are opportunities in the world to be recognized by users in China. Second, it's definitely going to get harder than it used to be, there's no doubt about it. Automotive is a relatively geopolitically sensitive industry. Now with the addition of intelligence, electrification, data governance, and energy transition, this is even more complicated. We also have to accept this reality. We are not engaged in politics. The world has changed, and you have to adapt to it. Therefore, we must adjust our global market strategy more flexibly according to such changes in the international government environment. Third, we are now the original NIO brand, which is positioned in the high-end market. More than 90% of the world's high-end markets are China, the United States and Europe. The United States is in such a situation now, and it is quite troublesome. Europe has imported from China and exported from China, and the cost of tariffs and freight has become relatively high. The advantage is not that great. So now with Ledao, including our next third brand, it must be very different. Our foundation is different, and there are more options. Therefore, we will be more active in expanding the global market because of Ledao and our next third brand. In the first two years, we were in Europe, doing a pilot area, experimenting, and learning how to manage the cross-border operation of the brand. Now we have a lot of lessons to learn. We've also summarized a lot of things. Fourth, when NIO goes out, we will still adhere to the output of a system, not simply selling a product, the concept of recharging, swapping and upgrading, and an operation system for the entire product service community. We're going to take our whole approach and make the output of the system. However, the output of this system does not mean that it must be directly operated overseas. Now in terms of direction, we're going to look for this kind of local partner in each region. Because we are more focused on the Chinese market, but we will not lose global opportunities. We will find more local partners for a comprehensive and in-depth cooperation. That's what we're able to communicate at the moment. It's definitely hard to do it resolutely. But now with Ledao, we definitely have more options. In the end, we will still find local partners and export the system.
Q11, now from the brand release to the real Ledao L60 delivery there are still three or four months to go, do we have the opportunity to produce a series of cars or the entire configuration in these three or four months, can the settings of the entire configuration be simpler, to ensure that when the time comes, the big will be delivered, and the delivery will be on the volume?
Li Bin: All the climbing is a gradual process, the listing is released, the release is the volume, I don't know why this thing is now made into a so-called ability, if you schedule production out of the tired months together, don't you feel that the listing is on the volume, this is a marketing method, the listing is also very simple, push the listing time back a little, push to the time of mass production, we still have to be honest, don't be so complicated. We won't deliberately stop the car and not hand it over in order to create a so-called how many cars will be in the first month of coming, and we won't do this, which is not NIO's style. We weren't going to do that, and it didn't make sense. And, I must say one thing, last year we went on the market and delivered five new models in 4 months, from the supply chain, manufacturing, quality to the entire market, sales, service, all linkage, high-quality listing, high-quality delivery, how many companies in the world can do it? Of course, there are still many things we need to improve. Back to the facts, the fact that release is delivery, and delivery is increment has nothing to do with capability. It can be sold well, and it can't be sold well.