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Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

My car wheels

2024-05-20 10:37Posted in Guangdong automotive creators

The long-rumored low-end brand of NIO has finally made new progress. On the evening of May 15, NIO officially launched a new brand "Ledao", and its first model, Ledao L60, was released. The pre-sale price started at 219,900 yuan, once again breaking the previous market floor price of NIO, and the price approached the 200,000 yuan dividing line.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

The launch of the second brand did not stimulate NIO's sluggish stock price. On May 16, NIO's shares fell 7.94% to close at $5.33 per share.

The market's response to this poor performance may be related to NIO's continued loss-making performance. In recent years, gross profit margin has halved, operating expenses have increased, and cash reserves have dropped significantly...... Voices questioning the sustainability of NIO are endless. In this context, NIO is in urgent need of explosive products, and the arrival of the Ledao brand is not only to explain to investors, but also to find vitality for its own sustainable development.

From high-end to low-end, NIO is struggling to find a way out

Judging from the recent sales of various new power brands, "Wei Xiaoli" can still rank in the first-line camp, but Weilai, which was originally born earlier, has long lagged behind the ideal, and Weilai's performance is relatively inferior in comparison. From January to April this year, NIO delivered 45,700 new vehicles, with a monthly average of 11,400. Compared with other new energy brands, its delivery volume only ranks seventh, lagging behind Wenjie, Ideal, Aion, Deep Blue, etc.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

The direct impact of the product is that it is a huge loss. According to the financial report, in 2023, NIO will achieve a total revenue of 55.612 billion yuan and a net loss of 20.720 billion yuan, an increase of 43.5% year-on-year. Compared with the record of Li Auto's revenue of more than 100 billion yuan and net profit of more than 10 billion yuan in the same period, Weilai can be said to have tasted the bitter fruit. It is reported that NIO's cumulative losses from 2018 to 2023 have exceeded 80 billion yuan. The huge losses and pressure from investors also made NIO choose to launch new low-cost brands with more volume.

It is worth mentioning that as early as the first half of 2021, NIO's low-end brand was exposed, but it was not officially released until 3 years later. Why did NIO delay again and again until now to enter the low-end market? This is a problem.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

In fact, whether to launch a low-end brand and how to build a new brand is believed to have struggled internally for a long time, because Li Bin knows that launching a sub-brand will face many challenges, including: the sub-brand may dilute the high-end aura of the parent brand; Internal friction between internal brands may encroach on each other; There is no obvious advantage in the cost control competition with traditional manufacturers such as BYD.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

However, after several years of exploration and observation, NIO has learned from the pain - "fish where there are fish, otherwise it will be a dead end". Because the high-end EV market targeted by NIO is too small for even BBA to break through in this field, this is not a problem of product competitiveness, but a wrong market positioning.

High-end trams are "no play", and the middle and low end come to make up?

After NIO touched the "high-end tram", in desperation, it could only choose to try to go down. But for NIO, it will be more difficult to go down because it faces stronger competitors. At present, the price of electric vehicles is generally between 100,000 and 300,000 yuan. And this price range is also the center of the most fierce competition among major car companies, and the competitive advantages of BYD, Tesla and other car companies in this part of the market are obvious to all. NIO, which has entered such an involuted low-end market for the first time, is facing pressure that should not be underestimated.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

It is unrealistic for NIO to fantasize about reducing the dimensionality through the Ledao brand. First of all, let's look at the positioning, the Ledao brand focuses on the family car market. Considering that the "family car" track has long been a red sea, what is the attraction of the "family car" story told by Ledao today? I think most of the coin holders want to hear the "price reduction story". Whoever has an attractive price will be able to expand their voice in this range, and the "family car" story is not the so-called hard currency here.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

Judging from the pre-sale price starting from 219,900 yuan, I don't think that Ledao L60 can complete NIO's volume task well. Because the 200,000-level family car market is the most competitive range, there are Xpeng G6, Wenjie M7, Zhiji LS6, and Tesla Model Y and other hot-selling models, Ledao L60 can grab how much share, there is still a question mark. It can be said that the low-end market is not better than the existing high-end market of NIO.

Challenges of multi-brand operation

In the automotive industry, it is not new for car companies to adopt a multi-brand operation strategy, but it is not easy to manage multiple brands. In order to form sufficient differentiation between different sub-brands, it means that car companies need to have sufficient technical reserves, otherwise it will inevitably form mutual tilting between sub-brands.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

As we all know, serving old car owners well has always been NIO's "top priority". As for Ledao, a brand born with a golden key, NIO has to be extra careful in handling it. Needless to say, the appearance of the first model, the Ledao L60, although it is a bit similar to NIO's models, it still makes a difference. Moreover, it also adopts a global 900V high-voltage architecture, with an energy consumption of 12.1 kWh per 100 kilometers, and is developed on the third-generation technology platform NT3.0, and can be used together with the NIO brand for battery swap stations.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

The owner of Weilai also called the insider, which is the treatment of a low-end brand, it is simply a "rich second generation" who enjoys it. Although its price and positioning are lower than NIO models, it is better in some core technical indicators. If Weilai also launches a lifetime free battery replacement for Ledao L60, this may make many old car owners feel bitter and unspeakable.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

Therefore, from the perspective of cost performance, the competitiveness of the Ledao L60 will be significantly stronger than that of NIO models, and at the same time, it will also be more advanced in terms of technology. It is not difficult to see that the Ledao brand is likely to cause a certain diversion to the original brand. In addition, the two brands will also face greater expenses, because whether it is from marketing, marketing channels, or car owners' social apps, they have to start from scratch. The increased operating costs behind it will also be a big burden.

Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?

Judging from the current information, Li Bin is very optimistic about Ledao Automobile, but in fact, he can't help but pay attention to it, after all, it is very difficult for high-end trams to explode sales, and if you want to sell the scale of input costs, you can only rely on Ledao These brands with lower positioning. However, it is not easy for Ledao to break out of the encirclement, and it may be necessary to ask BYD and Tesla whether these brands agree.

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  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
  • Weilai's cumulative losses have exceeded 80 billion, waiting for the Ledao brand to save it?
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