LI, a hard-core and middle-class BBA belief？

Text | Tech Planet Yang Xiaohe

"LI, driving control is not as good as BMW, luxury is not as good as Mercedes-Benz, brand awareness is not as good as Audi, and dare to sell 400,000?"

In the eyes of Zhang Ze, who drives a BMW car, he always thinks that the fuel car has accumulated for a hundred years, not to say that it can be surpassed. "There is nothing wrong with the intelligence of electric vehicles. Now that the fuel vehicle has an Apple Car, it is basically satisfied." Among many middle-class people, there are not a few who hold this view. Even the evaluation editor of a car media said, "In order to make money, I said Wei Xiaoli (Wei Lai, Tucki, LI) is good, but I really said that I like BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi)."

This kind of public opinion collision, on the evening of February 8th, after LI released the new model L7, was still boiling on the Internet. "L7 has engaged in camping mode again. What is the queen’s seat in the back row? Can’t I just buy an RV for 400,000 yuan?" Zhang Ze’s various jokes about LI’s new car represent some views of traditional consumers.

However, in the eyes of some consumers who like to build new cars, from Li One to L9, L8 and L7 series, LI is accurate in cutting family portraits, and families with three children, two children and one child have corresponding choices. Compared with business and sports scenes, family seems to be a niche market, but if it stands firm in this market, it will be enough for LI to become a "ten thousand-selling household" at the present stage.

The sales data is also true. According to the data of the Association, LI delivered 15,141 vehicles in January, a decrease of 29% from the previous month. It seems that the growth is slowing down, but compared with Tucki and Weilai, which are hovering in the monthly sales range of 5,000-8,000 vehicles, the ideal results are still bright.

According to Sun Shaojun, founder of Car Fans, as of the day before the listing of Ideal L7, L7 had received more than 20,000 orders. L7 is the mainstream product of the big five-seat SUV, and this booking data is not bad. But for the ideal, this achievement may not be enough. After entering the new energy main battlefield of 300,000 yuan, it is said that Ideal will also raise its sales target to 300,000 vehicles in 2023.

In 2022, the sales volume of LI was 133,000 vehicles, which did not meet the target of 200,000 vehicles per year. There is also a discount for this year-end award internally. It is not difficult to achieve the ideal goal in 2023.

The best product manager or the most marketing CEO?

If Li Xiang is the expert who knows the most about automobile products, there must be people who are not convinced by the leaders of Tucki P7, Weilai ET5 and BYD Song.

However, if we say that Li Xiang is the best automobile marketing expert, it is estimated that there are few controversial candidates except Lei Jun after Xiaomi Automobile went on the market.

Before the release of L7, Li wanted to start a series of marketing actions in Weibo. Unlike many CEO posters, Li Xiang didn’t even forward the live link of the ideal L7, but Li Xiang’s topic marketing still attracted enough attention for the ideal L7.

As we all know, in the luxury car market, LI is not an all-aluminum body, and it is not a double-cavity suspension. Even compared with many electric players, the high technology is not comparable to Tesla, the high-voltage charging platform and the city’s assisted driving field, and it also lags behind Xiaopeng. Most importantly, among the new energy players, they are still insisting on the extended program power system, which is also called backward transitional technology by Li Ruifeng, CEO of Great Wall Wei Brand.

Li Xiang naturally knows that the program increase is the most questioned place in LI. However, it is difficult to reverse the situation by confronting public opinion. The clever Li Xiang knows better how to trigger a reversal of public opinion.

On February 6th, Li Xiang, who made the first move, asked in the Weibo: Looking up at the power structure of U8 is parallel PHEV? Or REV in series? Is there an expert in power system who can interpret it?

Many netizens don’t understand why Li Xiang asked this question publicly, and directly replied: "Does your company have no power experts, and do you want to ask netizens publicly?" However, some netizens understand that Li wants to ask this question deliberately. He wants to emphasize that BYD’s million-dollar new car "looks up to U8" is also an extended-range technology, in order to counter those remarks that the ideal power is backward in the market.

This is also the case. Li Xiang didn’t know the answer. He turned his head and sent another Weibo, telling the real purpose: "If BYD, Geely and Changan, the top three car sales, all started to use extended-range electric vehicles, the marketing planning of an enterprise about extended-range backwardness can be stopped, so save some money and get down to business." Suspected to directly reply to the views of peers such as CEO of Great Wall Wei Brand.

Some people in the industry said that the highlight of BYD’s "looking up to U8" is not whether it is extended or mixed, but the four-motor control technology. Li thinks this kind of question is a smoke bomb, which makes people turn their attention to the discussion of extending the range or inserting it, and gain more attention for the ideal L7.

On the other hand, after "covering up" the discussion about whether the ideal technology is backward, the ideal began to help L7 improve its style. The design of China Red, which released the ideal new car L7, was made by the newly introduced "Color and Material" designer. Li Xiang also introduced the companies that the designer had previously served, including Rolls-Royce, HERMES and LV. The designers who used to serve these luxury brands are also designers of ideal new cars, which undoubtedly provide brand talk for many consumers.

Finally, the ideal press conference is also a must. At the G9 conference in Xpeng Motors, the complicated product sales package became the object of inter-industry complaints. As a last resort, Tucki launched a simplified version of vehicle classification three days later. The ideal press conference is simple and clear, and directly uses the mature division system of Apple Air, Pro and Max.

This naming system created by Apple with tens of billions of marketing expenses is also ideally "borrowed" directly. Compared with Tucki and other car companies, Li Xiang is still the one who knows the market better.

At a press conference, with the help of brands such as "Looking Up at U8", Rolls-Royce and Apple, Li Xiang is the one who understands the concept of middle-class consumption.

"Doll products" are on the market, and the sales volume is still difficult to match BBA.

After the release of L7, there was a suspicion that LI products had dolls. Because, now, L9, L8 and L7 vehicles are almost the same in appearance, but the wheelbase and configuration are different.

From the statistical chart of Kailian Capital, we can see the differences in configuration and price of different models in LI. Air, as the basic version, is the cheapest. The Pro and Max versions of L7 and L8 add 128-line laser radar, Qualcomm 8155 and 15.7-inch rear compartment entertainment screen after the price increase of 40,000 yuan, while L9 adds three pieces of home appliances such as car refrigerator, car foot rest and seat massage after the price increase of 60,000 yuan.

The basic configuration remains unchanged, and the ideal L-series differentiated from the built-in and interior upgrades has realized the subdivision layout of the range of 300,000-500,000 with the help of the doll model. The biggest advantage of this model is to save production costs, and even arrange a production line to produce three models. The employees of Changzhou Factory in LI said that they have the strength.

The reproduction of a single explosive doll also minimizes the cost of trial and error. Earlier, 36Kr reported that He Xiaopeng also reflected on the mistakes of the G9 model at the internal meeting: a car model needs as much as 50 million yuan to complete the development, verification and announcement, and more importantly, it delays the precious trial and error time of car companies.

Although the doll model is good, it also has some disadvantages, that is, buying an ideal higher-end model lacks recognition. If Maibakh and Mercedes can’t tell the difference in appearance, who will buy a million-dollar luxury car Maibakh? In the eyes of ideal car owners, this problem does exist, but it is not big. After all, the ideal market share is not too much now, with a cumulative sales volume of more than 200,000, and it is rare to branch to cities across the country.

From the data, the sales volume of "Wei Xiaoli" has not yet formed a climate. In 2022, the total sales volume of "Wei Xiaoli" was 375,000.

In contrast, in 2022, the cumulative sales of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi reached 2.18 million units, which was about 5% lower than the 2.3 million units in 2021, but compared with "Wei Xiaoli", it was still unmatched in the luxury car camp.

Li Xiang also knows that if you want to hit the BBA pattern, you can’t get entangled in the tonality of luxury car brands and start to hit the price of 300,000. At the L7 conference, few people predicted in advance that L7 released a lower-priced version of Air besides Pro and MAX. In the future, L6 and L5 are expected to hit the price between 200,000 and 300,000. Of course, Li Xiang also promised not to make models below 200,000.

If you want to rely on a single explosion series, it is unrealistic to impact the BBA pattern. In addition to the explosions of Model 3 and Model Y, Tesla also has X series, covering the range of 200-1 million yuan. BYD is also launching luxury brand Tengshi and high-end brand look up, and boosting brand potential with two new brands.

Ideal also has a new series of plans. At present, it is reported that ideal will release pure electric MPV models at the end of the year. From extended range to pure electricity, from SUV to MPV, the first thing you need to challenge is yourself.

LI didn’t dare to be aggressive, because he was not rich.

The market has placed high hopes on the new ideal L7. It is expected that the L7 with 5 seats and more than 300,000 seats will be able to support the ideal annual sales.

But 2023, which belongs to LI, is not a good year. The reason was that a person who was certified as a LI employee on the workplace community platform broke the news. Because LI’s annual sales target was not reached, the year-end bonus was discounted, and almost everyone got a year-end bonus of less than one month.

According to the acquisition of Tech Planet, the basic salary of the quality employees in LI’s base workshop is one month. The R&D headquarters in LI paid 0.5 to 1 month’s salary, and the deduction of the year-end bonus did exist. Some employees directly visited Li Xiang, CEO of LI, in Weibo. "Let’s talk about the year-end award first, and deduct half. Don’t you think Li Xiang is a joke?"

In fact, the adjustment of the ideal year-end bonus is just one thing in the context of many major adjustments in the whole company. According to the financial report, LI achieved revenue of 9.342 billion yuan in the third quarter, up 20.2% year-on-year, slightly lower than the market expectation of 9.6 billion yuan; The net loss was 1.646 billion yuan, an increase of 156.7% from the previous month, setting a new high for a single quarter.

In this context, Shen Yanan, the ideal president and No.2 figure, left the board of directors of the company, and Ma Donghui, the chief engineer, succeeded Shen Yanan as the president. At the same time, the CTO was changed twice in one year, and the latest appointment was Senior Vice President Xie Yan as CTO.

Li wants to have a clearer understanding. "Wei Xiaoli" does not have Tesla’s first-Mover advantage and scale advantage, nor does it have BYD’s vertical integration ability. It is not easy to survive. If the company’s growth rate decreases and its losses expand, it must make targeted adjustments in time.

At the same time, the ideal product and marketing-first model is also rapidly strengthening its technical capabilities.

Although Li Xiang does not think that adding programs is backward technology, adding programs as a transitional technology has gradually become a public opinion. After all, if the 800V overshoot platform is fully popularized in 2023, the mileage anxiety problem of electric vehicles will be alleviated to a certain extent, and the program extension will inevitably face an embarrassing situation, and the economic and mileage advantages will not be obvious.

Of course, the ideal is not unaware of the problem, and it is rumored that a pure electric platform will be launched at the end of the year. At that time, compared with other pure electric platforms, the ideal pure electric platform is backward or flat in technical performance, which will attract more attention.

At the launch of the new car L7, Ideality did not hide that its basic model used new batteries. Ideality L7 Air and Ideality L8 Air were equipped with batteries from Honeycomb Energy and Xinwangda respectively, while other models were equipped with batteries from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited. Without its own battery foundry, Ideal is also distributing the centralized supply of batteries.

On the other hand, it is an indisputable fact in the industry that the ideal intelligent driving ability is relatively backward. Li Xiang himself promised to catch up with Tucki’s intelligent driving ability in 2023.

In this context, the ideal is also very hard. In 2022, under the background that both Tucki and Weilai have laid off employees from the autonomous driving team, Ideal is still expanding the intelligent driving team. Ideally, an R&D center was established in Shanghai in early 2021, with a planned staff of over 2,000 people. Some headhunters told Tech Planet that LI still keeps recruiting talents, which is slightly higher than the industry salary by 10-20%.

After all, middle-class consumers can willingly pay 400,000 yuan to choose their ideal, instead of choosing BBA. They can’t rely on four televisions in the car for a long time, but the model adopts the better technology of four motors.