Written by Xiao Budong.
Edited by Lee Shin-ma.
Title map: The official website of the questioning world.
In the first month of 2024, Wenjie ushered in a good start, surpassing Li Auto's sales volume and occupying the first place in the monthly new energy sales list.
Ask the boundary
This can't help but make many people wonder, why did the world suddenly achieve such good results? How did Li Auto be surpassed by the world?
First, the first merit was awarded to the new M7
You must know that Li Auto has been sitting firmly in the sales top position among the new car companies for half a year, and in January 2024, Li Auto will also "increase by 105 year-on-year."8%" is clearly written on the transcript.
Ideal.
However, sales in January were nearly 20,000 fewer than the previous month, so they quietly avoided talking about it. As you can see from the chart below, for the entire month, Li Auto delivered only 31,165 vehicles, a decrease of 3811%, the first month-on-month decline in a year.
In contrast, in December 2023, the sales volume of Wenjie was only less than half of the ideal, and just one month later, it was 34The 76% month-on-month growth surpassed that of Li Auto, although it was only 1,808 units more, which was a narrow victory. But on this list, the world and ideal can be regarded as completely opening up the gap with other brands.
Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, CEO of Huawei's Device Business, and Chairman of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, also ridiculed himself for changing "Yu Dazui" to "Yu Xiaozui", saying that his estimate of the popularity of smart cars is not conservative enough. It reminds people of an old Internet saying - the goal should be more ambitious, what if it is achieved?
Yu Chengdong Weibo.
The largest contributor to sales is the M7 series, with 31,253 units delivered in January, which has already surpassed the overall performance of Li Auto, and the M5 can only be regarded as the icing on the cake.
Ask the boundary
Open the official website of Wenjie Automobile, you can find that the M7 series is divided into M7 and the new M7, before the facelift, the monthly sales of M7 did not exceed 2000 at most, and even once went downhill, if you do not change, this series is not far from "cooling".
The change occurred in September 2023, that is, the launch of the new M7, and since then it has been soaring all the way, and it has actually revitalized the entire series, directly from the previous unpopular to far ahead, winning in the case of L7, L8, and L9 with a pair of three hard and rigid ideals.
Both the ideal L series and the Wenjie series belong to the mid-to-large SUV and are actually direct competitors. The ** interval of the new M7 is 2498-32.980,000 yuan, with the lowest price of the ideal L7 32Compared with 880,000 yuan, the new M7 has more obvious advantages. It must not be said that Li Auto is not performing well, throughout 2023, L7, L8, and L9 are growing, but the speed is obviously not as fast as the new M7.
Since its launch in September 2023, the new M7 has accumulated more than 140,000 units, with about 90,000 units delivered in the past five months, and 50,000 units still undelivered, which means that in the next two months, even if new orders are not counted, the average monthly delivery will exceed 20,000 units. There is also the M9, which will be pre-sold in December, and will receive 30,000 orders within 7 days of listing, and will be delivered from the end of February.
Second, "smart selection and price reduction" brings a new scene
January is not the peak sales season in the general sense, and most car companies have also experienced a month-on-month decline, the reason is nothing more than the end of the sprint KPI at the end of December, and there are fewer people who book and buy cars for the upcoming New Year.
There is also an interesting phenomenon in January, that is, many car companies began to introduce new products and cut prices for old models to clear inventory. Add selling points to the product through a few configuration upgrades, and then promote consumption through price reduction.
For example, Ideal announced in January that the 2024 L-series models will be launched in March, and the price of existing L-series models will be reduced by 330,000-350,000 yuan, of which the starting price of the ideal L7 dropped to 300,000 yuan for the first time, which is considered a big strength in the previous activities of the ideal.
Li Auto Weibo.
According to the relevant ** report, in order to cope with the price reduction tide, the world has also launched a series of subsidy policies, in January, the four models currently on sale in the world and the wisdom world have different degrees of subsidies, including the new M7 up to 40,000 yuan discount, the highest discount of M5 520,000 yuan, the highest subsidy of Zhijie S7 is 550,000 yuan, and the maximum subsidy for M9 is 30,000 yuan.
In addition to exchanging sales with **, Huawei's smart car model has also been affirmed by the new M7.
The new M7 is a new model in which Huawei is deeply involved in product definition, vehicle design, and channel sales, and empowers car companies in terms of product styling, interior and exterior design, and brand marketing.
Under the smart car model, Huawei leverages its strengths in brand and technology to help improve the quality and performance of its products and enhance the visibility of car companies. Provide full-stack intelligent solutions, including a new generation of "computing + communication" CCA architecture and five intelligent systems: intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent electric, intelligent networking, and intelligent vehicle cloud; It also uses its experience in the field of consumer electronics to help car companies test, iterate and optimize products; It also uses its resources such as 5,000 high-end experience stores and 60,000 retail and service outlets at home and abroad to provide online and offline sales channels and service support for car companies. Automakers, on the other hand, can focus on product development and production to improve production efficiency and quality.
With the success of the Wenjie series, Huawei's "car friend circle" continues to expand, and Changan Automobile also cooperates with Huawei, but it is different from the smart mode of Cialis (i.e., "Hongmeng Zhixing"), but the HI mode (Huawei inside) mode, which gave birth to AVATAR. Chery, JAC, Great Wall Motors and other car companies are also cooperating with Huawei in the smart car model.
On February 2, "Hongmeng Zhixing"** issued a document announcing that the OTA of the Wenjie series models was heavily upgraded to support the opening of high-end intelligent driving functions in urban areas across the country. Updated 12 major new content, 12+ experience optimizations. Equipped with the upgraded version of Huawei ADS 2The 0 system of the Wenjie model, without relying on high-precision maps, will be intelligent driving available roads from the national high-speed, elevated, expressway, to all urban roads, national highways, counties and townships and other public roads, the available road section of 99%.
According to the plan, Huawei ADS 2The 0 will be installed on the M5 Huawei high-end intelligent driving version, AVATR 11, and ARCFOX Alpha S HI version.
Hongmeng Zhixing***
Yu Chengdong said at the 2023 Huawei Intelligent Vehicle Solution New Product Launch Conference that the second half of the competition in the smart electric vehicle industry is intelligence, which will be the key to victory, "If you can't seize the opportunity of intelligent electric connected vehicles, no matter how powerful the company is, it may disappear in the future." ”
For other car companies, although "joining if you can't beat" is an option, "independence" is definitely the first choice, and the ideal car that unexpectedly lost the monthly sales crown at the beginning of the year is ready to sound the horn of counterattack in 2024.
2024 will be an unprecedented product year for Li Auto, with 4 extended-range models and 4 pure electric models, and 8 highly competitive product portfolios to meet the needs of family users. In March this year, the home technology flagship MPV Ideal MEGA will be launched and delivered, and the Ideal L7, Ideal L8 and Ideal L9 will also usher in the 2024 model. With the support of more abundant products, stronger product strength and more efficient production, supply and marketing system, we will challenge to deliver 800,000 units a year and achieve the goal of No. 1 luxury car brand sales in the Chinese market. Li Xiang, chairman and CEO of Li Auto, said.
The comeback may begin in April, and it remains to be seen who will come out on top. What we can expect – the competition will be fiercer.