With the monthly sales of more than 50,000 Li Auto, among the three major brands of Wei Xiaoli, the situation of Weilai and Xiaopeng is relatively embarrassing. In particular, NIO has undergone a lot of changes in the past year or so, and in our opinion, in addition to "slapping the face", to a certain extent, it has also moved the foundation of NIO.
I don't know if you still remember, Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, once publicly said that Weilai Automobile does not reduce prices, and price reductions will harm the interests of car owners! I was stunned when I heard it, but at the beginning of 2023, when the delivery volume has not been able to rise, NIO was forced to make the decision to reduce the price of the whole series by 30,000 yuan. Obviously, Li Bin slapped himself in the face, which also illustrates a problem, that is, when he said that "the price is not reduced to protect the interests of car owners", it was purely a reason made up and had no basis in reality.
Of course, everyone also knows that a core advantage of Weilai's ability to survive in domestic high-end new energy vehicles is its meticulous service, and some car owners even say that Weilai's service is "nanny-level". In particular, the batch of lifetime free battery replacement and worry-free service plans launched at the beginning can be said to make many prospective car owners who are still hesitant choose NIO's new cars. Because at that time, it can be said that in addition to meticulous service, Weilai did not have obvious advantages compared with Ideal and Xiaopeng, and the product ** was still so high.
But now the situation has changed, some time ago, Weilai readjusted the "Weilai service worry-free", we won't talk about the details, according to many car owners, it is obvious that the 2024 version of Weilai service worry-free, compared with before, in terms of rights and interests has significantly declined. Of course, NIO has also acknowledged this change, Li Bin said that the competition is fierce now, I hope everyone understands! It can be said that in order to reduce costs, NIO had to make a decision that went against its "original intention".
Before that, in 2023, NIO will implement a new battery swap strategy, which will greatly modify the previous free battery swap strategy, that is to say, many users who previously had unlimited free battery swap qualifications are now gone, and after the number of exceedances, it will cost money to swap batteries again. Moreover, the amount of electricity obtained by free battery replacement is also limited to the proportion of external discharge, which is of course also a way to save costs.
In fact, worry-free service and free battery replacement are two typical examples of NIO's service-oriented concept, but NIO's "nanny-level" service will inevitably be "woolen"! For example, the worry-free service plan, some car owners use the rules of worry-free service, after driving the vehicle to the airport, call ** to the after-sales service, make up a fault at will, let Weilai after-sales pick up the car at the airport, and wait until they return to the airport, and then let Weilai after-sales send the vehicle back to the airport, this back and forth, will consume a lot of time, manpower and capital costs after after-sales. There are many similar "wool picking", and NIO can't stand it in terms of cost.
Unlimited free battery replacement, the same problem, some car owners use free battery replacement, change back to a fully charged battery, and then use external discharge, directly to their own store to power supply, and even charge other new energy vehicles, Weilai's free battery replacement, has become some car owners' electric energy "perpetual motion machine", if there are two Weilai cars, almost can cover most of the electricity demand, but for Weilai, the cost pressure is too great. Therefore, NIO restricts free battery replacement, and stipulates the proportion of battery discharge for free battery replacement, in order to block the "wool" of car owners.
Although the wool of the owner of Weilai, to the correct extent, must be immoral, but it is completely in line with human nature, the mentality of taking advantage, the vast majority of people have, we can not require consumers to have lofty and flawless morality. So the question now comes, after the two "sharp weapons" of free battery replacement and worry-free service have shrunk one after another, how many advantages does NIO have.
As we all know, in the field of new energy vehicles in China, everyone is very involved, there are driving assistance, charging speed, and intelligent cockpit, so let's ask, is there an absolute leading position in the above three items, so that consumers can rule out other options to buy Weilai's car? The answer may be no, the core advantage of NIO is that the battery replacement and service are worry-free, NIO's products are not cheap, and many users with relatively high budgets buy NIO's products for these two rights, but now, they have shrunk one after another.
As mentioned above, Weilai's "nanny-level" service is very money-burning, but Weilai's products are relatively high, so a long time ago, we said that Weilai's way of "spoiling" users is unsustainable, because product sales can't go up, the cost is still so high, and the final profit will be pressed again and again! Judging from the current situation, NIO is still losing money, and its monthly sales are more than 10,000 units most of the time, and it has not achieved a breakthrough like Li Auto, which is a big problem.
So the problem now is that Weilai's two core battery swaps and services have shrunk one after another, and the core advantages are equivalent to being hit, and Weilai is naturally no problem in order to reduce costs and losses, is it okay, can we also think so, Weilai bets on human nature and loses a mess.