Easy car originalIn the new energy market in the past two years, various manufacturers have launched new models from "competing for beauty" to today's "involution" strength, through more affordable and richer configurations, and more comprehensive products to attract more and more discerning consumers. In today's intensive "price reduction tide", NIO, the head echelon, has chosen to upgrade the volume without increasing the price, and launched the 2024 model, by improving the cost performance of the product, so as to maintain the stability of the first and the brand tone.
A few days ago, NIO announced that pre-orders for the 2024 model have begun, and deliveries will begin in March. Among them, the biggest improvement of the 2024 model is to focus on the level of intelligent computing power as a whole, and all models will use the new first-class computing platform ADAM, and NIO will further apply intelligent algorithms to NIO car series based on a series of functions such as AI large models based on this.
Computing power goes one step further in the battle for soft power
With the fierce competition of new energy vehicles, as well as the continuous deduction of the intelligent field, the large model empowers the technology cockpit, has become a new battlefield for new energy vehicles, Weilai, ideal, Xiaopeng and other brands have officially announced the plan to develop their own large models, and various car companies have chosen to improve the intelligent sensibility of the cockpit space through large model technology. The convergence of computing platforms and cockpits has become an industry-wide trend.
From the perspective of the hardware layer, it integrates 1 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 cockpit chip and 4 NVIDIA Orin X intelligent driving chips. Compared with the previous generation model, the cockpit chip has been upgraded from 8155 to 8295, the CPU computing power has been increased by about 2 times, the GPU computing power has been increased by about 3 times, and the AI computing power has been increased by about 8 times, with 4 NVIDIA Orin X chips, 48 CPU cores and 256 matrix computing units, with a total computing power of 1016TOPS.
Li Bin once said that the advancement of chips depends on the understanding of algorithms, and NIO focuses on the progress of full-stack technology, and the significance of a single-point breakthrough is to achieve integrated and systematic thinking for the software and hardware of the whole vehicle.
Based on the new computing platform, NIO also plans to gradually implement new intelligent functions such as AI large-scale model products and intelligent driving systems in the first half of the year. Among them, the AI model NOMI GPT will be implemented in the first quarter. In terms of intelligent driving, NOP+ plans to complete the full user push in the second quarter.
It may not be a very intuitive technology upgrade to be perceived, but it allows a NIO car to more calmly mobilize intelligent cockpit, intelligent chassis, intelligent seats, intelligent voice interaction, intelligent space interaction, intelligent impression system, and even zonal air conditioners are also deeply cultivating energy algorithms, forward-looking and redundant chips and computing power to ensure that the vehicle can better complete multi-level collaboration and cross-domain linkage.
Based on the early R&D and pre-installation reserves, the hardware level of NIO's super-sensing system and supercomputing platform is enough to support the continuous iteration of existing models in the next few years, and on January 26, NIO released the Banyan Banyan 24.Version 0, more than 50 new functions have been added and optimized, 4D Comfort Navigation, GOA General Obstacle Warning and Assist, and Omnidirectional AEB can also be applied to the 2023 model.
Perhaps, people's concept and demand for computing power are still a little vague, but from 2018 to 2023, the mainstream computing power platform in the automotive industry has increased from 25tops has developed to 508tops, and then to 1016tops, the development of chip technology innovation and intelligent cockpit has become an industry consensus, and the vehicle is becoming more and more rich in safety, real-time and application problems, and enough computing power can be implemented and implemented.
Increase the volume without increasing the price, consolidate the fundamentals, brand up, market down
On December 17, 2023, when Li Bin spent 14 hours driving the ET7 equipped with a 150kWh battery, he completed the challenge of more than 1,000 kilometers; On December 23, 2023, the executive flagship ET9, with a pre-sale price of 800,000 yuan, will showcase many innovative technologies and black technologies of NIO; When February 22, 2024, it was the first time since the establishment of the NIO brand that it launched so many new model updates at one time. It unexpectedly proves that NIO's background is technology and products, showing its ambition and strength in the field of smart electric vehicles.
Nowadays, the rapid expansion of the new energy vehicle market, intelligence, technology, comfort and other aspects of the degree of competition is ineffable, in the face of such a situation, many brands in exchange for sales in the form of price reduction, in the face of the tragic market pattern, Weilai has achieved the stability of the first system, adhere to the high-end market positioning, sales growth can also outperform the industry brand, with practical actions to respond to all questions.
At present, NIO's second-generation technology platform has a total of 8 models on sale, with a layout in the range of 300,000-600,000 yuan, fully meeting the diversified needs of users, and covering the main sales market of BBA accounting for 80% of sales. The arrival of the 2024 model of Weilai is in the context of the Weilai brand's insistence on not fighting the best war, after increasing the computing power, the configuration upgrade will be completed to ensure the stability of sales, brand, and quality, and at the same time ensure that the brand continues to rise steadily, and at the same time, optimize product power and improve the market sinking of cost performance.
Looking back on 2023, NIO delivered an annual result of 160038 units, a year-on-year increase of 3066%, among the new car-making forces, NIO ranks second only to Li Auto in terms of sales. In terms of basic facilities, as of the end of 2023, NIO has laid out 2,305 battery swap stations, and has provided users with more than 35 million battery swap services, including 2 charging piles10,000 battery swap stations and 640kW fully liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging piles have also been put into the market, and more than 1.46 million third-party charging piles have also been connected.
In 2024, NIO will build another 1,000 battery swap stations and 20,000 new charging columns to further improve users' power supply experience. By 2025, NIO plans to open up the battery swap network of highways in 19 major urban agglomerations in 9 vertical, 9 horizontal, and users' energy replenishment experience in urban areas and highways will be more convenient than refueling.
At present, the development of Weilai can be said to be stable and improving, the battery swap mode has been recognized by the industry, not only with state-owned assets to build a new thousand battery swap stations, and successfully opened industry cooperation, the national team of central enterprises, private enterprise giants choose to join the battery swap camp, Chang'an, Geely, JAC, Chery and other well-known car companies have been listed, more and more cooperation has been reached, the standard means that the NIO battery swap network is gradually moving towards a battery swap sharing network, and a more complete "new infrastructure" can also better meet the energy supplement needs of new energy vehicle users.
With the arrival of NIO's 2024 full range of models, and the official arrival of its sub-brands in the near future, NIO can provide users with richer and more diverse choices in terms of comprehensive advantages in terms of products, technologies, and services. At that time, I believe that more people will walk on the road of "questioning NIO, understanding NIO, and becoming NIO".