In the past week, Li Auto and Li Xiang may have been more anxious. Because the new car Ideal MEGA, which was highly anticipated, suffered a "Waterloo", and there is even a view that this car is a failure.
The name "Ideal MEGA" first appeared at last year's Ideal Home Technology Day.
Netizens understand MEGA as an abbreviation for "make ev great again", that is, "make pure electric great again". This connotative interpretation has not been officially recognized by the ideal.
However, after ten years of car building, he has always taken the ideal of extended-range technology, and now he has begun to develop pure electric models, which is Li Xiang's ambition that he has not concealed.
As the first pure electric model of Ideal, Li Xiang has high hopes: "MEGA will become the No. 1 sales volume of all passenger cars with more than 500,000 units, regardless of energy form or body form." ”
However, the reality did not develop in the direction that Li Xiang expected, and the news that the market performance was less than expected after the release of the ideal mega has been spreading.
Recently, the order of this car was announced, and it was reported that the large order of the ideal mega did not exceed 10,000, and the number of small orders to large orders was limited.
Specifically, about 3,218 vehicles were ordered within 72 hours of listing, while the number of cancellations was as high as 10,297. Xiaoding only needs to pay a deposit of 5,000 yuan, which can be refunded at any time. And Da Ding, that is, to take out real gold ** to buy.
If the above data is true, then to a certain extent, it reflects the attitude of consumers towards this car.
The performance of Ideal Mega fell short of expectations, which also brought the stock price of Ideal Auto to collapse, and the capital market reacted greatly.
On the day of the Ideal Mega press conference, the Hong Kong stock price of Ideal Auto was 179HK$2. In the following trading days, the ideal stock price fell sharply. As of March 7, the ideal stock price fell to 144HK$2.
Based on this calculation, in four trading days, the market value of Li Auto has evaporated by about HK $70 billion. As of March 7, the market value of Xpeng Motors was only HK$67.4 billion.
This means that in just four days, the market value of Li Auto has evaporated to Xiaopeng Motors.
Some analysts have pointed out that there are two main reasons why the ideal mega is less than expected:
First, the exterior design has caused controversy, especially at the rear of the car, which has caused an uproar.
Many netizens feel that the mega is too ugly, especially the tail outline, which looks a bit like a coffin. There are even netizens who spoof P pictures and make Mega like a funeral car.
The appearance of aesthetics is difficult to reconcile, of course, it is the opinion of the benevolent and the wise. You can not like it, but spoofing P into a hearse has caused a lot of damage to Mega. In this regard, Ideal has issued an infringement complaint letter to protect its rights.
Second, the MEGA price is as high as 55980,000, which is relatively high, may be difficult to attract more potential consumers in the niche and highly competitive MPV market.
The MPV market is surrounded by masters, such as Trumpchi M8, Buick GL8, Denza D9, Xpeng X9, and Zeekrypton 009, and their starting prices are 22980,000, 23290,000, 33980,000, 35980,000, 50000,000, all lower than mega.
Moreover, MEGA is positioned as a multi-child family car, which is a deviation from the current MPV market with more business users.
As its first pure electric model, MEGA's Waterloo has cast a heavy shadow on the ideal pure electric route.
From this, we can not draw a conclusion:
Ideal is better at building extended-range models, but not at building pure electric models; Or the success of the ideal before, just bet on the right range extender route, relying on luck to enjoy the dividends of the era of the range extender.
At the beginning of the car, Ideal took a different path, not choosing the mainstream pure electric route, but betting on the extended range route. Under the condition of making up for each other's shortcomings, the ideal extended-range model has the advantages of both new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles.
Superimposed with the "refrigerator color TV sofa" labeled as "daddy car", Li Auto became an instant hit, sales continued to skyrocket, and last year it sold 3760,000 units, far ahead of the new car-making forces.
But it is undeniable that the technical threshold of range extender is low, and there is almost no moat. More and more car companies are entering this field, such as Wenjie, Changan, Nezha, VOYAH, etc.
From the ideal family to the exclusive sharing of many car companies, the ideal good luck seems to have run out. In the first two months of this year, the ideal sales were overtaken by the question, which seems to be the proof.
On the other hand, with the advancement of technology such as batteries and charging, pure electric vehicles are becoming more and more popular. There are many indications that range extenders may really be just a transition, and pure electric vehicles are the future. Perhaps realizing this, Li Auto had to transform to pure electric vehicles.
Obviously, the ideal pure electric transformation, the ideal mega, seems to be unfavorable at present. But this is just the beginning, we still hope that the ideal MEGA can turn over and bring consumers more choices of MPV models.
Moreover, this is only the first pure electric car of Ideal. Perhaps, after Li Xiang learned from the pain and summed up his experience, he will lead Li Auto to develop the second and third pure electric models, which will be a great success.
Ideal is the only independent brand that can pose a certain threat to German BBA in a market of more than 300,000. We look forward to the ideal will bring us more surprises and miracles in the future.