Written by |Zhang Yu.
Edit |Yang Bocheng.
Title Picture |Li Auto's official website.
On March 1, Li Auto announced its delivery data for February: a total of 20,251 new cars were delivered, a year-on-year increase of 218%。Although this achievement is impressive, it is a pity that Li Auto has not regained the position of the monthly sales champion of the new power brand.
On the same day, Li Auto also held the "Li Auto 2024 Spring Conference" to officially release the Li MEGA and 2024 Li L series models, Li Xiang, chairman and CEO of Li Auto, said, "With the release and delivery of new models, we aim to return to the level of 50,000 units per month in March." ”
Source: Li Auto's official website.
Li Xiang is indeed full of confidence in the ideal MEGA, and said at the press conference that the ideal MEGA will only launch one configuration, namely the ideal MEGA MAX, and the national unified retail ** is 55980,000 yuan, and declared that "Ideal MEGA will become the No. 1 product with sales of more than 500,000 yuan".
At the same time, Li Xiang also revealed that including the ideal MEGA, every pure electric model launched this year will be equipped with 5C supercharging capacity as standard. In the next few years, Li Auto will invest at least 6 billion yuan to build more than 5,000 directly operated 5C supercharging stations, so that Ideal 5C supercharging stations can cover 95% of the country's high-speed and important national highways, and urban charging stations using the franchise model will also be implemented on a large scale in 2024.
Li Xiang's confidence and confidence lie in the fact that the total revenue of Li Auto will reach 1238 in 2023500 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1735%, becoming the first new car-making force in China with revenue exceeding 100 billion yuan. At the same time, Li Auto also achieved annual profitability for the first time, with a net profit of 118 in 2023100 million yuan, becoming the third new energy vehicle company to achieve annual profitability after Tesla and BYD.
However, in 2024, the new energy vehicle industry will officially enter the era of semi-stock competition from the era of incremental competition, and enter the "year of shocking changes".
Li Auto was once again overtaken by the questioning world
Despite the outstanding delivery data of Li Auto in February, it was once again overtaken by the questioning industry.
On March 1, the February delivery data released by Wenjie showed that it delivered a total of 21,142 new cars, once again winning the throne of the monthly sales champion of the new power brand, among them, the monthly delivery of the new M7 exceeded 18,479 units, with a cumulative delivery of more than 100,000 units, and the cumulative delivery of the M7 exceeded 150,000 units. At the same time, the cumulative number of vehicles in the 62 days of the launch of the M9 exceeded 50,000 units, and the nationwide large-scale delivery was officially launched on February 26.
In January 2024, with 32,973 units delivered, Wenjie surpassed its rival Li Auto, becoming the monthly sales champion of a new brand in the Chinese market for the first time. Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, CEO of Device BG, and Chairman of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, could not hide his joy, "We have been conservative in our estimation of the popularity of smart cars, and Yu Dazui has become Yu Xiaozui. The next priority is to work with partners to ensure high-quality deliveries and get more new cars into the hands of consumers. ”
For the first time, Wenjie has become the monthly sales champion of a new brand in the Chinese market, which is inseparable from the contribution of the new M7. The competitiveness of the new M7 products is outstanding, including active and passive dual safety, large space and intelligent driving and other core selling points are greatly beyond similar products in the market in the same period, and the starting price is less than 250,000 yuan, which is quickly formed a diffusion effect in the market after being sought after by core users.
After the new M7, the M9 is another engine that drives the delivery volume of the M7. According to official information, the M9 extended range version of the model has a WLTC fuel consumption of 6 per 100 kilometers9l；Two battery pack options are available: the 42-kilowatt-hour electric version has a pure electric range of 225km and a comprehensive range of 1362km; The 52-kilowatt-hour electric version has a pure electric range of 275km and a comprehensive range of 1402km. The all-electric version is equipped with a 100-degree battery and has a CLTC range of 630 km.
Not only that, on the stage of the 2024 Spring Festival Gala, advertisements for the M9 frequently appear, and 10 M9 cars have been cooperated with JD.com, making it earn enough eyeballs. Yu Chengdong also took advantage of the fact that he drove the Wenjie M9 back to Shenzhen from Huoqiu, Lu'an, Anhui Province, and spared no effort to promote the Wenjie M9 and continuously strengthen Huawei's dominant position in the field of intelligent driving.
However, the M9, which was only launched in December 2023, is currently in the stage of soaring sales and has not yet been delivered on a large scale, and it is foreseeable that the delivery volume of Wenjie in the first half of 2024 may increase very considerably.
Previously, Li Auto shouted a sales target of 800,000 units in 2024, with a monthly sales challenge of 100,000 units and a monthly sales volume of 30,000 units. In contrast, Wenjie was revealed to have a sales target of 600,000 units in 2024, which is expected to increase by 538% year-on-year. According to the current sales rhythm, it will be difficult for Li Auto to achieve its sales target in 2024, and the question of the world, which is also keen on taking the extended range route, is bound to have a big impact on Li Auto's market share.
Ideal MEGA is a tough game
The medium and large SUVs and large SUVs that Li Auto focuses on have begun to become extremely crowded, and even more cost-effective products have appeared, such as the new M7 and M9, which are fully benchmarked against the ideal L7 and the ideal L9.
In September 2023, the new M7 was launched, seizing the market share of the ideal L7, and in December of the same year, the M9 was launched at a price of 46980,000-56980,000 yuan, with a price of 42Ideal L9 head-to-head from 980,000 yuan. As soon as the M9 was listed, it gave a preferential range of up to 50,000 yuan, and the ideal car, which has never reduced the price, was forced to launch a full range of preferential activities, and the price reduction of different versions of the ideal L7, L8, and L9 models reached 330,000-380,000 yuan.
This is not the first time that the world has put pressure on ideals. In June 2023, Li Xiang recalled on Weibo, "In the third quarter of 2022, the release and ** of the M7 directly disabled the ideal one, we have never encountered such a strong opponent, and we have no power to fight back for a long time." ”
It is imminent to open up new subdivision tracks in time to avoid the edge of the world.
On March 1, the ideal MEGA, known as "the world's largest pure electric passenger car on sale", was officially released, and deliveries began on March 11.
As the first pure electric MPV model of Li Auto, Li MEGA has unique features in design, such as the low wind resistance design in the front part, which not only reduces the windward area with a shape similar to water droplets, but also improves the aerodynamic performance of the vehicle in details, thereby reducing the drag coefficient. In addition, Ideal MEGA adopts an 800V architecture and jointly developed a Kirin 5C battery pack with CATL, which has a range of up to 500 kilometers in 12 minutes of charging, and the power consumption is only 15 in CLTC conditions9kwh/100km。
Li Xiang said that the goal of Ideal MEGA is to "win the sales crown of passenger cars of more than 500,000 yuan", and if the data of 2023 is used as a reference, the sales of passenger cars of more than 500,000 yuan will be BMW X5, and the sales volume will be 930,000 units. According to this calculation, the average monthly delivery volume of the ideal MEGA must be at least close to 10,000 units to achieve this goal, which is difficult to imagine.
It should not be overlooked that the MPV market is still a niche market with very limited imagination. According to the data of the China Passenger Car Association, the market share of China's MPV market from 2019 to 2021 is as follows: 7% and 54%, which is basically maintained in a relatively stable state.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the passenger association, also believes that "the current enthusiasm for buying MPV is relatively high, because MPV has always been a niche market, and this market will gradually stabilize in the later stage, and it is almost impossible for the domestic MPV market share to reach 10%." ”
In January 2024, among the top 10 models in MPV sales, the models with a starting price of more than 200,000 yuan are Denza D9, Sena, Grevia, Buick GL8, Elysian, VOYAH Dreamer and Trumpchi E8, of which the starting price of the Denza D9 is 34580,000, with sales of 8,360 units. Judging from the current market competition pattern, DENZA D9 shows a dominant trend in the high-end new energy MPV market. In addition, the VOYAH Dreamer, ZEEKR 009, and Xpeng X9 have been inextricably matched, which means that it will be difficult for the ideal MEGA to gain a foothold, not to mention a big breakthrough in sales.
At this stage, the MPV market is still dominated by a few MPV brands, resulting in a relatively solidified consumer perception and a high cost of acceptance of the newly emerging MPV brands, and according to MPV sales, the sales volume will increase by 0. year-on-year in 2021 and 2022, respectively1% and down 12 percent year-on-yearIn 6% of cases, it will take time for the MPV market to achieve a qualitative leap, and Li Auto's plan to break through with the MPV market is still a long way to go.
Intelligent driving has become a battleground
Compared with Wenjie's dominant position in the field of intelligent driving, Li Auto must make up for its shortcomings in intelligent driving.
Yu Chengdong once said that the second half of the competition in the electric vehicle industry is intelligence, which will be the key to victory. He believes that if we don't seize the opportunity of smart electric connected cars, no matter how powerful a company is, it may disappear in the future.
Relying on Huawei's intelligent driving system, Wenjie is in the first echelon in the field of intelligent driving, such as the new M7 equipped with Huawei ADS 20 high-end intelligent driving system, recognized as the top level of the industry, and at the same time broke through the limitations of the map and entered the stage of high-end intelligent driving.
In order to contain the question, Li Auto has been increasing intelligent driving. Li Auto said that AD Max 30 city NOA will be pushed in the second quarter, 100 cities will be pushed by the end of the year, and the intelligent driving R&D team will be expanded to 2,000 people this year.
But time is running out for Li Auto. Founder** analysis believes that with the continuous launch of a number of intelligent leading brand models, it will bring about a rapid increase in the penetration rate of high-end intelligent assisted driving, and the autonomous driving industry is expected to continue to expand. Under the industry trend of increasing penetration rate and the expectation of liberalization of autonomous driving policies, it is expected that high-end intelligent assisted driving is expected to usher in an inflection point in 2024.
As consumers pay more and more attention to the improvement of the driving experience brought by intelligent driving, intelligent driving ability has also become an important factor for consumers to choose car brands.
For the first quarter of 2024, Li Auto expects about 100,000-1030,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 902%-95.9%, but if it has failed to make up for the shortcomings of intelligent driving, Li Auto may no longer be able to regain the throne of the sales crown from the hands of Wenjie.