Recently, NIO officially announced that it will officially usher in the 2024 new model in March, and new car reservations have been opened.
Specific models include the 2024 ES8, ES7, EC7, ES6, EC6, ET5, and ET5T, which ** remain the same as the current model. Among them, the 2024 ET5 and 2024 ES7 will be delivered in April and May, respectively, the remaining five models will be delivered in March, and the 2024 ET7 will be released in April.
However, the news released by NIO has caused controversy. The content of the controversy is mainly aimed at the same **, too few configuration upgrades, and some models only add 4 soft pillows or slightly improve the battery life.
The reason why there is such a big reaction in the industry is mainly because the auto market is facing the impact of a new round of price cuts recently, coupled with the greater efforts of friends to disclose facelifted models, this comparison shows that NIO's sincerity is insufficient.
NIO.
Lack of sincerity in NIO's facelift?
Judging from the content of NIO's official announcement, there are not many highlights of NIO's facelifted models.
The 2024 model will be powered by the all-new ADAM computing platform, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon*** cockpit chip (SA8295P). This is one of the few bright spots in NIO's facelifted model.
As the latest representative of the current Snapdragon car machine platform, the Snapdragon 8295 can be regarded as an upgraded version of the Snapdragon 8155 chip, with 3D rendering capabilities, GPU performance, and AI computing power all being greatly improved.
Aside from the optional multi-functional executive table and N-Box enhanced entertainment host, the new car does not add many standard configurations
The 2024 ES EC7 comes standard with 4 soft pillows;
The 2024 ES7 has been refacelifted the most, adding a standard rear seat massage function and 4 soft pillows, a new steering wheel lever, and an enhanced head-up display (HUD) that has been upgraded to 16 inches.
The 2024 ET5 does not come with new standard features;
The 2024 ES6 and EC6 have only been optimized by software to slightly increase the range by 10km.
In fact, as early as January this year, in NIO's official product plan for 2024, it had already predicted that it would launch 24 new cars in March. Soon after, NIO officially launched a discount of up to 40,000 yuan for the 2023 model.
Obviously, the facelifted model remains unchanged after the change, which is dwarfed by the discount of over 10,000 yuan for the current model. Therefore, some netizens said that although the price of Weilai's ** upgrade remains unchanged, it may not be able to enjoy the previous discount, which is equivalent to a disguised price increase.
And, unfortunately, the current model does not support the late upgrade to the 8295.
In response to this, Bai Jian, vice president of Weilai Intelligent Hardware, responded:
Now the 4 ORIN+8155 are shared in the NIO system architecture through the on-board heterogeneous computing power cluster architecture, so the cockpit experience will not be limited by the upper limit of the 8155 computing power, and the experience will be very good.
NIO app
However, whether the current model can be upgraded to 8295 in the future remains to be officially announced by NIO. You must know that it is not unheard of for car companies to replace chips, Zeekrypton and VOYAH have upgraded chips for sold cars, and NIO has also had a history of upgrading chips for old models.
In addition, some users on the Weilai app commented that the current Zhijia 4 orin and 8155 are separated, and the 24 model is to put 8295 and 4 orin in a box to synthesize a ** computing platform, so it does not support separate upgrades. If you upgrade, the cost is too great.
But then again, NIO has always been known for its service, and wouldn't it be better to provide a paid service for chip replacement, so that car owners can choose by themselves?
Downgraded by a friend?
In the past, many new power car companies have been remodeled, which led to the outbreak of **, which greatly affected the image of car companies. Nowadays, car companies that have suffered losses are racking their brains to come up with coping strategies.
As mentioned above, for the sake of this model replacement, NIO also released the news early, the purpose of which is to warm up the replacement.
However, perhaps NIO did not expect that the car market environment would change so quickly. Just before and after the official announcement of the facelift of the whole series by NIO, BYD took the lead in firing the first shot of post-holiday price reduction, and shouted the slogan of "electricity is lower than oil".
On February 19th, BYD took the lead in throwing out a "king bomb" through the official WeChat: the Qin plus glory version of Dynasty Network was officially launched, with an official guide price of 7Starting at 980,000 yuan, it is 20,000 yuan lower than the old model. Subsequently, Changan Automobile, Nezha Automobile, SAIC-GM-Wuling and other brands followed up with price cuts.
A new round of ** war in the auto market is in full swing.
On February 27, **ZEEKR 001 was officially launched. The facelift of the **ZEEKR 001 is very strong. There are iterations of the body, three electrics, cockpit and intelligent driving. At the press conference, An Conghui, CEO of ZEEKR, said that generally speaking, the proportion of electric vehicle model remodelling will be updated by about 30%, but the update ratio of the new ZEEKR 001 is more than 50%.
ZEEKR 001 and NIO's ET5T are both hunting routes and compete with each other, but **ZEEKR 001 is nearly 30,000 yuan lower than NIO ET5T.
At the beginning of March, Leapmotor launched the new car C10 and directly shouted the slogan of "open the book". It is reported that the Leapmotor C10 is based on the Leap 30 technical architecture development, installed with Qualcomm 8295 chip, but also equipped with NVIDIA Orin-X chip and LiDAR. The new model is priced at 12880,000-16880,000 yuan, there are two versions of pure electric and extended range.
*The Ideal L7 will also be launched and delivered in March, and the car's exterior design will be adjusted in detail. According to the previous information, the ideal L7 will be upgraded with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 chip, dual-cavity air suspension, rear refrigerator, etc., and the battery pack capacity of the MAX version of the model will be increased to 50 kWh, with a pure electric range of 224 kilometers.
Judging from the configuration of the above three cars, the facelifted models of ZEEKR 001 and Ideal L7 have changed a lot, and the Leap C10 will also be significantly different from the Leap C11. In such a comparison, the facelift and upgrade of friends further sets off the lack of the facelift of the whole series of NIO.
NIO.
Does NIO still have a big move?
In fact, Weilai had a price cut last year, in June last year, Weilai announced a price cut of 30,000 for all new cars, after the price reduction, Weilai's new cars began to drop below 300,000, and Weilai also launched a BaaS car electricity separation purchase model, which further lowered the threshold for car purchases. This is also the result of the wave of price cuts at the beginning of last year.
This year, a new round of price cuts in the auto market, NIO has not followed up for the time being. The general law in the industry is that the purpose of car companies to release new facelifted cars is mainly to stimulate sales growth, but this time, the whole series of facelifts, not only do not have many bright spots, but also have not reduced prices, are they not afraid of affecting their own sales?
You must know that in the first half of last year, Weilai has been growing sluggishly, and its losses continue to intensify, with monthly sales falling to about 6,000 units. In order to survive, NIO has embarked on a wide range of reforms, including measures such as reducing costs and increasing efficiency, following up price reductions, and opening up battery swaps, which have also gained a short respite.
However, after the Spring Festival, it is the off-season of the auto market, and the full range of Weilai's "small thunder and small rain" facelift, if it affects sales, I am afraid that there are still some gains that outweigh the losses.
This can't help but make people wonder, is there a big move behind NIO? Not to mention, maybe there really is. This time, NIO did not follow the trend and reduce prices, perhaps to make way for affordable models.
As early as 2022, Li Bin, chairman of NIO, has announced a new sub-brand of NIO, focusing on products of 20-300,000 yuan, codenamed Alps. Qin Lihong, president of NIO, previously said that direct competitors are products of Tesla, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Over time, the Alps also gradually surfaced.
At the Q3 financial report held in December last year, Li Bin said that the first car of the second brand Alps has completed the trial production of the VB car (Verification Build development and verification prototype car). In terms of sales, NIO does not plan to share stores with Alps, but will share part of the service network.
Recently, it has been reported that the first model of the NIO sub-brand, "DOM" (internal codename), is planned to be put into trial production in July this year, and is expected to be mass-produced and delivered in the second half of the year.
At present, the lowest-priced model of NIO has come to less than 300,000 yuan, which is 2980,000 yuan, combined with Alps's **, it can be seen that the price of NIO models has been reduced, otherwise it will affect the launch of sub-brand products.
Summary:In 2024, the auto market will be more involuted. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the passenger association, said that the national passenger car market will still be fierce in 2024, and He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xpeng Motors, also said that this year is the first year for Chinese auto brands to enter the "sea of blood" competition, that is, the first year of the knockout competition. How to survive in such a car market, I am afraid that it is not possible to seek stability. Now, Li Bin's cards have been exhausted, and the killer weapon in his hand should be revealed in advance.