Article produced by Radar Finance Hongtu | Editor by Mo Enmeng | Deep Sea "Although I am in darkness, I still choose the light. If I choose to compromise with the darkness, or even join the darkness, then I and the people around me will become what we hate. , the society we live

Article produced by Radar Finance Hongtu | Edited by Mo Enmeng | Deep Sea

"Although I am in darkness, I still choose the light. If I choose to compromise with the darkness, or even join the darkness, then I and the people around me will become hateful to us. The society we live in will become darker and darker. After careful consideration, we decided to start fighting back and use light to fight back the darkness." After

Weibo remained uncharacteristically silent for several days, the "top leader" Li of Ideal Auto I want to "open the mic" passionately in the circle of friends. The reason why Li Xiang spoke out in Moments is most likely related to the fact that the new car ideal mega just released by Li Auto was maliciously photoshopped. In the pictures posted online, Ideal Mega was labeled with the words "new energy funeral car" and "Dian".

Radar Finance has learned that Li Auto has previously sent a letter to the relevant platform requesting assistance in deleting the malicious photos of Li Mega made by some people. This time, Li Xiang also expressed in his circle of friends that Ideal is already using legal means to deal with the organized illegal and criminal activities in the incident.

Not long before the new car was released, Li Auto had just handed over a rather eye-catching report card. The new car-making force will deliver the championship in 2023, with annual revenue reaching hundreds of billions, and it will be the third new energy car company to achieve profitability after Tesla BYD ... A series of achievements have drawn a bright future for Li Auto in 2023. A perfect ending.

However, at the beginning of the new year, Li Auto’s dominant position was challenged. In January and February this year, Li Auto lost its delivery crown among new forces, and its delivery volume was overtaken by wenjie for two consecutive months. The target of delivering 100,000 to 103,000 vehicles in the first quarter of 2024 set in the previous annual report currently seems to be quite difficult to achieve.

According to Li Auto's expectations, this new car, the Li Mega, was positioned as a car exclusively for big families. Li Xiang not only said that it would subvert the sales pattern of more than 500,000 cars, but also said that if Steve Jobs was here, the Apple car should be the Li Mega. so. But so far, Li Auto has not disclosed the final data of this new car. Judging from the data disclosed and predicted by third parties, the order performance of Li Auto Mega is mediocre. An analysis by

pointed out that in addition to the controversial styling, the Ideal Mega’s pricing strategy of up to 559,800 yuan, the abandonment of the range extension route that it is good at and the adoption of pure electric technology, whether the larger body will affect actual parking, and the interior decoration are very similar to the Ideal L series models. Factors such as this all affect consumers' desire to buy this car to a certain extent. In order to dispel the doubts of potential consumers, Li Auto also responded by publishing an article titled "Ten Questions and Answers about Li Auto Mega".

Li Xiang spoke out a few days after shutting up: starting to fight back

Since retweeting an interview video with Ideal Mega designer Benbaum on March 2, Li Xiang has not updated his Weibo updates for 9 days. However, for Li Xiang, who previously updated Weibo quite frequently and was once dubbed the "King of Weibo" by the outside world, it is quite abnormal to stop updating Weibo for many days in a row.

As of press time, although Li Xiang has not updated Weibo, Li Xiang’s circle of friends has become “busy”. On March 9, Li Xiang posted on WeChat Moments, "No matter how difficult it is, you can't become [Darth Vader]."

Li Xiang said in the circle of friends, "Everyone should be relatively clear about what happened in the past ten days. Many users and friends are worried about us, speak for us, and continue to help and support us no matter how difficult it is. I deeply Thank you, this is also the core driving force for our growth."

The reason why Li Xiang once "lost his voice" on the Weibo platform and then spoke out in the circle of friends may be related to the controversy caused by Ideal's latest new car, the Ideal Mega, in the market . On the first day of March, Li Auto just held its 2024 new product launch conference. At this press conference, Li Auto released a new car of its own to the outside world - the family technology flagship MPV Lili Mega.

It is reported that the ideal mega was publicly unveiled as early as the Guangzhou Auto Show held last year. After several months of warm-up, the Ideal Mega released this time will officially start delivery on March 11, and the price of this new car is as high as 559,800 yuan.

Regarding this new car, Li Xiang did not hesitate to praise, "It is comparable to the energy replenishment efficiency of a fuel vehicle, the new-era styling, the wind resistance of a coupe, the whale-level space, the comfort of a D-class luxury car, the safety of a flagship SUV, and its outstanding performance." Ideal classmates are getting smarter and smarter, all of which are realized on Ideal Mega, bringing the greatest happiness to the family."

Li Xiang also boldly said that Ideal Mega will become the next hit product of Ideal Auto, and will also completely subvert more than 500,000 yuan. Automobile sales pattern. Li Xiang even took advantage of the traffic surrounding Apple's abandonment of car manufacturing, saying, "If Steve Jobs were here, this would be what Apple's car would look like."

However, Li Auto's newly launched new car has caused quite a bit of controversy. What really made Li Xiang "break the defense" was perhaps the outside world's complaints about the ideal mega design.

As early as May last year, a car blogger posted a rendering video of an ideal new car on Weibo. "I have seen what an ideal MPV looks like, and I understand why Director Li did not forward my Weibo post."

Later, Li Xiang actually flipped the Weibo post and vowed, "If the design is like this, I will kill the design team and jump off the building myself."

In September of the same year, Li Xiang I want to repost another blogger's Weibo about the appearance renderings of the ideal mega and leave a message saying, "The similarity in black is 80%, which is very good! The similarity in silver is less than 60%! The above is the similarity from a professional perspective. For Ge You Friends who can't tell Jiang Wen apart, this percentage is invalid, I have to jump off the building."

However, when the appearance of this new car was revealed, it slapped Li Xiang in the face. To this end, Li Xiang also posted an AI face-changing video on Weibo with the text "It was mindgpt that forced me to jump off the building..."

Li Auto introduced the styling design of this new car like this - from From the hood of the ideal mega to the rear of the roof, an elegant and smooth arc guides the airflow close to the body to reduce separation.

Li Auto also pointed out that the wind blade at the rear of the Lili Mega is a complete airflow separation line, allowing the airflow to leave the car body cleanly and significantly reducing wind resistance. At the same time, the ideal mega adopts a flawless body design with a simple and plump shape. Apart from the necessary functions, the body does not have any outstanding features or complicated decorations.

On the occasion of the official release of Ideal Mega, compared to the previous ridicule that "for every Ideal Mega sold, a high-speed train loses its head", the appearance design of Ideal Mega has received more "deadly" criticism. Some netizens commented that Li Auto's new car is shaped like a coffin, and some netizens directly added the words "New Energy Funeral Car" and "Dian" on the body and rear of the new car.

For Chinese consumers who always like to seek good luck, once Li Auto is labeled as a "new energy funeral car", it will inevitably affect the sales of this new car. Therefore, Li Auto officials couldn't sit still when they saw their new products being maliciously photoshopped. On March 2, Li Auto complained to the relevant online platform, hoping that the platform could help delete the relevant infringing content.

According to screenshots of the notification letter posted online, the picture maker maliciously posted pictures on Ideal Mega, insinuating that Ideal Auto’s new products are funeral supplies (funeral cars) for the deceased, deliberately misrepresenting the purpose of Ideal Auto, and seriously infringing on Ideal Auto’s product image and Brand reputation. The infringing picture and its content have constituted an insult and infringed upon Li Auto’s reputational rights. Based on the aforementioned facts, the ideal aspect requires the platform to delete, block, and disconnect relevant content.

In the Moments update released this time, Li Xiang also stated righteously that Ideal is already using legal means to deal with the organized illegal and criminal activities in the incident.

It is worth mentioning that according to Jiemian News, under Li Xiang’s circle of friends, He Xiaopeng , Yu Chengdong and others have supported Li Xiang.He Xiaopeng said that they also experienced a huge lesson at the end of last year. For the first time, they understood what a shopping mall is like a battlefield, and for the first time they understood the meaning of "national defense capabilities."

Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Terminal BG and Chairman of Smart Car Solutions BU, also left a message saying, "Always choosing the bright is the correct value. If a company's values ​​are broken, it will not have a bright future. May we work together with the industry. , use practical actions, insist on always choosing the light, and use light to fight back the darkness."

Some people believe that as the competition in the new energy automobile industry becomes more and more fierce, the public opinion field has also become a battleground for all companies. However, as a player on the new energy track, you need to participate in the competition in a reasonable and legal manner instead of malicious attacks, otherwise you are very likely to suffer backlash.

Li Auto's current public opinion turmoil is not only due to the possibility of malicious competition from competitors, but may also be related to Li Xiang's previous high-profile marketing promotions and public remarks. When Ideal Mega was involved in the turmoil this time, some netizens dug up Li Xiang’s previous remarks when commenting on competition in the industry, "I can’t stand this little battle, is it a giant baby?"

lost the delivery championship for two consecutive months. The order performance of Ideal mega is mediocre

In fact, just before the release of Ideal mega, Ideal just handed over a quite eye-catching answer sheet.

In 2023, Li Auto’s annual delivery volume will reach 376,030 vehicles. Although it is still unable to compete with Tesla and BYD, Li Auto's annual delivery volume of more than 300,000 vehicles last year was enough to make it stand out among the new car-making players.

First, Li Auto is the first player among China's new power car companies to cross the 300,000 annual delivery mark; secondly, compared with NIO , which ranks second on the new power delivery list, Li Auto's delivery volume is far ahead. Its delivery volume last year was more than twice NIO's delivery volume of 160,038 vehicles.

This gratifying delivery performance has helped Li Auto’s revenue reach new peaks. In 2023, Li Auto's annual revenue will reach the 100 billion level, and its revenue of 123.85 billion yuan will achieve a substantial growth of 173.5% compared with the revenue of 45.29 billion yuan in the same period last year. While

's revenue scale has increased significantly, Li Auto's ability to make money has also greatly improved. In the past year, Li Auto’s net profit reached 11.81 billion yuan. Li Auto's profits last year alone have made up for the losses accumulated in the previous five years, and there is even a lot of surplus. If roughly calculated based on the net profit/delivery formula used by many media, Li Auto earned an average of 31,400 yuan per car sold last year.

For Li Auto, the annual net profit of 11.81 billion yuan is still a milestone. This is not only the first time that Li Auto has achieved a full-year profit in net profit targets, but it has also become the third new energy vehicle company in the world to achieve profitability after Tesla and BYD. Li Auto has even set a new record It is the fastest record for an energy vehicle company to achieve profitability in the world.

However, before Li Auto could immerse itself in the good harvest of the past year for too long, the challenges of the new year quickly hit it. In January this year, Li Auto, which had just won last year's delivery crown, had to give up the title of new force's delivery champion to its rival. In January, Wenjie delivered 32,973 vehicles, while Li Auto delivered 31,165 vehicles in the same period. Wenjie replaced Li Auto and became the new delivery champion of the new force.

What is even more pessimistic is that Li Auto, which was overwhelmed by the industry in January, still failed to recover in February. In February, Li Auto delivered 20,251 vehicles in a single month, still losing to Wenjie's delivery volume of 21,142 vehicles. At a time when the title of

's delivery champion is at stake, Li Auto's new car, the Lili Mega, originally had high hopes. However, after the new car was officially released, the controversy surrounding the Lili Mega also increased. Judging from the actual delivery situation, it is not very easy for Li Auto to reach a new level in terms of delivery performance with Li Li Mega. As of now, Li Auto has not released specific order data for Li Mega.

According to Li Auto’s expectations, its goal for Li Auto Mega is to become the number one sales volume of more than 500,000 yuan, regardless of category and energy form, with monthly sales expected to reach more than 8,000 units.

However, according to the Financial Associated Press, there is news that the large-scale orders for Lideal's new pure electric model mega have not exceeded 10,000, and the number of small-scale orders converted to large-scale orders is limited. Within 72 hours of the launch, the large-scale orders for this model were approximately 3,218 units, and the number of large-scale orders was withdrawn. The order quantity is 10,297 vehicles.

According to Chefans’ 72-hour order report, as of March 4, Mega stores have placed orders for 8-9 units, accounting for 60-70% of the units entering the store. If calculated based on the scale of Li Auto’s 474 stores as of the end of January this year, Mega currently has less than 4,300 units.

can be used as a reference. Last year, the BMW x5, which topped the sales list of more than 500,000 models, sold a total of 93,211 units in China, with an average monthly sales of 7,768 units. In contrast, the current order data handed over by Lideal Mega is obviously not enough to support its goal of being the first in sales of more than 500,000 models.

According to Sun Shaojun, the founder of Car Fans, the proportion of Mega stores entering is growing rapidly, but most of them are users seeking novelties. At the same time, users who order cars are also coming to the store one after another to wait for test drives. In addition, customer profiles became polarized after the price was announced. Many customers who transferred to the store did not come to the store. Customers who were waiting to see the price thought the price difference was too big and chose to unsubscribe (accounting for 10~15%).

However, Ideal Mega's delivery performance is not impressive, and it has also dragged down the company's stock price performance to a certain extent. On the night of the listing press conference on March 1, Li Auto’s U.S. stocks closed down 5.1%. On March 4, Li Auto’s Hong Kong stock price also fell 10.71%.

In the 2023 annual report released by the company, Li Auto pointed out when looking forward to the delivery performance in the first quarter of this year that the company expects delivery volume in the first quarter of this year to be between 100,000 and 103,000 vehicles, compared with the same period in 2023. An increase of 90.2% to 95.9%.

At present, Li Auto's delivery data for January and February have been released. A total of 51,416 new cars were delivered in the two months, which means that if Li Auto wants to complete the previously set quarterly delivery target, it needs to deliver 41,416 to 51,584 new cars in March. . There are still many challenges for Li Auto to achieve this level of delivery in a single month.

Ideal Mega may find it difficult to take the lead

Putting aside the controversial styling design, Ideal Mega also has factors in other aspects that keep some consumers in a wait-and-see state. For example, the high price threshold of Ideal Mega may limit its competitiveness to a certain extent.

Specifically, the price of the ideal mega is as high as 559,800 yuan, which exceeds the price of many hot-selling new energy MPV models such as Denza d9 ev, Lantu Dreamer phev, and Xiaopeng x9.

It is understood that the prices of the latter three models are respectively 379,800 to 469,800 yuan, 339,900 to 419,900 yuan, and 359,800 to 419,800 yuan. Their prices are all within 500,000 yuan, and the starting price is The price dropped to more than 300,000 yuan, which is about 200,000 yuan lower than the ideal mega. Sun Shaojun, founder of

Chefans, pointed out, "After the launch of Ideal Mega, it is basically certain that Xpeng x9, Denza D9, Wenjie m9, Lantu Dreamer, and Jikrypton 009 will all see significant resurgence." Among them, Denza d9 is the biggest winner, with a double harvest of in-store orders. Over 1,700 new orders were placed over the weekend, and orders tripled. Xpeng x9 has experienced a huge explosion in store sales, with orders increasing by at least 40% compared to a steady weekly increase.

Perhaps in order to further enhance the appeal of Ideal Mega to consumers, Li Auto announced on its official account on March 11 (the day when Ideal Mega started official delivery) that it would provide all Ideal Megas with "5-year worry-free car ownership rights" ".

Specifically, consumers who purchase an ideal mega will have all maintenance items free of charge within 5 years or 100,000 kilometers. At the same time, car owners can also enjoy unlimited 5G traffic and unlimited maintenance and delivery services. Even if a second-hand car transaction occurs, the "five-year worry-free car rights" of ideal mega car owners are still valid.

In addition to price concerns, Ideal Mega's move to abandon the extended-range technology has also shaken some potential consumers. Previously, Ideal cars relied on extended-range technology to differentiate themselves. However, the new car Ideal Mega launched this time is a pure electric MPV. For car owners who are used to Li Auto's range-extending technology, Li Mega's battery life and its performance at low or high temperatures can inevitably cause some consumers to worry.

Regarding the lack of an extended-range version, Li Auto explained, “Only based on an advanced pure electric architecture can we obtain the optimal solution for the MPV space in our minds."

Ideal Auto emphasized that under the existing fuel vehicle architecture, the space potential of MPVs has been basically tapped to the extreme. Assuming that the Ideal Mega is an extended-range version of the MPV, space for range extenders, fuel tanks and other components must be reserved. The space cannot be fully released, and the shape cannot be perfect. To produce a qualitative change in the internal space, the only way is pure electrification.

In order to further dispel consumers’ concerns about battery life, Li Auto also introduced that the Li Auto mega is based on the Li high-voltage pure electric car. It is built on an electric platform and equipped with Ideal-CATL Kirin 5C battery. The CLTC has a comprehensive range of 710 kilometers and a fastest charging range of 500 kilometers in 12 minutes.

In addition, Li Auto also revealed that it is currently accelerating the construction of a 5c supercharging network and integrating super charging stations It has become an important configuration of pure electric products including Ideal Mega, and a "range extender" for pure electric models, allowing families to truly realize worry-free travel.

According to Li Auto, when actually using a car, use Ideal 5c supercharging pile, combined with the on-the-go temperature control function, can charge the ideal mega for 500 kilometers in 12 minutes in a wide temperature range of -10℃~40℃.

Radar Finance learned that the ideal supercharging There are currently 351 charging stations (1,518 charging piles) in use, mainly concentrated in high-speed service areas. With the official launch of Lideal Mega and the launch of Dading, Li Auto also said that it will gradually meet the needs of users in daily life in urban areas. Enjoy the demand for convenient Ideal overcharging services. On the basis of maintaining the high-speed 5c charging network, Li Auto will also increase investment in urban overcharging stations and speed up the construction.

According to Li Auto’s plan, by 2024 By the end of the year, it will build 2,700 supercharging stations (20,000 charging piles) across the country. Among them, 2,000 supercharging stations (17,000 charging piles) will be built in cities, covering more than 60% of urban areas in first-, second- and third-tier cities; 700 high-speed highways will be built Super charging stations (3,000 charging piles), covering more than 70% of national highways.

The word "mega" in English means huge. According to the official data released by Li Auto, the new car released this time The ideal mega has a flagship body size, with a length of 5350 mm, a width of 1965 mm, a height of 1850 mm, and a wheelbase of 3300 mm. As a product positioned for large families,

has a larger moving space that can satisfy users' wider needs. , more comfortable and easier-to-use experience and needs. However, the larger body also makes some consumers worry about whether the Ideal Mega will be more inconvenient in actual use, especially in parking operations.

In this regard, Li Auto said that if If the user is driving in person, the ideal mega is equipped with four 3-megapixel 360° surround-view cameras and 12 ultrasonic radars. The high-definition panoramic images and radar can help users clearly understand the situation around the vehicle and park better. In addition, the car's wheel hub mode can also clearly display the four wheel hub positions to prevent side scratches.

If the car owner uses the smart driving mode, the automatic parking function of the ideal mega is enough to cover common parking spaces: the car is 5.35 meters long and can park into a side parking space with a minimum length of 6.35 meters (car length + 1 meter), which is common in actual car use scenarios. The length of the parking space is 6.6-6.8 meters; the car width is 1.965 meters, and it can be parked into a vertical parking space with a minimum width of 2.5 meters (car width + 0.5 meters). At the same time, the ideal mega is also equipped with off-car parking and straight-line summoning functions, so there is no need to worry about being unable to get out of the car after parking in a narrow parking space.

In addition to the above-mentioned aspects, the ideal mega does not have rear-wheel steering, which has also become the focus of heated discussion among many netizens.

However, Southwest Securities pointed out in a research report that Li Auto’s first model with a price of less than 300,000 yuan, the Lili L6, plans to be launched in April 2024. In the second half of 2024, Ideal will also launch three high-voltage pure electric models. New models are being released intensively, and a new model cycle is expected to drive growth.

Can Li Auto overcome the severe challenges it currently faces and regain its position as the delivery champion among new forces? Radar Finance will continue to pay attention.