Li Xiang: As high as 89% of the purchase groups of more than 200,000 are home users

It was reported on June 22 that Li Auto finally played its second "card" - Li Li L9.According to the press conference, the Ideal L9 is still an extended-range model, positioned as a flagship full-size SUV; the CLTC comprehensive cruising range is 1,315 kilometers, and the WLTC comprehensive cruising range is 1,100 kilometers; the national unified retail price is 459,800 yuan, which is in line with what many people expected. similar.

On the morning of June 22, Lixiang Auto held its first media communication meeting after the release of Lixiang L9 in Beijing. Several Lixiang Auto executives, including Li Xiang himself, answered questions about product technology, supply chain, and pricing.

Among them, it is worth noting that since the audience is relatively close to the ideal ONE, and they are all home users, there are many opinions that the ideal L9 may affect the sales of the ideal ONE.In response, Li Xiang also responded that the sales of Lixiang ONE did not decline after the release of L9, and the sales of Lixiang ONE increased again yesterday.

"People who should buy 300,000-350,000 should still buy 300,000-350,000. As for the previous budget of 300,000-350,000, but suddenly want to buy a 500,000 car, there must be such people, but they must be within 10%. The ratio is not the real market." Li Xiang said.

For the price range of more than 400,000 yuan where the ideal L9 is located, Li Xiang believes that this is also a very healthy market."We need a more expensive car and expand the scale to reduce costs, and then promote cars of different price points, which is a core choice.

In terms of product positioning, Li Li aimed at family cars from the very beginning. Li Li L9 released this time is also a global smart flagship SUV that is positioned for families, but this also makes the ideal user group too narrow for the outside world.

Li Xiang also refuted this, arguing that this statement lacks basic theoretical and logical judgments."I don't believe anyone can do more market research than I did when I was in Autohome. 89% of the 200,000+ purchasers are home users. In other words, our main home users are already Covering 89% of the group, that is, the user group of more than 200,000 that we have locked in, we just eat in one range and one range.”

What's more interesting is that Li Xiang said at the press conference that the Ideal L9 provides flagship driving performance and ride comfort, which is not afraid of the Cullinan, which starts at more than 6 million.

The ideal team understands its own confidence. First of all, our team is the top chassis team in China, including cooperation with the world's top engineering companies; in terms of control algorithms, ideals do not start from 0, we are based on the shoulders of our predecessors. We also spent a lot of money to do this kind of white box delivery; third, our system architecture has made better integration of sensors, and there will be better upgrades in the future, because all the codes, all the The algorithm is in our own hands, and the recognition of more external sensors will make our comfort control better and better.

The following is the edited transcript of the conversation:

Question: Is there any feedback from users after the release of Ideal L9?Can you share the order situation on the day of release?

Li Xiang: At present, most users have not seen the car. Today we have started touring exhibitions in more than a dozen cities. We still hope to see more comprehensive information. After seeing a wider range of samples, we can analyze various kind of results.

Regarding the order, it must be very good. The sales volume of the L9 will definitely exceed the ideal ONE. Although the price is more than 100,000 more expensive, there is no problem.We will not report the specific numbers. The new forces are more honest, and the traditional manufacturers' reports are too false. We only look at the sales volume, the order is useless, and the sales volume and the delivery volume.

Question: The existing model Ideal ONE is a 6-seat medium and large SUV, and the just-released Ideal L9 is also a 6-seat. Will there be some overlap in positioning?How do you think about product planning?

Li Xiang: From the perspective of positioning, what users care most about is not how many seats a car has, but how much money he intends to spend.Everyone always talks about how to build a 6-seater. In fact, it has been the ideal ONE for many consecutive months. It is not only the first in sales of 6-seat medium and large SUVs, but also the first in sales of 300,000-500,000 vehicles. It has continued for many times. month.

In the early days, when the ideal ONE sold a few thousand units a month, everyone might choose it because they likednew energy vehiclesor more intelligent products.Some people even said that he was a fan of the original car home, so Li wanted to make a car and they continued to buy it.However, when the monthly sales reach more than 10,000 units, the proportion of this group will drop, and more users will focus on what is the best choice at this price.

We believe that the price range above 400,000 is also a very healthy market.Especially since many of the technologies we used were very expensive in the early days, like 7.3.4 speakers.We need a more expensive car and expand the scale to reduce costs, and then promote cars of different price points. This is a core choice.

As for product positioning, 89% of the purchase group of more than 200,000 are home users.We only eat in one interval and one interval, but at this time, everyone in the team knows what they are going to do. Whether the function he does and the needs he does meet the needs of the family, I think this is something that everyone has not understood. I can talk to you today.

89% of those above 200,000 are purchased by households.But if you talk about high-end, the team will have a sense of presence during research and development, and will have a sense of presence in product strength.But when you talk about family, he will build every penny and every technology around family, I think this is different.It's a question of positioning.

Question: The ideal L9 configuration is very high and the price is very reasonable, which shows that our cost control is relatively good. Could you please introduce how to achieve such a good cost configuration?

Li Xiang: Anyone who makes products will study Apple, and they all hope that they can make their products the same as Apple, but I rarely see a company that really studies what Apple is doing.

I think you can watch a lot of Steve Jobs interviews and even combine Jonathan, Cook and Jobs to see a lot of the thinking behind Apple.

Everyone always thinks that Apple's things will be a bit expensive. For example, when the iPhone4 was released in 2010, the price was 4999, and the price of the N97 was 8999, but the N97 is actually much rougher than the iPhone4.Only Vertu can achieve the whole level of sophistication of iPhone4, and its price is about 30,000 to 100,000 yuan.

What Apple does is to let everyone go up enough to buy a product experience and product details that were only available at the luxury level and at a very high level in the past. This is Apple's core concept.And if you want to do this, you have to have a lot of innovation in technology and experience, and users are willing to accept it, otherwise it will cost thousands of dollars like many mobile phones packaged in China and some people read in airplane magazines. The same mobile phone has become unsustainable.

Apple is about two cores. The first is how to turn a very extravagant thing into something that everyone can reach, and the second is how to make very unique innovations in experience and technology.I think this is the core of everything at Apple, allowing you to spend a little more money to get capabilities that you can only have several times the price in the past, and you dare not aspire to it.

Our understanding of Apple is like this, and we will insist on doing it in this way.To give a very clear example, after building your own car, the cost of components in these cars can be calculated very well. For example, the 7.3.4 audio system we provide, each speaker is the highest in the industry. Standard, 2160 watts of power, let alone 7.3.4 for such a set of speakers. In the past, 5.1 would cost about 60,000 to 70,000 yuan to install on luxury brands, and if you try it, the effect is really good. Not as good as this.

Of course, the good effect is related to our use of 7.3.4 instead of 5.1. In fact, there is no difference in the cost of materials, but where is the difference?The difference is that the expensive 60,000 or 70,000 optional speakers you see are only a few hundred sets per year in the Chinese market, and they appear in different cars, and each car needs to be installed. Match different R&D expenses.

In fact, it is not necessarily because of its black price, but its business model. Why?Because it has to share a lot of research and development costs for each set of speakers, and even the cost of sharing is tens of thousands of yuan, so it has formed such a model.But we made this standard for each car, which means that if I sell 150,000 L9s a year, the cost of sharing each car may only be 100-200 yuan, so we can standardize more smoothly. .

Therefore, we can boldly use such a method to pull these products, which were considered unattainable by more than 1 million or more than 2 million in the past, to the price of a luxury brand mid-size car, so that everyone can get it - this is what we are serious about After researching Apple, I got the core idea of ​​Apple.

Although Apple's products are a little expensive, the price-performance ratio of Apple's products is very high. This is different from the cost-effectiveness represented by China, as a developing country, in the past so many years, when China, as a developing country, made some standardized products at very cheap prices. It requires different capabilities of enterprises, which is a way we choose.

In addition, we have to consider the user.Because whether I am a car home, or when I buy dozens of cars as a consumer, I will encounter various problems. For example, a car has many configurations and a bunch of options. Yes, but you always feel that you are intriguing with the manufacturer when you choose. You choose the one with the highest configuration, you feel that you have spent a lot of money, and you are unwilling to choose the one with the lowest configuration.

And through our method, the first benefit for consumers is that we can avoid intrigue with users and calculate each other.

The second benefit to the user is that all the money you spend on the entire car can be turned into an asset, and it is equally valuable when you go to change the car.We don't use an optional strategy, a foot pedal option like this is a must, why?Because some people are tall and don't need pedals, I put them on and they're of no value to him, so we just made those things optional.

But the overall like screen, HUD, seat ventilation, seat massage, air suspension are not optional, why?Because there is a very important standard in the automotive industry, options are basically cleared when they are used for a used car, so for users, no matter how much money you spend, it is an expense, not an asset.The car itself is an asset. For example, the ideal ONE has a very high value preservation rate. Many people still sell 2021 models with a 10% discount. When I put all these configurations on the car, it has all the Everything can be sold at 10% off.In the past, everyone also complained that the 2020 ideal ONE has a poor value preservation rate, and it is more expensive to sell this year than the previous two years.

The third advantage is what I said just now. We have made many functions, configurations, and even models that were out of reach that people thought were out of reach, and made them accessible to everyone with just a single jump.

The above is the core concept of Ideal Car for products and configurations, and it is a true tribute to Apple's choice from the heart.

Question: I would like to ask aboutthe production capacity, because the planned production capacity of the Changzhou Phase II factory is now 200,000. I just mentioned that the sales volume of the Ideal L9 exceeds that of the Ideal ONE. I would like to ask about the subsequent capacity expansion, including when our Beiqing factory will be Start production?

Li Xiang: In terms of production capacity, the factory in Changzhou can meet our demand for production capacity ramping up later.For us, the biggest bottleneck in production capacity is not our own factories, but the control of various supply chains around us, so we manage the entire R&D quality, including supply chain manufacturing, by ourselves.Including the range extender of Ideal Xinchen, which is controlled by ourselves, as well as the motor and the five-in-one powertrain, will be put into production in Huixiang, a joint venture between Changzhou and Huichuan (Jiangsu), including the seat factory on our car, as well as the (Jiangsu) Liyang and CATL have also jointly established several production lines to ensure the supply of production capacity.

On the other hand, in fact, after the IPO in 2020, we can invest more money in research and development. In the past, we really had no money, but when we have money, we will really invest in it. Now we can see that XCU and motherboards are all ours. I designed it myself.When we encounter problems with some chips, we have already designed the chips at point B during the design. When there is a problem with the supply of one, we can go to another one, because the entire hardware design driver layer, software layer The algorithm layer is in its own hands, which is actually the same as Tesla.The entire supply chain capability is a lesson we have been working hard to fill in the past few years, because if we don’t invest money, technology, and people in this area, it is impossible to sit there and wait for the supply chain to improve.

Question: Regarding the chassis control, we said yesterday that our car can be compared with Cullinan. We also know that the chassis tuning of these other cars is very related to the data and experiments that the manufacturers have accumulated for some time. , as a relatively new brand and a self-developed algorithm, how can we dare to say that it is compared with Cullinan?

Liu Liguo, Vice President of Vehicle Electric at Lili Auto: In fact, for the driving experience, it is not only related to CDC (Continuously Adjustable Damping Shock Absorber System) related algorithms.First of all, in the early structural design, our entire team is the top team in China, and some of the top domestic people are in our team. Even so, in the early stage structure and structural design plan, we still follow the international top team. cooperation with a company.

The second is about the CDC shock absorber. We did not start from 0, but we did a white box delivery jointly with Porsche Engineering. We used the same architecture and algorithm as the Cayenne, and we combined more in-vehicle sensors. , Including lidar scanning the ground in the future, so that we can more accurately identify the road surface.Our current algorithm on the car is still a passive control, a control based on feedback. In the next step, we have opened up the interaction with vision and lidar on the system. It will recognize the road in advance, so that the comfort is relatively speaking. Simpler than passive control.

To sum up, first of all, our team is the top chassis team in China, including cooperation with the top international engineering companies; then we do not start from 0 for the control algorithm, we do it on the basis of the shoulders of our predecessors, and we also We spent a lot of money to do this kind of white box delivery; thirdly, we have better integrated sensors in our system architecture, and there will be better upgrades in the future, because all the codes and all algorithms are in our own hands, Combining the recognition of more external sensors will make our comfort control better and better.

Li Xiang: Lixiang Auto has 4 AI and algorithm teams running independently, because we are in four different scenarios, the largest is Dr. Lang Xianpeng, the second is Gou Xiaofei, and the third is Wang In Yang's internal system, the fourth is Liu Liguo's team.In Wang Yang, we developed our own internal systems, including sales and factory systems. We even wrote the factory systems ourselves, and we did not purchase any suppliers, which is very rare in China.All kinds of things in the factory are made with algorithms and perception. Even the control program of the robot is made by AR algorithm. We found that the control program of the robot purchased from outside is made by us. Too bad, the cost is too high, so we all make our own algorithms in this regard.

Including the range extender, the working road conditions of the extended range, the suspension, and variouspredictionssuch as battery failure are all done through algorithms and artificial intelligence. Basically, there are talents such as doctors and postdoctoral fellows. This is the past. We have been carefully preparing for three years. If you look at our recruitment, you can see that these four teams have been continuously recruiting people.We believe that the two most important purposes carried by smart electric vehicles are actually renewable energy. A lot of people, money and energy have been invested in artificial intelligence and solving the problems of the three-dimensional world, which may be a big difference from traditional brands.

Question: I have a question about the supply chain. Ideal has adopted a joint venture or holding method. What are the considerations behind it?

Li Xiang: There are two core levels here: one level is to solve the controllability of the actual technology. I think this is very important, which will greatly improve our research and development efficiency.The second important thing is supply, and we must control the supply capacity in our own hands.Because we were embarrassed when we were working on the Ideal ONE, we did tell our suppliers early that we could sell 10,000 vehicles a month. Some suppliers actually placed orders for us, and the production line was 3,000 vehicles. There are 1000 cars.

It wasn't until we started building that he added factories one after another, and this was a problem we encountered.In fact, our target volume is larger in the future, including the cars that everyone will see next year and the year after, which will be a sales space that will exceed everyone's imagination in the past.Therefore, when we tell a very good supplier that we can achieve this amount, he still does not believe it, and he gives you a lot of discounts.Because it is true that in the past, everyone could not imagine that medium and large SUVs could sell 15,000 units a month, because they could not deliver, because they did not give us enough spare parts. This is from the perspective of supply.Instead of them not believing us, our best way is actually a joint venture, and then there is no need to educate.Of course, although there will be some early investment in the joint venture, the cost of each component will become lower, which is the benefit of the joint venture.

Therefore, the first joint venture is to ensure that the technology is controllable, the second is to ensure the supply, and the third is to gain some cost advantages.I think traditional manufacturers do the same, and they don't need to invent anything new, just learn from the best experience of traditional auto manufacturers.