It’s all up to Lee if he wants to think about it or not. shulongtalk shulongtalk Original Author He Shulong
It’s all up to Lee to think about not wanting to.
shulongtalk Original
Author He Shulong
Ideally, the new car-making forces have been the top sellers in the past two years. 2023 2024, sell 370,000 500,000 cars respectively.
In the opening year of 2025, Ideal felt the pressure.
In January, Ideal sold 29,927, falling to the third place of the new forces, ranked after Hongmeng Zhixing Huawei system Xiaopeng In February, Ideal sold 26,263, ranking second, the first is Xiaopeng.
The first quarter is a slow season for car sales, because on the one hand, a lot of demand was released in advance by various stacked offers in the fourth quarter of the previous year, and on the other hand, people are more inclined to spend their money on new year’s goods rather than buying a car before and after the Chinese New Year. Put it this way, it’s understandable that ideal sales didn’t exceed 30,000
However, the off-season is not just for one company. Although in the same off-season, Xiaopeng Zeropeng’s sales are very good.
There’s another reason for Ideal’s poor sales Many users are unsure if the Ideal L-series models will be revamped, so they choose to wait and see. In order to dispel doubts, ideal vice president Liu Jie tweeted a few days ago that he would not push the 2025 model, but there will be a refreshed version, mainly upgrading the intelligent driving hardware, and the launch time is in May.
Ideal’s first pure-electric SUV, the Ideal i8, will be released in July. It looks like Ideal has chosen the second half of the year to make a big splash.
However, the competition in new energy vehicles is growing by leaps and bounds, and it’s hard for the market to accept a company that stays in the doldrums for half a year.
Carefully study the popular Xiaoxiao Xiaopeng Xiaomi Zirun, you will find that cheap is always the hard truth.
Ideal if you can launch cheaper models soon, such as killing 150,000, you have the opportunity to become a popular brand in the era of smart cars, not just limited to the luxury car market.
Cheap, is the hard truth
Xiaopeng and Zero Run, kill crazy.
In the past year, Xiaopeng’s share price has risen 152 , Zero Run’s share price has risen 71 . Ideal’s stock price, on the other hand, fell 23.
Behind the stock price is sales. In the past year, Xiaopeng more and more courageous, single-month sales from 9,000 units all the way to 30,000 units Zero Run car, single-month sales from 10,000 out to 40,000 out.
Xiaopeng rely on two cars MONA M03 and P7, the former from 119,800 yuan, the latter from 186,800 yuan. Zero Run’s two main models, the C11 and C16, are priced between 150,000 and 200,000 dollars.
Xiaopeng and Zeropeng sales rise, the pricing strategy can not be ignored. The mid-range market of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan has always been in strong demand, and some data show that the sales of cars in this price band account for more than 50 percent.
In this price range, the competition for fuel cars is quite fierce, but Ideal Azure Hongmeng Zhixing and other new car brands have almost no layout, and the opportunity has been seized by Xiaopeng and Zeropeng.
Xiaopeng MONA M03, launched at the end of August 2024, sold more than 60,000 units in less than five months, allowing He Xiaopeng’s back to stand up. Zero run nicknamed small ideal, and ideal as the main family market, ideal positioning luxury, zero run positioning practical, all take the route of extended range, but zero run price is half of the ideal.
In the end, cheap is still the hard truth.
Sell luxury sense of azurite understand, launched the Ledao brand, the first car priced at 200,000 under the battery rental program from 150,000, but also to launch a third brand from 150,000 Firefly.
Ideal can certainly feel the benefits of cheap. Last year, Ideal MEGA high-profile debut, but by the network public opinion poured a head of cold water, the share price plummeted sales also out of the question. At the critical moment, the Ideal L6, priced from 250,000 yuan, was launched and gradually took up the banner, selling more than 200,000 units in less than a year.
Without the L6, last year’s Ideal would have been miserable.
Pure electric, is the urgent need
However, launching a low-priced car is not yet a short-term strategic priority for Ideal.
Ideal needs to get past the pure-electricity hurdle first. Ideal’s current L series are all range-extenders, the L6 L7 L8 L9, with gradually upgraded configurations and pricing from 250,000 to 450,000 dollars. Last March, the MEGA was officially launched, the first pure-electric model under the Ideal banner.
Image source Ideal Auto Weibo
With a starting price of 550,000 yuan, MEGA is aimed at the MPV market, deliberately avoiding competition with the L series in both positioning and price. Accumulating pure-electric experience through the MEGA and then launching a pure-electric SUV series would have been a good move. However, the appearance of MEGA is too controversial, and under the influence of some people, MEGA was caught in a net storm after its launch, and its market performance seriously fell short of expectations. The Ideal Pure Electric is not doing well.
In 2025, Ideal will fight for pure electric again. Ideal officials said that the Ideal i8, which is positioned as a six-seat pure electric medium and large SUV, will be released in July. From the naming, it is not difficult to speculate that the pricing of the i8 should be benchmarked against the L8, with a starting price of 350,000 yuan.
Ideal i8, image source Ideal Auto Weibo
Pure electrics are indeed the order of the day. Early on, Ideal chose the extended-range route, and although many people think that pure electric power is the future, and Ideal didn’t do enough to make it a success, but with limited range and inconvenient charging, the extended-range ate the industry dividends during the transition period. In the past two years, with the decline in battery costs and the improvement of charging infrastructure, the acceptance of pure electric models has been rising, and embracing pure electric is the inevitable choice of Ideal.
After the news of the Ideal i8 came out, Ideal’s stock price rose a bit, but not much. As it stands, the i-series and L-series are in a relatively close pricing range, with some overlap in target users. i-series, while it will bring in some incremental family users who prefer pure-electricity to extended-range, is still overall playing in the luxury market, which has limited capacity.
After the i-series models are phased in, it might be time for Ideal to seriously consider the $150,000 market.
At $150,000, the Ideal could take off.
The company chose to start with high-end SUVs, because Chinese users have high demands for space, versatility, and they prefer SUVs. They chose SUVs because Chinese users have high demands for space, flexibility and versatility, and they prefer SUVs, and they chose high-end because the competition in this market is not as fierce as in the low-end market, and it is suitable for them to get through the newbie period. High-end users are more willing to accept the new brand. High-end also means high gross margins, which can support the company’s continuous investment in the three electrics, intelligent driving, etc., so as to ensure the leading edge of the technology. Moreover, after the high-end products have gained a firm foothold, it will be easier to fight in the middle and low-end in the future.
The story to 2025, Wei Xiaoli has passed the opening stage of the new car manufacturing, the idea must follow the change. In particular, Ideal, as a new car manufacturing students, sold 500,000 cars last year, has been among the mainstream car companies, can not set limits to themselves.
Right now, the bosses of car companies are shouting knockout, the competition is too fierce, if you don’t work hard, you have to get out of the game. What is the most important thing in the elimination game? One is to survive, one is to have sales.
Compared to players like Azure Peng, which has a net loss of one or two billion dollars a year, Ideal is profitable and doesn’t need to continue to tell stories to find financing, so it’s not a big problem to survive.
In terms of sales, the challenge is not small. Ideal is very good, but the capacity of the high-end market is limited, and there are rivals like Huawei, Xiaomi, and Tesla, so Ideal needs to open up new territories. If Ideal sticks to the high-end market, it will easily fall into a downward spiral of stagnant sales growth and insufficient R&D investment, and widening technological differences.
Back to the 100,000 to 200,000 range, accounting for more than 50 percent of the total, meaning more than 10 million sales, which is several times the size of Ideal’s current home turf. The rise of Xiaopeng Zeropeng has proved the power of this price band The success of Zeropeng’s 150,000 incremental taxi has also tested the depth of water for Ideal. Theoretically, by utilizing the existing range-extending platform, Ideal can quickly launch a low-priced model without repeating the R&D investment.
Ideal has already established its image as a family luxury car, and launching a 150,000 model could be considered as a demoralizing blow to attract young family users. However, I think Ideal will be worried that the 150,000 model will lower its hard-to-establish high-end tone. On this issue, we can refer to the Azera Ledao model, by establishing a second brand for layout.
From the point of view of intelligent driving, it is also necessary for Ideal to push a low-priced car. Intelligent driving is now the focus of competition among car companies. Li himself has said that he will continue to invest in intelligent driving and go all out. He also said that to realize the L4 level of intelligent driving, it needs enough cars on the road, such as 5 million. Ideal has already sold more than 1 million vehicles, to realize the goal of 5 million vehicles, it is not enough to rely on the high-end market alone.
Of course, pushing low-priced cars means readjusting the supply chain, controlling costs, changing channels, and facing up to super rivals like BYD.
This battle has to be fought, but Ideal Vehicle is a company with a very deep branding of its founder, so whether or not to fight this battle and how to fight it depends on what Li himself thinks.
We’ll see.
Title image from Ideal Auto’s website.
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