After the release of Xiaomi SU7 in March, Li Bin, CEO of Weilai, said in a short video co shot with Lei Jun that "the pricing of Xiaomi SU7 is too fierce, and it is hard for Ledao to price it".
On May 15, Ulai sub brand Ledo Auto officially launched, focusing on the family market below 300000 yuan, and its first model Ledo L60 was also unveiled. The pre selling price of the "bad pricing" Ledo L60 starts from 219900 yuan, 4000 yuan more than Xiaomi SU7. It will be launched and delivered in September this year.
From the perspective of price and positioning, the direct competitors of Ledo L60 include not only powerful players such as Tesla Model Y and BYD Haishi 07 EV, but also new forces such as Geekrypton 001, Denza N7 and Ideal L6.
In addition to competition, the Ledao brand also carries more hopes of Weilai - scale. Ledao will be the most important step for Weilai to have a longer future.
How about the product strength of Ledo L60?
May 15 is the World Family Day, and the purpose of releasing Ledo L60 on this day is also obvious - it is a family oriented model. The word "home" almost ran through the whole conference.
According to the standard of "family car", the competing products of Ledo L60 are not only pure electric models, but also the ideal L6, Blueprint FREE and other value-added SUVs with a price of 200000 to 300000 yuan.
So, does the Ledo L60 have enough strength?
In terms of body dimensions, the length, width and height of the Ledo L60 are 4828mm/1930mm/1616mm, and the wheelbase is 2950mm,
In terms of the cockpit, the Lando L60 is equipped with a 13 inch HUD, a 17.2 inch 3K resolution central control screen, and an 8-inch rear entertainment screen placed at the end of the central armrest. It uses a new Lando OS system.
The Ledo L60 adopts a 900V high-voltage architecture and a fully self-developed 900V silicon carbide main electric drive system. The car claims to challenge the global mass production SUV with ultra-low wind resistance. The wind resistance coefficient is 0.229 at 120km/h. Under comprehensive optimization, the official said that its energy consumption per hundred kilometers is only 12.1 kW · h, which is known as the lowest energy consumption of medium-sized SUVs in the industry. It provides 555km, 730km and 1000+km battery packs.
Of course, as a sub brand of Weilai, Ledo L60 also supports power change, and supports one button automatic docking into the power change platform. The whole process of power change only takes 3 minutes.
In terms of intelligent driving, the Ledo L60 series is equipped with 30 high-performance perception hardware as standard, including Nvidia Orin-X intelligent driving chip, 4D imaging millimeter wave radar, 7 8 million pixel high-definition cameras, 4 starlight 360 degree cameras, etc. The urban navigation scheme without laser radar is adopted.
Compared with competing products such as Model Y, Haishi 07 EV, Geekrypton 001, Denza N7, the functions and configurations of Ledo L60 are basically the same as the mainstream of the industry, and its advantages are mainly reflected in the power exchange - this is a unique feature of the Weilai system, especially when the pure electric vehicles generally have endurance anxiety.
According to Weilai data, it has built 2415 power exchange stations (1000+power exchange stations supporting Ledao L60), achieving more than 80% coverage of power zone rooms. In daily use, the Ledo L60, which is also a high-voltage architecture+fast charging, not only has not failed to charge, but also has more power replacement and energy supplement, which is obviously more applicable than other models that can only charge.
However, the disadvantage of the Ledo L60 lies in its support for power change. In order to be compatible with power change, the Ledo L60, like other Weilai models, cannot adopt the current popular CTB (battery body integration) design, resulting in its limited interior space and driving experience compared with the CTB models.
In general, the product strength of the Ledo L60 is basically similar to that of the models at the same price. There are no outstanding technologies, functions, and obvious weaknesses. This may be Weilai's intention. After all, the most important task of Ledao is to follow the volume. The overly aggressive product positioning may not be suitable for the first model.
The primary task of Yuedao lies in its scale
By the end of 2023, Weilai will sell about 160000 vehicles, failing to achieve the goal of 200000 units. However, Wei Lai has stabilized its ranking, ranking second only to the ideal in the sales list of new car making forces.
By 2024, Weilai will face greater challenges. The total delivery in the first quarter will be 30053 units, down 3.2% year on year. In the sales ranking of the new car making forces, Weilai fell to the fifth place, lagging behind Quest, Ideal, Zero Race and Polar Krypton.
Among the four brands, both Jikrypton and Weilai are positioned as "pure electric luxury brands" and direct competitors of Weilai. Jikrypton 001 and Jikrypton 007 are strong competitors that Weilai and Ledao must face. Now the sales volume of polar krypton has overtaken that of Weilai, which is a danger signal for both Yuedao and Weilai.
On the other hand, at present, there are as many as 8 types of cars sold by Weilai, which is the brand with the largest number of models among new forces such as "Weixiaoli", Jikru, Zero Run, Nezha, etc. However, multiple models have not brought about multiple flowering. According to the data of research institute Jielan Road, the monthly sales efficiency of Weilai's bicycles (average monthly sales of single cars) is only about 1500, which is at the back of the old and new car making forces.
The unsatisfactory sales also made Weilai bear considerable financial pressure.
According to Weilai's financial report, the gross profit rate of Weilai's auto business in 2023 will be 9.5%, down 4.2 percentage points year on year, far from the target of 15% set earlier. In the same period, the gross profit rate of Xiaopeng Auto and Ideal Auto was 5.5% and 22.2% respectively, which was higher than that of Xiaopeng Auto and lower than that of Ideal Auto.
In 2023, Weilai's R&D expenses will reach 13.43 billion yuan, and its sales and distribution costs will also reach 12.88 billion yuan, making it the brand with the highest expenditure of its kind among all new forces.
The bigger "burden" is the power exchange business that Weilai is proud of. In 2023, Weilai will build 1035 new power stations, with an investment of more than 3 billion yuan. In addition, Weilai plans to continue to expand its power exchange business in 2024. Previously, Weilai once said that its three generation replacement power stations can achieve a break even by 60 power changes per day. At present, about 20% of the replacement power stations have reached this standard.
The good news is that Weilai's "circle of friends" for charging and changing electricity is expanding rapidly. In the past year, Weilai has reached cooperation agreements with many large car enterprises such as Chang'an Automobile, GAC Group, Chery Automobile, etc. However, for the moment, there is still no third party to support Weilai to replace the power station. With CTB (body battery integration) gradually becoming the mainstream of the market, it remains to be seen whether other car enterprises will redesign the chassis system for power replacement.
Power plant replacement is a heavy asset business, which requires both a large amount of capital investment and time to build. The most important thing is that it needs to be like a gas station. The more vehicles it uses after completion, the faster it can get rid of losses and achieve profits. Therefore, whether Ledao can rapidly increase sales will be the key factor to determine whether Weilai's power exchange business can operate healthily and continuously.
Yuedao makes Weilai's strategy more flexible
From March 2023, the price war will spread in the car market. Since this year, BYD, Tesla, Geely, etc. have pushed the price war to a climax. However, it is easier to reduce prices than to increase them. Especially for luxury brands, the damage to brands caused by price reduction promotion is quite obvious. This is also the reason why Weilai, Ideals, Krypton and other new luxury brands have publicly said that they will not follow the price war.
In the round after round of price cuts, although Weilai has also made some response, it has always been somewhat tied to the positioning of "luxury brand".
In March this year, Weilai released a new battery rental service (BaaS) scheme, with the car price reduced by 70000 yuan, and the monthly rent of standard endurance and long endurance battery packs reduced to 728 yuan and 1128 yuan, respectively, a decrease of 35% and 49%. In addition, the rent paid can partially offset the battery buyout fee, and from now on to May 31, users can choose the BaaS scheme to purchase a car, and also enjoy the limited time gift of paying 4 free battery rental service fees and 1 or 60 free electricity change tickets.
In April, Weilai announced that it would provide 10000 yuan of optional subsidy to fuel vehicle users who buy 2024 new models, with a total subsidy budget of 1 billion yuan.
In May, Weilai launched the "zero down payment" car purchase program and exclusive subsidies of up to 20000 yuan "old for new".
However, in any case of promotion, Weilai has never broken the bottom line of less than 300000 yuan in name. Adherence to the positioning of "luxury brand" has forced Weilai to consider the possible negative impact of price war, so the adjustment that can be made is very limited. In contrast, the ideal discount price of L7, which starts at 300000 yuan, has already fallen to 200000 yuan, enabling it to compete comprehensively with Interworld M7, which Huawei has added.
In the auto market where price war is inevitable, Weilai needs higher flexibility and richer strategies to cope with the rapid changes in the market.
Therefore, Ledao, which is no longer bound by the "luxury brand", will be a sharp weapon of Weilai with "full firepower".
In general, the significance of Ledo to Weilai lies in improving sales, injecting more orders into the power replacement business, and obtaining more space for market strategy adjustment. Weilai's "half life" is in the hands of the new music.
