Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, who just released Xiaomi 13 Ultra in Beijing last week, came to the Shanghai Auto Show non-stop the next day. His appearance received special attention. Executives from all major new car companies were present in person to introduce their products to Lei Jun. Lei Jun also took pictures of the models of interest with the newly released Xiaomi 13 Ultra.
Lei Jun at this time node may still be a friend of the executives of these new car companies, and Xiaomi is also the internet software in some car models. By this time next year, Lei Jun and Xiaomi are likely to become direct competitors of these car companies. And what is Lei Jun's visit to the auto show for?
After visiting the auto show, what Lei Jun is most anxious about may be product positioning? In the morning, Lei Jun visited eight new power booths such as Tucki, Krypton, Weilai, Gaohe, Chang 'an Deep Blue, Fan Fei and Zhiji, and also went to see Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Volkswagen and Audi. For Lei Jun, who spends half his time studying cars every day, the products of these manufacturers must be familiar with the heart, but there are few opportunities to read them all at once.
In today's environment, the automobile price war is still intensifying, especially with the continuous price reduction of Tesla and the continuous decline in the prices of raw materials such as lithium ore, China's automobile market is bound to usher in a new wave of price reduction, which is well known. Without excellent product strength or other support, it is impossible for auto companies not to reduce prices, but everyone will not make money if they sell at high prices, let alone at low prices. Moreover, after many car companies cut prices, they did not bring complete positive feedback to sales.
As for Xiaomi automobile, its vehicles have not been mass-produced or even qualified to build cars. The current automobile market can be said to be very unfriendly and even cruel to new entrants. Lei Jun's most urgent task at this time is to find the positioning of Xiaomi's first product, but after reading so many booths, he may be a little disappointed, because these new power brands have almost flooded the market within 500,000, especially in the range of 200,000-400,000, and a large number of new power models are stacked together, which is impenetrable.
The first car currently exposed by Xiaomi is located in this range. According to the latest news, the internal code "Modena Modena" of Xiaomi medium-sized scooter may be divided into two versions, with the low version selling for 250,000-300,000 yuan and the high version possibly exceeding 350,000 yuan. The medium and low version is based on 400V platform and equipped with BYD lithium iron phosphate battery. In terms of intelligent driving, the monocular vision black box supplier scheme provided by the supplier mainland is adopted, while the high-end version may be based on 800V high-voltage platform and equipped with Kirin battery of contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. In the aspect of intelligent driving, NVIDIA's Orin+ lidar self-developed scheme may be adopted.
If this is really the case with Xiaomi's first model, then it will directly rush into the most crowded area of the new power. There are many products similar to Xiaomi Modena, such as Weilai ET5, Tucki P7i, Extreme Krypton 00 1, Zhiji L7, and even Fan Fei F7, Zero Run C0 1. Of course, Tesla and BYD's products cannot be ignored.
Therefore, we say that after Lei Jun may come to the Shanghai Auto Show at this time, the most anxious thing is the positioning of Xiaomi Automobile. If we blindly use these models to fight, the result may be pessimistic. At present, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is around 25%, while Tesla and BYD may even account for more than 15%, while the remaining new forces and traditional car companies after transformation, and even luxury brands, are vying for this market share of less than 10%. The market has gone crazy, and most car companies can't make money in the short term. If Xiaomi is now,
Autonomous driving is no longer a hot potato, so what should we rely on to catch consumers? The reputation accumulated by Xiaomi brand for so many years, as well as the image of price butcher and user stickiness, are the moat of the brand. However, Xiaomi's current Modena model is inseparable from the products of other new forces. At this time, there is no user stickiness and no advantage in cost performance.
Xiaomi Leijun almost talked about the development progress of autonomous driving at the press conference of Xiaomi Automobile. Xiaomi wants to make Xiaomi car make a difference through autonomous driving, but at present, it seems that betting on autonomous driving and related smart models may not get full positive feedback from the market, because it is almost impossible to make a difference under the current laws and regulations. Even L3-level autopilot is conditional autopilot, and the responsibility is still on people. L2.99 and L3 can't open the gap.
And the upper limit of automatic driving, the end of the story is obvious, that is, the vehicle can drive automatically. No matter whether you are pure vision, lidar or vehicle-road coordination, no matter what scheme you use, how much computing power you use, how many high-tech sensors you use, and how excellent and perfect algorithms you have, the final effect you achieve is automatic driving, that is, the vehicle drives itself, and people can do other things, and these technologies are not just being done by Wei Xiaoli, Huawei and Tesla.
At this time, there is the influence of automobile price war. If you want to get out of the general public's cognitive range in price, then your market is destined to be a niche. Xiaomi has been hitting the high end in the mobile phone market in recent years, but it has not been completed until now. If you don't create some subversive and innovative products, you won't reverse everyone's inherent impression, at least Xiaomi mobile phone hasn't done this yet.
On the other hand, Xiaomi Auto, at least this model code-named Modena, has no subversive innovation to bring us. Its design and intelligent performance are not enough to give us the feeling of "seeing the iPhone at first sight", but its price is somewhat beyond everyone's cognition, so the positioning problem is still a difficult problem.
In fact, this time visiting the auto show, Xiaomi Leijun may also find that many car companies are taking Xiaomi's route, such as reducing costs, paying attention to cost performance and making a lot of profits. However, in this era, it is difficult for these car companies to make the achievements made by Xiaomi in the field of mobile phones, because it is really strong and the competition is too fierce, which has caused many companies to fall into a quagmire. Perhaps Xiaomi also found that he could not make efforts on this originally successful route, so he chose a more successful route.
Summary: It is difficult to apply the successful experience of the original mobile phone to building a car, and it is necessary to cross the river again by feeling the stones. This is the millet car now. Seeing so many new cars "rolled up" by new forces at the auto show, Lei Jun may re-examine his products and car-making plans. The existing autonomous driving and prices may really be difficult to impress consumers, even the most loyal rice noodles.
From the perspective of hard core technology, it may be a feasible route. As you can see at this auto show, there are also models with independent brands that sell for more than one million yuan and can sell well. That car does have a lot of hard-core technology, no matter how expensive it is, it can really be accepted by consumers, and Xiaomi does not lack technical reserves. Moreover, Xiaomi may be the enterprise with the most technical patents among all the new car-making troops.
This article comes from Luca Auto, the author of Easy Car, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author if reproduced in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.