On July 26, Li Auto passed the hearing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to usual practice, ideal will be officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange within one month.
This is exactly one year after Ideal was listed on the US stock market last year. It is also another new car-making force returning to the Hong Kong stock market after Xpeng Motors returned to Hong Kong for listing in July. Now, only NIO is still independent in the US stock market. However, according to news reports, NIO applied for listing on the Hong Kong stock market as early as March, but it seems to be blocked.
The frequent launches of new car-making forces undoubtedly imply that a change in new energy vehicles is beginning. Recently, there are news reports that car companies are competing for people. Some key positions, such as autonomous driving R&D personnel, have already offered a monthly salary of 110,000, and the smell of gunpowder is getting stronger.
Undoubtedly, after experiencing the last elimination, new energy vehicles have entered a new stage of competition, and the future uncertainty will become greater. Especially for Ideal, a new force that takes the route of increasing programs, the risk of change will be greater. How does the ideal maintain its position?
Speaking of ideal cars, we have to mention extended-program technology. This is the only car company that can represent this technology on the market today.
In the past three years, Ideal has perfectly solved the range anxiety of pure electric vehicles through the long-range and low-cost attributes of extended-range technology, attracting a large number of users; in the third quarter of last year, the gross profit margin once reached Nearly 20%.
Based on this, Ideal squeezed out Byton, Green Packet, Singularity and other competitors in the first stage of the new energy vehicle competition, listed on Nasdaq, and became a new player in new energy vehicle manufacturing. The first echelon of power.
Now, Lideal is preparing to develop the X platform to inherit the existing extended-range electric vehicle platform and be equipped with a next-generation extended-range electric power system.
However, while the ideal range-extending technology continues to exert force, a shift is also taking place.
Ideal mentioned in this prospectus that it is investing in high-voltage pure electric vehicle technology and developing two platforms for future high-voltage pure electric models - Whale and Shark.
The ideal of making a pure electric vehicle would have been unimaginable a year ago.
Li Xiang also mentioned at last year’s Q3 financial report meeting that Li Auto will not launch pure electric models before 400KW fast charging technology matures. The application of range-extending technology in large SUVs and MPVs has 5- 10 years of advantage.
It was Li Xiang who cursed in order to endorse the extended program technology. Now this turn is really sudden.
Has extended-range technology passed its golden age?
In fact, earlier this year, the 2025 strategy released by Ideal mentioned that it would deliver its first pure electric model in 2023. This strategy was sent out by Li Xiang in the form of an internal letter.
Personal technical preferences aside, extended-range electric vehicles are indeed out of the mainstream.
Extended-range technology essentially uses gasoline as the power source and is driven by batteries. This is why it is classified as a plug-in hybrid vehicle.
This impure power model makes it unable to enjoy the preferential policies for new energy vehicles. For example, subsidies have been discounted, and in some cities, such as Beijing, extended-range electric vehicles cannot enjoy green licenses. Policy directions have foreshadowed the inevitable decline of this technology.
However, it was the development of technology that ultimately eliminated extended-range technology.
Recently, Costa told the media that its fast-charging charging piles and fast-charging modules and other products can already achieve a maximum power of 400KW; and in terms of battery life, the Xpeng P7 currently has an official range of 700 kilometers , Tesla model Y has a range of nearly 600 kilometers.
Under the double attack of electric vehicle policy guidance and technological progress, range extension is no longer appropriate.
So now, extended-range technology has become a label that Ideal is eager to tear off.
For Ideal, it is easy to remove the label of extended-range vehicle, but to label it as a pure electric vehicle and get users to recognize and pay for it will not happen overnight.
From the perspective of car sales, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal belong to the same echelon, but in terms of forward-looking, the two have exceeded Ideal. In the past few years, Ideal has focused all its energy on Ideal ONE, and has no experience in pure electric vehicles.
In terms of the battery life of pure electric vehicles, NIO has an advantage among the three car-making forces and has many patents in charging and swapping technology and charging piles.
As for autonomous driving technology, which is the hottest competition among new energy vehicles, Xpeng is undoubtedly the best representative. While other car companies are selling hardware, Xpeng has already achieved revenue through its independently developed XPILOT system software.
But Ideal has no other technical advantages except extended-range technology.
In terms of driving technology, Lideal ONE, launched by Lideal in May, has upgraded its NOA navigation-assisted driving capabilities, but its assisted driving is still at Level 2. Tesla Model 3 has reached L3+, and some mass-produced models by traditional car companies are also at the L3 level.
Last June, Ideal ONE had an accident in Qingdao, Shandong. An ideal car collided with a truck, injuring relatives and friends of the co-pilot and damaging the front side of the car.
According to analysis, this may be related to ideal autonomous driving technology. On the old Ideal ONE, the assisted driving chip is Mobileye EyeQ4, with a horizontal viewing angle of 52°. Moreover, this model only has one millimeter-wave radar. Compared with its peers, the Xpeng G3 is equipped with three and the NIO ES6 is equipped with five.
Phoenix Technology once reported that the Ideal ONE can identify obstacles at long distances, but visual impairment will occur at "medium" and "short" distances.
On the 2021 new Ideal ONE, you can also see the computing power gap between the newly replaced Horizon Journey 3 and other brands.
Of course, there is another issue worth worrying about Ideal, which is its model development capabilities.
From the time Ideal ONE came out to now, Ideal has not produced a second model. NIO already has three main models: ES8, ES6, and EC6; Xpeng Motors also has two models, G3 and P7, targeting the low-end and high-end markets respectively.
Although in the 2025 strategy and this prospectus, Ideal mentioned that two models will be updated every year in the future, but from one every three years to two a year, the specific execution, product design, Whether there will be any discounts on operating efficiency and so on is a question mark.
In addition to the differences in technology and manufacturing, another difference between new energy car companies and traditional car companies is that traditional car companies sell cars, while new energy car companies sell services.
NIO probably understands this the most. Weilai has a "Cow House" where it often organizes activities for car owners to communicate with them. Therefore, before this "seat defect" incident, Weilai's reputation had always been very good, and it also regarded itself as a user company.
According to NIO founder Li Bin, during the epidemic last year, 60% of NIO’s orders came from recommendations from old NIO users. This shows the user company’s ability to sell goods.
In contrast, ideals are more consumed by negative news.
At the beginning of 2020, an accident occurred in Ideal ONE where the ball head of the A swing arm under the front suspension fell off. Ideal automobile engineers believe that the probability of accidents is within the normal range and do not give it too much consideration.
However, on August 9, 2020, another Ideal ONE suffered a "broken axle" accident. The official still said that this was caused by an impact and that the suspension system was "very safe and reliable." It was not until later that there were many accidents of broken axles that Ideal admitted that there were problems with the suspension system and recalled more than 10,000 Ideal cars. However, the official term used by Ideal is "hardware upgrade".
At the communication meeting on November 1, Li Xiang responded to the matter: "The upgrade must have been due to defects at the time, which is normal." Although vehicle problems are nothing new, ignoring The aloof attitude of changing "recall" to "upgrade" with peace of mind when one is wrong is not what a company should have.
No coincidence. In June, Zhejiang Economic Life Channel reported that a car owner who purchased the Ideal ONE discovered on the same day that the vehicle had a suspension failure. After repairs, Ideal required the owner to sign a "confidentiality agreement," and the owner was asked not to report to the media. , industry and commerce, etc. to report or expose relevant issues.
From the "Broken Axis Gate", "Model Change Gate", "Confidentiality Agreement", and the recently unresolved "Mercury Gate", Ideal has been caught in the storm of negative public opinion again and again, and the hidden truths behind it have been exposed. It is precisely the user service concept that is not yet mature.
For Internet car companies, the shortcomings that need to be made up are not only product technology, but also the concept of "user-focused".
At a time when pure electric vehicles are becoming popular, Li Auto’s bet on range extension is actually a relatively conservative path.
Nothing is accomplished overnight. Obviously, the ideal accumulation of technology and experience in making pure electric vehicles is far from enough, but they are eager to seize the market.
Now, Li Xiang will have to pay for his strategic choice. The wrong route has caused Ideal Auto to lag behind at least a few years in the rapid development of new car-making forces.
After European and American car companies have dominated the fuel vehicle market for more than a century, this time, China has the opportunity to seize the opportunity of new energy vehicles and create a state-owned brand with international influence.
Although new car-making forces, such as Lideal, NIO, and Xpeng, face numerous technical difficulties, they have relied on their Internet genes and innovative awareness to break out of the crowd of car companies. This has proven own possibilities.
But now, the competition for new energy vehicles is not only a competition for technology, but also an upgrade of user services in the automotive industry. Especially now that new energy vehicles are still in their infancy, all aspects of technology , When the infrastructure is not yet perfect, we should take the difficulties encountered by users seriously, communicate and solve them. This is the key to the success of new car-making forces.