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Author | Pan Lei

"Can we not release a weekly ranking? If NIO becomes number one (in sales), we will never release a weekly ranking."

During the interactive session after the NIO IN event on the afternoon of July 27, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, expressed his dissatisfaction with the weekly sales rankings of rival companies when talking about sales.

He went on to say that every company will make its monthly sales rankings public. In fact, this is cruel enough. Quarterly sales rankings are appropriate, as financial reports are released quarterly after all.

Li Bin did not mention any specific list or the names of friendly competitors.

But as we all know, the "weekly chart" originated fromIdeal Auto, and has become one of the most powerful weapons in its marketing arsenal.

It remains to be seen whether Li Bin’s criticism of the weekly rankings will trigger a debate, but it has also put the competition between the two sides on the table.

This is actually not abnormal, because the two sides are competitors and there is no question of any affection between them.

Therefore, NIO co-founder and president Qin Lihong bluntly said that he hopes other companies will not include NIO in their weekly rankings. “Can you please exclude NIO?”

It can be seen that Qin Lihong is a little bit angry.

He went all out, saying that NIO does not publish unaudited weekly charts, and has not authorized other institutions to publish weekly charts with NIO's name.

In addition, he also questioned the data source of the "weekly list".

"Internally, less than ten people know NIO's weekly sales data."

At this time, Li Bin added that only four or five people knew this data.

Qin Lihong said that the weekly ranking data is not serious and that NIO has not authorized it.

He called on relevant departments to take charge of this matter.

Before this, the outside world really didn’t expect that NIO had such a big opinion on the weekly ranking! It is not difficult to find that NIO has been forbearing the weekly ranking for a long time.

NIO’s attitude is very clear: it does not want to appear on this not-so-serious list.

The reason is not difficult to guess - the weekly ranking is actually only beneficial to the players at the top of the list, and those ranked behind are just "accompanied" and play the role of stepping stones.

It is in this context that all kinds of lists have emerged, with various adjectives added, all with the aim of ranking themselves first.

For example, "Sales list of medium and large pure electric sedans priced above 200,000 yuan", etc.

At this point, the list has actually become a marketing tool and distorts market reality.

This is the biggest reason why Li Bin got angry about the list.

Because NIO has been "consumed" for a long time - to some extent even playing a negative role - NIO certainly has no suitable and appropriate position in the list controlled and dominated by Ideal.

I feel that Li Bin’s rather tough complaints are actually a good thing.

Because when it comes down to it, NIO and Li Auto will eventually meet head-on.

This is like the relationship between Yuwen Tai and Gao Huan. There must be a war no matter what, and it will be a long war.

The reason why it has been suppressed until now and has only exploded is related to the fact that NIO is gradually becoming more and more powerful.

On the first Technology Day last year, NIO announced 12 full-stack self-developed projects, which shocked the outside world.

At this year's NIO IN, NIO directly announced major technologies including the successful tape-out of the world's first 5nm intelligent driving chip "Shenji NX9031", the vehicle-wide operating system SkyOS Tianshu, and the intelligent driving world model.

This enables NIO to build systematic capabilities ranging from smart driving chips to operating systems, and to top-level applications such as intelligent driving systems.

Li Bin even made a mobile phone. The NIO Phone released yesterday is already the second generation.

As a result, he almost dominated all core aspects related to smart cars.

This is actually pretty awesome.

Even from a global perspective, few car companies can play on such a big scale.

Because most car companies can't afford it.

So far, I am afraid that onlyTesla, Huawei Automotive BU, andBYDOnly those with similar skills, the others are basically given for free.

Li Bin's confidence lies in the fact that the longer the time goes, the greater the ability bonus of his system will be, and the more cards he will have in his hand.

Of course, he already has enough cards now.

In addition to technology, the brand matrix is ​​also similar.

NIO targets the high-end market, Ledao targets the 200,000-300,000 yuan segment, and Firefly focuses on small cars.

The energy replenishment system built by NIO has also become another trump card, which can be charged, replaced and upgraded.

The most important point is that NIO’s technological advantages are beginning to be reflected in sales.

In the past two months, NIO’s sales have exceeded 20,000 units for two consecutive months.

In the first half of this year, NIO sold a total of 87,426 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 60.2%.

This gave Li Bin great confidence.

In fact, when Li Bin emphasized that even if NIO ranked first (in sales), it would not release a weekly ranking, it showed that NIO was ready to become the leader.

Of course, this is not a duel that will decide the outcome of the battle.

But his outburst on the weekly rankings shows that Li Bin has already entered the playoff mode ahead of time.