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Author｜Zhang Wen Editor｜Jiang Jiao Cover｜Fast and Furious 7

The auto sales list for July was released yesterday.

After adjusting its rhythm, Ideal Auto's sales continued to rise, with deliveries reaching 51,000 in July, a record high. The sales of the WJE fell month-on-month to 41,535, still lagging behind Ideal. Even according to the statistics of Huawei's Hongmeng Zhixing series, the performance of 44,090 is not as good as Ideal. The biggest reason may be that the WJE M5 is too weak, with sales of about one-third of Ideal L6. Of course, excluding models below 300,000, Hongmeng Zhixing said that they "continue to rank first in monthly sales of new energy models above 300,000."

The performance of the remaining new energy brands was mostly the same as last month. Leapmotor and NIO had stable sales of more than 20,000 vehicles, while Xpeng and Nezha were around 10,000 vehicles.

Without launching new cars, sales have remained stable at more than 20,000 units for three consecutive months, proving that NIO's insistence on battery swapping has begun to be accepted by more people. Since November last year, at least seven car companies have reached battery swapping cooperation with NIO. Li Bin also seems to be more active on social media. Since registering Douyin in March this year, he has 910,000 followers and posted 42 short videos. However, the most popular ones are his co-production with Lei Jun.

Xiaopeng and Nezha are stuck at the threshold of monthly sales of 10,000 vehicles, and have been unable to move forward. He Xiaopeng has placed his hopes on the upcoming low-cost version of the Xiaopeng MONA 03. Recently, the exhibition cars have arrived in stores one after another, and Xiaopeng Motors salesmen have begun to invite potential customers to the store for tasting.

Nezha Auto has recently appeared more frequently in the headlines, driven by Zhou Hongyi's traffic. Zhang Yong is also very hardworking - he may be the CEO of all car companies who is most enthusiastic about learning from Lei Jun. His latest activity was to participate in the challenge of "Happy Forward" on Shandong Satellite TV - Nezha is the sponsor of this program - and as expected, he fell into the water at the third level.

Xiaomi Auto's tone was the same as last month, and it still only announced that the delivery volume exceeded 10,000. According to the abundant orders currently held by Xiaomi, production capacity is still the biggest factor limiting Xiaomi's sales. After Zeekr's sales briefly exceeded 20,000 last month, it fell to 15,655 this month. Perhaps due to the sluggish sales, the focus of Zeekr's publicity yesterday was that the cumulative delivery exceeded 300,000 units, and the attributive was "refreshing the fastest delivery record of pure electric new forces."

But what people are most concerned about is not the numbers on the list, but the quarrels among CEOs of car companies about the weekly list. This time, it is no longer the bosses of traditional car companies who are standing in the front, but the three brothers of "NIO, Xiaopeng and Li Auto" who were once as close as brothers.

The first to take action was NIO. Li Bin and Qin Lihong expressed their dissatisfaction with the weekly rankings in a media interview on July 27. Qin Lihong believed that the data in the weekly rankings was inaccurate and had not been approved by NIO. NIO had not authorized any third party, "Why use our brand for promotion? Can we be excluded?"

Li Bin added that it is already cruel for the automobile industry to release sales on a monthly basis. If they are the top sellers, they would say they will never release a weekly chart.

——He was almost scolding Ideal Auto. He Xiaopeng also teased at his own intelligent driving technology conference that Chinese technology companies are still working on weekly sales charts and trying to make money. This is not what technology competition should look like. In July last year, Xiaopeng Motors pointed out that "please pay attention to official information, and Lubianshe is indeed not very reliable" because the data on Ideal's weekly chart was too different from the data they released.

The bosses expressed their dissatisfaction anonymously on stage, but the vice presidents were more direct. Ma Lin, assistant vice president of Weilai's brand and communications, forwarded a central document on social media, saying, "The top leaders have set the tone: don't engage in low-level involution. Competing on the weekly charts is more or less a bit of low-level involution." He also specifically tagged Li Xiang, "Brother Xiang, please stop."

Li Xiang, who rarely speaks publicly, did not respond to him on Weibo, but only forwarded a picture of a man trying to cover his ears while stealing a bell on WeChat Moments, with a booing emoji. Ideal updated its sales chart for the latest week as usual.

The debate over the weekly rankings also attracted Geely Senior Vice President Yang Xueliang, who retweeted Ma Lin's Weibo and said, "I am also against the weekly rankings," and he also agreed with He Xiaopeng's opinion. But it was soon discovered that Geely's Zeekr Auto was also a supporter of the weekly rankings, and Yang Xueliang also retweeted the weekly rankings on Weibo many times, which attracted ridicule from those who were curious.

The wave of doubts about the weekly rankings at the end of July can be regarded as a continuation of the opposition to internal circulation by car company bosses last month. Competition in China's auto industry far exceeds that in other parts of the world. Under the vigorous technological change of oil-to-electricity swaps, price wars have been going on one after another, and rumors of various "black public relations" in the industry have never stopped.

Generally speaking, the middle of the year is not the most competitive period for automakers, and summer is not the peak season for auto sales. But now, the auto market has long lost the traditional distinction between off-season and peak-season, showing the fierce competition in the industry. The China Passenger Car Association published an article stating that in recent years, the summer auto market has become increasingly popular. From 2014 to 2019, the average retail sales in July accounted for 6.9% of the total annual sales. In the past three years, it has risen to 8.4%, and last year it reached a high proportion of 8.8%.

Amid fierce competition, leading automakers are more willing to magnify their sales advantages. Ideal Auto began publishing weekly rankings in 2023, just as the sales of the L series were climbing. There have been only two pauses in the past year or so, the most recent one was the cold reception of Ideal MEGA, but they resumed updates afterwards.

On the weekly sales chart of new forces, the top rankings are mostly Ideal or Huawei. The two have opened up two or three positions ahead of other pure electric car companies with their extended-range SUVs. Ma Lin of NIO questioned that these models of different prices and categories should not be put on the same list, which does not reflect the objective situation of the market. "When making a list, it must be reasonable and comparable."

This statement is a little unclear. After all, most car companies have added enough adjectives to their sales performance, and if you look at it separately, each one seems to be the market leader. But consumers don’t care whether you are the first in the price range of 200,000 or 300,000 yuan, or the first in pure electric or extended range. Tesla Model Y, also a pure electric model, is still the first in monthly sales in China, regardless of the body or energy form.

The bosses of car companies who shouted against involution have never hesitated on the pricing of their new products. The new Zeekr 001 was launched, and the price of the entire series was reduced by 31,000 to 57,000 yuan. In the first half of the year, many models of Xiaopeng, such as G9 and P7, also reduced their prices one after another. Media articles described Xiaopeng Motors as "already a price butcher."

Perhaps, new car-making forces should learn from Lei Jun, who crossed over from the mobile phone industry to car-making. After experiencing the more brutal elimination competition in the Chinese mobile phone industry, this CEO of the cool article said, "Xiaomi has grown from a small company to a large one. Who can surpass us in terms of volume?"

Before the Xiaomi SU7 was launched, Xiaomi Motors put out an advertisement saying, "Together, we are Chinese cars."