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in the aigc technology wave led by chatgpt, there are two fields that are particularly fierce in the new round of technological competition: one is technology and the internet, and the other is automobiles.

since tesla updated its end-to-end autonomous driving technology to a new version, fsd v12, at the beginning of the year,a new competition in intelligent driving technology has begun among new car-making forces, and this time the main stage has shifted from production and manufacturing to software technology.

in order to let more people experience the benefits of the end-to-end system, tesla ceo musk even issued a new instruction to tesla salesmen, that is, when delivering new cars and picking up cars for repairs, they must show car owners how to use the new end-to-end system and take the car owners for a ride around the block.

"once people start using it, they will continue to use it." including musk, more and more car company bosses are beginning to view smart driving as a huge demand driver.

focusing on intelligent driving, the new forces that have entered the second half of the intelligent competition have launched another round of infrastructure war. after nio, xiaopeng and li auto successively released their own end-to-end intelligent driving solutions, they have recently released or disclosed the news of their self-developed intelligent driving chips.

as radical as nio is, when its self-developed chip was successfully taped out, it also released the industry's first vehicle-wide operating system, skyos.

the dividends brought to nio by the last round of infrastructure such as charging and battery swapping may have given nio the confidence to take the lead in the new round of technological infrastructure.

on september 5, nio released its second quarter 2024 financial report, with r&d investment of 3.22 billion yuan in the quarter. the cumulative r&d investment since 2016 has reached 50 billion yuan.

nio, which is gradually entering the return period, once again achieved monthly sales of over 20,000 vehicles in august, reaching 20,176 vehicles. this is the fourth consecutive month that nio has delivered more than 20,000 vehicles.

in the second quarter financial report, nio also gave the strongest quarterly guidance in history, that is, it expects third quarter deliveries to reach 61,000 to 63,000 units, which means that nio's deliveries in september will also remain above 20,000 units.

with the initial scale effect, nio is only one step away from breaking even. at the first quarter earnings conference this year, nio founder li bin once again made it clear that "if we can achieve monthly sales of 30,000 vehicles and a gross profit margin of about 20%, nio's core business in china will be able to break even."

more importantly, the scale advantage will make the marginal cost of automobile companies' technological expansion infinitely low, thereby diluting the high initial costs of intelligent research and development.

how to sell more cars remains the decisive factor in this round of new technology war.

in 2024, the new end-to-end intelligent driving route ignited by tesla has become a new goal in the technological competition among automakers after the "bev+transformer+occ occupying network" intelligent driving solution.

i don't want to fall behind tesla.new car companies are taking action:when huawei released the qiankun ads 3.0 architecture in april, it also began to emphasize "end-to-end" technology; at the ideal intelligent driving summer conference in july, the official also released a new autonomous driving technology architecture based on end-to-end models, vlm visual language models and world models; at nio in 2024, nio officially announced its end-to-end intelligent driving technology architecture nadarch2.0, and officially released china's first intelligent driving world model nwm; xiaopeng recently shouted the slogan of being the only second car company in the world and the only car company in china to achieve end-to-end large-scale mass production.

to achieve end-to-end, car companies' visual neural networks need to collect larger, more diverse and more realistic data samples, and use lower-latency computing power to analyze and utilize the data.

in order to better meet the above needs and efficiently promote the iteration of intelligent driving systems,many car companies have begun to consider developing their own intelligent driving chips.

in the field of smart cars, in order to achieve better performance optimization, integrated self-development from chips, algorithms to operating systems has become the direction that more and more car companies are tackling. this is particularly evident in the leading new energy car companies.

three years after tesla mass-produced the d1 chip in 2021, the four-year chip-making journey of "nio, xiaoli and li auto" has finally borne fruit: at nio in 2024 held in july this year, nio announced that the industry's first vehicle-wide operating system, skyos tianshu, was officially released in full, and the first self-developed 5nm automotive-grade smart driving chip, shenji nx9031, was successfully taped out, taking the first step on the path to becoming the world's first "core and soul" car company.

xpeng's self-developed turing intelligent driving chip was also successfully taped out in august this year. according to 36kr, ideal auto's intelligent driving chip will also be taped out within the year.

the demand driven by intelligence has begun to conquer car owners who were previously indifferent to electric cars.

crazy dayang ge (same name on douyin), a mercedes-benz owner who has been deeply involved in cooperation with car companies for 16 years and works for foreign companies, chose to buy his first electric car, nio es6, in 2021. at the same time, he also replaced his family's mercedes-benz glc with a mercedes-benz gle because his wife loves gasoline cars.

but after the tram was brought home, something interesting happened. "she would drive my tram on weekends whenever i didn't drive. she thought the smart driving of the tram was very convenient, and this impressed her. in comparison, the mercedes-benz was like a fool, and could do nothing. sometimes when the parking function was turned on, she would often put on lipstick while parking the car."

better cost control has also become one of the main reasons why new forces are entering the chip manufacturing industry and even investing in new technological infrastructure.

li bin once regarded technology as a means to increase profits. he once mentioned, "once it is mass-produced, its unit price will definitely be cheaper, so in fact, research and development can be exchanged for gross profit, but the effect is slow."

starting from 2025, as nio gradually upgrades its products to the nt3 third-generation technology platform, with the help of more large-scale investment in internal technologies such as chips, li bin predicts that the gross profit margin target for models built on nt3 will be around 20%.

it is worth mentioning that in the face of the nvidia chip supply crisis, the new forces' self-developed chips have begun to assume the strategic value of safeguarding the security of the supply chain.

before the technology war started, the main means for automakers to drive demand was to invest in infrastructure such as charging.

one of the reasons given by li xiang, ceo of ideal, for postponing the launch of the all-electric suv originally planned for this year to the first half of next year is that there are not enough charging stations. li xiang anchored this standard to a level similar to that of tesla in china, which means that ideal needs to build at least 1,900 supercharging stations.

in contrast, nio, which insists on the pure electric route, has built more than 2,500 battery swap stations around the world, has more than 23,000 supercharging piles, and has connected to more than 1.6 million third-party brand charging piles, making it the automobile brand with the largest number of charging piles and battery swap stations built and operated among the oems.

the unique energy replenishment system that is “rechargeable, replaceable and upgradeable” has also become a major killer feature for nio to impress potential new users.

in january this year, milk tea sister, a porsche owner born in the 1990s who lives in hangzhou, bought her first electric car, the nio et5. the latter impressed milk tea sister with its operating experience that is closer to that of a gasoline car.

when crazy ocean bought his first electric car, the nio es6, one of the important reasons he valued was battery swapping, because the latter could solve his anxiety about battery performance degradation.

“five years later, as long as there is battery replacement technology and the interface is the same, replacing a new battery will be just like replacing the battery of a mobile phone, and the car will be fully revived.” in the eyes of crazy dayang ge, battery replacement has given him the confidence to fight against the iterative upgrades of battery technology.

a friend of crazy ocean even came up with the idea of ​​switching from the extended-range camp to pure electric after experiencing a group self-driving tour.

last year, after buying his second electric car, the nio es8, crazy ocean brother called two friends, one of whom drove a pure electric mpv and the other drove an extended-range car of a new power brand, and drove 700 kilometers. along the way, the nio es8 changed the battery once, the pure electric mpv was charged once, and the rest were waiting for the extended-range car. friends who drive extended-range cars basically want to charge every time they arrive at a service area because they feel bad about burning oil. "you can observe the content in the intercom. every time he mentioned that he wanted to go to the toilet in front, he actually thought of many ways (to charge)." the result is that the extended-range car, which originally had no range anxiety, has become the most anxious.

while other new energy vehicle companies are viewing extended-range electric vehicles as a panacea for boosting sales, nio's battery swap + baas (battery as a service) model not only provides its own unique strategy for dealing with price wars, but also takes advantage of the situation to create a new path to increase sales.

after reducing the price of all models by 30,000 yuan in june last year by no longer bundling battery swap services, in march this year, nio once again adjusted its baas rights and interests as the price of lithium carbonate battery raw materials dropped sharply.

the above strategy not only attracts more new car owners to switch to the nio camp, but also makes old car owners such as milk tea sister make up their minds more quickly to purchase a second nio car.

after buying the nio es6 in 2021, crazy ocean brother bought a nio es8 in 2023. about five months after buying the nio et5 in january this year, in june, milk tea sister bought a more spacious and comfortable suv model, the nio es6.

when it came to purchasing the second nio car, they both chose the baas solution. “it’s more affordable for people who change cars frequently,” milk tea sister explained.

as more and more car companies join nio's "battery swap alliance", the experience that milk tea sister pursues, which is the same as that of gasoline cars, is expected to be further enhanced. so far, official information shows that nio has reached battery swap cooperation with changan, geely, jac, chery, lotus, gac, faw, etc.

with the help of the above cooperation, nio is not only expected to dilute the construction and operation costs of battery swap stations, but the infrastructure of more battery swap stations will also help consolidate nio's service system, thereby driving a greater outbreak of demand.

the initial investment in technology and infrastructure construction such as charging and swapping networks has enabled some pioneers among the new forces to have the strength to expand them into new series or brands, such as xiaopeng launching the mona series and nio launching the ledao brand.

the difference is that nio, which has a more comprehensive layout of infrastructure such as charging and swapping and technology, has temporarily become the only automobile manufacturer among the new forces with an independent sub-brand.

this is closely related to li bin's concept of founding nio. from the first day of the business, li bin has formulated a clear brand roadmap for nio, starting from the high-end market to accumulate skills and experience, and then launching mass market brands to reach and serve more users, hoping to use a multi-brand strategy to maximize the effect and value of r&d in exchange for gross profit.

as nio's second and third brand models are about to be launched, li bin gave a more detailed explanation at the first quarter earnings conference this year, namely, first entering the high-end market through the nio brand, laying a foundation for technological innovation, creating a technical middle platform, and then using the second and third brands in the mass market to leverage scale advantages and spread the technology costs.

the battery swap service and technology compounding are expected to achieve a snowball effect among nio’s three brands, sharing the basic capabilities of smart technology, electrification, and vehicle engineering capabilities.

this is an effective path that has been proven by tesla. after establishing a technical foundation and high-end brand image through model x/s, tesla achieved success in the mass market with the subsequent launch of model 3/y, and thus became the world's first profitable electric car company.

the third brand, firefly (nickname for the firefly brand), is expected to start deliveries in the first half of next year at the earliest. the ledao l60, which will face the delivery test in september, has become nio’s own "model y moment".

at the pre-sale launch of ledao l60 in may, li bin said in an interview: "for users who buy model y now, our pre-sale price is 30,000 yuan cheaper than it, giving it a reference benchmark. it is longer, wider and more comfortable than model y. at least this gives potential users of model y a possibility of choice."

in addition to the price, the greater advantage of ledao l60 is that nio already has the support of infrastructure such as charging and battery swapping networks. among the more than 2,500 battery swapping stations currently owned by nio, by the end of this year, ledao l60 will be able to enjoy the compatible services of more than 1,000 battery swapping stations.

after ten years of operation of the main brand of nio, nio has discovered a rule:there is a certain correlation between the number and regional density of battery swap stations and store performance.the yangtze river delta region, where nearly 900 battery swap stations have been installed, has about half of nio's users.

compared with nio's break-even line, li bin also predicted that the ledao brand target is to achieve monthly sales of at least 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles. without opening any stores or officially launching products to the market, nio's statement to the outside world is that it has received pre-orders that exceed expectations.

one of them may be the help of crazy dayang. he is considering buying one for his father. currently, his father drives an audi gasoline car. in order to fulfill his father and father-in-law's dream of going to beijing, crazy dayang drove them all the way from xi'an for 1,200 kilometers, changing the battery three times in the middle. "they feel very good, it's faster than refueling."

in the pursuit of economies of scale in sales growth, the importance of infrastructure to automakers has continued to increase.