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even though li bin, chairman and ceo of nio, predicted last year that "the competition in the automotive industry will be more intense next year", nio has never been allowed to join the battle. however, nio can choose not to reduce prices, but the "newcomer" ledao can, and its target is tesla model y. on the evening of september 19, the first model of nio's sub-brand ledao, ledao l60, was officially launched. the standard range 60kwh version is priced at 206,900 yuan, and the long range 85kwh version is priced at 235,900 yuan. the starting price is 43,000 yuan lower than that of tesla model y.

as early as 2021, li bin stated that weilai's relevant preparations have been accelerated and will enter the mass market through a new brand. in may of this year, weilai's second brand was named "ledao", and the pre-sale price of its first model l60 was announced to start at 219,900 yuan. compared with the pre-sale price, the official listing price of this model has been reduced by another 13,000 yuan. at the same time, ledao, backed by weilai, also directly used baas (battery leasing service) to further expand the price "killing" range of l60. ai tiecheng, president of ledao automobile, announced that with the use of baas battery leasing service, the starting price of ledao l60 has dropped to 149,900 yuan, of which the monthly rental fee for the standard endurance battery (60kwh) is 599 yuan. with the advantage of separation of vehicle and electricity ownership, the starting price of this model is directly within 150,000 yuan. some netizens said: "ledao wants to be byd among the new forces in car manufacturing?"

as a brand that competes with bba (mercedes-benz, bmw, and audi), before launching the et5 series, the price of nio models all exceeded 300,000 yuan. however, the high-priced market share is limited. for brands that need to further increase sales, how to increase sales through the combination of high and low models has become the key. previously, in the era of fuel vehicles, many car companies used multiple brands to layout the high-end mass market, such as toyota and lexus, while nio increased its sales through ledao. "in terms of sales, ledao's upper limit is much higher, and maintaining a gross profit margin of more than 15% is a reasonable goal." li bin predicts that ledao's monthly deliveries will reach 20,000 vehicles next year.

data shows that in the first half of this year, the cumulative sales of 100,000-150,000 yuan market segment models reached nearly 1.184 million units, accounting for 29% of the overall new energy vehicle market, but the penetration rate of this market segment is only 39%. yan jinghui, a member of the expert committee of the china automobile dealers association, said that ledao and weilai have formed obvious differences in brand positioning. weilai continues to focus on the high-end market, while ledao, through the sales of complete vehicles and the "rental electricity" sales model, has expanded the price range of its first model to cover the 150,000-250,000 yuan market, thereby improving its overall competitiveness.

it is understood that ledao had previously conducted a survey on pre-order users, and the results showed that 39% of users first compared tesla model y with ledao l60. when ledao l60 was launched, ai tiecheng also compared tesla model y with ledao l60 many times. first of all, in terms of body size, the wheelbase of ledao l60 is 2950 mm, and the wheelbase of tesla model y is 2890 mm. in terms of cltc range, the range of the ledao l60 standard version is 555 kilometers, and the range of the tesla model y standard version is 554 kilometers, and the ledao l60 wins by 1 kilometer.

in addition, ai tiecheng said that the ledao l60 adopts a full-domain 900v high-voltage architecture and is equipped with a self-developed 900v silicon carbide motor, with an energy consumption of only 12.1 kwh/100 km, while the tesla model y consumes 12.5 kwh/100 km. in terms of price, the starting price of the ledao l60 is 43,000 yuan lower than that of the tesla model y. data shows that tesla's sales in the chinese market exceeded 600,000 vehicles last year, of which the model y was the largest seller. in yan jinghui's view, tesla's overall sales have formed a scale effect and become the world's top electric vehicle seller, and it has also become a competitive target for various automakers.

not only tesla, but also ledao l60, due to its baas battery rental service, has a lower starting price, which makes it directly compete with models such as deep blue s07, byd song l ev, and xiaopeng g6. therefore, in addition to the price, ai tiecheng said that the entire ledao l60 series is equipped with osd ledao intelligent driving system as standard, among which the high-speed city fast pilot assistance noa has a national coverage rate of 99.99%; the full-scenario pilot assistance noa has been delivered in 726 cities, covering more than 2,700 county-level administrative regions; the intelligent parking success rate is higher than 99%.

faced with the fierce competition in the current new energy vehicle market, relying on nio's battery swap system has also become ledao's competitive weapon. it is understood that ledao cars can share nio power's "rechargeable, replaceable and upgradeable" full-scenario energy replenishment service system. according to the plan, by the end of this year, ledao will have more than 1,000 available battery swap stations, and consumers can experience the convenient energy replenishment of 3 minutes of fully automatic battery swapping when they pick up their cars. at the same time, ledao's charging system has connected to more than 23,000 self-built super charging piles and more than one million third-party charging piles. industry insiders believe that ledao's advantage is based on nio's investment in research and development and nio's system capabilities, and nio's battery swap system has also become a plus for ledao.

beijing business daily reporter liu xiaomeng