news

image source: nio official

after several months of warm-up, on september 19,ledao l60it’s finally on the market.

as expected, the starting price of ledao l60 is 206,900 yuan.Model Yafter adopting the baas vehicle-to-electric solution, the starting price of ledao l60 has been directly reduced to 149,900 yuan. if various subsidies, replacements and rights are added, the starting price on the internet can even be as low as more than 120,000 yuan.

therefore, after the price of ledao l60 was announced that night, news of a huge order soon spread online.

li bin, founder, chairman and ceo of nio and senior vice president of nio,ledaoai tiecheng, president of ledao automobile, also confirmed it immediately, "the ledao l60 is indeed a big seller."

as the second brand under nio, ledao focuses on the mid-range market and is positioned as a family car. therefore, the first model, ledao l60, highlights the characteristics of home use in both design and the atmosphere of the press conference. everything is based on practicality and revolves around "family happiness and good housekeeping".

some people say that the "idealist" li bin has also begun to be pragmatic, and the price of ledao l60 has skyrocketed; however, some people are worried whether the explosive sales of ledao l60 can really make nio profitable?

is the biggest advantage of ledao l60 battery replacement?

regarding the price level, which is the most sensitive aspect for consumers, the ledao l60 baas solution (buy a car and rent a battery) directly reduces the price to the level of 150,000 yuan, lowering the entry threshold; in terms of product strength, it has a flexible power consumption solution that can be replaced, charged and upgraded, the entire series is equipped with the osd ledao intelligent driving system as standard, equipped with a self-developed 900v silicon carbide motor, 12.1kwh power consumption per 100 kilometers, and a 52l large freezer that can be directly purchased and installed in the ledao mall.

from the perspective of price and product strength, ledao l60 is indeed competitive compared to competing products at the same price. in the communication between titanium media app and several potential users, they all responded that the most important thing they valued about ledao l60 is that it can replace batteries.

li bin also revealed a figure, "more than 60% of users who buy ledao now do so because they can replace batteries."

the advantages of battery swapping are obvious. you don’t have to get out of the car and the battery can be replaced in 3 minutes, which makes charging of pure electric vehicles as convenient as refueling. at the same time, there is no need to worry about battery degradation when swapping batteries. you can always use new batteries, and the batteries can also be upgraded according to your needs.

in terms of the energy replenishment system, as a new brand, ledao auto is not starting from scratch. by the end of this year, it will have more than 1,000 available battery swap stations. in addition to using weilai's battery swap stations, ledao auto's charging system has access to more than 23,000 self-built super charging piles and more than one million third-party charging piles.

some people are worried that as the sales of ledao l60 increase, whether it will affect weilai's battery swap experience and how ledao's battery swap service can be guaranteed. li bin emphasized in the media communication, "this is a problem that you don't need to worry about at all."

he said that nio's battery swap stations are based on a distributed mindset, and the larger the network, the better the experience. without the support of ledao's volume, nio's "battery swap in every county" would have to be postponed for at least two years, because it would be difficult to support it relying solely on nio's volume.

"nio has more and more users, but we also have more and more battery swap stations. from the perspective of station ratio, in the early days, one station definitely served fewer users, but now one station definitely serves more users. but now the service will be better, so it is not single-point thinking, it is network thinking." li bin said.

in short, the more battery swapping users there are, the more battery swapping stations will be built, the wider the coverage of the battery swapping stations will be, and the more convenient it will be for users to use the battery swapping service.

can ledao l60 sell over 20,000 units per month?

previously, at nio’s q2 earnings call, li bin revealed that ledao’s order volume far exceeded expectations. from a supply chain perspective, he hopes to achieve a delivery volume of 10,000 units in december this year and achieve monthly sales of 20,000 units next year.

however, bocom international published a research report pointing out that the steady-state monthly sales volume of ledao l60 is expected to reach 10,000 to 13,000 units.

if the monthly sales of a single model can exceed 10,000 units, it will also bring significant boost to nio's sales or profitability.

in addition to price and product strength, whether a product can become a market hit is also affected by many other factors, such as delivery capabilities, channel capabilities, after-sales capabilities, and supply chain capabilities.

delivery capacity is directly affected by production capacity. according to the plan, the production capacity of ledao l60 can reach 5,000 units in october this year, 10,000 units in december, at least 16,000 units in january next year, and 20,000 units in march next year.

li bin said, "it takes some time for the quality of the entire supply chain to improve. no car company in the world can produce 10,000 units in the first month. there is an objective law, unless you stockpile some."

therefore, this year's q4 is the stage for ledao l60 to increase its production capacity and also the stage for its delivery to increase. if we want to achieve monthly sales of 20,000 units, we will have to wait until next year.

li bin said bluntly, "the main pressure now is production and delivery, but 'good things come late', so please be patient."

however, according to incomplete statistics, nearly 40 new cars were launched in september alone. with the increasingly fierce competition in new energy vehicles, how can ledao l60 maintain its market competitiveness and popularity? the model y, which ledao l60 is benchmarking, will usher in a replacement model in the first quarter of next year. is it still competitive compared to the 2025 model y?

in this most impatient era, the pressure on ledao l60 to increase production capacity can be imagined, so on the afternoon of the second day after the press conference, ledao held a partner conference, hoping that everyone would go all out to increase production capacity.

at the same time, in order to ensure good service, ledao auto also announced that by the end of this year, ledao will open more than 200 stores in 120 cities across the country, and plans to connect more than 350 service centers in more than 200 cities across the country. on september 1, more than 100 ledao auto stores opened simultaneously.

it can be said that in order to ensure that ledao can "hit the mark", nio has made all preparations in advance. it has also already made plans for ledao automobile's next product plan.

according to li bin, ledao will not produce too many models, nor will it be too detailed or fragmented. basically, it will maintain a new model every year, and next year it will have a six-seat or seven-seat medium-to-large suv. however, ledao hopes to increase the volume of each car, and each car can form a gravitational field in its own market segment and become a gravitational model, such as the model y, which can sell 1 million units worldwide.

it can be seen that li bin has high hopes for ledao, and he has expressed to the public more than once that "ledao is responsible for making money to support the family."

is nio expected to make a profit?

even if ledao l60 cannot achieve monthly sales of 20,000 units, as long as monthly sales can exceed 10,000 units, it will be a great boost to nio's profitability or gross profit improvement.

at present, if a pure electric vehicle can achieve sales of 10,000 units, it will be a "dark horse" in the new energy vehicle market. at the same time, as the delivery volume of ledao l60 continues to increase, it will also drive the overall sales of nio upward.

currently, nio's monthly sales have stabilized at more than 20,000 vehicles. it is worth noting that nio's market share in the pure electric vehicle market with a transaction price of more than 300,000 yuan has further expanded. in july this year, nio's market share in the pure electric vehicle market with a transaction price of more than 300,000 yuan reached 51.6%, and the cumulative market share from january to july reached 40.31%.

according to li bin's expectations, as nio officially enters the multi-brand development stage, its overall operating conditions are expected to achieve a qualitative change. through multi-brand collaboration, nio can meet the needs of different user groups in the market, achieve economies of scale and dilute r&d costs, while releasing technological dividends and expanding profitability.

in terms of sales, li bin said in the nio earnings conference call that the company would not expect a particularly big jump, and would balance sales and gross profit. he added that in the long run, the high-end brand nio's long-term goal is to sell 40,000 units per month and have a gross profit margin of 25%. in terms of sales, the upper limit of the ledao brand will be much higher than that of nio, and the mid- to long-term gross profit margin target is 15%.

regarding the pricing of ledao l60, li bin once again emphasized at the media communication meeting that there is still gross profit and it is cost-competitive, and we are commercially sustainable.

although ledao l60 is comparable to tesla model y, its real ambition is to eat up some traditional joint venture brands.tiguan、CR-V、RAV4li bin hopes that ledao l60 will be an important challenger to traditional, joint venture medium-sized suv fuel vehicles. because in the 150,000-200,000 market, there are more than 100,000 fuel suvs sold every month.

domestic new energy vehicles are constantly reaching new heights, competition in the auto market has become fierce, and each company is constantly playing its cards, hoping to stay at the table amid the fierce competition.

recently, xiaomi,xiaopeng、zeekrthere are rumors that nio will produce extended-range models. li bin has clearly stated that the nio brand will not produce extended-range models.

at the media conference of this press conference, li bin said, "we will only make pure electric cars, that's for sure. it means battery swapping, rechargeable, replaceable and upgradeable. it's not just pure electric. we are making rechargeable and replaceable pure electric cars, not liketeslathat way, it can only be charged with pure electricity.”

in li bin's view, interchangeable and upgradeable vehicles are more efficient range extensions. "when tesla makes range extensions, we will consider it."

li bin said, "now the whole network is teaching me to be a ceo, but i have made money since i started my own business in college, so it's not like i haven't made money before." he believes that a business that makes money on the first day is definitely not a good business. business sustainability is important, but it should be viewed from the perspective of time.

he also mentioned that tesla was only profitable 16 years after its establishment. "many of the things we do take a long time to see the value, and we need to use the dimension of time to evaluate right and wrong. now gasoline cars are making a lot of money, should nio learn from them? should it make gasoline cars?"

the penetration rate of new energy has exceeded 50%, and the trend of oil-to-electricity conversion has become very obvious. li bin believes that the trend of oil-to-electricity conversion is definitely irreversible. "in this process, buying tesla, nio, and ledao are all done in one step. some people hesitated and bought extended-range and plug-in hybrid vehicles. it is understandable that it is best to do it in one step."

in li bin's view, the automotive industry is not only a marathon, but also a marathon on a muddy road. "in this process, we often see companies rise and fall. some are ahead now, but fall behind in a few days, while others fall down now, but get up and get ahead again in a few days. now is definitely the latter stage of the qualifying round, and it is normal for the competition to be fierce. as a business, how can you expect no competition? there will definitely be competition."

li bin also pointed out that of course there are good competitions and bad competitions. good competition is about competing in products, services, and value creation. "we believe that competition is ok. there is nothing wrong with fair competition. competition in products and services, competing with each other, making everyone better, benefiting users, and benefiting society. in this process, some companies can persist, while others may have a harder time. they may lack core technologies, good products, funds, etc., and their marketing capabilities are also relatively poor. in fact, what is being compared in the end is comprehensive capabilities."

some people believe that ledao l60 is expected to make nio profitable; others believe that the future of ledao l60 is mixed, and there are still many uncertainties as to whether it can be a hit in the market.