In March of this year, due to various reasons, I planned to buy a new energy vehicle. Without much consideration, I went directly to the Ideal Experience Center, which was the farthest away from me.
Before going, I didn’t know its price, didn’t understand its configuration, and didn’t know what an extended range was. “Daddy Car” was the only thing I knew about it. So why didn’t I go to Tesla or NIO first? It’s because of the “sentiment from Danleng Street No. 3”.
Ideal like Li Xiang’s ideal
To be honest, there are not many highlights when driving the Ideal ONE, but there are also not many shortcomings. However, you can feel that it carries a lot of Li Xiang’s understanding and insights on cars. It’s like a car designed by someone who talks about the users pain points every day. Speaking of family cars,”almost no shortcomings, it is the best advantage” is the best evaluation I can think of.
No, there is a flaw. As female consumers play an increasingly important role in car purchase decision-making, the ability of Ideal to “eat soft rice” needs to be further improved. “Just a four-screen display is not enough”.
As someone who looks like a twenty-something, I don’t seem to be the target customer group for six or seven-seater SUVs. So since leaving the showroom, the product expert has not contacted me.
Ideally, the ONE is priced at 328,000 yuan, and aside from Baby Blue paint, there are no other options that require additional payment. This is very “Li Xiang”.
If you add product experts who are not too enthusiastic and have “no room for negotiation”, then it will be very “Autohome”.
Perhaps Ideal’s pricing and sales strategies will surprise some people. But for me, it’s too familiar. The feel is right, it must be “Li Xiang’s Ideal”. As for why, we have to go back to 2006.
The past ideal
Before 2006, I was still in elementary school. At that time, the newsstands that were readily available on the streets, and the “Car Lovers” magazine that cost 10 yuan per copy, made me, who was not rich, even worse off.
At the end of the year, I finally got a computer after entering junior high school. I no longer had to be exploited by the “capitalists” at the newsstand for that 10 yuan. At that time, Autohome stood out among all the car websites and became the car portal website that I used the most.In 2009, Autohome, which had only been founded for four years, surpassed 50 million daily visits, leaving its competitors far behind. If high-quality content that is professional, authentic, and objective is Autohome’s core advantage, Li Xiang’s user-centric mentality is the driving force behind it all. In plain language, he understands that “users are truly the ‘customers’ of an internet company.”
Many companies understand this principle, but none have taken it to the extreme like Li Xiang. During those years, Autohome did not have mobile game ads, credit card ads, or even after-market car ads.
Autohome has been with me throughout my ten-year journey of growth, experiencing many ups and downs, such as Xue Manzi recommending Da Ming to Li Xiang, Li Xiang handing over control to Da Ming (a title that Qinzhi, an Autohome employee, refers to Da Ming as), founder Shao Zhen’s exit, Odeon Capital Group’s investment, listing on the New York Stock Exchange, releasing their Car Dealer Network product, launching the app, and Odeon Capital Group’s sale. However, these “scandals” are not what I want to talk about today.
What I want to talk about is managing a company using corporate culture and values. As a former employee with an ID number of 6XXX, I feel that, besides Alibaba, only “Autohome” has fully implemented this approach.
As Li Xiang said, “I will never allow my team members to calculate and scheme against our consumers.” I really like Ideal ONE’s pricing strategy. Unlike other manufacturers who are shrewd by superficially lowering the threshold for car purchases, using configuration options to guide consumers towards higher-profit models, the Ideal ONE looks “ridiculous.” What corresponds in the void is the phrase “putting consumers’ interests first.”
No brand would price like this, and if we had to choose a single car model, well, let’s say the Golf R I once drove.
Under an article titled “Li Xiang’s Comments on BYTON’s Burning Through 8.4 Billion RMB: ‘IDEAL’s Employees Must Only Purchase the Lowest Discounted Economy Class Tickets While on Business Trips,'” Li Xiang’s comments sparked a heated discussion online.
When I saw the comment, I couldn’t help but feel that this was very familiar. What many people may not know is that this policy had already been widely implemented at Autohome several years prior.
Every year for the company’s annual meeting, Autohome employees outside of Beijing are shuttled back and forth from the hotel to the conference venue in the company’s bus—this became a well-established tradition. In contrast to the several thousand people calling for taxis at a competitor’s annual meeting at the time, Autohome looked much more frugal. Perhaps before reaching a market value of $10 billion, we were all entrepreneurs, after all, our vision was to become, “the world’s most influential automotive internet company.”In June 2015, Li Xiang announced that he would no longer serve as the CEO of Autohome, while still remaining as a director and shareholder. As a person who had already achieved financial freedom, he wanted to create another Toyota in his lifetime. He entrusted Autohome to his successor and plunged himself into the brand new field of car manufacturing. Perhaps this is the embodiment of “Believe in yourself, believe in your partners.”
One year later, I stopped reading Autohome, maybe it was not because Autohome changed but because I did.
It’s worth mentioning that Li Xiang and his successor appeared together at the 2018 Autohome annual conference. The thunderous applause and screams at the scene not only made them the most shining point in the away game, but also ensured that they would have very few opportunities to appear again in official events of Autohome in the future.
Persistent Ideal
For me, the Ideal One is really good, luxurious enough, smart enough, and can satisfy all my fantasies about a household car.
Moreover, the range extender technology of the Ideal One is also “a way to cure the anxiety of electric vehicle range.”
But in the end, I didn’t buy one Ideal One, not because the product experts didn’t contact me. Instead, the “two barrels of oil” have become a nightmare in my heart after I owned a Volkswagen Golf R20 for about 20 years. If I had the opportunity, I would never want to enter a gas station in this life, which is a promise I have made to myself.
Therefore, based on my own financial situation and actual driving scenario, the 180-kilometer NEDC range of the pure electric Ideal One limited my purchase decision to “if I have a household charging pile.”
I have always been looking forward to the pure electric products of Ideal. But as Li Xiang recently stated, they won’t make pure electric cars until the 400 kW fast charging station becomes mature. I’m afraid I still have to wait for a while.
So, why doesn’t Ideal follow the mainstream and make pure electric cars, but chooses to make range extender vehicles?
I think I can understand a bit why Li Xiang persistently clings to his ideal.
According to what Li Xiang said, Tesla solves the energy replenishment problem with massive supercharging stations, and NIO solves the energy replenishment problem with battery swap stations. Thus, they will attempt to solve the problem from a technical perspective by using range extender vehicles.
“When hearing it at first, the logic is perfect, but when thinking about it more deeply, is it not just refueling?” This is my first reaction.
However, if we consider that during the usage cycle of an electric vehicle, charging is an unavoidable pain point, and according to Li Xiang’s understanding of user thinking, he would not allow such “pain points” to exist on the Ideal One.
Indeed, the 400 kW fast charging technology is not mature yet today, and the traditional oil companies have not yet exited the historical stage. The extended-range technology is indeed the most efficient way to improve the energy efficiency of electric vehicles.
To explain, I’m not going to talk about which is better between pure electric and extended-range. To use an old saying to describe it, “There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand readers’ minds”. Different people’s different usage scenarios will lead to different understandings.
What I want to say is that many people have some misunderstandings about Li Xiang’s insistence on doing the extended-range or not.
In my opinion, Li Xiang is just doing what he thinks is right. Years of values have derived user thinking, based on which user thinking to create products, and ultimately we see the Ideal ONE.
In plain language, “He thinks his users need such a car.” He has always been like this, even on the Autohome, there is nothing surprising.
But what was unexpected is that this has been misunderstood by many people who have little to do with this matter, and has emotionalized him, leaving some memories on the Internet that are neither good nor bad.
This is the real Li Xiang, the stubborn personality, which has led to Xianka Home, Pao Pao Network, Autohome, and Ideal.
I have a deeper understanding of “doing the right thing, not the easy thing”.
Closing
Nowadays, “Danleng Street No. 3” has changed its door, and “Grandpa” has retired. The values on the work badge have also changed, and the landing behavior guidelines are also different. The past love has become “something” and the “wolf culture” has also begun to change. The “barbarian” patted his shoulder, and the “successor” faced new challenges. I do not know if the parking space in the China Electronics Building can still accommodate an Ideal ONE.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.