Introduction
The Adventure of Exploration – The B Side
On April 14th, the highly anticipated model, XPeng P5, was unveiled in Guangzhou. Rewind to January 8th of this year when I wrote an article titled “XPeng’s Sharp Edge.” Due to the limited information available at that time, I analyzed and thought from a traditional market perspective and came up with a definition.
This time, although the information disclosed by the official is still limited, the most essential part has been presented: intelligence, including XPILOT 3.5 automatic driving assistance system, Xmart OS 3.0 full-scenario in-car system, and the addition of cinema, drones, and other concepts. Now, P5 gives me a special feeling – it is a new species, an intelligent car, and its electric attributes have been abandoned.
For the current new energy market, this is a dangerous signal. From the development timeline of intelligent electric vehicles, the short term is electric, and the long term is intelligent, which is the industry’s common recognition. However, judging from XPeng’s current marketing, P5 undoubtedly has entered the second stage and crossed the first stage.
I have never doubted XPeng’s level of intelligent technology and application, but is it wise to switch marketing to the second stage of “Fully Intelligent” so quickly and then abandon the electric attribute that most consumers value? Is this a wise decision?
Selling Point – Intelligence
Facing P5, a highly anticipated model, it is right to unveil it before the auto show. Looking back at yesterday’s Tesla’s rights protection event, XPeng’s decision was once again wise. Although the timing of the unveiling was good, there are mainly two opinions among the industry insiders regarding P5: design flaws, and unbeatable intelligence.
Regarding the design of P5, there are a lot of criticisms, such as details that cannot withstand scrutiny, sharpness and softness coexisting, and the visible trace of changing from gasoline to electricity. Even though these criticisms from the market may not be professional, compared to the amazing P7, P5 is indeed a bit plain. Of course, styling is not P5’s core selling point – intelligence is. Therefore, the critique of styling has not affected people’s overall expectations of P5.
As we all know, XPeng’s intelligence is strong and still evolving. This is the scariest part. At last year’s Guangzhou Auto Show, He XPeng shared his understanding and thinking about the next generation of intelligent system software and hardware. On the software side, it includes the formation of data and algorithm full-closed loop and support for rapid function iteration. On the hardware side, it includes the adoption of a laser radar scheme.
As for P5, it is the first time the so-called “next-generation” intelligent system is installed. Due to limited information currently available, we can understand that based on the core XPILOT intelligent driving system, XPeng upgraded from 2.5 to 3.0 last year on P7 and then from 3.0 to 3.5 this year on P5.Simply put, although P7 has a higher positioning, P5 has already taken the lead by one position in the XPILOT system. From a marketing perspective, this is the first surprise that P5 brings to everyone. Of course, because the XPILOT system can be OTA, upgrading P7 to version 3.5 should not be a problem.
According to the introduction, in terms of hardware, the XPILOT 3.5 system integrates 13 high-definition cameras, 5 millimeter wave radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors, 2 vehicle-grade lidars, a total of 32 sensors, and 1 set of high-precision positioning unit (GNSS+IMU), which can achieve a 360° dual fusion perception of the environment with vision and radar.
Yes, at the hardware level, especially the global first-inclusion of lidar, which has raised higher expectations for P5’s automatic driving assistance. At the auto show, when I asked the Huawei engineer how he viewed the two solutions of lidar and pure vision, he said that the pure vision solution currently has better comprehensive benefits, but in the long run, the lidar solution with relatively high cost is preferred.
Thirdly, NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot) which is the most popular assisted driving since the beginning of the year, has made new progress. Its application has expanded from highways to urban roads, making it more practical.
It is said that the new NGP can assist the driver to perform driving tasks according to the navigation route, with the ability to pass through traffic lights at intersections, overtake in city traffic, follow the car at a customized distance, pass through roundabouts, and dynamically adjust the speed limit according to the ground/road conditions.
Finally, in terms of chips, computing power, and storage, P5 has the first use of the Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P vehicle-grade chip at the same level. The computing power has been increased by more than 3 times compared with the previous generation. It also comes with 128GB of massive storage space and 12GB of ultra-high running memory, supporting powerful vehicle-mounted mobile interconnection and communication capabilities, and a smoother human-computer interaction experience.
These are the several core pieces of information about P5’s intelligence that XPeng has currently disclosed. This reminds me of the new product launch conference of Xiaomi a few days ago, where every point was strong and had an Internet-style. The non-core parts are hard to stimulate the appetite of consumers, such as the 23-hour intelligent space, which I still can’t get a grip on.
As for the electric properties of the battery, motor, and platform, XPeng did not say any of them. Especially the cruising range, which is the first performance indicator that the vast majority of electric vehicle users currently care about, XPeng still kept it undisclosed. I originally thought that if it was not disclosed on the 14th, would it be disclosed on the 19th? But the result is still disappointing.For XPeng P5, currently everyone only knows about the intelligent part, not the electric part. An intelligent electric vehicle without a range? Perhaps XPeng will provide range-related information later, but keeping it secret during the global debut is still regrettable.
So, how should we view this “self-injury” marketing strategy employed by XPeng?
The Exploration of the B Side – Adventure
Although P5 was highly anticipated in the industry, looking back at its fate up until now, “rocky” would not be an overstatement. Take the day of the launch event on the 14th for example, the arrival of P5 was supposed to be a sensational event in the industry, but an unexpected G3 spontaneous combustion incident spread instantly among various industries and user groups and completely disrupted XPeng’s marketing rhythm.
At the launch event, under the neon lights, the faces of the XPeng marketing team were filled with disappointment. Did they do something wrong? They did not. It’s just that the three-electric system, or the electric attribute of an intelligent electric vehicle, is still the aspect that most people focus on, which is an industry ailment that cannot be eradicated temporarily, and XPeng is also unable to escape from it.
Regarding the three-electric system, among the various new forces, XPeng’s acceleration performance may be outstanding, but safety and stability may not be. Coupled with this incident, from last year to now, three XPeng electric vehicles have already caught fire, two G3s and one P7. As a comparison, since many cars caught fire repeatedly in 2019, NIO has not had any more spontaneous combustion incidents.
Perhaps, the reasons for the spontaneous combustion of these three cars are not all due to XPeng, for example, the first G3 was due to chassis bumping and “spontaneously combusted”, but the damage to the XPeng brand is still incalculable.
In the field of smartphones, except for the “Samsung explosion incident” which had a particularly big impact, overall people are not as concerned about batteries and range, but more about the system, chips, benchmarking, etc. Perhaps intelligent electric vehicles will also move towards this direction in the future, but for now, the majority of people still focus on the three-electric system, battery safety, and even range.
Nowadays, XPeng has achieved “great success” in intelligentization, but basic three-electric performance should not be overlooked. Looking back at the global debut of P5, although the much-awaited laser radar was announced, the lack of three-electric performance such as range made this launch event appear not quite successful.
Perhaps current intelligent electric vehicle users applaud the arrival of the laser radar, but what about the potential electric vehicle users and industry professionals? The laser radar is after all a specialized, niche component, and cannot represent everything. In terms of marketing direction, XPeng cannot get lost in the alley and forget the vast world.
Early last year, XPeng P7 was launched, and the BYD Han EV was also launched at the same time. Electric vehicle enthusiasts believed that in terms of comprehensive product strength, P7 was superior to Han EV. However, looking back now, the two are not in the same league, with P7 selling about 3,000 units per month and Han EV breaking tens of thousands. What caused this difference? It’s simply because Han EV emphasized the safety of the blade battery, which is the three-electric performance.About the safety controversy between lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium, this is another big topic, and I won’t go into more details here. If you are interested, you can read Electric Vehicle recently published article “BYD’s amazing reversal: killed ternary lithium batteries last year, and now quietly promotes 811”. Perhaps the failure of P7 to Han EV is not only due to this factor, but the latter’s success is enough to arouse Xpeng’s attention.
So, how does Xpeng promote P5? How to make a comeback through efforts after losing the first game? After all, this is just an appearance, and it has not yet been finally launched, everything still has room for maneuver.
In fact, if we ignore the missing information of the three-electric system in this presentation, P5 is making an all-out effort for intelligent functions, which also provides us with new thinking and market directions: If we don’t consider the three-electric system information such as range, how many consumers are willing to pay only for intelligence? When electric performance cannot break through the confines of the A-segment car market, can intelligent performance do it?
According to the data of China Passenger Car Association in March, the market share of A00 pure electric is 39%, the A-class pure electric market share is 17%, and the B-class pure electric market share is 34%. Yes, P5 aiming at A-class cars has entered a narrow market. If P5 attacks the A-class car market with electric performance, its future is uncertain, but if it breaks in with the intelligent label, it may have a chance.
Because in the name of Xpeng, intelligence is currently the strongest weapon of P5. Intelligent features are still a scarce configuration, so it is possible to promote it as a B-class car targeting the A-class car market. For those users who value intelligence, as long as the intelligence is strong, what does it matter if the car is small?
Of course, regardless of whether Xpeng plans this way or not, this is still a risky thing, because it has never been done before.
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.