Yesterday evening, the XPeng P5 was officially launched at a price range of 157,900 to 223,900 yuan, and the specific model and price allocation are as follows:
Currently, there is a pre-order campaign with a 5,000 RMB deposit that can be offset against the price, which means a discount of 5,000 RMB can be enjoyed on the current price.
As for the P5 product itself, we have already shared detailed information about it in previous articles and videos. Interested friends can review it in combination with the current price.
Comprehensive review of the XPeng P5 | Max unboxing
Today, I want to discuss with you in this article about whether the price of the P5 is expensive, how it positions itself in the market, and why XPeng’s third model is the P5, a B-class family sedan.
After the launch event, we also had the opportunity to interview He XPeng, the chairman of XPeng Motors. He shared with us many of the underlying logic behind the P5.
“I don’t really like using the current classification to classify cars.”
Let me first ask a question. Back in April last year when the P7 was launched, how many people were optimistic about it and how many people thought the P7’s monthly sales could exceed 5,000 units?
In the article I wrote for the April launch last year, I mentioned that although the P7 had good product strength, it faced the formidable Tesla Model 3. Therefore, although I recognized the P7 as a good product, I did not expect it to sell well.
I think at that time, many people also had this idea. Some even refused to recognize the product due to reasons such as the small rear space and not luxurious enough interior.
Some even said that He XPeng, who came from the internet industry, did not have the experience of being hit hard by the automotive industry and did not understand this market.
In my communication with many people inside and outside the industry, the monthly sales of the P7 were expected to be only a fraction of the Model 3, around 2,000 to 3,000 units.
However, the fact is that the P7’s monthly sales now exceed 6,000 units and are still rising. In the market segment where the P7 is located, its sales are stable in the top five, making it a popular model.
Moreover, Tesla Model 3, the first competitor, has lowered its price more than 3 times in the past year, which erased the slight price advantage of P7.
Against this background, P7’s sales appear even more dazzling.
Looking back at the development history of XPeng Motors, we can find that XPeng’s first model was the compact SUV G3, the second model was the mid-size sedan P7 with a completely different exterior design, and the third model returned to the large compact sedan P5.
These three models have a common feature in the market they choose: each market is a red ocean and difficult to do.
Therefore, the appearance of each model has surprised many people, including myself. So when the P5 press conference was held, I asked XPeng Motors’ CEO He XPeng about the decision to choose the P7 positioning at that time and why XPeng chose the P5 positioning now.
He XPeng said, “We still have disputes internally, called avoiding the competition law or facing the competition law.
You will see that no matter if we are with T or other friendly competitors, we choose to face the competition law in the end.
To be honest, it will be difficult in the beginning with facing the competition law, but the more you compete, the more you train your team, and the more you compete, the more you enhance your comprehensive ability.
For example, if you find many weaknesses that you didn’t realize before because you thought you had some advantages over your competitors, but when you go, you find that others don’t compare you in terms of strengths but weaknesses.
When you make a more expensive or more luxurious car, because its cost is inside, it is easy to do well in all aspects. This is in the competition of cars around 200,000 yuan.
But looking at it from another angle, if we replicate this ability to the next new model, the redesigned or facelifted model in the back, you will find that we are stronger. So we choose to face competition law.
To be honest, it takes courage and is easy to die, but after getting through it, you will see many models with no particularly short lead in terms of different competencies, and there are longer advantages. This is the path we choose, which may not be correct.”Translate the Chinese Markdown text below into English Markdown text in a professional manner, retaining HTML tags inside Markdown, and outputting only corrections and improvements without explanations.
Under this logic, the new question is why both P7 and P5 seem to be innovative in their respective fields, so the new question is why P7 and P5 have so many seemingly “novel” innovations, including “full-scenario voice” and “parking memory parking” on P7, and “Lidar” and “sleeping space” on P5.
So another clearer approach by He XPeng is to define the new car using methods that belong to this era.
In the interview, He XPeng also said: “I don’t like to use the current positioning method to position the car in this industry.
Why? The logic of the current positioning method is based on the premise of the Chinese market environment, and secondly, to achieve certain user needs within a certain price range. This usually occurs when there is a relatively stable demand.
Today, technology will drive greater changes in products, and greater changes in products will drive changes in the needs of our Peng-you friends.“
The best example of this logic in the mobile phone industry is 4G.
Going back to the time when 4G appeared, no one could have imagined the popularity of the live streaming and short video industries today, which is a qualitative change brought about by technological change.
Users won’t ask for live streaming on their phones, or ask for short video software. The development of technology has driven improvements in the product such as camera chips, computing power, and 4G network speed, leading to changes in user needs.
Going back to cars, thanks to higher computing power chips, more advanced algorithms, the voice assistant experience has gradually reached a qualitative change, to the point where more and more automakers are continuously raising the development priority of voice assistants, hoping to replace physical buttons with voice commands and bring a new cabin experience.
Similarly, going back 10 years when voice technology first appeared, nobody can imagine that there are now more and more people who cannot live without voice commands.
The sales of Volkswagen ID.4 also prove that the entire industry is undergoing change, and the degree of intelligence of cars is already affecting everyone’s purchasing decisions. As the leader of intelligence, XPeng’s adoption of some fresh gameplay that most people can’t understand is completely normal.
After reconstructing XPeng Motors’ logic for launching the P5, let’s take a look at the P5’s price.
Buy the strongest NGP for 180,000 yuan and buy the city NGP with Lidar for 200,000 yuan.I admit that this headline is a bit sensationalist, because with the price of optional software included, the price of the entry-level XPILOT 3.0 model with NGP is 192,900 yuan, and the price of the entry-level model with lidar hardware is 219,900 yuan.
But this doesn’t stop the P5 from snagging the labels of “the NGP model with the lowest ownership cost” and “the lidar-equipped model with the lowest ownership cost.”
During the P5 test drive at the beginning of the month, there were often two conflicting thoughts in my mind. On the one hand, “this car is really expensive,” and on the other hand, “this car is really cheap.” The reason for such split thoughts is that P5’s product is too special with its positioning and price range.
If you look at this car as an ordinary family car and compare it to models of the same level, it will be slightly more expensive by about 20,000 yuan. For the target audience in this price range, those 20,000 yuan will be enough to impact purchasing decisions.
But when you consider that this car has a Snapdragon 8155 in-car chip, an NVIDIA Xavier assisted driving chip, and the strongest high-speed NGP experience already implemented, you might think that this car is too cheap.
The official price of the P5 has been lowered by 3,000-7,000 yuan compared to the pre-sale price, and with the 5,000 yuan discount during the launch phase, it is about 10,000 yuan lower than the pre-sale price. This can be seen as P5 achieving stronger intelligent features while further lowering the premium of intelligence.
Finally, the bare car price for the model with XPILOT 3.0 hardware has entered 180,000 yuan, and the price for the model with lidar hardware has entered 200,000 yuan.
At this point, many colleagues who previously felt that it was expensive have also started to shift to the “this car is really cheap” camp.
After carefully observing the price and configuration of the P5, I found that it caters to the needs of three user groups with one car model.
The demand for commuting in third- and fourth-tier cities
In third- and fourth-tier cities, the biggest demand for cars is for commuting. There is no need for long battery life or assisted driving, but the core is cheap cost of ownership.
The purchase price of the entry-level P5 model is 152,900 yuan, which is not cheaper compared to the entry-level model of Geometry A.
But if your budget is relatively abundant, the difference of over 20,000 yuan here can get you a larger car body size, a larger and more comfortable interior space, and the Xmart OS 3.0 car system that comes standard, which is the most powerful and best experience at this level.
If compared with same-level fuel vehicles, P5 competes with Volkswagen Passat on the high end and Toyota Corolla on the low end.
In addition to the advantages of space and in-car intelligent features mentioned earlier, P5’s extremely low ownership cost as an electric car is also an undeniable strength.
After all, XPeng now gives each P5 a free charging quota of 3,000 degrees, which, even if we calculate it higher, is enough to run 20,000 kilometers at a rate of 15 degrees per hundred kilometers, which exceeds the one-year driving distance of most users’ commuting needs.
However, the disadvantage is that P5’s stamina is relatively limited in occasional long-distance travel.
Overall, P5 is not completely superior to this market demand, but it is still a very worthwhile product to consider.
A group with relatively limited budget but wants to experience intelligence
NGP-like navigation-assisted driving functions are considered by many to be a high-end configuration, and the models equipped with such functions generally sell for around 300,000 yuan.
However, P5 not only reduces the ownership cost of NGP to less than 200,000 yuan but also reduces the ownership cost of lidar and city NGP to less than 220,000 yuan.
In this budget and demand, P5 is the only choice.
Moreover, under such demand and budget, P5 also gives you sufficient power, transcending space, and the strongest car machine.
Want to spend less money and buy a “big toy” that can harvest various experiences
Taking into account the configurations such as lidar, sleeping space, refrigerator, fragrance, solar energy, etc., the price of P5 has risen to about 240,000 yuan.
From the perspective of buying a family sedan for 240,000 yuan, P5 is indeed not cheap, and for a family sedan, solar panels, lidar, etc., are not particularly essential functions. Still, if you want to get these experiences, P5 is likely the best value-for-money model.
Also, in this category is Gaohe.
Conclusion
The sales of P7 have broken my cognition, which also gives me a new perspective on the sales of P5. After discussing with many colleagues, I feel that there are two possibilities for P5’s sales. The logic that I previously did not favor made me feel that sales would be low. However, the success of P7 made me feel that P5 would be a hit.
After interviewing XPeng CEO, I was indeed infused with a lot of fresh blood in my mind, and sales are the most compelling evidence to verify the logic above.
After analyzing the price and market, combined with more and more people starting to ask me about P5, the balance in my mind gradually tilted towards the explosive sales side.At the end of the article, XPeng announced the current order.
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.