Author: Sun XiaoShu

The Zeekr 001 production version was officially released at the Hangzhou Bay Smart Factory on October 19th, and delivery will officially begin on October 23rd.

According to Geely’s previously published five-year plan, Zeekr will rank among the top three in the high-end electric vehicle market globally and sell 650,000 vehicles by 2025. The Zeekr 001’s mass production release also signifies that Zeekr will be subject to a comprehensive market test.

Although the Zeekr Smart Factory only began installing production equipment in September last year and officially went into production in the third quarter of this year, Zeekr CEO An Conghui stated that he is confident in the factory’s capacity, and they expect to achieve a planned capacity of 300,000 vehicles in the future 3-5 months. We understand that the welding assembly line for Zeekr’s second model has been completed, and it is currently in the debugging phase.

However, the current shortage of chip supply remains a significant challenge and will be a long-term one. Zeekr stated that there is pressure to complete the delivery of orders placed before June 15th by the end of this year.

Zeekr provides two delivery models: local and remote delivery. For local delivery, Zeekr is pushing for the construction of directly operated delivery centers. On October 15th, Zeekr’s first delivery center was completed and accepted in Shanghai. By the end of this year, Zeekr will establish its own delivery centers in major cities in seven regions.

Zeekr 001’s orders come from 320 cities, covering a vast range, which is a significant challenge for the service system of a new brand. Zeekr’s response is to increase Zeekr’s exclusive requirements based on the Lynk & Co service system. As of now, Zeekr’s service system has had 317 service providers enter and will continue to accept more service providers in the future.

Zeekr’s car system has already updated more than 100 versions, mainly optimizing the smoothness of the car system and UI interface convenience, and optimization will continue. At the same time, Zeekr is also developing a car system that matches the Qualcomm 8155 chip and will release it next year.

ZAD, Zeekr’s intelligent driving assistance system, has added three functions, straight-in-and-out parking, forward crossroad forthcoming car warning, and rear lateral forthcoming car warning. However, the intelligent driving system still needs a lot of testing, and the earliest possible release date is in 2022.After the offline ceremony, Jidu Auto held a small-scale media communication meeting. Jidu Auto CEO An Conghui, Vice President of Intelligent Technology Zhao Yuhui, Jidu Auto 001 product leader Xu Yun, and Autonomous Driving Manager Li Jian, etc. responded in detail to issues such as production capacity, co-creation, intelligent driving, brand strategy, and competitive advantages. Stellantis Channel summarized the communication content as follows:

Q: Is the delivery target for next year low? What will be the product schedule going forward?

An: The SEA vast institution has been completed, and with reference to the experience of the CMA architecture, new vehicle models will be launched soon. In addition to 001, Jidu Auto has planned products for other segmented markets, such as a high-end luxury all-electric MPV, which Jidu Auto may be the first brand to launch an intelligent all-electric MPV in this segmented market next year.

Q: When will Jidu Auto achieve profitability?

An: There is no exact timetable, but Jidu Auto is very confident about profitability. Jidu Auto’s confidence comes from three aspects: first, the architecture of car making forms a scale effect, and other brands of Geely Group and cooperative brands can also access the vast architecture; second, the research and development support of Geely Group; and finally, confidence in the utilization of production capacity of the Jidu Auto Intelligent Factory. CMA simultaneously manufactured Lynk & Co and Volvo models can be consulted as examples.

Q: What are the advantages of the Vast architecture compared to Volkswagen’s MEB and General Motors’ Ultium?

Xu: Geely’s architecture ability accumulated over the years has given us an advantage in cost control. Jidu Auto will also combine different brands and user needs on the architecture, for example, Jidu Auto 001 can provide seven modes with the option of customizing modes according to user needs.

Q: How to balance the conflicts of different demands in co-creation?

An: In co-creation, there will be conflicts between different users, between users and host factories. Although there are conflicts, co-creation will drive overall enterprise development, which depends on the level of the enterprise, how to solve and coordinate the conflicts. In this process, our bottom line is safety.

Xu: For example, the ACC function. Jidu Auto 001 was first equipped with the Texas Instruments 9170 chip. However, in July, the chip was reboarded due to changes in hardware underlying technology, and ADCU also undertook corresponding joint testing. Therefore, Jidu Auto needs to go through the entire validation cycle again to ensure safety, which delayed the release of the ACC function.

Q: After this storm, will Jidu Auto adjust its attitude towards new technologies?

Xu: Jidu Auto brand definitely relies on technological drive, which cannot be compromised. But I think there are also some experiences and lessons. For example, when we promise OTA content, users will have their own expectations, which may cause relevant understandings bias. So I think there is room for improvement in expectation management, and we will be more cautious.

Q: Will Jidu Auto increase its R&D investment?# An:

The $500 million Pre-A round financing of Xpeng Motors has not been fully utilized, and currently mainly relies on the support of Geely Group’s architecture and the layout of the smart electric vehicle industry chain ecosystem. The Pre-A round and the potential future A round and B round are more for the research and development of the next generation of architectures, as well as greater investment in the smart cockpit, intelligent driving, and the entire industry chain ecological circle.

Q:

Will Xpeng continue to cooperate deeply with Mobileye, or cultivate its own full-stack self-research capabilities? Will its intelligent driving capabilities take the lead in the first echelon in 2025, or be more conservative?

An:

Xpeng Motors will definitely enter the first echelon in 2025, and this is unwavering. Xpeng Motors now has the ability of full-stack self-research, but cooperating with Mobileye is still the correct approach. As an auto manufacturer, Xpeng Motors would choose to cooperate with a strong company in a certain field to ensure the user experience, and the investment from Intel’s capital also indicates that they are optimistic about our cooperation.

Li:

As a technologist, there has always been a struggle between self-research and using someone else’s technology in my mind. I have been doing self-research since I was at Geely Automotive Research Institute, but the final result is to provide users with the best experience.

An:

On the one hand, we have a close strategic cooperation with Mobileye, and on the other hand, we are also fully promoting self-research. For example, regarding the chip, E-Kuaibao is already under development.

Q:

Will the vehicle control function on the APP be launched for delivery?

Zhao:

The vehicle control function on the APP will be 100% operational during delivery. We have already started to coordinate and cooperate on this, and although the APP has only been launched for 3 months, there have been dozens of iterations.

Q:

What is the current stage of deployment for third-party charging?

An:

We have connected with mainstream domestic charging companies such as State Grid, Southern Grid, Teld, Star Charging, and Xiaojuche. As of 7:57 PM on October 18th, the number of cooperative charging piles has exceeded 250,000, which can already solve the charging and energy supplement problems in third-tier and fourth-tier cities.

Q:

Which one is more focused on, parking or cruising?

Xu:

More emphasis is placed on high-speed cruising, which is quite clear, because many functions of parking are not used frequently in actual scenarios.

Q:

What are the types of people who buy Xpeng cars?

Zhao:

90% of our users are aged between 20 and 40, and a high level of education is also a very significant feature. 77 percent of our users have undergraduate or higher degrees, and the most prominent personal labels are digital, technology, travel, and entrepreneurship.

Q:

Why are QQ Music and Netease Cloud Music not the mainstream music APP?

Xu:

QQ Music and Netease Cloud Music will be connected in the future, and other third-party APPs will also be connected successively. Some test drive cars have already been able to see APPs such as Bilibili and iQiyi.

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.