“Going out of a hundred people” Media under the Outing Group
Author: Zhou Changxian
“1 hour and 20 minutes. I still feel unsatisfied. Isn’t this the feeling we want?”
When reviewing NIO Day 2021 to the media, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, half-jokingly and half-seriously said.
Due to the epidemic restrictions, the NIO Day, which used to be two or three hours long in previous years, had to compress the time and ended the battle in 80 minutes. Under the urging of security personnel, Li Bin originally wanted to take more pictures with the car owners, but he had to leave the venue in a hurry.
Although the time was greatly compressed, the information volume of this NIO Day was not small. In addition to the release of the medium-sized sedan ET5, progress in charging and swapping, internationalization, and the launch of the owner welfare partnership project and the Clean Parks ecological co-construction plan, there were even a few surprises.
However, the light and shadow were fleeting, and for these dense information, the hippocampus in people’s brains had not yet reacted.
In order to better explain the unfinished meaning, Li Bin and Qin Lihong, the co-founder and president of NIO, intensively accepted several rounds of media interviews that night and the next day, highlighting the key points and answering questions, making people have to admire their super-strong physical and mental energy.
ET5, can it become a blockbuster?
On the eve of NIO Day 2021, Ma Lin, the senior public relations director of NIO, posted a message on social media, “After the release of NIO’s fifth production car, the XXXXXX market will change. #5 is greater than 3.”
The media who enjoy the excitement and don’t mind things getting bigger and bigger have speculated one after another, what do the 5 Xs represent, and who is the 3?
In fact, the answer is not difficult to guess. According to the positioning of ET5, it is nothing more than the high-end medium-sized sedan market, and within its range, only Tesla Model 3 and BMW 3 series have the number 3 in their names, of course, there are also friendly forces such as XPeng P7 and Zeekr 001.
According to statistics from the China Passenger Car Association, in the first eleven months of this year, among high-end medium-sized sedans, the BMW 3 series sold the best, with sales of 161,000 vehicles, followed by the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi A4L.
Since the China Passenger Car Association defines high-end cars as official starting prices of more than 300,000 yuan, the Tesla Model 3, which has a starting price of 250,000 yuan and sold 120,000 units in 11 months, is not included in the statistics.
The question is, can the ET5 compete with other products?
From the perspective of body size, the ET5 is slightly shorter than the BMW 3 Series Li, but exceeds both competitors in other aspects.
In terms of exterior design, the ET5 has bulging sides on the front hood, full of tension, and a sporty look with a front air dam, through-type side flow ducts, a ducktail and diffuser at the rear, and sharp LED tail lights.
In terms of color selection, NIO’s car body color is inspired by the sky, while the interior color comes from the earth. The ET5 has 9 exterior and 6 interior colors, and is equipped with 256 ambient light colors. Among them, the three most eye-catching exterior colors are “cosmic blue”, “cloud yellow” and “mirror pink”.
It is worth mentioning that it also comes standard with the popular frameless + electric suction door design.
However, these are only the focus of car enthusiasts. To truly justify the slogan that “5 is greater than 3”, we need to look at its intelligent configuration, such as the latest autonomous driving technology, NAD (NIO Autonomous Driving), intelligent cabin with AR/VR concepts, and the gradually expanding and flexible battery replacement system across the country.
“This is the car with the largest number of orders for any new car released by NIO in the past five years,” Li Bin revealed in an interview with the media. Due to the launch and pre-order of the ET5, the NIO APP crashed for more than ten minutes.
The same concern exists for the ET7. The similarity between the two is not without its dangers.
For example, they both have a dual-motor configuration, maximum power of 360kW, maximum torque of 700 Nm, acceleration from 0 to 100km/h in 4.3 seconds, and a braking distance of 33.9 meters from 100km/h to 0. The drag coefficient is as low as 0.24.
They also both offer three different choices of power battery capacity, 75 degrees, 100 degrees, and 150 degrees.
In terms of intelligent configuration, they both use the NIO autonomous driving assistance system, and are equipped with the Aquila ultra-sensing system and the Adam supercomputing platform.
Even the ET5, which first features the NIO panoramic digital cabin PanoCinema with AR/VR technology and exclusive AR glasses jointly developed by NIO and innovative AR equipment companies, will also be available for its elder brother, the ET7. This cannot help but raise concerns that the ET5 might “kill a thousand enemies and lose eight hundred.” Moreover, the ET7’s delivery date is set for March 28th, only half a year after the ET5, and some users who are determined enough may not mind waiting a little longer.Most of the orders for ET5 still come from new users who have not purchased any NIO products before, according to Qin Lihong. He explained that it is normal for some users who have ordered ET7 to hesitate because the configuration tables for both products are quite complex, and they need time to digest and understand them.
He believes that ET7 is more upscale, elegant, and sophisticated, while ET5 is more sporty and youthful, with different target user age structures. More importantly, there is a 120,000 yuan difference between the two products.
The latter is crucial and may be the key reason for user defection.
Regarding this, Li Bin’s response was enlightened: “It doesn’t matter which of my two children does better.” Indeed, parents with two children mostly prefer the younger one.
Some media outlets have pointed out that the target of NIO’s ET5 is to create a “blockbuster,” that is, to make the car with the “largest” sales volume in NIO’s current product lineup.
However, none of the executives mentioned these two words in my interviews. Perhaps they buried their expectations in their hearts.
NIO Day 2021, what was missing?
After talking about the new car ET5, let’s go back to NIO Day.
Undoubtedly, this is the most anticipated day for NIO car owners and potential customers, as well as a day when the media pay close attention to electric vehicles, and even other car companies watch it seriously on screens of various sizes.
However, this year’s NIO Day was not very satisfactory. Compared to the previous four editions, which were full of joy and tears, this year was quite calm. Some media outlets described it as a simple product release event.
The reasons for this can be attributed to the epidemic restrictions, as the number of car owners attending was reduced from the originally planned 8000 to 5000, which led to a significant decrease in the atmosphere.
Qin Lihong voluntarily revealed that this time NIO also played the role of a “scalper” and bought tickets back from 3000 car owners who had successfully registered, using three times the points (1000 points per ticket).
It can also be attributed to the agenda. Due to time constraints, only the necessary points were presented, which had to be brief.
What is necessary?
Firstly, user enthusiasm, such as the four heartwarming videos at the beginning. It is said that these four stories all come from the real experiences of NIO car owners, and three of them even star the owners themselves.
Li Bin revealed that the theme of “Hello World” for NIO Day was discussed by the user advisory group and the executive committee of NIO Day.Qin Lihong explained that the friendly “hello” cannot simply be interpreted as NIO’s demonstration of its globalization strategy beginning this year, but also aimed to soothe the anxiety and uneasiness that people have been feeling all year.
One concern for users is the progress of charging and battery swap facilities. As of NIO Day, NIO has built 733 battery swap stations. In 2022, NIO will continue to expand its charging and battery swap service network, with plans to have over 1,300 battery swap stations, 6,000 ultra-fast charging piles, and 10,000 destination charging piles nationwide, as well as more than 30 destination charging routes including the Silk Road and Xishuangbanna Tropical Rainforest.
Of course, there are also concerns from users that weren’t mentioned, such as progress on NIO’s sub-brands. In subsequent interviews, Qin Lihong said that we should be honest with ourselves and that NIO Day wouldn’t talk about other brands. Li Bin joked, “Why talk about one’s younger brother on one’s birthday? The logic doesn’t make sense.”
Qin Lihong also admitted that some existing users expressed slight disappointment after NIO Day because there was no discussion of the ES6 and ES8 hardware upgrades. “The least we can do is to provide good policies for existing car owners to upgrade their cars for no reason, so that they can still choose NIO after upgrading their cars,” he said, clarifying that hardware upgrades for existing models wouldn’t be available until Q2 2022.
There is plenty more to say, such as progress on internationalization, the Car Owner Benefit Partner program, and the Clean Parks ecological co-construction plan.
2021 is the year of NIO’s globalization. After entering the Norwegian market, in 2022, NIO’s products and full-service system will officially land in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. By 2025, NIO will enter more than 25 countries and regions.
The Car Owner Benefit Partner program is a platform-based project created by NIO community users. Participants provide their high-quality resources to share benefits with users. In 2022, NIO will invest 80 million points in the Car Owner Benefit Partner program.
In addition, NIO announced the official launch of the Clean Parks ecological co-construction plan. This plan supports the use of intelligent electric vehicles and the construction of clean energy infrastructure in natural protected areas worldwide, in order to build a clean, low-carbon energy recycling system that maintains the authenticity and integrity of the ecosystem.
Although he was left wanting more, Li Bin still gave NIO Day 2021 a high evaluation.
“From the perspective of NIO Day’s theme, what it wants to convey is very, very comprehensive and worth savoring,” he said. He also believes that this year’s NIO Day showcases the development plan for the next few years and marks a new chapter.
Li Bin said that for NIO, 2021 is a landmark year, as it has emerged from the trauma left in 2019 and has returned to its original form.
Next, NIO will put globalization on the agenda. He revealed that if you pay attention to the world map displayed at NIO Day, you will see that 25 countries in 2025 will be lit up, including the United States.
“The plan to enter the US has been in progress for four years now, and we hold quarterly meetings to discuss the business plan and the kind of experience we can provide to US customers. Why should they buy our cars?” Li Bin said earnestly.
“If viewed from a global perspective, there must be a company that represents China to participate in the competition at a higher level,” he said. It seems that NIO has been pushed into this position.
“It’s not that American or European companies sell their cars in China, but we have to go global. Besides NIO, who else? Someone has to go. We may also encounter endless traps and pitfalls,” he clearly does not underestimate the difficulty of internationalization.
Now that I’ve written this, I look forward to next year’s NIO Day. Will NIO bring the event overseas?”
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.