In November, 2021, Ideal Automotive delivered a total of 13,485 Ideal ONE electric vehicles, achieving the milestone of delivering over 10,000 units in a single month for the first time.
After the delivery data was released, many media outlets published their own interpretations of this figure.
Among these reports, the most praised among Ideal ONE owners were “They created Ideal ONE” from Garage 42, “Li Xiang, the Hunter of Explosive Products” from 36kr, “Product Tyrant Li Xiang” from Titanium Media, and “Li Xiang’s ideal: Good products don’t need to show off” from LatePost.
As the 20th local Ideal ONE owner who picked up the car in December 2019, I would like to use the above media reports as subtitles to share my feelings and views on the Ideal ONE delivery breaking the 10,000 mark from my perspective.
“Product Tyrant or Hunter of Explosive Products” Li Xiang
As an ordinary Ideal ONE owner, I am naturally unable to see Li Xiang every day like Ideal Automotive employees and cannot experience his “rage” at meetings.
Similarly, ordinary owners cannot interview Li Xiang up close like the media and explore the stories behind Ideal ONE.
Although I have only met Li Xiang a few times at Ideal Automotive events, this does not prevent me from sharing my impressions of him here.
In April 2019, at the Ideal Automotive Changzhou base open day, it was the first time I saw Li Xiang in person.
Wearing a dark shirt, jeans, and sneakers, Li Xiang’s personal style was the same as his online image.
After introducing the product and entering the free experience area of Ideal ONE, Li Xiang did not leave, but instead chatted with the internal reservation owners who attended the event on site.
Time has passed too long, and many of the details of the conversation are no longer clear to me, but what still impresses me today is that Li Xiang knows every detail of the product.
A group of people gathered around Li Xiang, chatting from the event hall to the outdoor display car area, discussing everything from the product’s functional details to the US automotive market.”Why use the traditional shifter instead of the knob shifter?”
“Why is there no HUD?”
“Can I use electricity only without gasoline?”
“Can I install a tow hook?”
In front of a group of internal reservation owners, the super product manager answered all sorts of strange questions, almost leaving nothing unsaid.
Even, he couldn’t help but reveal the news that the mass-produced car would be equipped with a variable air intake grille on the spot.
He really knows cars, knows how to make cars, is frank, and is willing to actively listen to all kinds of opinions and suggestions. This is the biggest impression Li Xiang gave me at that time.
And after that, what the reserved owners saw was iteration after iteration of the Ideal ONE before formal mass production delivery.
First, the first- and second-row seats added standard soft pillows.
The outer leather below the instrument panel has added foam layer, and the touch is better; there are also interior ambient lights and Type-C USB interfaces for the third row.
Even the color of the brown interior has been adjusted based on the suggestions of reserved owners.
These configurations that the current Ideal ONE owners have already become accustomed to have caused cheers from us, the first batch of reserved owners, for each item at that time.
Being seriously listened to and optimized by the founder of a car company is a car-buying experience that most people have never encountered.
And it’s not over yet. In October after the centralized test drive that year, Ideal announced once again that it would directly deliver the 2020 Ideal ONE model.
The tire noise and sound insulation problems that were criticized by car owners during the centralized test drive had solutions.
The 2020 Ideal ONE added a double-layer sound-proof privacy glass for the second row and upgraded Michelin tires with built-in silencing cotton.
Except for the previously disclosed variable intake grille, the second-row 12V power interface, induction tailgate and other features finally appeared on the production models under the appeal of pre-booked owners.
During the final stage of mass production, the ideal R&D team had to endure countless days and nights of being “squeezed” to the limit while making such substantial changes to the functions and configurations.
Changing the design, coordinating with suppliers, reopening molds, and testing and verifying – every step extremely challenged the work efficiency and cost control of Ideal Motors.
Fortunately, the ONE managed to win user recognition through its own excellent strength.
So, going back to the subtitle, is Li Xiang considered a “product tyrant” or a “killer product hunter”?
In my opinion, a person should first become a “product tyrant” to refine the product to the extreme and obtain user orders before ultimately earning the title of a “killer product hunter”.
Just like Li Xiang said on Weibo, “Consumers do not sympathize because it is an electric car or a new company. Consumers do not owe anything to new companies. What use is there in sentimentality?”
They created the Ideal ONE
The biggest difference between smart cars and traditional cars is that smart cars can continue to evolve through OTA.
Especially after major software upgrades, vehicles can even achieve progress similar to traditional car model upgrades.
From this perspective, the Ideal ONE has not yet reached its final shape even after being delivered to users.
Product managers and engineers in fields such as car entertainment systems and assisted driving still play a crucial role in advancing the Ideal ONE.
But it must be admitted that this work is far from what people imagine.
Ideal Motors has an OTA internal testing user circle, where active users are responsible for experiencing and testing OTA beta upgrade packages and finding bugs and suggesting functional improvements.
In the internal test user circle, almost all the most difficult Ideal car owners in terms of vehicle experience are gathered, and I am lucky to be one of them.
The father of WeChat, Zhang Xiaolong, once said that over 100 million people teach him how to make products every day.
Likewise, there are also a large number of OTA internal test owners every day teaching Ideal Motors’ product managers and engineers how to make car entertainment systems and assisted driving.
As internal test owners, our main tasks are:
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Urging OTA updates;
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Finding bugs;
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Making suggestions.
Among them, providing suggestions takes up nearly half of the energy of internal test members.
If a certain function is not well-designed, it will immediately be subjected to criticism from internal test owners like a storm, and may even be degraded to worthlessness. At this moment, internal test owners become “product tyrants”.“`
On the other side, product managers and engineers must face the fierce criticism of users while continuing to optimize features, even if it means working 996 or even 007.
To work in the intelligent cockpit and assisted driving departments at Ideal Car, you not only need tough psychological qualities, but also a strong physique. Otherwise, you will inevitably be unable to withstand the double blow of psychological and physiological stress.
For example, the internal test announcement sent by the Ideal Car software team after 4 am implies an ordinary and trivial overnight work shift just passed.
Of course, in most cases, OTA’s new features are still well received by the internal test car owners.
For example, the on-time departure function added in the last OTA update and Ideal classmates’ continuous dialogue function were well received by car owners.
After all, to evaluate the software development team at Ideal Car without violating the advertising law, one might say they have created the second-best intelligent cockpit system in the eastern hemisphere.
Good Products Don’t Need To Prove Their Existence
Among the new forces in the auto industry, Ideal ONE is definitely a “not-so-new-age” product.
In terms of energy, Ideal ONE was not designed as a “fashionable” pure electric vehicle model, and instead can still use traditional energy sources such as gasoline.
As for power, the acceleration time of 0-100 km/h in launch mode of Ideal ONE takes 6.5 seconds, which is plain compared to pure electric cars with acceleration times of less than 4 seconds.
In addition, although most car owners recognize that Ideal ONE has a handsome exterior design, the overall posture is pretty good, but except for the star-ring light and four-screen interaction design, this car seems to lack many innovative and futuristic designs.
Furthermore, all of the configurations of Ideal ONE are the same and can only be freely matched within the options of car paint, interior color, and wheel hub style, so it cannot meet various personalized needs of car owners.
It seems that Ideal ONE is not a car with a strong presence. Then, what is the reason for Ideal ONE’s achievement of delivering over 13,000 cars monthly?
The answer actually comes from the above points.
First of all, we need to understand that Ideal ONE is a car designed from the perspective of family users and can meet the needs of the whole family.
Only by understanding this can we understand the product concept of Ideal ONE.
“`Although the power source of the Li Xiang ONE might not seem as futuristic as pure electric cars, there are fuel stations scattered along the main roads that can act as your “fast charging and energy replenishing stations” during long-distance driving.
A quick five-minute refueling can immediately provide six to seven hundred kilometers of range. While traveling, there is no need to waste the entire family’s time in queues for charging stations.
Moreover, the NEDC 188km pure electric range can meet the daily commuting needs of the vast majority of city drivers.
Electricity consumption cost is low for city driving, and there is no range anxiety for long-distance driving. The advantages of both energy sources are fully utilized.
As a family car, the Li Xiang ONE has a 6.5-second acceleration time for 0-100 km/h, which is a balanced choice between power and passenger experience.
It has power equivalent to that of the 3.0T fuel SUV of the same level, and fully meets the requirements for a family car’s usage.
Simultaneously, the front and rear dual-motor drive can achieve smooth and non-delayed power response. Even when using the comfort power mode, it can still overtake over 90% of fuel vehicles at traffic lights.
In many design details, the Li Xiang ONE also fully adheres to the concept of a family car.
For instance, to provide a larger and more comfortable space inside the car, the Li Xiang ONE did not use a double wishbone suspension but a McPherson suspension. Although this resulted in some loss of sports performance, the benefit was reducing the impact of suspension invading the interior space.
Another example is the entertainment screen for the front passenger, allowing the female head of the family to easily watch TV dramas while on the road. The Li Xiang ONE’s second-row has electrically adjustable seats, making it easy for seniors to adjust their seats.
The huge side windows in the third row greatly expand the passengers’ field of vision. Both children and adults will not feel cramped when sitting in the third row.
And speaking of standard configuration, we must mention that Li Xiang is the only car company that provides navigation-assisted driving functions as standard equipment.
Ideal ONE’s navigation-assisted driving function, in addition to achieving conventional L2 level assisted driving such as ACC adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assistance, also has functions such as autonomous on and off ramp, autonomous overtaking, and lane-level navigation. It effectively reduces driver fatigue and increases driving safety on long-distance self-driving trips.
If we only compare parameters, Ideal ONE does not seem to have a strong presence as a car.
However, for users, parameters have no meaning; what is important is the experience behind the parameters, and this is exactly Ideal ONE’s strength.
What is the sales limit of Ideal ONE?
In the summer of 2019, I once had a brief exchange with Li Bin, the head of Ideal Automobile’s Changzhou plant, along with several pre-booking owners of Ideal ONE.
At that time, there were still three to four months before Ideal ONE was officially delivered. Li Bin said with emotion that if Ideal ONE could sell four to five thousand units a month, it would be a very successful car.
But surprisingly, Ideal ONE’s sales have now exceeded double that expectation.
Information from Ideal Automobile’s 2021 Q3 financial report conference call shows that the current monthly production capacity of Ideal ONE is around 14,000 units. It is expected that after next year’s Spring Festival, Ideal Automobile’s monthly output will exceed 15,000 units.
In terms of distribution network, as of November 30, Ideal Automobile has 174 retail centers nationwide. By the end of the year, Ideal Automobile will have a nationwide layout of 200 stores, and next year, the number of stores will double again, reaching 400.
With higher production capacity and more stores, there is no doubt that Ideal ONE’s sales growth trend will continue. So, what is the sales limit of Ideal ONE?
I am a little hesitant to predict. After all, this is a car that has performed so well in the market that it has surpassed the expectations of many Ideal employees.
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.