Every beam of light converges to form the sun.
After the “homecoming” journey of NIO Day ended, I rushed to the Northeast of my motherland for the next journey, and I didn’t know where to start writing because there are too many things I can and want to write about.
On a rational level, some people “criticize” that this NIO Day lacks the “big selling point” as in previous years, but as daily high-viscosity users and deeply involved media from last year’s NIO Day to today, we have a deeper understanding.
It is not only the emergence of two new representative models (stylish, high-end, platform-based, intelligent, luxurious textures, etc.), nor is it just the “better, faster, and safer” third-generation battery swap stations, nor is it only another key update in “chargeable, interchangeable, and upgradable” – the release of 500kW ultra-fast charging piles.
On an emotional level, having experienced multiple NIO Days, from the earliest “choose to believe” to the “firm belief” in the chaotic years later, to the “everyone believes” that NIO rises today, we have too much to say. More and more car owners stand with us, more and more media colleagues begin to re-examine NIO, and more and more employees are eager to shout out.
This is NIO, this is NIO Day 2022, let us “Feel the Light.”
Therefore, on the second day of arriving in the Northeast, remembering that majestic slogan and the bittersweet stories behind it, now still firmly spoken by Bin, I know where to start and talk about NIO’s “love and sincerity.”
Yes, you guessed it, it’s that sentence –
“Make recharging more convenient than refueling.”## Next Year’s Sales Will Surpass Lexus
1. One small goal per year?
Each car has its own positioning, slogan, and slogan, that is, a sentence that can make people remember you, such as the EC7 is “Feel the Power of Elegance”, and the new ES8 is “Calm and Moderate”. Of course, people should not believe or disbelieve some good and bad words too much in any field of brand or product packaging positioning, there will be some key words.
“But “making charging more convenient than refueling” has always been the basic vision for NIO to realize “Blue Sky Coming”. Since 2018, the “rechargeable, replaceable, and upgradable” system has formed the cornerstone of NIO’s brand and is also the trust foundation for more and more users to choose NIO.
In an interview after the NIO Day event, Li Bin publicly expressed a sentence in the face of the media, which caused a hot discussion across the network. Interested friends can browse the original video on my Weibo. He expressed a established goal, and this time it was in “plain language”:
“NIO’s sales will surpass Lexus in 2023.”
Looking at the sales situation of NIO and Lexus in the past four years, it must be said that Lexus has been in the top spot as “big brother” in the first three years, with stable sales of around 200,000 units per year. Although there is no major breakthrough, it has been a theme that “not advancing is retreating” in such a fiercely competitive auto market, especially for traditional luxury brands. This seems to be a “good” report card. But when we list NIO’s actual delivery data, we can get several interpretations:
First, Li Bin did not want to “attack” Lexus, but from the perspective of sales, like the World Cup, just like the childhood Mbappe saw Ronaldo and the Argentine ball boys saw Messi, they want to make themselves better, closer, and even surpass one after another Goal. This is human nature and the necessary way for all brand business blueprints.
Second, NIO’s final delivery data this year will be at the level of about 120,000 units, and Lexus’s sales are most likely to be around 180,000. From a difference of 15 times in the first year to 1.5 times today, NIO’s acceleration is visible to the naked eye. And the action to surpass Lexus’ delivery volume in 2023 seems to have been blown early with the release of this year’s NIO Day.Third, surpassing Lexus is not the end goal, but a small milestone in terms of data. In key cities, NIO’s ES6/EC6 and ET7/ES7 models have entered into intense competition with BBA. With the launch of ET5 next year and the delivery of the representative flagship models EC7 and ES8 in May and June, NIO may have an “annual story of achieving a small milestone”.
2. How to surpass specifically?
Firstly, through products. In yesterday’s Electric Vehicle Laboratory article, my colleague Chen Han wrote the following headline: “Flagship Upgrades, Looks Matter! Early Preview of NIO ES8+ NIO EC7”. As an ES6 owner, Chen Han has long been envious of ET5 and ES7, and after experiencing the new cars in advance, he exclaimed, “It’s expensive, but that’s not the problem”!
As the flagship SUV model of NIO, the all-new ES8 is equipped with top-of-the-line hardware and configurations, making it one of the few competitors in the 500,000-yuan pure electric vehicle market. Compared to the previous generation model, the all-new ES8 has increased in length by 77mm, wheelbase by 60mm, and width by 27mm, with an overall size of 5099 * 1989 * 1750 (mm) and a wheelbase of 3070mm.
In terms of exterior design, the all-new ES8 continues NIO’s latest family design language for the second-generation platform, which is less aggressive than the previous generation model but more sophisticated and concise.
In terms of interior design, the all-new ES8 is equipped with six seats as standard, and the second row provides two layout options. The Executive version comes with an executive island and an optional in-car refrigerator, which is more focused on business, while the Standard version retains a middle aisle and the independent seats come with inner fixed armrests, which is more focused on family use.
In addition, the all-new ES8 series is equipped with front and rear dual motors with a total output of 180kW+300kW, dual-chamber air suspension, 23 speakers / 2230W enhanced 7.1.4 immersive sound system, the newly upgraded Queen Co-pilot, front and second-row seats with ventilation, heating, hot stone massage, back comfort, and memory, 5-zone independent air conditioning, six-audio zone voice interaction, N-Box enhanced entertainment system, electric suction door, intelligent multi-beam headlights, laser radar, 4 NVIDIA Orin-X autonomous driving chips, NAD NIO autonomous driving system… With all configurations fully-loaded, the luxury and comfort are well-deserved of the flagship name.
In contrast to the upscale, luxurious and stable orientation of NIO ES8, NIO EC7 obviously pursues the trend of high appearance value. The sexy streamlined body plus the stylish large tail wing make it impossible for appearance lovers to resist.
More importantly, NIO EC7 is not just a pretty face, its performance is also remarkable. EC7 has a drag coefficient of only 0.230Cd, which is the lowest in the world for a mass-produced SUV. Its zero to one hundred kilometer per hour acceleration is only 3.8 seconds, which currently is the fastest SUV produced by NIO.
In addition, the NIO EC7 series is equipped with front and rear dual motors with a total output of 180kW+300kW, air suspension, 23 speakers / 1000W 7.1.4 immersive sound system, the newly upgraded Queen Co-pilot, front row seats with ventilation, heating, massage, back comfort, and memory, second-row seats with electric backrest adjustment, heating, back comfort, electric suction door, intelligent multi-beam headlights, laser radar, 4 NVIDIA Orin-X autonomous driving chips, NAD NIO autonomous driving system, and a series of rich configurations. You can also choose to install electric dimming skylights, N-Box enhanced entertainment system, second-row seat ventilation, and massage, and other configurations.Appearance, performance and intelligence are all outstanding advantages of NIO EC7, which will be a product aimed at young or young-at-heart users, with reasons that can appeal to both emotional and rational aspects.
3. What will support NIO’s service as the sales of the cars increase?
As mentioned earlier, the complementation of energy through charging and battery swapping is absolutely fundamental, and is also the top priority to ensure that car owners can use the cars without too many worries. NIO will release its annual targets for battery swap stations and charging stations at every NIO Day and conduct a review of the construction performance of the year both to achieve a learning experience and to demonstrate it to the car owners. You can expect NIO to achieve high marks in the answer sheet of 2022.
NIO owners can now be seen across the vast land of China.
As of the end of December, NIO has built a total of 330 high-speed battery swap stations nationwide, covering 5 verticals and 3 horizontals and 7 major city clusters:
Verticals: G1 Beijing-Harbin Expressway, G2 Beijing-Shanghai Expressway, G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway, G5 Beijing-Kunming Expressway, G15 Shenyang-Haikou Expressway;
Horizontals: G50 Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway, G30 Lianyungang-Khorgos Expressway Su-Shaan Section, G60 Shanghai-Kunming Expressway Hu-Xiang Section;
7 Major City Clusters: Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing, Shandong Peninsula, Yangtze River Middle Reaches, Guanzhong Plain.
Currently, NIO has built 1,247 battery swap stations (including 330 stations along highways) and 2,167 charging stations (with 12,683 charging poles) in the Chinese market, with access to over 600,000 third-party charging poles, and has provided over 14 million battery swaps for users.
According to the official commitment, by 2023, NIO will have built more than 1,700 battery swap stations and more than 20,000 charging poles in China. Which means over 400 new swap stations and nearly 8,000 new charging poles will be built in a single annual period. There will also be more “new products” in this set of numbers, namely the third-generation battery swap station and the 500kW ultra-fast charger, which are the other two highlights of this NIO Day.#
1). NIO’s third-generation battery swap station will use a brand-new three-position collaboration swap mode, improving its service capabilities by 30% compared to the second-generation swap station, with a maximum swap capacity of 408 times per day, and further shortening the time required for a single swap.
It’s worth noting that NIO continues to invest heavily and has innovatively equipped the third-generation battery swap station with 2 LiDARs and 2 NVIDIA OrinX chips, with a total computing power of 508 TOPS, enabling the innovative function of summoning and swapping vehicles to directly meet the needs of users.
2). The new ultra-fast charging technology uses a maximum current of 650A and a maximum power of 500kW. Charging a 100kWh battery pack from 10% to 80% takes only 20 minutes at the fastest speed. The cable connecting the charging gun and the charging pile has further reduced its weight, making it easier for more female car owners to carry the charging gun with one hand.
Traditional car companies are “strengthening”, while NIO is gradually becoming stable.
Looking back at the year 2018, the domestic automobile market was still at a relatively stable level, with production and sales volume ranking first in the world for ten consecutive years. At that time, there was a chart widely circulated on the internet called the “name map”, which listed all the automobile brands in the Chinese market. Even insiders couldn’t recognize many of the logos. Of course, NIO was already ahead of its time then.
Despite the darkest moments of the following year, Li Bin even became the “unluckiest man of 2019”, NIO has stuck with its long-term strategy, withstanding the test of investors, users, and, most importantly, itself.
The investment in the battery swap station is too high? —— No, we must continue to do it, and we need to do it even more determinedly.
The operating cost for users is too high? —— No, we must provide attentive services and be a unique high-end brand in China.
The product matrix is not enough? —— Increase R&D investment, increase and accelerate the implementation of platformization, safety, intelligence, and other aspects.The financial report doesn’t look good? — After doing every little thing well, it will eventually become a big thing and naturally have a beautiful day.
As for external factors such as the environment, market, and supply chain changes, NIO still maintains stable output in terms of internal investment and R&D pace.
In November 2018, NIO announced its Q3 financial report, delivering 3,268 units of the ES8, with only one product on sale, earning a revenue of CNY 1.47 billion, while spending CNY 1.023 billion in R&D expenses.
Fast forward to November 2022, NIO announced its Q3 financial report, delivering 31,607 new vehicles, with multiple products such as ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7, ES7, and ET5 on sale, generating revenue of over CNY 13 billion and an R&D investment of CNY 2.94 billion.
“When will NIO make a profit?” was once asked of Li Bin. He responded that he hoped it would be in 2024 when the revenue and expenses are balanced. The company’s R&D investment is currently on a large scale, mainly in the areas of chips, smartphones, sub-brands, and batteries. From the perspective of retail investors, we see a rapidly developing, healthy, and promising industry pioneer, still deepening its system competitiveness and R&D strength.
“Questions will always persist, but those who believe will run towards the light.” Over the past four years, we have seen from the brand and sales perspective that NIO has transformed from self-competition to a real PK with luxury brands, and even penetrated the German market, moving from impressing themselves to impressing more people.
In fact, this is not unrelated to the external environment. In the early days, some media interpreted: In the first half of the new car game, it was about funds, founders, but not products because traditional carmakers had not yet started their efforts.
“However, with some traditional car companies starting to land their electric products, we can see more clearly that domestic EVs represented by NIO have realized an “overtaking” position. Especially high-end brands and products represented by NIO have already punched BMW and kicked Audi with a matrix-like product sequence, not to mention at the emergency-shifted Volvo and Cadillac. In the increasingly obvious delivery data and trends, NIO is no longer playing against i3 and e-tron. The new questions are “ET5 or 3 Series?” and “ES6 or Q5L?”.A few days ago in a fan group, I saw a more interesting statement: the traditional car companies did not make efforts before, and now we should thank them for starting to make efforts.
NIO is gradually stabilizing, stabilizing in its own virtuous cycle, and also in the hearts of users.
What do Chinese high-end users need?
On the evening of NIO Day’s new product launch, some media listed 24 hours of survey data online: 70% of the order users for the new ES8 were old car owners upgrading their vehicles, and 30% were old customers bringing new customers. What does this mean?
First: NIO’s customer loyalty is really high.
Second: Real car owners are always willing to recommend NIO to people around them.
This also easily triggers our thinking, because in the mass market, no brand has ever achieved such a high recognition by car owners.
I also interviewed a friend who ordered the new ES8. He is the owner of an entrepreneurial advertising company. When I asked him for three reasons to buy the new ES8, he gave me five:
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Friends and clients around him have recommended NIO to him more than once, and he was not willing to learn about it until he experienced ET7 and participated in several camping activities organized by NIO owners, all of whom were excellent entrepreneurs and corporate executives around him.
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As an SUV enthusiast, he has many choices with a car budget of 500,000 yuan, but he does not want to negotiate with traditional dealers about prices, after-sales, and license plate registration procedures. In his own words, “advertising workers need to spend more time on advertising.”
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The new ES8 fits his aesthetic sense, and its lines are different from those of EC7. Although he has not seen the real car yet, “ES8 makes me feel safe”.
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There are charging stations located within 2 kilometers of his home and 1 kilometer of his company, and he is already a “electricity-covered house” in Guangzhou.
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He fell in love with NIO LIFE’s mall.
In fact, whether it’s a person or a commodity, there can be many reasons why someone does not like it, but one reason is enough to like it.
In this bustling NIO owner’s market, the contrast between the lively booths and the freezing outdoor temperature of 0 degrees Celsius is striking. This may be the market with the largest number of car owners participating in the charity sale. All proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Red Cross Center in Hefei, where the event is held, and NIO will match the amount with a 1:1 donation. However, this information may not appear in future official promotions and may only be shared in a user community as an interaction, or as a testimony of pride for car owners by Li Bin.
In groups ranging from society, schools, and businesses to smaller groups like company departments, classes, and dormitories, the most effective way to gather people is through “culture”, or more seriously, “values”. This is also a window to understand people’s true nature.
Beyond products, what do high-end users in the Chinese auto market really need? Nothing other than love and sincerity, as they always touch people’s hearts. So let’s elongate our time together.
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.