In 2023, the domestic car retail sales over 400,000 RMB reached 730,000 units, with a year-on-year growth of 40%. LI L9 contributed 114,000 units to this data.
As LI’s flagship model launched in June 2022, L9 achieved a delivery volume of over 10,000 in the first complete sales month of new cars, and over 100,000 in the first complete sales year in 2023.
These two records not only broke the history of independent brands but also made LI the fourth brand in the Chinese automotive market to achieve a single model annual sales of over 100,000 units, after Benz, BMW, and FAW Audi. On a company level, the L9 also helped LI join the ranks of car companies with billions in revenue.
With the hot sales of L9, its focused position as a family SUV and its iconic ‘refrigerator, color TV, large sofa’ stood out leading industry trends.
On July 10, 2024, LI L9 delivered the 200,000th unit. As a young brand that has been established for only 9 years, the success achieved by LI on the L9 is phenomenal. However, the birth process of L9 was far from being as smooth as it may now seem.
The Disagreement on the Second Model
The L9 project was initiated in 2019, at this time, LI’s first model, LI ONE, has yet to be delivered.
In the early stages, LI organized employees to write down their monthly sales expectations for LI ONE. Jing Tang, the person in charge of the project’s R&D, wrote the highest number in the R&D department on the chalkboard – 5,000 units. In fact, his internal expectations for this model were only 2,000 units, but he wrote 5,000 to encourage everyone. From a contemporary perspective, this precautionary number actually reflected realistically how people viewed domestic cars attacking the high-end market.
When the project for the second model was launched, LI indicated that the new car should be an SUV larger than the LI ONE and priced close to 500,000 RMB. Jing Tang’s initial reaction was that this clearly contradicted the logic people had for making cars.
His concerns can be condensed into three points.
First, the market scale of full-size SUVs was not large in China at the time. Even as industry benchmarks, Benz GLS and BMW X7 had a monthly sales figure of around a thousand units.
Second, he was worried that after selling the car at the price point of Benz, BMW and FAW Audi, consumers would find it difficult to accept the LI brand or more accurately, they would psychologically reject domestic cars.
Third, LI ONE was already a fairly large mid-to-large SUV at the time. It was common practice in the industry to quickly develop a smaller, cheaper model based on the existing ones. This not only shortens development time but also reduces cost pressures and makes it easier for new cars to sell in volume.
However, against this reasoning, LI chose to do the opposite. Furthermore, he told Tang that he believes this model’s monthly sales could reach 10,000 units. But in Tang’s heart, his initial sales expectation for the L9 was even lower than that for the LI ONE.Given the pessimism towards the future of the L9, Jing Tang once discussed with Xiao Zhang about persuading Li Xiang not to launch the L9 just yet, but to quickly release a smaller SUV. After all, a more common and rational industry practice was NIO, the first of the new forces, made ES6 after ES8.
Looking back now, Tang believes that Li Xiang’s accurate judgment of market trends and the industry was the prerequisite for the success of the L9. What affected Tang the most, however, was a more engineering mindset. On the LI ONE, due to time, budget and various other constraints, the team still had a lot of things that were not done to the extreme in the product, thus leaving many regrets, such as McPherson suspension and 1.2 T three-cylinder range extender.
Li Xiang himself demands high quality products. The L9, as the company’s flagship SUV, is bound to have a huge challenge. But as the project leader, Tang, thinking of how the team will have more opportunities to work on the L9, which is higher in positioning and has a new architecture, also starts to feel a bit excited and expectant.
Forced into Being the Global First
I just don’t believe that Chinese people can’t make it. If we can’t make it, I won’t go public or deliver at all.
In late June 2022, a month away from the official delivery of the L9, the air suspension of a test drive vehicle unexpectedly burst, causing negative public opinion to spread.
At that time, the L9’s air suspension had selected three suppliers, two of which were domestic and one was from a well-established European supplier. After investigation, the air suspension that had issues on the test drive vehicle was from the European supplier.
In such a situation, Lee Xiang, who was filled with emotion, decisively said the opening harsh words in front of the anxious team.
Years back, air suspension, which can adjust the height of the vehicle and improve ride comfort, was something distant from mainstream consumers and could only be found on luxury imported vehicles or cooperative brands priced at a million.
Some ambitious Chinese car manufacturers wanted to make more domestic consumers use this configuration and took the first step in making air suspension popular, despite the pressure of cost, like NIO’s first-generation ES8 and ZEEKR 001.
However, because the domestic air suspension suppliers were not experienced enough in mass production and their reputation in the industry was not as good as the German suppliers, the air suspension for most of the domestic vehicles was still imported.
So, when Li Xiang proposed that the L9 standardize air suspension and prepare for a monthly starting capacity of 40,000 air suspension for monthly sales exceeding ten thousand, he immediately faced serious doubt. Jing Tang said that he had no confidence in these projections at the time, but he was willing to give it everything he had, largely out of trust for Li Xiang.
It was so even within the company, let alone suppliers.
At first, LI also contacted the two best German suppliers in the world to discuss the air suspension project. One of them said they could provide an existing full set solution which LI could adapt to its own bodies. But the hidden message was that they would not provide a tailored solution if it didn’t fit, it would be up to you.
The other was more interested, recognized the L series products and said they could offer some customized solutions, but with limited staff and resources, they would not be ready until March 2023. The L series from LI was to be delivered in Q3 2022, six months later in time.Aside from the timing constraints, the biggest disagreement was regarding production capacity. “LI” suggested a demand for floating supply to meet a monthly output of 10,000 units.
However, the supplier believed that a car priced near 500,000 could only sell about 5,000 units at most in a month. Considering various factors, the supplier eventually decided not to prep according to LI’s request.
LI then proposed that their upcoming L series was expected to reach a monthly sale of 30,000 units and suggested establishing a factory domestically. LI also expressed their willingness to partner closely with the supplier, investing in production lines and such.
However, the supplier rationally pointed out that even if LI were willing to invest, they couldn’t cover all project expenses. Setting up a factory and stocking up based on LI’s demand, but not selling up to that scale, would result in significant losses.
The supplier’s logic was rational and realistic, and not particularly targeting LI. After all, why should a newly established, relatively unknown Chinese start-up with an uncertain profitability request for a higher production capacity than “Benz”, “BMW”, “FAW Audi” from a top floating supplier globally?
Thwarted in these negotiations, LI started seeking potential domestic suppliers, primarily Kong Hui and Baolong.
After the test-drive car’s suspension explosion incident, many within the company, including Tang Jing, believed it was best to resolve the problem first and then continue cooperation with the German supplier. With the official delivery of the L9 just over a month away, time was incredibly tight.
However, Li Xiang didn’t share this view. He argued that, for this German supplier to produce the suspension, semi-finished products needed to be transferred from Germany to Mexico for assembly, then back to Germany, and finally to China. The long chain of manufacturing, transportation, and supply was uncontrollable and unlikely to sustain large-scale deliveries. Thus, he made the decision to abandon the German supplier and turned entirely to domestic production, expressing his faith in Chinese workers with the phrase: “Not believing that the Chinese can’t do it”.
Following this, the heavy responsibility of L9 air suspension production was transferred to Kong Hui. Facing massive orders and challenges, Kong Hui, as a fellow Chinese automaker, not only believed in the possibility of LI L9 achieving 10,000 units per month but also voluntarily pledged:
I will give my full support to LI air suspension development, overcoming all difficulties and ensuring the timely achievement of goals without making any excuses.
To ensure quality enhancement and production capacity before the official start of L9 deliveries, LI dispatched a team to Kong Hui’s facility for technical problem-solving and simultaneous supervision of supply chain and production line management.
Over the span of more than a month, both the LI and Kong Hui teams were all out racing against time. The suspension test cars barely stopped running in that period, allowing no respite for the vehicles. Tang Jing, recalling this experience, expressed his respect for the commitment of the quality engineers and test engineers who worked relentlessly around the clock in three shifts for nearly two months.Jing Tang believes the key to this process was unified goal-oriented efforts among everyone, regardless from within LI or among suppliers. It was as though they were a couple starting a business from scratch, with no alternatives or much to lose, their sole option was to pull together and strive.
In the end, thanks to the collaboration between local car manufactures and supply chain, the project overcame numerous obstacles and successfully launched. The quality requirements for locally manufactured suspension products were rather rigorous:
- Factory automation rate: 92%;
- Air spring skin buckle allowance: 0.01 millimeters;
- Whole line air spring airtightness inspection;
- After the whole line inspection, the suspension is left standing for 24 hours and then rechecked.
Far from inferior, the quality of suspension products born out of this arrangement exceeds industry standards, boasting a failure rate only one-twentieth of the industry average. To this day, there have been no instances of suspension explosions in LI. As LI L9 and succeeding models fly off the shelves, the two local suspension suppliers pinpointed by LI have quickly reached first and third in the global suspension shipment volume, propelled to the front of world suppliers.
Looking back now at the accident of the burst test vehicle suspension, those at LI mostly express relief.
Jing Tang believes that considering the test results and the many circumstances along the manufacturing chain, problems with the German supplier’s suspension were bound to arise sooner or later. It’s a lucky break that the issue was revealed timely. If the issue had emerged after a large-scale delivery, it would have been disastrous.
High-end automotive brands in one country usually also give rise to high-end parts industries. The mutual prosperity of LI and Kong Hui is also a representative miniature of local cars and supply chains mutually propping up and jointly rising in the era of new energy.
Greater Limits, Superior Products
A Bridge’s Relationship with BMW X7
It may seem a little odd, but L9’s NVH achieving par with industry-leading models actually has some connection with a bridge under construction near Li Xiang’s residential area.
At the testing phase before L9’s delivery, Li Xiang was driving the L9 home as usual, when he felt that road noise was more pronounced than in his frequently driven BMW X7 while crossing a bridge. He then had the development team conduct an actual test on this bridge.
The test data confirmed Li Xiang’s feelings were not mistaken, which displeased him. This is because when setting the initial NVH development target for LI L9, Li Xiang’s instruction was “it must surpass BMW X7”.
Herein lies the question: for a feature with 10 performance evaluation indicators, how many items surpassing the competitor’s product is considered “surpassing”? Jing Tang understood it as scoring higher overall than competitors. However, Li Xiang felt it should perform better than X7 in every aspect.
But it is obviously unrealistic to completely overcome such an industry-leading product as the X7. In fact, LI’s R&D team collected 189 NVH related indicators on the BMW X7. During engineering research and development, Jing Tang initially set the objective to have 85% of the NVH markers superior to BMW X7, permitting the remaining 15% to be slightly worse off than X7.After relentless efforts from the R&D team, the L9 has, without a doubt, met expectations. For the NVH requirement, Li Xiang desired not just quietness, but to such an extent that even the sound of pebbles hitting the wheel arches and chassis on a gravel road should be soft and non-irritating.
However, such granular test still didn’t match the volume of samples in the real world. The construction bridge mentioned at the beginning of this section brought the noise optimization of the L9 to the agenda, but the challenge this time for the R&D team was time.
At that time, the LI L9 was in the final stages before delivery and some customers had already locked their orders. The R&D team had to solve this issue against the clock, and finally completed the improvements before the official delivery, while the production team also timely made adjustments to it. The cost of modifying a single car under the new scheme increased by more than a hundred yuan.
Ultimately, the bridge under construction also became a common scene for LI’s R&D team to test NVH, and the sound of road noise continued until the L6. However, the construction of the bridge deck has been completed recently, and in the eyes of the R&D team, this is a kind of “mission accomplished” for the bridge.
When faced with a choice, choose not to choose if you can
When faced with challenges like exceeding the NVH of a BMW X7, whether to move forward or backward, in most cases, Tang Jing would choose the former with his team. Yet, at the beginning of the project, there were times when Tang Jing wavered, the most notable instance being related to the four-cylinder range extender.
For the L9, using a four-cylinder range extender was a conundrum due to space arrangement. The transversely mounted 1.5T four-cylinder extender was wider and the double-wishbone suspension and air springs took up more lateral space on both sides. It was impossible to accommodate all of them in the front cabin space at that time.
After trying various ideas and making no progress, Tang Jing wavered. Around 10 o’clock one evening, he finally called the chief engineer, Ma Donghui, expressing his intention to continue using the 1.2T three-cylinder range extender and suggest some improvements.
On one hand, there was not enough space, but on the other, Tang Jing knew that this was not the best solution. The 1.2T three-cylinder range extender used by the previous LI ONE lacked good driving experience and NVH. As a mid-to-large size SUV costing more than 300,000, the LI ONE had received a lot of criticism in this regard.
If the L9, cost over 400,000, continued to use the extender, it would undoubtedly lead to even more dissatisfaction.
In response to this issue, Ma Donghui made his position clear to Tang Jing: the L9 must use a 1.5T four-cylinder range extender, even if it meant breaking their heads over it.
What followed was Tang Jing continuing to guide the team to tackle the problem. On one hand, he minimalized the unused space in the front row as much as possible to create more redundant space in the front cabin. On the other hand, the team also changed the location of engine suspension.
Normally, the suspension is hung above the longitudinal beam. To increase lateral space, the new plan drilled a hole in the beam and put the suspension inside. This is how they made room for the 1.5T four-cylinder range extender in the L9.However, installing a range extender is not the end of the task. For instance, how do you ensure the structural safety of the vehicle after making a hole in the longitudinal beam?
Jing Tang and his team had to tackle these issues one by one, continuously iterating on their solutions. Ultimately, the L9’s front compartment layout became more integrated. Not only did it accommodate a four-cylinder range extender, but it also became the first large SUV in the industry to conduct a dual-sided 25% offset collision test and receive a G-grade. This move prompted the China Insurance Research Institute (CIRI) to include the right-side 25% offset collision in its standard planning.
Reflecting on this experience, Tang felt that sometimes you only realize your own limits and those of your team when there is no way out – only then can you create a truly extreme product.
For “veteran staff” like Tang Jing, the mentality of constantly challenging limits has gradually formed since the inception of LI ONE, to the point that it’s almost a motto written into the organization’s mission – to control one’s fate and challenge growth limits. Each successful challenge gradually shapes this mentality into an organizational culture of the LI team.
Initially, the pressure from the top of the company was the primary external driver. But as time goes on, this pressure transforms into an internal motivation for unyielding pursuit of product quality and customer value.
The One Who Argues with the Boss
Tang Jing has been through this.
In an elevator after work one day, he and Lixiang argued over the 220V power socket inside the car.
Tang believed that the socket should be placed on the steps of the third row of seats. If positioned in the second row, a cable could trip a passenger, and above the socket is the second-row cup holder. If any liquid spills during the drive, it would pose a safety risk.
From an engineering standpoint, placing the socket in the third row would also be more conducive to wiring. Plus, if gaming consoles or other devices are used, they could be placed in the aisle between the second and third rows.
Lixiang didn’t agree with Tang’s point of view. He thought the 220V socket should be placed under the air conditioning control panel in the second row. He believed customers would prefer that location, and even accused Tang of lacking a customer-oriented mindset and not understanding users’ needs.
Yet the tables turned. About half an hour after stepping out of the elevator, Lixiang called Tang, acknowledging that the socket should indeed be placed in the third row.
LI’s team consists of engineers like Tang who dare to stick to their convictions and engage in heated debates with Lixiang.
This occurs partly because, through the practical experience gained during the LI ONE period, team members of LI have come to understand each other better and developed a deeper rapport. On the other hand, the organizational structure of LI at the time also gave engineers who dared to voice their dissent the space for expressing their viewpoint and the environment to thrive.
In such circumstances, even those who join LI later on can bring their full potential to the table powered by robust self-motivation, express their ideas, and gain respect – just like how the exterior design of the L9 came about.When initially designing the exterior of the L9, two proposals were presented to Li Xiang: one with a front grille design similar to the LI ONE, reminiscent of traditional luxury fuel cars; the other designed by Benjamin Baum, who only joined LI in August 2020, much closer to the closed-front design we see today. In terms of personal preference, Li Xiang preferred the former.
However, Benjamin Baum was not willing to simply adhere to Li’s personal preference and persisted in convincing him to adopt his design.
Because Benjamin Baum believed that although the front grille design was classic and likely to withstand the test of the market once released, it wouldn’t withstand the test of time in the long run. In his view, his closed-front design would become a ‘friend of time’.
Faced with Benjamin Baum’s insistence, Li Xiang finally chose the closed-front design proposal.
Furthermore, when deciding on whether the sunshade for the skylight and the switches for the rear screens should be manual or electric, conflicts arose between Li Xiang and the engineers.
On this issue, Li Xiang wanted a manual approach, but to Tang Jing and the other engineers, it seemed egregious that a cabin filled with electric switches such as the L9’s could have manual switches for the sunroof and rear screens.
If they chose the manual approach, the engineers’ work would be much simpler, but it would be more troublesome for the users; if they went with the electric approach, the engineers would have to spend extra effort solving engineering problems, like how to arrange laser radars and electric switches in the limited roof space to realize electric sun shades.
Despite the simplicity of the manual approach, and Li Xiang’s agreement with that simplicity, the engineers, driven by their pursuit of the product, still convinced Li Xiang to accept their idea, even if the electric approach was more complicated and demanded more of their efforts.
As these events unfold, it’s clear that Li Xiang’s personal will also faces challenges in the development process of the L9. Compared to their boss’s authority and personal will, some ‘thorny’ employees care more about whether the product is closer to perfection and resonates with users’ values. As Tang Jing told us:
We are not the type of people who simply satisfy Li Xiang’s personal demands and needs as the highest mission.
Thus, when the high-demanding Li Xiang joins these highly committed engineers at LI, some very daring, high-risk innovations will emerge, no matter how difficult it is to realize them.
Is It Right Because It’s Always Been Like That?
When The Fridge Is No Longer Just For The Boss’s Champagne
A supplier of rear-mounted fridges for Mercedes-Benz S-Class never expected that one day a call would come from a strange automaker called LI to order fridges.
What surprised this supplier even more was that after LI’s L9, equipped with its own fridge, became a hit, many car manufacturers called to discuss orders, all with the same demand:>We need the fridge, specifically the one for L9.
As illustrated by this scenario, the fridge, a feature previously unique to a limited spectrum of premium cars, quickly gained popularity and became an explosive hit after its introduction with L9. Now, fridges have effectively broken through the price barrier and can be spotted in vehicles ranging from high-end luxury to mid-range.
Driven by L9, what was once a luxury-only feature, the fridge, has becoming a commonplace configuration. However, it’s important to note that the fridges here need further specification – they are compressor fridges.
Before L9, mechanically-cooled fridges were prevalent in the industry as they had lower costs, smaller sizes, and lighter weights. Yet, their cooling efficiency and temperature controlling capacity were mediocre, delivering a less-than-satisfactory user experience.
Despite the superior cooling efficiency and temperature control of compressor fridges, they pose a user-unfriendly stumbling block the industry has yet to tackle – noise.
The noise of the compressor can be experienced more or less through our home fridges or AC units. However, when such noise occurs in a space as small as a vehicle interior, it becomes quite unpleasant.
The fridge supplier LI chose for Benz S indeed provided compressor fridges, but these were located in the trunk, and the compressor noise could be drowned out by the engine noise during driving, making the noise issue not so apparent.
Yet, for LI, the fridge was to be placed in the passenger cabin, with L9 often operating purely electrically, any significant noise from the compressor would be hard to escape user’s ears, greatly compromising their driving experience – something LI wouldn’t tolerate.
In fact, when starting to select which type of fridge to use, Jing Tang first looked at the mechanically-cooled fridges. However, for the sake of better user experience, Tang opted for the compressor fridge without hesitation.
The supplier, having no experience with NVH issues, was at a loss. They indicated to LI that they weren’t experts on noise and were open to whatever LI wanted to do.
Ironically, LI was unfamiliar with the noise issue of fridges too and could not immediately find a solution either, causing the project to temporarily stall. Owing to this, Tang once fell into self-doubt wondering if the problem could ever be solved and if a compressor fridge was still necessary.
In order to tackle the noise issue, Tang brought together experts in NVH, AC compressors, drive motors, and interior design. After running a thousand iterations and tests, they eventually managed to solve the compressor noise issue.
Interestingly, no matter how much effort was expended on the fridge, even right up to the mass production of L9, Tang never fully appreciated the significance of the fridge for the L9. Tang felt that the fridge was indeed a selling point for L9, but its actual value was questionable.
What’s even more interesting is that initially, when Li wanted to design a fridge, Tang’s first instinct was to object. Because in his mind, car fridges were synonymous with the built-in wine cooler placed in the second row of luxury saloons, a drastic mismatch with L9’s family car positioning.It wasn’t until Tang Jing himself suggested the L9 and actually used it that he realised how perfectly its refrigerator fit with this mobile home.
Once, Tang Jing went to pick up his son from school. He had bought a burger ahead of time and placed it in the hotbox (it was winter then, so the fridge had been turned into a hotbox). When he saw his son taking out a piping hot burger from the L9’s hotbox and eating it with joy, Tang Jing felt a satisfaction from seeing his family happy that was off the charts.
Like Jobs said, don’t ask consumers what they want. A company’s objective is to create those demands that consumers need but cannot describe or articulate. Often, due to the constraints of fixed thinking, if there is no real experience, not to mention users, even developers themselves might not realise how much they need a configuration like a refrigerator.
In fact, the initial decision to put a refrigerator on the L9 was just Li’s personal idea, without market research or team discussion. In Li’s view, a refrigerator is a configuration that users have difficulty thinking of but is very necessary in actual vehicle use.
Of course, in breaking through the constraints of rigid thinking, there is often the risk of falling into the vortex of problems with few precedents to follow, putting oneself in a predicament. But from another perspective, the fewer precedents there are, the fewer restrictions there are, and the more freely one can go about it.
The missing instrument panel
When Li decided to add the brand logo on the steering wheel at the request of users, Tang Jing was very stressed.
Perhaps many people have forgotten that in early March 2022, before the L9 was launched, LI revealed a set of interior pictures of the L9. Users generally felt very uncomfortable after seeing that set of pictures because there was no brand logo on the L9’s steering wheel. So, many users suggested that LI add the brand logo back.
After seeing the users’ demand, Li quickly assigned a task to his team to add the brand logo back to the steering wheel. This put Tang Jing in a difficult position.
It turned out that Tang Jing was handling another challenging problem at the time, and this problem was also on the steering wheel.
In order to make it more convenient for users to use some car control functions, LI drew on the idea of Apple’s Touch Bar and designed a small screen similar to the Touch Bar on the steering wheel, which is now the interactive screen seen on all LI product steering wheels.
However, at that time, the design of installing an interactive screen on the steering wheel was unprecedented in the industry. This design is indeed avant-garde, but it would bring a very serious problem – safety.
After all, when a vehicle experiences an extreme collision, the airbag must explode from the steering wheel to protect the driver’s safety. If there are other items on the steering wheel at the moment the airbag pops out, it could potentially bring more serious damage to the driver.
Therefore, if LI wants to put an interactive screen on the steering wheel for the first time in history, it must solve safety issues completely.When deciding to make the steering wheel an interactive screen, LI also made a decision to remove the brand logo that has always been in the center of the steering wheel and present it in a digital form on the interactive screen.
Therefore, based on this decision, LI did not consider the physical brand logo at all when designing the safety airbag explosion scheme for the L9. If they recklessly add the brand logo to the steering wheel, it can potentially be projected towards the driver like shrapnel when the safety airbag pops out, the consequences of which are unimaginable.
This makes it not hard to understand why, when Li Xiang proposed to add the brand logo to the steering wheel at the request of the user, Tang Jing called it a difficult task. Because at that time, Tang Jing not only needed to solve the safety problem brought by the steering wheel interactive screen but also had to solve the safety problem caused by the added brand logo.
After long-term research and program iteration, Tang Jing and the engineers finally found a solution: on the one hand, they used an aluminum casting to fix the steering wheel interactive screen, enabling it to withstand the impact of safety airbag explosion. On the other hand, they optimized the path of the safety airbag explosion so that it could cleverly avoid the brand logo when popping out.
However, the trouble didn’t end there. Similar problems also arose with the L9’s co-driver screen due to LI’s innovation.
Initially, Li Xiang didn’t want to equip the L9 with a dual screen that we see now, but just wanted a 15.7-inch central control screen. The reason why it eventually got a dual screen is because before the final decision, one of the colleagues in the development team put a dual screen directly onto the interior decoration. That’s when everyone in the development team, including Li Xiang, realized that the dual screen was what they really wanted.
But the dual screen brought a new problem — safety, always safety.
The development team discovered that the position of the dual screen was about 1.5 cm higher than the dashboard. This means when a collision risk occurs, the co-driver screen could potentially block the normal explosion of the airbag and also shatter the screen. This could not only fail to protect the passenger effectively, but also put them in more danger.
Therefore, if a co-driver screen is to be implemented, the development team must ensure that the safety airbag can explode over the screen without damaging it. The difficulty in solving this was later described by Tang Jing as ‘extremely challenging’.
Interestingly, in the design of the entire front cabin, the most profound change affecting the user driving experience, replacing the dashboard with a HUD, was without mystery.
In fact, as early as the LI ONE, LI was prepared to use a HUD.
Because the HUD doesn’t require users to lower their heads to look at it during travel, it can keep their sightline always on the road, so it can improve driving safety as compared to the dashboard that needs to be looked down on. However, at that time the quality of the HUD was not enough to provide an excellent experience for users, so LI first adopted a dashboard configuration for the LI ONE.
When developing the L9, this situation greatly improved — HUD technology had advanced a further step, with both image clarity and quality stability showing impressive performance. At this point, LI directly equipped the L9 with a HUD.Note, during the whole process, LI never struggled with the simultaneous existence of the instrument panel and HUD. This is because, from LI’s perspective, the HUD is just another instrument panel.
Looking back at the design of the entire front cabin, in order to bring some novel and valuable experiences to the L9 users, LI never tires of solving one problem after another. In today’s fickle public opinion environment, if the L9 succeeds, then all that LI has done is right. If it fails, then it’s all just LI’s pipe dream.
Just like everyone at LI believes that the HUD is an instrument panel, it doesn’t mean the users think the same. In reality, most users are accustomed to the presence of the instrument panel. Replacing it with a HUD means that LI’s users will have to change some of their driving habits to adapt to the L9, even passively.
After hearing these stories, we asked Jung Tang why he took such a risk to innovate the design of the front cabin. Isn’t he worried that users won’t like the L9 after it goes on sale?
Jung Tang’s answer was straightforward; he said he never worried that users wouldn’t like it. He himself is the target customer of the L9 and is very excited when facing such innovative design. He also said that his motivation to build cars is to make himself excited when buying the car.
Facing the Toughest Opponent
On July 4, 2022, the AITO M7, representative of Huawei’s preferred cars, officially went on sale, with prices closely following the LI ONE. After going on sale, the AITO M7 has had a huge impact on the sales of the LI ONE. On one hand, the sales of the LI ONE plummeted; on the other hand, the L9 hasn’t yet been delivered, putting considerable pressure on LI.
Fortunately, the LI L9 achieved a delivery volume of 10,123 units in September 2022, the first full delivery month, acting as a vital boost for the company.
During that time, Li Xiang reflected that the good sales of the LI ONE depended more on luck than on strength. LI was actually like a guerrilla force hitting all over the place during the LI ONE period. Once it came to a large-scale positional battle, it immediately fell apart. Therefore, at the Yanqi Lake Conference in late September, Li Xiang called for all staff at LI to learn from Huawei and quickly upgrade to a Huawei-style matrix organization, “capable of conducting positional warfare, and completely leaving guerrilla warfare behind.”
Then, without stopping, LI rushed to go public and started delivering the replacement model for LI ONE, the L8, on September 30, reversing the competitive situation with the M7. The M7 later entered a low point in sales due to collision safety issues in late 2022, and Huawei’s car BU also entered a bottleneck period.
However, this phase didn’t last too long. In 2023, Huawei’s car BU rallied, re-attracting market and user attention to AITO due to breakthroughs in intelligent driving. It also gained unprecedented public support by breaking through the U.S.’s technical blockade with the Kirin 9000S chip.With a series of technological investments made by Huawei’s car BU and the synergistic operation of various resources, the remodeled AITO M7, which significantly lowered its price in early September 2023, was launched, garnering a large amount of orders and becoming AITO’s first hit model.
At this stage, the automobile industry finally witnessed the tangible results of Huawei’s strong organizational ability. An unprecedented sense of pressure and tension was also felt within LI.
After the new M7, AITO continued its victory and launched the AITO M9 in December 2023, causing LI and AITO to once again compete in the market above 400,000.
Although the price of L9 is lower than that of M9, the users they target are not sensitive to the difference of thousands in price. With the added advantage of the Huawei brand and intelligent driving, M9 managed to occupy the 500,000-level SUV market, with total orders exceeding 100,000 so far, and deliveries reaching 17,241 units in June this year, surpassing the highest monthly sales of LI L9 by a large margin.
In Tang Jing’s view, the brand wealth accumulated by Huawei over the years backs AITO. As a technology company standing at the top of the global mainstream consumer field, Huawei’s brand influence and user base are hard for new power brands like LI. In the competition with AITO, Li’s core advantage is product creation—daring to innovate and perfecting the experience and details.
The presence of M9 undoubtedly adds considerable competitive pressure to L9, but at the same time, it also gives LI more motivation to continue to improve the product force of L9. Tang Jing stated that LI has achieved great success with L9, but without M9, perhaps LI would rest on its past successes. For LI, AITO is not only a powerful competitor, but also a teacher worth learning from.
For LI and AITO, only when in a continuous state of competition will there be a steady stream of innovative inspirations and motivation to polish products. More valuable is that the achievements brought about by the competition of leading companies can to some extent become the indicator of industry development, allowing excellent product experiences to be popularized to more users and ultimately driving the entire industry upward.
In the end
L9 was initially almost implemented against all people’s doubts by Li Xiang. At that time, it was undoubtedly a pipe dream for independent brands to achieve monthly sales of 10,000 in the high-end market above 400,000.
In Li Xiang’s view, L9 has the potential to achieve monthly sales of 10,000, and LI should continue to move upward after LI ONE, starting with L9 to create stronger platform capabilities.
Looking back at the process of L9 from project initiation to development and then becoming a hot model, LI broke the routine and led the trend of the times in many links of product definition and innovation, with the LI team and supplier partners constantly challenging.
The stalwart support of the domestic supply chain is indispensable in this, and with the success of L9 and the entire L series, LI has also promoted the further rise of independent brands and the high-endization of domestic automobile supply chains.L9 stands testament to the ambition and courage of Chinese automakers, and following the LI ONE, it has clarified the vast potential of the high-end domestic SUV market to other companies. This is not merely a simple accumulation of “refrigerators, televisions, large sofas”, but a product definition approach centered on user value that is very worth learning.
In its early days on the market, L9 had virtually no competitors. However, with the passage of time, new rivals and competing models have emerged, causing the novelty of the L9 to decline and expectations of the product to rise. This has put LI’s ability to innovate to the test.
Faced with an increasingly competitive market, Tang Jing has a very calm attitude. Having been tempered by the LI ONE and L series, he is full of confidence in the future of the company. LI has recently completed a new round of organizational structure adjustments. In Tang Jing’s view, after the new round of organizational structure adjustments, a number of people have emerged who have the ability to “argue” with Li Xiang. The brain of the company has become richer, which will further contribute to creating an ultimate product experience.
Li Xiang believes that to be a continuously successful company and produce continuously successful products, it is not enough to rely solely on generating novelty for products. The core still lies in creating user value, and the core user value that LI creates is “high-quality companionship” from a family perspective.
This is the path LI embarked on from the ONE era, which has been further developed with the L9 and will continue down this path even further. Additionally, Liu Jie, the president of the product line, believes that the partners who join later will also undergo a process from “seeing” to “believing”.
This article is a translation by AI of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.