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Author: Tram Chief
Car Image: Geeker 001 Owner Jz
In the second half of the new car manufacturing era, some car companies have been seriously injured on the battlefield, some car companies are slightly injured and cannot retreat, and some car companies are still charging on the front line. These stories are truly exciting.
I don’t know when it started. The first day of each month has become the “New Car Manufacturing Day”: collectively announcing the delivery volume of the previous month.
Perhaps it is logically derived from the convenience and speed of data statistics brought by the direct sales model; Or perhaps because the new car manufacturers all want to speak earlier and faster, and they can bring volume in terms of rankings, year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter changes without spending money. For car companies that sell well and dare to speak out, they can also provide more bullets and materials for the sales port, so why not do it.
The Time When New Cars are Rolled Up
Last Friday, on July 1st, Geeker first announced the delivery volume of Geeker 001 for June: 4,302 units. This number is basically the same as last month. Thus, the delivery volume of Geeker 001 single model officially exceeded 25,000 units.
On the morning of that day, I sent the Geeker sales poster to the company’s editing department work group. My colleagues exclaimed: it was released at 9 o’clock, which is too fast, isn’t it?
Yeah, it’s really exciting, especially for us who are deeply engaged in the new car industry. A group of new car manufacturers, from R&D to marketing, are all revolutionizing in an efficient way of the Internet. They are not only planning for the future, but also for the present. Some car companies and some people are for survival, and some are for dreams.
Empathy- these two words are the most unavoidable objective writing sources for automotive authors based on personal emotions and preferences. Even if the product has soul and temperature, sales volume and delivery volume will always be cold numbers.
Therefore, since delivery volume has started to climb and supply chain problems have gradually been solved, many people have seen visible changes in Geeker – it seems to have changed from black-and-white to color. That’s why more and more fans are asking me in the user group, “What is Geeker like?”
Shortly after Geeker announced its delivery volume on July 1st, I posted a Weibo to collect more questions from fans –
After collecting the questions, I will share them with everyone at the end of the article. More importantly, I will share with you today’s short article – “Geeker 001 on the front line”.Actually, regardless of whether it’s “Zeekr” or “Weiai XiaoLi”, there are only a few car brands we can recognize and see real cars, such as NETA Zero Run, AEON, Jihoo, Voyah and Huawei WENJIE, and more new car-making forces have sunk – even no longer a force, let alone being called old.
Even though XPeng Motors has achieved monthly, quarterly and semi-annual delivery champions, it still faces many unknown difficulties.
During the past three or four years, Weiai XiaoLi experienced the difficult moment of “from 0 to 1”. In 2019, He XPeng and Li Bin even had the opportunity to merge and “join hands to overcome difficulties” in Hong Kong, which was the darkest moment of the new forces in car manufacturing.
But in my opinion, in the “new car-making” pattern composed of the five tigers of new car-making forces and brands incubated by traditional car companies, it has just opened the curtain.
The competition for talent, the scramble for the supply chain, the tearing of product definition, the multi-dimensional intersection of brand positioning, and even the bullish or bearish sentiment of the capital market have made them what they are.
In the second half of the new car-making era, some car companies have been seriously injured and have left the battlefield, some car companies have been slightly injured and have not retreated from the frontline, and some car companies are still charging ahead on the front line. These stories are really exciting. We will talk about them in another article in the future (delayed!).
So, in this exciting era, what is Zeekr doing? What is the objective positioning of Zeekr 001? What does Zeekr want to be, what does it want to create, and what will it deliver?
Behind 25,000 Units
When we turn back the clock to the beginning of last year, not long after the Zeekr brand was released, Zeekr 001, which carried the diamond key, officially debuted. Once released, it attracted a lot of attention, and many young people or fuel car owners who wanted to try something new placed orders. Even two XPeng car owners around me were also considering buying a Zeekr car.
However, under the objective difficulties of the epidemic, chip supply shortages, pre-embedded hardware supply pressures, and suspension supply ruptures of Weiback air, Zeekr really felt the “newness and sourness of new car-making”.
“Users have expectations, and we have demands.” I think these ten words can summarize the journey of Zeekr 001 from 0 delivery to 500, 5000, 10,000 units, and now over 25,000 units. I remember chatting with the Zeekr Public Relations team once, and we talked about this: “There are no shortcuts on the path one must take, and there are no detours in the pits one must avoid.”
In the past, Zeekr’s greatest difficulties came from itself, but not entirely from itself. Two examples can be cited to illustrate this.1）Geek+ adheres to the long-termism, such as enhancing the resale value of the Geek+ 001 used cars through hardware embedding to improve brand value. Many top-notch hardware are embedded in the products during production and manufacturing. When Black Swan events occur, even the strong supply system and negotiation capabilities of Geely cannot solve the supply problem instantly. Shortage of supply is the inevitable pain of long-termism facing short-term force majeure.
2）Geek+ adheres to user thinking, such as in the “Third Track” that Geek+ insists on, they want users to truly participate in the development of the enterprise, from providing services and simple interaction to upgrading to real participation and co-creation, as user needs and creativity continue to evolve (in short). This is a great vision, but it also means that users will not give Geek+ rookie camp preferential treatment and directly become SSS-level customers.
When “long-termism” meets “user thinking”, you can tell from eight words that this matter is “life-or-death”. But Geek+, born with a diamond key in their mouth, has not disappointed people. In the just-past second quarter, Geek+’s delivery status has shown a stable state, with an overall delivery trend improving. There should be a significant breakthrough in the second half of the year.
Behind the delivery of 25,000 units, it is actually a microcosm of the New Car makers’ survival moment. Currently, the average order price of Geek+ 001 is RMB 335,000, ranking first in the single-model delivery volume of Chinese brands in the luxury pure electric market (above RMB 300,000) in May.
In addition to the firm price of new car sales, Geek+ 001 also performs well in the second-hand market. A friend of the author, a well-known blogger @UncleXiaoTe, sold his Geek+ 001 for RMB 34.8 million after owning it for half a year with a mileage of 8,000 kilometers. The resale value was 93.39%, and RMB 32.5 million was only the buyback price offered by a car dealer. Although it is not ruled out that some impatient car owners may be willing to buy a second-hand quasi-new car at the original price, it also indirectly verifies the product reputation of Geek+ 001 from the perspective of product strength.
Behind the delivery of 25,000 units is actually the courage of Geek+ to fight to the death, as well as the recognition of 25,000 users and 25,000 families.
The beautiful changes are happening.
Viral Growth
A month ago, I wrote an article titled “Doubling deliveries in May, hanging in June, and the next step for Xpeng is bravery without fear” (click to view).
If it wasn’t for checking the data, I almost wrote the title of today’s article as “Bravery Without Fear” again. On June 1st, Xpeng announced its latest delivery data for Xpeng P7: “In May, Xpeng delivered 4,330 P7s, a doubled MoM increase, and a new historical high for monthly deliveries.”
In an interview at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Auto Show, Steven (Zhao Yuhui, Vice President of Xpeng) said that Xpeng is still accelerating in terms of car delivery and in-car experience. For example, the supply speed of air suspension has been greatly improved this year, and the air suspension parts can soon cover orders until 2022.
In terms of the delivery process, a vehicle that comes off the line on May 30th may already be in the hands of users on May 31st. After streamlining the overall product lifecycle management and adopting a user-centric concept, Xpeng’s user recommendation rate has reached 35-40%, far exceeding the industry average and approaching that of NIO.
Fission has become a keyword for Xpeng’s current development stage. Let’s share from three perspectives.
1) User fission. With the gradually increasing user recommendation rate and high product reputation, more and more users are becoming Xpeng volunteers or promoters.
2) Organizational fission. For example, after the organizational structure support needed for running smoothly on the “Third Circuit,” Xpeng launched the “User Ecological Committee” as a high-frequency internal weekly meeting with multi-level participation. In the words of Steven Zhao Yuhui, “you can argue till you turn blue in the face,” but it’s all for the voices of users, for quick resolution and correct adjustment.
3) Market environment fission. Taking BYD, currently the hottest new energy vehicle enterprise in the market, as an example, BYD’s annual sales in 2021 were 730,000 units, while in the first half of this year, BYD completed sales of 640,000 units, accounting for 88% of last year’s annual sales and far exceeding last year’s 430,000 vehicles. Although not all of the sales are pure electric models, the market changes have quietly happened. A better Xpeng brand, a better organizational structure, and a wider user base are providing a fission environment for the young and stable Xpeng.This is what makes it interesting in the front line. The wind of the market is blowing, but competition has turned this wind into a tornado. And smaller tornadoes can only grow in infinite division and consumption, which is the current situation of new car manufacturing.
Appendix
At the beginning of the article, I mentioned that I collected a few questions from extreme users and fans from various channels. Let’s chat a little more by answering some key questions.
- How many chips does an Extreme 001 car use?
Answer: The Extreme 001 has more than 2,000 types and over 10,000 chips, including seven global premieres. This is one of the reasons why the delivery of the Extreme 001 is delayed. In hindsight, everything was done in the background of a black swan event.
- When I buy an Extreme 001 now, do I choose air suspension? How long do I need to wait for delivery?
Answer: As far as I know, after numerous difficult negotiations, the exclusive production line for the air suspension components of the Extreme 001 has started production, and this year’s output will definitely be OK. The specific delivery time will definitely be faster than those who ordered last year.
- What are the charging conditions for an Extreme car? How far can I drive? Can I drive from Guangzhou to Ganzhou in Jiangxi?
Answer: ZEEKR Power, the energy system of Extreme, has launched 327 self-built charging stations in 47 cities nationwide. In addition, almost 50 stations were launched monthly between March and May, and are currently accelerating.
Regarding endurance, we have just completed the photovoltaic test of the Extreme 001 WE version. Unfortunately, we had to say that we achieved more than 1:1 endurance ratio. We drove 547.8 kilometers on a 526-kilometer car, half of which was on highways, and the rest was in urban areas. If you travel 430 kilometers from Guangzhou to Ganzhou in Jiangxi, don’t worry, you can definitely make it even if you lack confidence due to unfamiliar road conditions. The longest endurance version of Extreme 001 is 712KM on the NEDC endurance scale. You can also click the video to watch the actual recording.
Apart from the above three issues, some friends have also raised questions about assisted driving, car OTA, and after-sales service. Due to space constraints, we will not discuss them further here, but we will soon share more good news with everyone. Here, let’s talk about the matter of Geely Constellation again.
Not long ago, Geely launched Constellation, a future travel star in a one-to-nine way, and it was successfully launched. Zeekr will become the exclusive automotive partner of the remote sensing function of the first track of the future travel star constellation in the space-time universe, and based on the “Space Edition SEA Haohan Architecture” built on the Geely Future Travel Star Constellation, it will realize customized remote sensing AI, high-precision positioning, and other functions, empowering intelligent driving, vehicle cloud management, vehicle-road collaboration, etc.
Zeekr, which has withstood the impact and fully opened the supply chain, has a bright future, and we also hope that it can truly go further and better.
End of the article.
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.