Author | Sun Mingzhi
Editor | Leng Zelin
While Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, positions the Ideal L9 as the best SUV under 5 million RMB, He XPeng, CEO of Xpeng, simply and modestly states that “Xpeng G9 is just the best SUV under 500,000 RMB.”
Although Xpeng did not hype up the competition range to attract traffic like some of its peers, He XPeng also showed a lot of confidence in Xpeng’s flagship SUV, G9, by saying that it has “no weaknesses”.
From the information disclosed by Xpeng, the paper data of G9 is very strong, leading the industry in the electronic and electrical architecture, equipped with better chips, pixel sensors, and lidars, as well as the latest intelligent assisted driving system. In terms of range anxiety, the G9’s 800V platform, combined with the self-built 480kw supercharging pile, can achieve “charging for five minutes, traveling 200km.”
G9 made its debut at the Guangzhou Auto Show at the end of last year, and its new logo, simple and concise design, and impressive headlights attracted a lot of attention and anticipation from consumers, which made many consumers intend to buy G9.
However, Xpeng has kept consumers waiting for ten months since its debut, besides the appearance seen at the auto show and data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Consumers know very little about G9, and the most concerned interior of G9 was not revealed until just before the pre-sale.
Whether it is Xpeng’s high expectations for G9 leading to continuous modifications and adjustments or a communication gap in the early promotion, the long warming-up period inevitably weakens consumers’ enthusiasm and attention to G9 as new cars from other companies hit the market. Then, when Xpeng officially announced that G9 only has 5 seats, it caused some consumers who were waiting for 6/7 seat models to turn to other brands.
Entering the new energy vehicle market in 2022, the competition has intensified sharply, and even Xpeng’s proud models may not be able to break through smoothly.
Xpeng Needs G9 to “Fight the Fire”
Xpeng’s starting price range is between 168,900 and 240,000 RMB, which is one of the most competitive markets and is also facing a group with high price sensitivity.
However, this price reduction promotion only applies to offline stores, and the online price will still be the increased price after two adjustments. For some car owners who have bought Xpeng cars in the short term, even with brands like Tesla that have large price fluctuations, it is difficult to accept such a sales method for a while.According to the sales of XPeng Motors, the promotion time is only limited to July, mainly because the order volume of XPeng Motors is insufficient. In addition, XPeng Motors will expand its production capacity to 400,000 vehicles this year, and if the “double-shift production” is realized, the actual production capacity will be further improved.
In addition to the characteristics of each product and target customers, price has become the most important factor that consumers are concerned about and directly determines whether they will buy it, due to the intensified competition in the new energy vehicle market. XPeng Motors has maintained its sales volume in the short term through price reduction promotions, but it is also easy to breed some negative emotions.
At the same time, many new cars have been launched in the 200,000-300,000 market in the past six months, such as Changan Deep Blue SL03, BYD Hippo, WM Motor EX5 Plus, NETA V, Leapmotor C01 and some facelifts.
The advantages of the number of models owned by XPeng Motors last year and the advantages of new products are currently being weakened.
Although G3i has been restyled, its sales have been tepid; P5, which should have had a good sales volume due to its low price, failed to replace P7 and become a bestseller; P7, as the main model for nearly two years, is currently in the stage of facelift and replacement, and potential consumers are more inclined to wait and see rather than place orders.
Therefore, XPeng Motors is now in urgent need of a high-productive model to stabilize its market position, obtain more orders, and accumulate enough capital to cope with more intense challenges.
The contradiction between the decline of vehicle competitiveness and the expansion of production capacity has put XPeng Motors in a window period. And this window period needs to be ended by the highly anticipated G9, which will replace P7 as the new main model of XPeng Motors. The various perception hardware carried by it will also help XPeng deepen the “intelligence” brand image and take advantage of the opportunity to lift the brand image.
As in the previous period, XPeng’s actions of reducing the free open access to assisted driving functions and charging rights show that the demand for software upgrade and iteration by XPeng Motors is also very strong. The existing product lines only equip the laser radar on the lower-priced P5, and P7 is hindered by hardware facilities, with a maximum support of XPILOT3.0.
The data collected by perception devices such as cameras and millimeter wave radars are highly unlikely to be reused in assisted driving with laser radar, so G9 will also undertake the mission of verifying the company’s latest technology, collecting the latest data, and making sufficient preparations for future technology iterations.
On August 1st, XPeng Motors announced the delivery data for XPeng Motors in July, and announced that the flagship model XPeng G9 will open for reservation this month and be officially launched in September. On July 29, He XPeng announced 9 sets of data about G9 on Weibo, and netizens were guessing their meanings. On August 8th, He XPeng released the interior promotional video of G9 on Weibo. Today, XPeng G9 is officially open for 2000 yuan blindly reservation.
After nearly a year of preheating, Xpeng Motors has built up momentum for the launch of the G9. So, can the G9 provide positive feedback to Mr. He XPeng?
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.