Author: Michelin

“Buy early and enjoy early, buy later and get a discount.” Surrounded by consumerism today, this sentence has almost become a cliché every time a new product is released. Just the other day, I used this sentence to persuade a friend who was hesitant about buying an iPhone 14 Pro.

Recently, some owners of smart cars are in a panic because for them, it’s no longer “buy later and get a discount.” This sentence has been directly replaced with “buy early and enjoy early, buy later and get a new model.”

The origin of this is the Ideal ONE’s production stop and price cut some time ago. In early September, Ideal Car officially announced that the Ideal ONE will stop production in October and reduce the price by 20,000 yuan; it will be replaced by the upcoming new car, Ideal L8. Those who have just taken delivery not only lost the 20,000 yuan discount instantly, but also ended up with an old car that had just been purchased.

This is not the only time. When the 2021 Ideal ONE was released last year, there was a similar “rights dispute”; when the Little Xpeng G3 was redesigned, it also sparked owner complaints due to a significant increase in battery life. It seems that the changeover and renewal of smart cars are difficult to escape the dissatisfaction of users.

Let’s first take a look at the views of several Ideal ONE owners:

• “My reaction is not as intense as netizens’, after all, when I bought the car, I thought about it a lot and chose this car. “

• One owner who bought the 2021 Ideal ONE last year said calmly, “But I still feel like I’m being played as a fool, after all, the flagship store promised never to cut prices.”

In this owner’s view, product renewal is normal, but for those who bought it based on the flagship store’s unified national pricing, the current price cut is a breach of trust in the flagship store model, and the gap is unacceptable.

Similarly, there is an owner who just took delivery in August:

• “I repeatedly asked whether there would be a new car, and the sales consultant said there would be no new car this year, so I picked up the car under pressure.”

In his view, the sales consultant’s answer made him feel “deceived,” which is the origin of his dissatisfaction.

-“The original intention of buying a car is intelligent upgrading and looking forward to it. After the Ideal ONE is out of production, no matter how much the hardware configuration is upgraded, there is still a ceiling. Electronic hardware replacement is too fast.”

For another owner who values the intelligence attribute more, whether the limited hardware of the current model can support future software OTA upgrades is more important.

If similar concerns about their user experience being impacted, for some owners, “face” is more important:

-“Redesign is fine, but the original naming system should be continued. Call it the 2022 Ideal ONE.”- “After the launch of the new version of the Sentra, the current model was renamed as the ‘Sentra Classic’, so why can’t it be called the Idean ONE Classic?”

Essentially, whether to continue with the current name or switch to a new naming sequence, the next generation of cars will all be equipped with the latest second-generation extended range platform, equipped with advanced intelligent perception hardware such as lidar. However, if the name Idean ONE is continued, one’s car will no longer be “the abandoned generation,” and naming continuity becomes a psychological consolation.

In front of the large user base of the Idean ONE, which has sold 200,000 units, there are few users who can make their voice heard. However, these mild and silent majority almost cover most of the reasons why people are so sensitive to the termination and renewal of the Idean ONE: unexpected replacement cycle; from the promise of no price reduction to a discount of 20,000 yuan; concerns about the depreciation of the second-hand market; and whether there will be continuous OTA in the future, etc.

Wang Tuping of GeekCar jokingly said in the office, “This is the price of accompanying the growth of intelligent cars.”

For consumers who only want to buy a new car, this price seems a bit too much?

Conventional Cars vs New Energy Vehicles: The Same Renewal, Different “Pain Points”

For mature car industry, remodels and replacements are commonplace. In the era of conventional cars, a model was revamped halfway through its 3-year cycle, and replaced after 5-6 years with a discount to clear inventory. However, why are people so sensitive to the renewal and replacement of new energy vehicles, especially intelligent vehicles?

Some people say that “we are used to being PUA’d by conventional cars.”

Actually, this is unnecessary. From the words of several Idean ONE owners, although they cannot represent everyone’s views, they cover different perspectives: unexpected renewal time, leapfrogging intelligent software and hardware, abandoning the original naming system for new product sequences, sudden price cuts under the original promised no price reduction in direct sales mode, becomes the reason why users are dissatisfied and feel “betrayed.”

However, these situations are quite different in the era of conventional cars.

The Rhythm of Upgrades is Disrupted.For the replacement and renovation cycle of traditional fuel vehicles, both car companies and consumers are aware that when you buy a model in its 5th year of launch, it is highly likely that you are aware that waiting for another year or so will bring out a new model or discounts on the old one. It is up to consumers to decide if they insist on buying older models based on their preferences.

However, in the era of new energy vehicles, this replacement and renovation rhythm has been disrupted. The Tesla Model S, which has been released for 8 years, has only gone through one adjustment in appearance and cruising range. As for the Ideal ONE, the first model of Ideal Automotive, since its delivery at the end of 2019, it has successively launched the 2020 and 2021 models, which is almost one upgrade per year.

For consumers who are familiar with the traditional automotive rhythm, the replacement cycle of electric vehicles seems to have become longer and shorter at the same time. Especially for the first model of a brand, there are almost no precedents for the replacement cycle to follow. This is also the reason why many buyers of the 2021 Ideal ONE believe that “it was just upgraded last year, so it won’t stop production”.

Of course, many netizens have expressed that “an early notice of suspension would be appreciated”.

On the Blackcat Complaints platform, we can see that the Ideal ONE owners who participated in the complaints are not only the new owners who ordered and picked up their cars in July or August, but also those who bought the car in October or November last year.

When the upgrade cycle of a new car is shortened to one year, it is really difficult to grasp how early is enough notice.

From “fine-tuning” to “major changes”, intelligent upgrades force users to upgrade as the adjustments for intelligent vehicles are a drastic change compared to traditional fuel vehicles, which only undergo minor design or performance adjustments.One year ago, the Ideal ONE 2021 model was launched. Compared to the 2020 model, the 2021 model not only changed in size and added external playback functionality, but also replaced the original black box autonomous driving system with a self-developed intelligent driving system based on the Horizon Journey 3 chip. In the upcoming L8 model, not only will it be equipped with a second-generation range-extended platform, but it will also have a laser radar and a complete set of safety redundancy systems. This means that although the brand will continue to provide OTA updates to old models in the future, many functions and experiences are destined to be unsupported by existing hardware.

Upgrading from the first-generation range-extended platform to the second-generation platform, and from millimeter-wave radar to laser radar, this type of architecture and intelligent hardware upgrade means that car redesigns are not just “fine-tuning,” but rather a “qualitative change.”

This is not only true for the Ideal ONE, but also for almost every future intelligent vehicle: the addition of digitalization means that cars are no longer just mechanical carriers. The intelligent functions and experiences of intelligent driving and cockpits will also follow Moore’s Law, evolving rapidly in a period spanning a year, two years, or even shorter.

Regarding this, the Jikua 001 car owners who recently received a free replacement of their 8155 chips may understand the transformative experience brought about by intelligent hardware upgrades better than others.

This accelerated iteration of digitalization has also disrupted car owners’ original replacement rhythm: if you only consider cars as a means of transportation, you can still follow the rhythm of replacing fuel cars; if you pursue the experience brought by intelligent technology and hope that this experience can continue to evolve and upgrade, then you can only passively join the ranks of software, hardware, and even the entire car upgrades.

If the shortened replacement cycle and the leap in intelligent experience are almost unavoidable fates of all intelligent cars in this era, then the emotional gap brought by direct sales helping car owners save money is unique to new power automakers who employ this business model.In the traditional dealership model, it is common for dealers to offer discounts in order to boost sales or clear inventory. However, in the past, the responsibility for discounts fell on dealers, while car manufacturers have always adhered to the suggested retail price. In the direct-sales model, it is the car manufacturers themselves who offer discounts.

The former approach is reminiscent of the phrase “Don’t blame the idol for the behavior of the fans”: “If a dealer offers a discount, what does it have to do with the car I bought?”

But when car manufacturers offer discounts, it seems that even the value of cars that have already been bought and sold is affected.

Have you not seen that every year on the Double Eleven shopping festival, Tmall, JD and even Pinduoduo offer discounts and subsidies on iPhones, but Apple still stubbornly sticks to its suggested retail price, knowing the same principle well.

Moreover, the direct-sales order-based model means that almost every car owner has to wait for several months. The combination of the long wait, the promise of no discount, and the sudden discount is a sudden drop, which I, too, cannot accept.

When the buffer zone of the dealership disappears, whether it is a new force like We Xiaoli or a traditional car manufacturer that uses the direct-sales model, it seems to face a similar problem: how to offer low-key and elegant discounts to clear inventory at the end of the product’s lifecycle.

Finally: A Smart Car Owner’s Self-Cultivation

Facing these common problems in the industry, I asked my colleagues at GeekCar in the office: How can smart cars be upgraded without making users feel “backstabbed”?

“There is no solution,” my colleague replied succinctly.

This reminded me of a “veteran” owner of the Ideal ONE who received his car at the beginning of 2020. As a “veteran,” he seemed to handle the situation much better: “No matter what the outcome, nothing will change. Instead of making yourself feel miserable, it is better to stay calm and peaceful.”

I don’t know when it started, but buying a smart car now not only requires a license plate, but also a considerable amount of mental preparation. The rapid upgrade of intelligent hardware and architecture means that a car will touch the ceiling of intelligence in just a few years; the growth period of smart cars is bound to produce products with similar or even better performance.

As the saying goes, “When you choose a product of the times, you cannot escape paying for it.”

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.