Author | Lian Lian
Editor | Lingfang Wang
Unconsciously, NIO has won the new power monthly sales championship for 3 consecutive months.
In September, NIO delivered 18,000 vehicles and won the new power monthly sales crown for the third time. Among the various models, NIO V is still a hot seller, with more than 10,000 vehicles delivered in a single month. The A-level SUV NIO U also performed well, delivering 6,070 units, accounting for about one-third of the total. The new car NIO S, which has already been released, has not yet been delivered.
Currently, the new car-making forces have all moved beyond the era of single-product hot sellers and begun a multi-model war. To maintain its position at the forefront of sales rankings, NIO must also create a hot seller outside of NIO V. While we can only wait for NIO S to be delivered at the end of the year, we can certainly look to NIO U for hope.
On October 10th, NIO released the iteration of its NIO U—the NIO U-II—on the market. The NIO U-II is divided into four sub-models, with prices ranging from 129,800 yuan to 159,800 yuan. Three of the sub-models can be equipped with either a smart driving package or a premium driving package, featuring advanced level 2.5+ intelligent driving assistance functions.
Compared to the old models, the NIO U-II has several significant upgrades.
Firstly, other than the three sub-models of U-II400 Lite, all models come standard with the 8155 Qualcomm intelligent cockpit chip.
Secondly, other than the three sub-models of U-II400 Lite, all models can be equipped with either a smart driving package or a premium driving package, using the Horizon Journey 3 chip and enjoying 22 level 2.5+ intelligent driving assistance functions. The prices for the smart driving package and the premium driving package are only 8800 yuan or 12,800 yuan respectively.
Thirdly, for young and female users, special dark-night mecha black and star diamond charm pink themes are provided, and they can be selected directly at zero cost.
From the perspective of NIO U-II, on the one hand, NIO still adheres to the concept of technological equality, providing intelligent electric vehicles to consumers with extremely high cost-effectiveness. On the other hand, NIO is learning from its competitors, including providing exclusive themes for young and female users, as well as offering simple and clear model configurations, and so on.
From this information, NIO U-II has the potential to become a hot seller. The question is whether the supply side can live up to it.
The Best-Selling A-Level Electric SUV for New Forces
NIO U is the second model launched by NIO, which was released in March 2020. So far, the total delivery volume has reached 63,000 units.
This figure may seem small, but it is not insignificant.”This means we have won the sales championship of new energy A-class pure electric SUV for 10 consecutive months,” said Chen Yinbin, Senior Director of User Communication Department of NETA Motors.
Chen Yinbin also compared it with XPeng Motors’ G3 electric SUV of the same class: Since the launch of NETA U, the total delivery volume of G3 in the same period of 29 months was only 33,600 vehicles, which is only 1.88 times the sales of NETA U.
The sales of NETA U are commensurate with its competitiveness —— in the A-class pure electric SUV market, NETA U has a very high cost-performance ratio.
The size of this car is 454918601628mm, with a wheelbase of 2770mm. Compared with its competitors, NETA U has advantages in size, price, and configuration.
Especially when choosing the intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit options, NETA U does not increase the price too much.
NETA U-II, which has been upgraded this time, can be said to inherit the high cost-effectiveness advantage of intelligent electric vehicles.
Firstly, compared with the 2021 model, the NETA U-II 400 Lite model has lowered the entry threshold.
Secondly, the three models starting at 136,800 yuan all come with an intelligent cockpit supported by the Qualcomm 8155 chip. With the support of the chip’s 8 TOPS computing power, the intelligent cockpit of NETA U-II adopts a brand-new technology UI interface, supports multi-task processing, and has rich intelligent applications, including customized navigation from Amap, Tencent video, Douyin, QQ music, Ximalaya, in-car karaoke, etc. The cockpit also provides a dual 12.3-inch suspended integrated intelligent control center screen, a full-scene NETA AI voice assistant, and visible and talkable functions.
The hardware and software of the cockpit are the first-rate in the intelligent electric vehicle market. For this reason, NETA Motors has boldly announced the slogan of “the ceiling of the 150,000-class intelligent cockpit.”
Thirdly, the three models with ranges of 400, 500, and 610 kilometers can all be equipped with smart driving packages or luxury driving packages, using the Horizon Journey ®3 high-performance vehicle-grade AI chip, with an AI computing power of 5 TOPS, supporting L2.5+ intelligent driving assistance functions, including 22 intelligent perception hardware, and also supporting FAPA automatic parking assistance and one-key remote parking. This smart driving and luxury driving package only requires 8,800 yuan or 12,800 yuan respectively, and is the most economical intelligent driving package on the market.
It is not enough to just rely on one’s own strengths, it is also necessary to learn from others’ strengths and make up for one’s own shortcomings.
What are the shortcomings of NETA U?
Learn from the opponent””We also have some shortcomings, for example, we are relatively weak in the female market,” said Chen Yinbin. “In the A-class pure SUV market, 30% of consumers are female, while NETA U only has 16%.”
“Our competitors have reached 20%, so they have a larger market share,” he added.
“In addition, we are slightly higher in the age level of consumers,” Chen Yinbin inferred. “If we can gain incremental growth in female user promotion and young user promotion, NETA U will achieve better success.”
Based on this, NETA U-II has launched two new theme styles, Dark Night Mech Black and Star Diamond Charm Pink, to meet their driving needs, both of which are free to choose.
Dark Night Mech Black is undoubtedly aimed at young users, with a cool black paint job throughout the car and fluorescent green embellishments on the core body decorations. The wheels are also smoked black and come with fluorescent green calipers. The badge has also been treated with the same smoked black process.
The interior is designed with a collision of green and black colors. The center control panel and other positions are decorated with a carbon fiber texture.
The reason why it is called the Dark Night Mech Black theme, not just the interior and exterior colors, is because NETA has done some other designs.
For example, in the Dark Night Mech Black package, there is also a brand new Bluetooth key, which provides better wireless Bluetooth functionality, better styling, and better touch.
The Star Diamond Charm Pink theme also has unique exterior, interior, and other designs.
Unlike the pink interior and exterior of many car companies, NETA -II pursues “pink without being childish” while exuding an air of luxury. In terms of interior design, the Star Diamond Charm Pink theme features a different pink splicing design.In addition, in tandem with its pink interior theme, the NETA U-Ⅱ has optimized and upgraded its dashboard display, specifically tailored towards female users with its pink interface.
The NETA U-Ⅱ has also designed some accessories specifically for female drivers. For example, the armrest compartment is equipped with a dedicated cosmetics storage compartment, with both the driver and passenger sides featuring oversized beauty mirrors and surrounding LED lights.
In addition to learning from competitors and catering to young people and female users, NETA has also learned from the experience and lessons of peers in SKU (minimum inventory unit) design, striving for simplicity and clarity in the design of the NETA U-Ⅱ, with optional configurations that are not highly priced and very affordable.
In terms of segmentation, the NETA U-Ⅱ is divided into three ranges based on driving range, making it easy for users to choose. The entry-level Lite model pursues economic affordability, where both the intelligent cabin and intelligent driving functions can be deselected. For the other three models, the intelligent cabin is standard, with users able to choose whether or not they need the intelligent driving function. If needed, users can fully configure this function for approximately 10,000 RMB, without having to select any further options.
For users with higher requirements for luxury and intelligent configurations, they can choose the longest range + Zun Jia package to directly configure all options, without needing to further adjust and fine-tune.
If only driving range and intelligent functions are selected, the NETA U-Ⅱ offers 3 ranges x 2 intelligent driving options + 1 range x 0 intelligent driving options, resulting in a total of 7 choices.
In addition to driving range and intelligent configuration, users can also choose from 6 exterior colors or themes, resulting in a total of 7 x 6 = 42 choices.
It can be said that the NETA U-Ⅱ is relatively simple, with practical configuration options that respond to changes in consumer car purchasing habits. Influenced by smartphones and other intelligent devices, consumers are increasingly inclined towards simplified purchase options and have negative attitudes towards complex models.
Space of A-level Electric SUV
Nowadays, as electrification progresses and new energy penetration rates continue to increase in various segmented markets, new car-making players also need to use multiple models to meet different market demands.
For NETA Automobile, while the company’s dependence on the NETA V is still relatively high, there is still significant scope for growth in the A-level SUV market where the NETA U is positioned.
First, A-level SUVs are an important segment of the overall passenger car market, accounting for about one-fourth of the market share, selling around 6 million units per year in China.Following that, the new energy penetration rate of A-class SUV is only 15.6%, and the proportion of pure electric in new energy A-class SUV is only about 60%, which means there are many plug-in hybrid A-class SUVs, such as the BYD Song Plus.
Therefore, it can be said that the NETA U is in a huge segmented market.
However, it can also be said that A-class cars are neither like high-end cars with strong purchasing power nor like A00 or A0-class vehicles with no demands for space or performance. A-class car users are the most demanding.
The honest and practical style of the NETA U-II, along with its high cost-effectiveness configuration, is suitable for A-class car users. Even the price of the car makes many people doubt if they are selling at a loss. However, investment in research and development, factories, and other aspects has already been made, and the only cost-saving measure for NETA is to achieve larger-scale production and sales to dilute costs.
For the NETA U-II and even NETA Motors today, the biggest challenge is to seek scale first and profit later. If the NETA U-II can become a new explosive model after the NETA V, it will undoubtedly give a strong boost to the sales and financing of NETA Motors and achieve a decisive leap.
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.