*This article is reproduced from the autocarweekly official account.
Author: Karakush
Last night, XPeng Motors delivered six XPeng P7 Pengyi edition models at the Fosun Art Center.
That is the XPeng car with scissor doors, painted in ultra-glossy green, and sold for 400,000 yuan.
To be exact, they rented the entire Fosun Art Center, including the Tadao Ando architectural art exhibition on the first to third floors, which is currently popular and crowded. Pengyi friends who came to participate in the delivery ceremony could freely browse and take pictures. This is such a big favor, only the insiders know.
The delivery ceremony was held in the digital sky garden on the top floor. The venue itself is also a public artwork. There are many LED lights embedded in the floor tiles, and each tube displays a countdown while rotating infinitely, making each second pass very quickly. As a result, it is easy to perceive that the actual delivery ceremony only lasted for a few minutes.
For most of the night, the owners, friends, including He XPeng and Gao Xiaosong, gathered and chatted.
Indeed, this was an unusual gathering in the automotive industry.
For example, Gao Xiaosong asked, with the emergence of autonomous driving cars, will it subvert real estate? Because cars have become an important space, when travel is no longer a cost, the value of downtown areas will be cancelled, and high real estate prices will no longer be meaningful.
He XPeng responded that travel and housing are closely related. Once travel changes, the impact on housing will be significant. In the next 10-15 years, many people in Shanghai will be willing to live on islands. Today, people still find it inconvenient to go to the island, but at that time, driving for 15 minutes in the city and flying for 10 minutes over the ocean, you can see invincible sea views, and the house is still very cheap. Why not?
Gao Xiaosong said again, just like the era without cars but only carriages, urban development had limits because it was impossible to become such a large city. Therefore, Beijing has always been the same size until the arrival of cars, and the city began to expand. With smart and non-driving cars, especially those that can fly, there may be no concept of a city at that time.
He XPeng speculated that in the future, there may be ultra-large cities that are many times larger than the current boundary.
For example, He XPeng said that since driving an electric car, the proportion of people listening to music has increased significantly. First of all, it is quiet, secondly, the sound effect is good, and thirdly, there are many sources of songs. As music continues to penetrate, what will be the next step? The imagination will be greatly expanded. Each person can make the best use of their time in their own hardware environment, so one day, the car will become an environment closely related to life, work, and entertainment, and it will be a completely free space. Today may not be achievable, but I believe it will definitely be achieved in 5-15 years.
# High Xiaosong said
The content will definitely change, for example, movies don’t need to be as long as 90-120 minutes. The current duration is because the cost of going to the cinema is too high. If the movie is only 15 minutes and takes half an hour on the road, the experience is poor. Secondly, there are issues with the timing and screening efficiency. Just like TV dramas, they used to be 45 minutes per episode because there was a demand for advertising. On mobile phones, they will become even shorter.
Then He XPeng continued, at that time, the movie in the car will be a full three-dimensional virtual format, and the audience can even be a guest actor inside.
High Xiaosong said, slowly, even the whole car will be completely yours, the more you drive it, the better it understands you. One day, if you’re gone, the car will keep your scent, emotion, memory, breath, and everything else, and keep going for you.
— and so on.
With our joint efforts, we have arranged the world and you clearly, at least disrupting two industries. Everyone is obviously sober and serious, but they can’t help but move towards the depths of science fiction.
If High Xiaosong’s idle talk is a duty of an expressionist, it is surprising that He XPeng flew from Guangzhou to Shanghai specifically to discuss these issues that have no contribution to actual output. Especially considering that XPeng is busy preparing for the release of a new car, which is a crazy time of day, and He XPeng is still a ruthless efficiency machine.
Previously, in a segment of CCTV’s “Meeting the Big Shots” program, the PR team required him to participate in a variety show for brand promotion, but the recording time exceeded the limit. He appeared unhappy and candidly said in front of the camera not to make such arrangements in the future.
So this time, it seems too grand to attend as a member of the atmosphere group for delivery. Even the tradition in the industry is that delivery is a less important matter than local listing or regional test drive, money has been paid, and everything has been done, how important can it be?
Thinking about it here and examining this delivery meeting more closely, it seems that everything is wrong.
XPeng, Art, Tadao Ando — just like Tokyo, Paris, Turkey.
All not on the same road.
XPeng’s Vision
Recall that XPeng has always been doing things that don’t quite conform to the norm.
For example, in April last year, the XPeng P7 was listed. In order to match the positioning of “Ultra-long range intelligent coupe”, XPeng did a 24-hour epic live broadcast on B station, officially called “Ultra-long long long long launch event”. And the main guest of the listing ceremony turned out to be fashion blogger Rebbeca. It is said that the reason He XPeng agreed to such a high crash rate mix proposal was, “Hmm, interesting.”
After the listing, XPeng He personally went to the field and collaborated with Zhu Yidant to shoot a series of plain and boring videos of rich people. He may be the boss who performs best in China.
In October of last year, XPeng Motors held the XPeng Motors Intelligent Day on “Programmer’s Day”. In addition to showcasing their technical architecture and reserves, they also organized a debate among big names in the industry: when buying smart cars, is the car more important or intelligence more important? If I remember correctly, the latter won overwhelmingly, with a strong and insulting message, but with a clear demand.
At the same time, XPeng did not give up on product updates. Just when the industry thought that new companies would be out of ideas after one year of products, they launched their strange and magical projects – the flying car and the P7 Peng Wing Edition.
If we want to summarize XPeng’s tactics, it’s really not easy because it is unpredictable. The only goal seems to be that if the market has not seen it, XPeng will do it. Constantly exploring things that have never been done before is the mission they firmly believe in. Whether it’s product, marketing, branding or corporate soul, they are united in this sense. Because the future of smart electric cars is a transcendent proposition that has not yet taken shape.
Many scenes today are changing. XPeng He said that the last 15 years was passively moving into the era of mobile internet, where you use your phone and pad to move; while the next 15-50 years will usher in a huge change in active mobile internet, where cars will drive by themselves and many means of transportation will run on their own. Now, when he thinks about cutting-edge technological changes, he thinks about them in terms of three, five, and seven years. If one-third to one-tenth of this change is possible, and one-tenth can be achieved, then the variables are actually very large.
“Even I can’t imagine the huge changes in the future. Looking at 2030 in 2026 will be more accurate. From 2025 to 2030, there will be many interesting things happening in the transportation life of large cities in China, and there will be new ecosystems, scenarios and entrepreneurial opportunities. At that time, new opportunities will be available and better sources of entrepreneurship will be available.”
Currently, simply acknowledging intelligence as a prerequisite seems to be the industry’s maximum effort, but it is still not enough to change everyone’s attitude. This is probably because it is a mutual dislike.
He XPeng said that in the past, cars were considered a means of transportation, where the best car was one that could get you to your destination quickly and safely, just like the earliest logic of searching engines on the Internet. You want to help people reach their target content quickly.
However, the new means of transportation will become a different space, just like the development of the Internet, which later shifted toward competition for time. In the future, some of the time that was originally spent at home, work, or school might be transferred to travel.
Thinking here, He XPeng said, “This is a pretty cool thing.”
In reality, XPeng Motors is also trying to do something cool in this era of opportunities. This is the instinct of a technology company.
An interesting soul
Not everyone can understand this motivation.
Take XPeng for example, he defines the P7 vehicle series crowd as socially elite who are willing to be extremely innovative, subversive, and brave enough to break the current status quo, and lead the era. This is not the largest group of people in the world.
The several owners who took delivery yesterday are quite representative.
For example, Xiaogang Student is a very young automotive content creator with over 14 million followers on Douyin. He said that he owned several vehicles from other manufacturers, but always lacked a highly intelligent pure electric vehicle. When he saw the Pengyi version, he immediately ordered one.
This surprised Gao Xiaosong. Was his friend a rich second generation, playing with “Scissor” doors from supercars all the way?
Xiaogang Student expressed a little shyly that he had caught the wave of traffic.
Gao Xiaosong said, “We are really fortunate to live in this era.”
This is an era that is different from the past, as it not only provides young people with a different path to success, but it is no longer a narrow bridge where thousands of troops cross through top schools and companies. It provides more choices, allowing us to realize the realization of self-worth, and also has greater tolerance for the value threshold of each person.
For example, Xiaogang Student said, “I love XPeng P7 because it’s like falling in love with a science student. You may not understand him at first, but once you adapt to his logic, you will find that he’s always loving you in his own way. When you get used to this kind of love, you can never get used to anything else again.”
I find it difficult to understand this kind of technological love, but it does not hinder the empathetic torrent, nor does it hinder it from becoming the capital of success.
And another car owner, @李大锤, is also a technology influencer who captures a lot of attention. My biggest impression of him is actually during the selection process of the seventh season of “weirdo talk”, where he was pk-ed by Little Deer in a 1v1 match. The argument was “If you encounter online dating deception, should you face it bravely”.
His opinion was to turn around and leave. He said it’s like his favorite Aragaki Yui, he must be very loyal to his own aesthetic, even if he meets Lin Zhiling who is actually someone he expected to meet, he won’t change his determination to choose Aragaki Yui. Although the program made Ma Dong call him a nerd who sees it his own way, it also made many people feel that he is straightforward and cute.
In the past, our edges and personalities were always seen as jokes that didn’t fit in, but today you have the opportunity to make it respected, at least a little welcomed, through personal efforts.
Similarly, XPeng is like this. What does it matter if it’s cool or not? The pre-ordered owners of the P7 Aviation Wing version are from the age group of 20-45, and the oldest car owner is 66 years old. They come from 60 cities across the country, and more than half of them have chosen the super flashy green car color.
In the entrance of the delivery ceremony, XPeng has placed a green apple which is a common mark of Ando Tadao, meaning youthfulness.
Ando Tadao said that this is from Samuel Ollman’s prose, and youth does not refer to a period of time in life, but to a representation of attitude, representing your outstanding creativity, strong will, radiant passion, unyielding enterprising spirit, and a spirit of adventure that gives up comfort.
He hopes that every time people see this green apple, they think of youth, and continue to live in youth.
It seems to match pretty well.
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.