Why Zeekr?

On December 16, 2022, Zeekr announced the delivery of its 70,000th vehicle. For a new brand that launched its first model in April of the previous year and began deliveries in October, completing 70,000 deliveries in just over a year is a significant achievement.

At the same time as reaching this milestone, the Zeekr 001 recorded monthly deliveries exceeding 10,000 for two consecutive months in October and November. This made the Zeekr 001 the second domestic brand model to achieve monthly sales of over 10,000 in the RMB 300,000 price segment, following the Li ONE, and the first pure electric vehicle to reach this sales figure.

In other words, after more than a year of market validation, the Zeekr 001 has become an indispensable option in China's 300,000 RMB pure electric vehicle market. As a result, every new car launched at the 300,000 RMB price point now faces the question: why should consumers choose you over Zeekr?

Zeekr’s success over the past two years has also prompted broader industry reflection: how did this model achieve such a dramatic turnaround in both reputation and sales?

01Phenomenal High Opening and Low Trajectory

On April 21, 2021, Zeekr held a press conference at its Hangzhou Bay factory that shook the automotive world. The Zeekr 001, with its impressive specifications and a startling starting price of RMB 281,000, dominated the automotive sections of social media platforms that evening.

This already remarkable price could be reduced by another RMB 15,000 when applying deposit expansion benefits. The final starting prices were RMB 266,000 for the WE version with the 86 kWh dual-motor configuration and the 100 kWh rear-wheel-drive model. At that time, the entry-level Model 3 listed on Tesla China’s official website was priced at RMB 249,900.

Another matter that better demonstrates the price-killing power of the Zeekr 001 is that the day before was the launch event for the Ford Mustang Mach-E. At that time, Ford's sales strategy aimed to position itself against Tesla, with the prices of various model versions almost overlapping with those of Tesla. In addition, Ford hoped to capture some of the users who were waiting and watching Tesla before the delivery of the domestic Model Y standard range version, so it launched the rear-wheel-drive standard-range version of the Mach-E in advance, priced at 265,000 yuan.

The day before, everyone thought the Mach-E's price was reasonable. But after the Zeekr 001 was released the next day, the standard-range Mach-E at RMB 265,000 looked like a poor value compared to the Zeekr 001 at RMB 266,000.

I still remember the night of the launch event, when almost all interest groups in the garage were discussing the price of the Zeekr 001, and friends sharing their orders were visible everywhere on WeChat Moments.

That launch event was Zeekr's most shining moment, successfully helping the Zeekr 001 make a splash and gain phenomenal attention and order conversion. But looking back at all of 2021, Zeekr can be said to have had a very difficult year.

No one could have predicted that a brand which achieved tremendous success during its initial launch phase would subsequently encounter so many negative incidents.

If You Can't Predict, Prepare to Remedy

As a newly established brand, Zeekr was in a cold-start phase regarding user operations in 2021. After beginning close contact with users, the company identified numerous gaps in its prior preparations and shortcomings in its own response capabilities:

"I didn't realize users cared about this information."

"I didn't realize these things would make users dissatisfied."

"I never realized that such subtle details could make users feel deceived."

At the time, a significant portion of the negative incidents were beyond Zeekr's expectations. To the outside world, the issues exposed by Zeekr in various incidents were typical problems easily encountered during the transition of traditional automakers to new EV makers. It was precisely the lack of methods and experience in communicating with users that led to such information asymmetry and opacity being perceived by users.

But for Zeekr, a newly established team, many of the tasks they undertake represent the company's "firsts." They have no prior experience to draw on and no backup support. Any issues that arise must be resolved entirely by themselves. The lessons learned from these cases can only be truly gained through direct experience and enduring significant setbacks.

Throughout 2021, Zeekr's most notable quality was its consistent choice to make every possible effort to remedy unexpected events.

The most typical case remains the motor incident. In fact, when Zeekr decided to open up motor selection options in response to user dissatisfaction, the core issue that users cared about had already been resolved. However, the key moment that reflected Zeekr's values was when a relevant executive from Zeekr gave an exclusive interview to Garage.

In that in-depth conversation, Zeekr conveyed an important message: although the company has officially opened up motor options, whether using Nidec or Vitesco motors, the performance is consistent from the design scheme to actual results. The main purpose of having two drive solutions is to ensure supply chain resilience against risks. If users have doubts, Zeekr is willing to address these concerns by offering choice, while also helping users understand from a professional perspective that this difference does not affect the user experience. Even if conveying this information involves high communication costs, Zeekr wants users to know that it has no intention of deliberately harming owners' interests regarding motor issues.

No company gets everything right from the start. Users' greatest hope and confidence lie in a company's ability to promptly remedy mistakes after they occur and its determination to correct them.

But beyond communication and sales issues, Zeekr then faced another major problem: its reputation for intelligent features.

02Zeekr's Turning Point

The sluggish infotainment system of the Zeekr 001 had been criticized even before vehicle deliveries began, and the issue remained unresolved at launch.

Slow boot times, map lag, and unresponsive scrolling became well-known shortcomings of the Zeekr 001 after delivery. Compared to new EV forces like NIO, Li Auto, and XPeng, intelligence was Zeekr’s biggest weakness on the product side.

Such situations are not uncommon in high-end new energy models from traditional Chinese brands. Therefore, when this occurred with Zeekr, which emerged from the Geely ecosystem, it came as no surprise. Many were conservative about Zeekr’s ability and efficiency in resolving these issues.

However, the actual outcome exceeded everyone’s expectations. Zeekr’s efforts in intelligence became the key to a major turnaround in brand reputation in 2022. The most widely known event was the announcement at the 'Zeekr Evolution' press conference on July 11 that all users would receive a free upgrade to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 cockpit chip.

Compared to the pre-upgrade 820A chip, the 8155 chip offers a 177% improvement in CPU performance and a 94% boost in GPU performance, significantly addressing the user pain point of infotainment responsiveness.

Before Zeekr, other manufacturers had also offered 8155 chip upgrades to users, including NIO, known as the 'Haidilao of the auto industry.' Zeekr was the first to provide the upgrade without charging any fees. Once again, Zeekr dominated conversations across the automotive sector that night.

For Zeekr, the 8155 infotainment chip was actually the "original plan" in the model's development. However, due to time constraints, the higher-performance 8155 chip could not meet the mass production and delivery schedule for the Zeekr 001, leading to the earlier deployment of the 820A chip. To enable hardware upgrades for the infotainment system in the Zeekr 001 at a later stage, the engineering team designed the infotainment hardware components as a modular solution that is easy to disassemble. Consequently, upgrading the Zeekr 001 to the 8155 is relatively straightforward: simply remove the old module, install the new one, and update the software.

As hardware updates continued, Zeekr's efforts to improve its infotainment software and driver assistance systems also progressed. After entering 2022, Zeekr conducted multiple OTA upgrades for the Zeekr 001. Following the official announcement of an infotainment chip upgrade, the brand delivered version 3.0 updates tailored for the 8155 chip, effectively resolving the infotainment lag issues that had frustrated Zeekr 001 owners for days.

For owners, Zeekr's infotainment system has not yet caught up with NIO, Li Auto and XPeng after these OTA updates and hardware upgrades, but compared to its state at delivery, Zeekr's progress is visible to the naked eye after every OTA.

The free upgrade of the 8155 infotainment system marks a significant turning point for Zeekr. It not only addresses a critical product weakness in the Zeekr 001 but also restores user confidence in Zeekr’s commitment to improving the user experience. The most tangible result is that Zeekr has begun to consistently achieve new order volumes exceeding five digits.

03Becoming the Benchmark

In the more than a year since its launch, Zeekr has made significant progress both as a company and in its product lineup. The various doubts held by prospective owners before delivery have been gradually resolved through repeated user communication. Over this period, Zeekr's shortcomings in various areas have been incrementally addressed.

What is particularly noteworthy is that the Zeekr 001's strengths in product capability remain its strong suits more than a year after launch. For instance, it boasts high configuration levels rarely matched by competitors at the same price point, and it has received widespread acclaim for its driving experience.

As delivery volumes increase, Zeekr has accumulated a growing number of real users who are now sharing their authentic experiences with the outside world. Through this process, Zeekr's excellent driving dynamics, features, battery-electric-motor-electronic control systems performance, and comfort have become widely known. Furthermore, as the user base expands, the positive word-of-mouth volume for the Zeekr 001 continues to grow.

Gradually, the question "Why not buy a Zeekr?" has become a common sentiment among buyers in the 300,000 RMB new energy vehicle segment. After a dual turnaround in sales and reputation, Zeekr has finally completed its transformation from a niche brand to a mainstream new energy vehicle player.

Compared with sales figures, Zeekr's impact on the market at both the product and corporate levels is far more profound.

The Niche Status of Wagon Models

The popularity of the Zeekr 001 has broken the long-standing "wagon curse" in China—the belief that wagons belong to a niche market and are inherently difficult to sell. Some voices even argued that Chinese consumers only talk about wagons but do not buy them because there is no real demand for the category in the domestic market.

The formation of this "curse" had its reasons. In the past, several European automakers introduced wagon models, but their sales were uniformly dismal. This stood in stark contrast to the enthusiastic discussions about wagons on automotive forums, leading to the widespread perception that "no one buys wagons."

In reality, the situation was not that "no one buys wagons," but rather that "the prices of imported wagons were simply not worth it."

For the same model, there is a huge price difference between domestically produced sedan versions and imported wagon versions. For some brands, the gap can be as much as double. Beyond the high purchase price, the maintenance costs and resale value of imported models have also been significant obstacles preventing consumers from fulfilling their "wagon dreams."

The reason is straightforward: the core factor preventing wagons from achieving high volume is not the vehicle itself, but unreasonable pricing.

But automakers seem unable to grasp this simple truth. They only see the result that "station wagons don't sell well," and thus remain wary of the term "station wagon."

And when Zeekr officially launched the 001, countless car enthusiasts in China finally got what they had been waiting for: a manufacturer willing to "take a risk" on building a personalized wagon and selling it at a reasonable price.

Zeekr's courage and vision in this matter have ultimately yielded substantial rewards. The styling of the Zeekr 001 has made it a unique category in the market, while its combination of sedan-like seating posture with SUV-level cargo capacity and off-road capability has allowed the Zeekr 001 to successfully carve out a clever niche of differentiated competition among various sedan and SUV models.

Meanwhile, Zeekr 001 owners have used their hard-earned money to show that station wagons have great potential in the Chinese market.

The real minefield isn't handling

Another "curse" broken by Zeekr is the notion that cars in the domestic market emphasizing handling performance do not sell well. In fact, this is another typical case of erroneous attribution in China's automotive market. Previously, products emphasizing handling performance did not sell well not because consumers did not care about handling, but because those vehicles sacrificed too much space and daily driving practicality to achieve excellent handling characteristics.

This is a mistake many manufacturers are prone to: when developing products, they often focus too heavily on the goals while neglecting the costs required to achieve them.

The Zeekr 001 almost made the same mistake. Under the initial calibration by the Lotus team, the Zeekr 001 was a very hardcore performance vehicle. Fortunately, Zeekr's engineers did not let this state continue to the production car; instead, they calibrated the driving experience of the Zeekr 001 toward a luxury car orientation.

The final mass-produced Zeekr 001 delivers an excellent driving experience while offering competitive space and comfort for its price segment, fully capable of serving as a family car.

If we look back to the time of the Zeekr 001's launch, it was entirely normal that such a product, which seemed to step on every 'minefield' in the Chinese auto market, would be viewed with skepticism. In reality, Zeekr succeeded precisely because it identified the true minefields and avoided them, daring to challenge market conventions in terms of model design and product positioning. This is the most difficult aspect for competitors to imitate beneath the Zeekr 001's cost-performance appeal, and the reason why domestic automotive enthusiasts feel so gratified.

Final Thoughts

In recent years, it has been widely said that traditional automakers struggle to pivot during the new energy era due to their sheer size. As more companies enter the electrification transition phase, this phenomenon continues to be validated, both by foreign enterprises and domestic ones.

Two years ago, when news broke that Geely intended to use a new brand to establish a high-end intelligent electric vehicle label, the prevailing attitude was rational yet pessimistic. A high-end brand emerging from the vast system of a traditional automaker, lacking established battery, motor, and electronic control (three-electric) brand support, with little prior achievement in intelligence, and needing to build channels and charging infrastructure from scratch, stood at a significant disadvantage compared to Tesla and the top-tier players among new forces.

This is not just a challenge for Zeekr, but for all traditional brands. There is no quick fix for such difficulties; they can only be resolved through gradual transformation and metamorphosis via practical experience.

Over the past year or so, Zeekr's journey has not been easy. Without any supernatural foresight, Zeekr encountered nearly every pitfall associated with becoming a genuine new force—from product development and operations to production and delivery.

What distinguishes Zeekr from other traditional automakers' high-end brands during this process is its consistent commitment to improvement. Whether facing criticism over configurations or acknowledging product shortcomings, Zeekr has worked diligently to address user dissatisfaction and enhance real-world experiences, investing heavily where necessary to shore up weaknesses. Users have witnessed these tangible improvements across various aspects.

With the recent rollout of Zeekr OTA 4.0, the infotainment system in the Zeekr 001 has begun a comprehensive transition to fully in-house development, marking a critical step in closing the gap with the top tier of new energy vehicle startups. The upcoming NZP driver assistance feature will further address and significantly upgrade Zeekr’s previous shortcomings in autonomous driving.

Recognizing that Zeekr is a premium new energy brand born from the Geely ecosystem helps contextualize the difficulty of these software-related advancements.

However, the traditional automaker background provides Zeekr not just with burdens, but also with empowerment. As a company backed by a traditional independent Chinese automaker, Zeekr possesses stronger capabilities in mechanical calibration and retains significant leverage in the supply chain that newer startups struggle to match in the short term—the industry debut of the Qilin battery being a prime example.

Finally, as market feedback solidifies, Zeekr has established its own distinct brand identity. Today, Zeekr represents superior driving dynamics and high-level manufacturing craftsmanship. In terms of product form, Zeekr’s personalized design and product definition consistently deliver a strong sense of novelty and anticipation for consumers—a feeling that often surpasses that provided by many other new EV brands.

For any automaker, inspiring such expectation and desire for its products is invaluable; in a sense, this constitutes a level of trust that transcends the product itself.

Written by: Reinhardt Edited by: Reinhardt