Wen | Yi Fan, a great financial entertainer
On December 28th, Xiaomi’s long-hidden car-making plan was finally made public.
Subsequently, the topic # Xiaomi Car Price # also exploded in Weibo hot search that night, and became a hot topic in various social media.
Before the press conference, "technology" was the key word announced by the government. Lei Jun said that the release of Xiaomi Automobile this time would "completely redefine" the technology stack of the automobile industry, which would be a major leap in the technical category of the automobile industry.
At the same time, Lei Jun also said that this technology conference will be a comprehensive display of technology accumulation since Xiaomi was founded 13 years ago.
From the motor to the die casting machine to the wind resistance coefficient, just like the popular science pixel of rice noodles, Lei Jun has re-introduced almost all aspects of an electric car to the outside world. However, this press conference with an intermission didn’t talk about what everyone was most concerned about-how much Xiaomi SU7 sold and when to start delivery.
Xiaomi automobile conference
Undoubtedly, the most curious thing is how much Xiaomi will sell for the first car. After all, Xiaomi has always played the role of "price butcher" and "young people’s first XXX" in all walks of life. Naturally, some consumers will hope that it can further reduce the price of domestic electric vehicles.
Lei Jun may really want to realize the high-end dream that has never been missing in building a car. Xiaomi SU7 can see the clue by paying tribute to Porsche’s shape design. The question is, can an electric car with Xiaomi logo really make people willing to pay more than 200 thousand to buy it?
After all, for most consumers in China, it is difficult to find a consumption scene that needs to consider face more than when buying a car. However, even compared with Wei Xiaoli, Wen Jie and Ji Kr, it is difficult to tell whose brand is more likely to be upward.
01, technology without price, it’s hard to get distracted.
Lei Jun’s Xiaomi Automobile Technology Conference started from five sectors: electric drive, battery, die casting, intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit. It can be said that the core parts of an electric car are all talked about.
From the product positioning point of view, Xiaomi SU7 is positioned in a C-class pure electric car with a length of 4,997mm, a wheelbase of 3m and a height of 1,440mm. Similar to the current standard C-class car, the length of the car is controlled reasonably, so it is not difficult to see that it wants both driving control and seating space.
Of course, compared with the hard-core three-electricity part and die-casting machine, more ordinary consumers can intuitively see that it is probably the part of car machine and intelligent driving.
As a major selling point of today’s electric vehicles, the intelligent cockpit is the best place for Xiaomi Automobile, with a 16.1-inch 3K central control panel. Lei Jun said that this is a super-large flat-panel car. There is also a HUD and a 7.1-inch turnover instrument. You can also mount a millet tablet in the back row, and the whole car machine also uses the latest 8295 chip from Qualcomm.
Xiaomi automobile conference
In addition, Lei Jun said that this car machine can bring the Xiaomi tablet ecology to the car machine, and the application of the mobile phone can also become the application of the car machine.
In other words, this central control panel supports native applications of cars, tablets and mobile phones, and Xiaomi Auto is also the first new force in China to support Apple Carplay.
It can be said that in the product ecology, Xiaomi is also clear that it is necessary to directly lay out the ecological strategy of people, cars and homes. Lei Jun also said that cars will be an important part of the whole ecological strategy. Although the start of smart driving is relatively late, Xiaomi’s goal is still to be the first in the industry in 2024.
In terms of strategy, the investment has increased from 3.3 billion to 4.7 billion, and the AI lab established by Xiaomi in 2016 has been called. The underlying algorithm also uses the current mainstream BEV+Transformer+network occupation algorithm and incorporates the big model. Through Xiaomi’s road model, we can achieve the effect comparable to that of traditional high-precision maps, and we will quickly promote the landing of 100 cities in the next year.
02. Time waits for no one, and Xiaomi needs to clear the way at a low price.
It can be said that from the hardware configuration, Xiaomi SU7 almost continues the characteristics of "extreme fever" of Xiaomi mobile phone in the past. As long as the parameters at all levels can be fully filled, Lei Jun will definitely give enough.
The problem is that the success of Xiaomi mobile phone in the past actually depends more on the low price that is more surprising than others under the premise of full hardware configuration. Obviously, the hardware born for fever and the price of 1999 yuan once captured the first batch of hardcore fans with Xiaomi mobile phone.
However, it is difficult to see the attraction of Xiaomi SU7 beyond hardware configuration and self-developed technology.
Earlier, Lei Jun said in an interview with CCTV that Xiaomi’s investment in research and development of the first car exceeded 10 billion yuan. "I am particularly worried that if it doesn’t catch fire, everyone won’t buy it. What’s more worrying is that if everyone buys it, they will have to wait for one or two years, which will definitely be miserable."
Source: Interview with Lei Jun
For today’s Xiaomi car, such worries are not unreasonable. After all, in the category of "C-class pure electric car", which is its core positioning, the competition is not only fierce, but life-and-death. In the end, it depends on who can give the lowest price within the profit range.
Look at the extreme krypton 007, which was released on the 27th in advance in order to stop Xiaomi automobile. It is not difficult to find that under almost the same product positioning and hardware configuration, extreme krypton has lowered the price of the entry-level model with a high configuration to less than 210,000.
And if the pre-sale results are good, when the Xiaomi SU7 really goes on the market in a few months, it is obvious that with Geely’s back, it will be able to meet the delivery of Xiaomi car with an entry price of less than 200,000 yuan through further price reduction.
And like Tesla’s Model 3, there is still considerable room for price reduction. Next year, Weilai will also bring its entry-level Alpine brand, and further decentralize core technologies such as power exchange to the price range of 100,000-200,000. Of course, Huawei’s trade will not leave too many gaps in the car market.
Tesla’s Model 3
Under this competitive intensity, there is only one way for new entrants to quickly form scale effect besides mastering core technologies-an irresistible price.
However, before the press conference, Lei Jun publicly said that Xiaomi’s first car would be a bit expensive. Even if it looks like Porsche and has more self-developed technology, it is hard to believe that anyone but Xiaomi fans would be willing to pay for a Xiaomi car with a price of more than 200,000.
More importantly, in today’s domestic new energy market, it is almost impossible for technological advantages to exist for too long. Every car factory is engaged in self-research, from motors to chassis to intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving. The industry’s first preservation period of PPT will not exceed one month.
As a latecomer, Xiaomi naturally suffers more, because electric vehicles need not only good experience but also safety. Even the best technical reserves on paper need to be continuously optimized and iterated through a large number of consumers’ daily driving. From this perspective, Xiaomi’s car started a little too late.
Xiaomi automobile
Therefore, from all levels, Xiaomi Automobile needs to give a price that will shock the market and consumption when it is really released next year. Getting started with 199,900 may be a good choice, which not only pays tribute to the Xiaomi mobile phone of that year, but also directly pulls the battlefield into the "fever cost performance" that you are best at.
For Xiaomi Automobile, this is a breakthrough moment that cannot be lost, and being able to control the price within 200,000 is the key to determining whether it can break the game successfully.
* WeChat WeChat official account: Yifan Finance (ID: finance _ Yifan)
