■? Comparison between ideas and thoughts
Weilai
Solution: service (valet power supply, including power exchange and charging car)
Advantages: good experience, excellent user operation, and continuous narrowing of the distance between users and manufacturers.
Disadvantages: extra cost, huge capital investment (hardware, software and service team), battery replacement will consume battery power.
Brief analysis: Weilai's philosophy is "user experience" as the core. In order to achieve this goal, all means are exhausted. Not to mention high-quality user operation, and the service experience is not bad at present. However, the choice of "valet service" to solve anxiety means a huge investment in the early stage: in order to ensure the uniform battery specifications of various models and facilitate the implementation of power exchange, the power of the ES8 was actually sacrificed to a certain extent (the vehicle could have been equipped with a larger battery). In order to achieve the potential experience goal of "1 hour car return", it is necessary to provide sufficient power stations, charging cars and service personnel layout. Therefore, it is necessary to test offline operation and management when converted into cost, and the test of capital chain is not too big. This is also a question that is currently being questioned-a seven-seat car that is longer than a family trip, can the service keep up after running away? How to expand the service radius; In addition, with the increase of vehicle ownership in the future, can the service quality be sustained? However, Wei Lai and Li Bin have always been full of confidence in this, believing that the team's operational capability can balance service demand, supply and cost and achieve steady development.
☆ Ideal intellectual creation
Understanding of pain points: mileage anxiety and charging anxiety of electric vehicles can not be solved in a short time.
Solution: carry a large charging treasure (internal combustion engine) with the car; There are two charging methods: charging and refueling.
Advantages: independent of the charging pile, running far and convenient to refuel.
Disadvantages: we have not got rid of oil dependence, and the policy prospects of some cities are uncertain (such as Beijing).
Analysis: the idea of ideal intellectual creation is to take "product experience" as the core, and proceed from how to solve the anxiety of the product itself, without spending any cost and energy on the construction and operation of the online charging system. In Mr. Bang's view, this is equivalent to thinking that the era of pure electricity will not come so soon, facing up to the environment where refueling is more convenient than charging, and waiting for the industrial environment to mature. However, the biggest problem of the extended route itself is whether it conforms to the national preset new energy strategy. Although it runs farther than pure electricity and the fuel consumption is slightly reduced, most of it is contributed by fuel, which is destined to be only a "transition" plan in the national plan, but as long as it gains something at a specific stage, why not? Why did Li dare to do this? Because the next model after its successor ONE is planned will be a pure electric vehicle (non-extended range) that highlights "ultra-fast charging", but the landing of this car needs to wait for the whole industry and supply chain to some extent. The time is ripe.
Summary: First of all, they all chose the product positioning that maximizes the value of new energy indicators-the big seven-seat SUV, and then they also have similar target group positioning. The understanding of the pain points of the current new energy market should be similar, but the two companies have chosen completely different solutions. Obviously, both companies believe that pure electric vehicles can't satisfy consumers at present and can't provide enough brand foothold. To sum up, Li Bin's choice is "battery life is insufficient, service is supplemented", and Li Xiang's choice is "battery life is insufficient, gasoline is supplemented". Anyway, they are less anxious than others. ?
■? product comparison
At the product level, we switch to a more readable table for intuitive comparison, and then analyze the main items:
Judging from the cost of car purchase, in 20 18 years, the price of Weilai ES8 standard edition after subsidy in most cities was 375,000 yuan. In Shanghai and other cities, even if the car price is just 400 thousand, the car price is around 370 thousand, and in Beijing it is only classified as mixed without subsidies. The two basically form direct competition in price.
In terms of performance experience, it is mainly the competition between pure electricity and large battery cruising range expansion. Weilai's 70-degree battery should have better performance, but limited by high performance and power exchange system, the endurance performance "looks" a bit behind the development of the industry. However, the adjustable air suspension+acceleration difference is more than 2 seconds (one ratio), and the performance can be said to be better. And don't forget that Weilai's battery is "replaceable", which means that the possibility of upgrading battery life has always existed.
A 40.5-degree battery of Ideal Smart ONE is already the largest battery on an extended-range vehicle in the world, and can be used for daily commuting. Fuel-fired power generation, 700 km battery life is almost twice that of ES8. In addition, charging during long-distance driving can also be completely replaced by refueling. Therefore, its slogan of "zero emission in the city, no anxiety in long distance" is not empty talk. Although the acceleration performance of 6.5 seconds is not top-notch, it also catches up with the level of 3.0T engine. This choice also reflects some differences in positioning between the two companies. ?
▲ Weilai's 4.4-second acceleration performance is still ahead of the domestic models that have already been listed.
In terms of energy efficiency, both of them are "electric drive" models, and we can use "electric mileage" to measure energy efficiency. Through a simple division, we can know that one used to run 4.5km and ES8 used to run 5km. The efficiency is different, but it is not too big. Although it is theoretically "fuel-saving and power-consuming", ONE is still an efficient extended range system. To achieve this result, we only need to add a set of 1.2T engine (that is, a range extender) and a 45-liter fuel tank, and the added weight is only about 200kg. Compared with the battery, the battery is increased by 30 kWh, and the impact of cost and weight is much smaller. To sum up, under the same pure electric driving experience, the efficiency of the battery-driven ES8 vehicle is slightly superior, but ONE does not add too much "burden" to itself because of reasonable matching.
In terms of energy and maintenance costs, although it seems that turning on electricity is much cheaper than refueling, one can be recharged and refueled after all, and the "fuel consumption" of the engine as a range extender is higher than that of the same class fuel vehicle (city)
▲ After conversion into cost, the energy cost of the ideal Smart One is definitely lower than that of the fuel vehicle, depending on the "usage".
In terms of hedging ratio, this is also one of the advantages that Li Xiang is proud of and emphasized at the press conference. Due to the technology and endurance development speed of pure electric vehicles, the valuation of old vehicles with low endurance has dropped rapidly in the market, while extended-range vehicles do not have this problem and have obvious advantages in the rate of preservation.
From other aspects of the product, both of them are luxury positioning, and they have achieved the ultimate in comfort, technology and configuration. As for the specific configuration, I won't make a detailed comparison. First of all, the configuration of both cars is very high. Whether it's luxurious, comfortable and safe configuration, or technology and ADAS, on the surface, everything is available, and the gap is not big. The difference in details is still to be compared with the details and experience of the ideal smart ONE real car after listing. In addition, the cost gap of configuring this piece is also very small for manufacturers. ?
■? Bangping branch
First of all, we can try to see further from the perspective of road selection. As the flagship model, Weilai's ES8 will undoubtedly always enjoy the highest priority of service, and the positioning level and vehicle weight of subsequent models will be lower. At the same time, with the development of the three-electricity technology in the whole industry, it is inevitable to improve the endurance (in the case of the same battery size), and the vehicle battery can be upgraded. So we don't really need to worry about whether its future products still have battery life "problems". This is even more true when we look forward to the future of ideal intellectual creation. An extended-range product is followed by an ultra-fast charging pure tram, which makes it clear that we should choose the right time to make the right "return". After all, the charging environment at that time was necessarily different from today. If you want Mr. Bang to sum up, the current choice of both may not be the final "answer", but from a strategic point of view, both have chosen "based on the present and focusing on the future". Based on the present is the path choice to gain a foothold in the "transition period", while based on the long-term is to wait for the opportunity. From the perspective of strategic route planning, both are indispensable. How's it going? Is the foresight of the bosses beyond your imagination?
▲ At the release site of Ideal Smart ONE, Li Bin was answering questions from the media.
And then we'll go back to the present. Although the markets seem to overlap, it seems nothing to both sides. In the same broad sense of crowd positioning, some people like radish, others like cabbage, and no one can guarantee that they can become oligarchs. In addition, Li Bin and Li Xiang also use the method of holding shares to show mutual support and hedge risks. In Mr. Bang's view, the choice of the two in the future mainly depends on whether you prefer the fluency and sense of belonging of daily service experience or the freedom to go to poetry and distance. In addition, it is still half a year before the ideal intellectual creation is finally perfected and the deposit is opened. Let's see what changes and improvements it has.
More information about Weilai and Ideal:
The answers to n questions about ideal intelligence are all here.
Don't try to measure, all the value points of Weilai ES8 are here.