Rethink cars with us.
Hello, everyone, I am the president of the electric car commune.
Two days ago, Weilai announced the sales volume in August this year: 3,965 vehicles, only a little less than 4,000 vehicles.
At the same time, Weilai's third car EC6 will be delivered soon. With the blessing of EC6, plus Nio? With the continuous spread of space, I believe Weilai will soon reach the level of monthly sales of 5,000 units.
-For a domestic brand with a price of 350,000-500,000, this sales volume means that Weilai is no longer a niche unpopular brand.
Weilai has made such rapid progress that the situation is different from that of a few months ago.
In an article before Tencent, the EC6 project named Fury once caused a fierce quarrel within Weilai.
Because the initial sales target seems to be set at 6,543,800+vehicles in three years, the target set at that time in the most difficult period of Weilai is not so realistic today (close to 4,000 monthly sales).
At the Weilai internal meeting exposed by Tencent at that time, the financial department thought that if investors knew that this was a niche model developed based on ES6, and the target was three years100000 vehicles, "they would definitely treat us as a joke".
The purchasing department's point of view is that the supplier is not an idiot, and the sales volume of ES8 (from June 2065438+08 to the end of February 2065438+0912080) has already been there, and it is impossible to achieve the goal of EC6 three years100000, let alone a hatchback with a small number of people.
The reason why EC6 was originally established was that when the battery changer ET7 of Weilai could not be launched as scheduled, it should be topped first, at least to prevent the sales volume from falling so badly. In addition, EC6 is of great strategic significance to Weilai. After all, Weilai sets up the banner of new cars every year. If this rhythm is broken, you may encounter more trouble in public relations.
-So everyone knows that Weilai had no money to launch a new car at that time.
Therefore, no matter from which point of view, the EC6 is a car that will be launched anyway for Wei.
In an interview with Tencent News, Weilai executives revealed: "When we started the' Fury' project, we only approved the project budget of 65.438+0.5 billion yuan, allowing us to build this car within 65.438+0.8 months, but it was too difficult to change the model of 65.438+0.5 billion yuan. Finally, we thought of all the ways we could think of and almost controlled the cost." "
At that time, Weilai's funds were already stretched, but it was still necessary to launch a hatchback model with low sales volume, because whether the EC6 could be launched at that time indirectly determined the outside world's views on Weilai.
Fortunately, EC6' s project has finally reached the stage of delivery after many hardships.
At this moment, I am standing in Nio in the center of Shanghai. In the house, facing an EC6 engineering prototype, I have a lot of thoughts.
Although EC6 is not a car that can make Weilai turn around Gankun, although Weilai got a credit card of 654.38+004 billion, and the research and development of a new car is no longer a problem, the EC6 project has not been delayed, but Li Bin made it with Qixin.
Standing in front of this car that is so similar to the ES6, I am afraid that a huge question will rise in anyone's mind: Under the most difficult circumstances, the EC6, which was compromised to continue the tradition of a new car for one year, is the third intentional work of Weilai, or is it just a top-down copy of the ES6?
After all, in the most difficult time, it is really unknown whether the redesigned models made by thrift have enough product strength.
Fortunately, at an exchange meeting of EC6, who was the head of Weilai Shanghai design team? Colin? Phipps answered the questions in my heart.
Now I will share with you some information I know:
I believe you have seen some information about EC6 in different channels, such as its appearance and interior. Actually, there are not many obvious changes, but there are still some adjustments that should be made:
According to the person in charge Colin? Phipps said that they adjusted the aspect ratio of the car to make it look more spacious and comfortable, and added a lower spoiler, which also made an effective contribution to the whole shape.
The sign on the rear of the car is also one size bigger than ES6.
In addition to the appearance of the coupe, compared with ES6, EC6 has made the following changes:
First of all, the glass roof has become the largest integrated dome in its class, with an area of 2. 1 square meter. Double-layer insulating glass can isolate 83% heat and 99.9% ultraviolet rays.
Secondly, the seat has become a standard Haptex synthetic leather interior and fabric splicing form, and the material is more delicate, environmentally friendly, wrinkle-free and tasteless (including seat, central control and door panel coating).
According to designer Weilai, this Haptex interior has extremely low VOC. (changeable? Organic? Compound), this material has been widely used in fashion industry and fashion industry, and this is the first time that Weilai has used it in automobiles.
The whole system comes standard with superfine fiber ceiling, Napa leather sports steering wheel and advanced surround sound system.
Finally, a new color scheme has been added to the body and interior, that is, Himalayan brown (interior) from the sunset in the Himalayas and "extremely empty blue" (body) inspired by a small island in New Zealand.
We can't help but say that Weilai's posters are well designed. From the photographer's point of view, the interior that had no feeling at all suddenly felt delicious. The new color of the car paint is also good, but the EC6 displayed this time is gray, and I can't see whether the new car paint looks good or not.
Although EC6 has not changed much, compared with ES6, it has at least widened the gap in details.
More importantly, the details of use-if you simply copy a hatchback model, it means that the interior space will be useless except for the good appearance.
Probably nobody wants a car like this.
And EC6 is more concerned about space for most people, Colin? Phipps said that they also made serious design and changes, and they also spent a lot of thoughts on the design of hatchbacks, sacrificing space for appearance.
These design ideas enable EC6 to meet the needs of more users as much as possible, although it cannot make up for the lack of absolute space.
-At least from the design changes of the space, Weilai hopes that EC6 can sell well.
In the introduction, Colin? Phipps did not shy away from the fact that EC6 originated from ES6. On the contrary, he deliberately pointed out to us that there is no difference between ES6 and EC6 under the window and before the B-pillar.
Therefore, there is no difference between ES6 and EC6 in the trunk space under the window:
(The picture above shows ES6, and the picture below shows EC6)
Careful friends should find that ES6 has a concave space. Actually, this is a removable cover in the trunk. The function of this cover is to allow users to get a flat trunk space or a larger trunk space when needed:
There is also this space in EC6.
Although the trunk space of some EC6 is not as good as that of ES6, thanks to the hatchback design, the trunk opening of EC6 is larger than that of ES6.
The relatively high trunk space is rarely used when it is not full, so EC6 finally retains the same storage space as ES6 at the bottom, but increases the opening at the upper part, which will be more convenient to get things in.
The larger opening means that the EC6 may be easier to put into the car for some large luggage with special size and specifications. This is also a common advantage of hatchbacks.
In addition to the trunk, the hatchback also has a certain impact on the rear head space.
Take a person with a height of 1.70 meters as a reference. If you try to lean your head back, your hair can just reach the position behind the roof. From this point of view, the comfortable height of the rear row of EC6 should be below 175, so it is really not suitable for families with high fit. Of course, this is also a common feature of hatchbacks.
I communicated with the person in charge of Weilai at that time, although many car owners would use ES6 or model? Y is compared with EC6, but the real opponent of EC6 is actually BBA's hatchback SUV model.
For example, BMW X4:
Let's briefly compare the models with similar prices on both sides:
The guide price of BMW X4 is 455,900 yuan. Since the price of the second-class car is 465,438+0.49 million, the actual price after the discount should be around 420,000-430,000. If you want to land this price, you have to add 10% purchase tax and related insurance fees, so the actual landing price of X4 is about 460,000-480,000.
This price has been able to go to the performance version of EC6 of Weilai, and the price is 408,000. After choosing personalized signature package, the total price is 476,5438+09,000, which can be compared with X4.
Under this configuration, the NEDC endurance of EC6 is 430km, and the zero acceleration is about 4.5s (the official acceleration of X4 is 8.9s per 100 km). Although the battery life is still short-board, with the construction of more and more power stations in Weilai, it is no longer a problem to replenish energy.
In terms of configuration, such EC6 has basically won, so I won't go into details. At this price, the experience brought by air suspension, Niopilot autopilot and nomi voice interaction is beyond the reach of the same price X4.
I don't know what the sales volume of EC6 will be like, but just comparing the product strength of BBA fuel vehicles, I believe we will soon see the day when the sales volume of EC6 exceeds X4. After all, the hatchback SUV that is more inclined to "toys" can bring far more performance and intelligent experience than the traditional BBA.
So interesting things are coming. Weilai has expectations for EC6. What do others think?
The famous Bloomberg published an article saying that the price of EC6 is significantly lower than that of Model? Y's current starting price in China is 488,000 yuan, and it is very competitive:
Weilai's efforts have been recognized by foreign media.
On the one hand, as a hatchback, the first equal confrontation between Tesla and Weilai is finally about to begin.
On the other hand, I think EC6 and model? The competition between y may not be so fierce. Although domestic models? The price of y has not been finalized, but the most likely one is model? Y and EC6 began to harvest BBA market with better intelligent experience.
The experience brought by intelligence is making the sales of new car-making forces like Weilai snowball, which is getting bigger and bigger.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.