At the end of January, Li Xiang sent a letter to the entire staff of Ideal Automobile, stating that in December 2022, Ideal Automobile had just set a single month’s highest delivery record, and became the first brand among the three new car building forces to achieve a monthly sales breakthrough of 20000 vehicles with a monthly sales of 21233 vehicles.
Under this achievement, Li Xiang even shouted the slogan of becoming a leader in the global artificial intelligence industry by 2030, which caused a lot of discussion in the highly competitive new energy vehicle race track.
How far is the ideal car from the world’s leading artificial intelligence vehicle companies?
First of all, the ideal has achieved phased results, but this is only the first step of the Long March.
We have to objectively acknowledge the market performance of the ideal car over this period of time. Taking the sales data of December 2022 as an example, the monthly sales data of the ideal car for more than 20000 vehicles were contributed by the two models, the ideal L9 and the ideal L8, both of which exceeded 10000 yuan in monthly sales. The monthly sales data of these two models also enabled the ideal car to win many sales rankings in December last year.https://www.stoneitech.com/
Throughout 2022, the sales performance of Ideal Cars also stands out among the major domestic car building new forces. According to Wall Street statistics, the total sales volume of Ideal Cars in 2022 was 1331000 units, with a year-on-year increase of 47%. Both of these figures are significantly higher than Weilai and Xiaopeng, ranking second only to Nezha in terms of data.
Of course, Nezha Automobile cannot be compared to “Weixiaoli” at present, so based on the market performance in 2022, the ideal automobile will undoubtedly stand out in the competition of domestic brands.
It should be pointed out that the sales growth curve of the ideal car did not suddenly soar in December of last year. Its sales performance in each month throughout 2022 remained at a relatively stable range, indicating that the market performance of the ideal car has strong resilience, and it is likely to continue to maintain the current growth trend.
With regard to the recent impressive performance of the ideal car, some optimists hold the view that although there are still some disputes about the ideal, it can at least “basically achieve all the great achievements it once boasted about”, which indeed has a “flavor” of the world’s leading artificial intelligence car company. After all, Musk has also become a global technology benchmark on the path of “big mouth” and solid achievements.
However, when we recognize the obvious progress of Ideal Automobile and its advantages compared to our domestic counterparts, we also need to recognize the gap between it and the “world’s leading AI vehicle companies”, and this gap is not so easy to fill.
Secondly, the ideal of just starting out is that too much freedom of expression among senior executives is not conducive to brand growth.
At present, there are several main problems in the ideal car’s desire to become a world leader.
One is the long-standing issue of “the height of the founder determines the height of the enterprise”.
For a long time, Li Xiang, the founder of the ideal car, has often attracted a lot of criticism due to his personal remarks, which are increasingly showing harm to the brand as the ideal car grows, making many people cautious about the future of the ideal car.
For example, not long ago, Li Xiang also caused a stir on Weibo due to a public slang incident in which he responded to netizens’ “pure farting.”. People are very confused about why Li Xiang, an entrepreneur, is so restless and has repeatedly been on the hot search for being publicly abusive? Will his emotional control affect the development trend of the ideal car?
In addition to being rude, Li Xiang is also believed by many people to have contributed to the hype and propaganda in China’s automobile industry. Last year, when the new product L9 was launched, the “Best Flagship SUV for Home Use within 5 Million” was still vivid in my mind. This promotional strategy of directly benchmarking hundreds of thousands of cars with millions of levels directly led to the follow-up of the new energy vehicle industry. However, it is clear that consumers can only listen to this kind of grandiose propaganda.
It is undeniable that, as one of the representatives of the new forces in car building, the ideal car has indeed brought some bright features based on innovation and subversion, but it is impossible to replace decades of technology and product accumulation of others with just a few years of accumulation. Especially under the premise of a very large cost gap, such publicity seems a bit exaggerated.
Because of this, some netizens ridiculed “the founder’s pattern determines the future of the enterprise, and ideals can only be realized without Li Xiang.” This kind of ridicule can explain some problems.
Of course, Li Xiang’s remarks are only superficial, and the deeper challenge lies in the fact that when he has been outputting disputes in such a dignified manner, it may indicate that the company Ideal Automobile has not yet formed a mature organizational structure, and that the boss’s “one word, nine points” has advantages and even hidden dangers.
The third is to sell more than lose, and global leaders need to let the capital market see profit expectations.
In addition to the height of the founder, another controversial point of the ideal car is the loss issue. Although the sales performance of the product is getting better, the losses of the ideal car are getting bigger, which seems to make it fall into the mire of selling more and losing more.
According to financial report data, after successfully landing in the capital market in 2020, the loss of Ideal Automobile has increased year by year. From a loss of 152 million yuan in 2022 to a huge loss of 2.269 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2022, such a loss growth and sales growth form a strong contrast.
Finally, in terms of core product strength, the ideal car is also unable to rest assured. In recent years, news about accidents such as spontaneous combustion, fires, and high-speed failures of ideal cars has frequently appeared in the media, reminding the ideal car that it still needs to “wind up.”.
On the whole, Ideal Car is a typical new power car company that runs at full speed but also has some problems. With its unique advantages in product and service innovation, it has successfully attracted many fans, but has also discouraged some people. “We hope that the ideal car in the future will become more and more mature, and on the way to becoming a leading artificial intelligence vehicle company in the world, we will go on steadfastly, not just drawing pie or attracting attention through marketing.”.