How far is the ideal distance from the world’s leading AI vehicle enterprises?

[Blue Science and Technology Observation] In recent years, the ideal car seems to have ushered in a bright moment in the new force of car building.
At the end of January, Li Xiang sent a letter to the whole staff of Ideal Automobile, saying that in December 2022, Ideal Automobile had just set a record for the highest delivery in a single month. With the monthly sales of 21233 vehicles, it became the first brand among the three new forces of automobile manufacturing to break the 20000 monthly sales milestone.
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 track.
How far is the ideal car from the world’s leading AI car 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 achievements of the ideal car in the market performance 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 months was contributed by the ideal L9 and the ideal L8 models, both of which exceeded 10000. The monthly sales data of these two models also made the ideal car win the first place in many sales rankings in December last year.
From the perspective of the whole 2022, the sales performance of ideal cars also stands out among the major domestic new forces of car building. According to the statistics seen on Wall Street, the total sales volume of ideal cars in 2022 was 133100, with a year-on-year increase of 47%. These two figures are much higher than that of Weilai and Xiaopeng, and are second only to Nezha in terms of data.
Of course, Nezha Motor is not comparable with “Weixiaoli” at present, so considering the market performance in 2022, the ideal car 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 of the whole year of 2022 remained in a relatively stable range, which indicates that the market performance of the ideal car is very resilient, and it is likely to continue to maintain the current growth trend.
In view of the bright performance of the ideal car in the near future, some optimists believe that although there are some disputes about the ideal car at present, it can at least “basically realize the once boasted bully”, which really has a “taste” of the world’s leading AI car companies. After all, Musk has also become a global technology benchmark on the way of “big mouth” and down-to-earth achievements.
But when we recognize the obvious progress of the ideal car and its advantages over the domestic counterparts, we also need to recognize the gap between it and the “world’s leading AI car companies”, and this gap is not so easy to fill.
Secondly, the ideal of just starting is that too free speech of senior executives is not conducive to brand growth.
At present, there are several main problems for ideal car to become the world leader.
First, the question that “the height of the founder determines the height of the enterprise” has been talked about for a long time.
For a long time, Li Xiang, the founder of the ideal car, has often caused a lot of criticism because of his personal remarks, which are increasingly damaging the brand with the growth of the ideal car, and also make many people cautious about the future of the ideal car.
For example, not long ago, Li Xiang also caused an uproar on Weibo because he responded to the public swearing incident of “pure farting” from netizens. People are very confused about why Li Xiang, such an entrepreneur, is so restless and has been on the hot search again and again because of his publicity? 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 of the Chinese auto industry. When the new product L9 was released last year, the “best flagship SUV within 5 million” was still fresh in my mind. This publicity strategy of directly benchmarking hundreds of thousands of cars with millions of levels directly led the follow-up of the new energy vehicle industry, but it is clear that such a grandiose publicity consumer can only listen to it.
It is undeniable that, as one of the representatives of the new forces of 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 that the cost gap is very large, such publicity seems to be a little exaggerated.
Because of this, some netizens teased “the founder pattern determines the future of the enterprise, and the ideal can be realized without Li Xiang”, which can explain some problems.
Of course, Li Xiang’s remarks are only superficial. The deeper question is that when he has been so grandiose in outputting disputes, it may indicate that the company has not yet formed a mature organizational structure, and that the boss’s “one word and one word” has advantages and hidden dangers.
Third, the global leader needs to let the capital market see the profit expectation.
In addition to the height of the founder, another controversial point of the ideal car is the loss. Although the product sales performance is getting better and better, the loss of the ideal car is getting bigger and bigger, which seems to make it fall into the mire of selling more and losing more.
According to the financial report data, after the successful landing in the capital market in 2020, the loss of ideal cars 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 the core product power, the ideal car also cannot rest assured. In recent years, the news about accidents such as self-ignition, fire and high-speed failure of the ideal car has frequently appeared in the media. At this time, it is always reminding that the ideal car still needs to “wind up”.
On the whole, the ideal car is a typical new force car company with some problems, although it is running at full speed. With its unique advantages in product and service innovation, it has successfully attracted many fans, but also persuaded some people. We hope that the ideal car will become more and more mature in the future. On the way to becoming the world’s leading AI car company, we will go down steadily, not just draw pie or attract attention through marketing.