On the evening of September 21, Xpeng Auto unveiled its fourth new model, Xpeng G9, in Guangzhou, with a price range of RMB 309,900 – 469,900. He Xiaopeng added a lot of definitions for this car: Porsche is the benchmark of the fuel era, Xiaopeng G9 is the benchmark of this era, and the last generation before smart cars move towards driverless cars.
Achieve monthly sales of over 10,000 units in 2023, surpassing Audi Q5.
G9 is the best SUV within 500,000.
For the first time since the car was built, He has targeted luxury brands such as Audi and Porsche in public. But these definitions, adjectives and ambitions have never explained a core issue: what kind of flagship model it is.
In other words, sales at Xpeng may be struggling because they don’t know how they should sell to those potential customers and hit them with the product’s highlights. Users may also be puzzled, racking their brains to make comparisons and trying to achieve a balance of performance and range in such a flagship model that costs at least $300,000.
Just after the launch ceremony, one of the salesmen at one of the Peng Auto stores asked the group, “Which configuration is with suspension?” The answer was “already dizzy” and “can’t read”.
It’s not just the front-line store sales who can’t understand, but also many of the employees of Xpeng Auto, who at first had trouble understanding the meaning of the G\E\X behind each model, and some of them would ask themselves, “How come there’s no P version?” Specifically, the numbers of the Xpeng car models, such as 570, 702 and 650, represent the range. The G\E\X can be interpreted as entry, mid-range and high-range, representing different hardware and software configurations.
About 30 minutes after the new car price was just announced, a user showed his G9 order, and it was obvious that he probably spent 30 minutes torn, choosing and balancing. “Peng is really making people commit selection difficulties …… Had to give up the 4WD.” He said. If a customer is not careful enough, it may be difficult to find out that in fact the Xpeng G9 650E has a higher configuration than the 702E.
That evening, He Xiaopeng and other Xpeng car executives also received a lot of information from all directions, which blessing, but also raised a lot of questions, “so many configurations, how should I choose a suitable Xpeng G9.” This is a euphemism for the configuration pricing is not too clear.
“Yes, we received a lot of comments, mainly about the configuration and pricing issues.” He Xiaopeng admitted, but he also argued that it’s not that Xpeng has not thought about these issues, “We have systematic thinking, we just haven’t come to a systematic conclusion.”
But He Xiaopeng himself has patted himself on the back to ensure that “will personally promote the optimization of the G9’s configuration sheet, which can be given in two or three days to give a simpler and easier for users to choose.” The latest information that the Next Generation Car Institute has learned is that Xpeng will launch a new configuration sheet in the afternoon of the 23rd, with the main principle of simplifying the configuration and increasing the volume without increasing the price.
The above issues aside, the Xpeng G9 certainly has its own highlights.
The G9 is equipped with a mass-produced vehicle-side 800V high-voltage SiC platform, with a peak power of 430kW for the 4C version, which can achieve a replenishment efficiency of “5 minutes of charging, 200km of range” at the Xpeng S4 ultra-fast charging pile, charging from 10% to 80% in as little as 15 minutes; the standard 3C model charges from 10% to The fastest charging time for the standard 3C model is only 20 minutes from 10% to 80%.
The X version will be equipped with XNGP, the second generation of Xpeng’s intelligent assisted driving system, which will gradually achieve full coverage of various daily driving scenarios such as highways, urban expressways/main roads/secondary roads, internal roads of parks and parking lots in the next two years, and open up connection points such as highway toll stations and parking gates to become a high-grade intelligent assisted driving system that can serve daily commutes.
The G9 is equipped with intelligent dual-chamber air suspension, in which the dual-chamber air springs have adjustable travel of plus or minus 50 mm, support five height options, and have a number of advanced intelligent functions.
He Xiaopeng has high hopes for the Xpeng G9 – upward experience can be comparable to Porsche, downward sales can surpass Audi. His goal is to be able to sell 10,000 units a month by 2023, surpassing the Audi Q5, which sold 127,000 units from August 2021 to August 2022, comparable to Xpeng’s total sales in the past 12 months.
Excluding price reduction promotions, this is the first vehicle from Xpeng Auto to have an average selling price of more than $300,000. In the second quarter of 2022, the average price per vehicle for Xpeng Auto was $201,600, which means the G9 can pull this Xpeng Auto directly across a ladder in terms of brand premium.
G9 is also expected to improve the gross margin level of Xpeng Auto. In the second quarter of this year, the car margin of Xpeng car Jinwei 9.1%, the overall gross margin of 10.9%, in the traditional three major new car makers are at the bottom – the average selling price of a single car of Azera and Li car are more than 300,000 yuan.
It is precisely this highly-anticipated model, from the specific product as well as He Xiaopeng, I see another label more – “compromise”.
The pressure on Xpeng in the past period of time is indeed not small, especially the recent July and August, the delivery volume has been declining. The short-term decline is not a problem, but the situation that Xpeng Auto is facing is the same as other new car makers, that is, the pain caused by product replacement.
In the interview after the G9 launch, He Xiaopeng also mentioned the “straight” and “curved” road in the product replacement. Although he insisted that “the sales of Peng P5 have met the expectations”, the reality is that as the only new model of Peng in the past year, the sales are obviously not in line with the positioning of the “volume model”.
The Next Generation Car Institute found that since deliveries began in October 2021, the P5 had delivered 21,000 units less than the P7 by the end of August this year.
The company’s internal consensus seems to be that it cannot rely on the Peng P5 in terms of sales. next-generation car research institute visited several Peng stores in Beijing and found that the one prominently displayed is the Peng P7, followed by the Peng P5, and finally the Peng G3i. another consensus is that if the fourth model, the Peng G9, does not meet expectations, the car will probably go into “a period of product bruising, which will be more difficult.”
Such difficulties, no less than the first two years of car-making new forces commonly encountered the life and death line. So, for the sake of sales, the Xpeng G9’s compromise is first reflected in the price restraint and ultimately transmitted to.
It has made some trade-offs in range, trying to reduce the cost of the car by compressing the cost of the battery pack. He Xiaopeng insists that the “600-700 km range is enough for urban users” because the Xpeng G9 also supports ultra-high voltage fast charging.
But the problem is that the construction of super-fast charging stations takes time. Peng’s plan is to commission more than 50 S4 ultra-fast charging stations in core cities across the country this year, with more than 500 additional ultra-fast charging stations expected to be commissioned in 2023. In order to speed up construction, “some of Peng Auto’s existing stations will be upgraded.” He Xiaopeng said.
Xpeng G9 surprisingly has an intelligent configuration of 0 models, just to bring the price down to 300,000 yuan. The Xpeng G9 570G can only be called a pure electric SUV because not only does it not have ADAS hardware, it also does not have the most basic ACC and AEB functions. The Next Generation Vehicle Research Institute has learned that this entry-level configuration model will also have basic intelligent assisted driving capabilities in a new configuration sheet.
Interestingly, the day after the launch of the Xpeng G9, Li Auto announced the launch of the Li L8 – the potential user overlap between the two vehicles may be even higher. At a time when intelligent applications are still relatively cautious, the Li L8 could easily rely on range and price to gain an advantage over the Xpeng G9.
So, can Xpeng still rely on the P7? In the Tesla Model 3, BYD Han EV domination of 200,000 yuan + pure electric sedan at the moment, Xpeng P7 achievement is not easy. In this price range, Xpeng P7 will usher in another rival, that is, the ET5 of Azure, the car was widely acclaimed once it was unveiled. The P7 is still on its way to a facelift.
When He Xiaopeng chose to put his ideals and future on the Xpeng G9, his anxiety and busyness in the present is not without reason.
