"Both Ledao and Ideal brands are aimed at household users, with overlapping user groups and price ranges. I think there will definitely be competition." Recently, in an interview with First Financial reporters, Li Bin, Chairman and CEO of NIO, said that there are many brands that can be accommodated in the household market. He hopes to compete with his friends and expand the pure electric market together.
Recently, NIO released its second brand, Le Dao, and launched pre-sales of its first product, Le Dao L60. The brand primarily targets household users and is priced in the mainstream market of 200000 yuan. The Ledao brand model will be built on the NIO NT3.0 platform, using a full 900V high-voltage electronic and electrical architecture, and emphasizing the low energy consumption of the product.
In addition, Ledao is compatible with NIO's existing third-generation and fourth generation battery swapping stations, and when the L60 is officially launched, it can have a supplementary energy system of over 1000 battery swapping stations.
After Ledo, NIO will also launch a third brand within a year, with the project code name "Firefly". According to previously disclosed information, the pricing and positioning of the third brand will be lower than Ledo and NIO. Li Bin said that the relationship between "Firefly" and NIO is similar to that of MINI and BMW.
Starting from Ledo, NIO's brand strategy has officially been implemented. NIO stated that a high-end+mainstream multi brand strategy can not only ensure NIO's high-end brand value, but also expand the mainstream household market, amplify systematic advantages, release the efficiency dividends of NIO's early technology research and development and infrastructure investment, establish scale advantages, and better promote new formats such as battery swapping and intelligent driving to users, helping the industry's long-term upward development.
Li Bin has stated in several previous interviews with reporters that the new brand can help NIO share costs and enhance economies of scale. NIO's R&D expenditure has long been significantly leading among new energy vehicle companies, with a total of 4.592 billion yuan, 10.836 billion yuan, and 13.431 billion yuan in the past three years, respectively.
"The reuse of software and hardware can expand economies of scale, bring about significant cost reductions and improvements in research and development efficiency, and achieve cost reduction through research and development. Among them, the cost of the LeDao L60 will be reduced by about 10% compared to Tesla Model Y. Li Bin said that the pre-sale price of the LeDao L60 is 219900 yuan, which is 30000 yuan lower than Tesla Model Y, but still maintains a good gross profit margin.".
In addition, in terms of sales service network, charging and swapping network, and after-sales service, Ledo will also partially reuse NIO's existing system. In terms of production, the Ledo L60 will be produced at the already built Xinqiao Second Factory of NIO, co produced with NIO ET5, NIO ES8 and other models.
Li Bin said that in the past few years, NIO has invested a lot in research and development on LeDao and third-party brands, and now it is time to monetize; At the same time, the launch of the Ledo brand helps to promote moderate internal competition within NIO, perceive pressure from within in advance, and improve the urgency and level of the entire company.
As of now, NIO has not announced the number of orders for the LeEco L60. LeEco President Ai Tiecheng stated that the number of orders far exceeded expectations. However, it should be pointed out that compared to previous years, starting from 2023, Chinese car companies have begun to "internalize" the delivery speed, and delivery upon listing has become the norm. According to NIO's disclosure, the Ledo L60 will be officially launched and delivered in September. From pre-sale to official delivery, the Ledo L60 still takes about 4 months. Previously, the NIO ET5 had a large number of orders lost due to a long delivery cycle. It is worth paying attention to whether the LeEco L60 will repeat the same mistake.