I don't want to be a Robotaxi, Ideal Car is a product that creates happiness for families, "said Li Xiang, founder, chairman, and CEO of Ideal Car.
On the evening of December 25th, Li Xiang made another public appearance. Since the cold listing of Ideal MEGA in March this year, Li Xiang has changed his usual active style and almost remained silent on public platforms such as Weibo. In the second half of this year, Li Xiang only reposted 2 Weibo posts. It has been nearly 300 days since the last time it appeared in the public eye.
Li Xiang did not mention the business or products of Ideal Automobile this time, but expressed his views on artificial intelligence technology (AI technology) and the development vision of Ideal Automobile. He stated that the ideal car is not about the intelligence of cars, but about the automation of artificial intelligence. This is in line with his idea of developing Ideal Automotive into an artificial intelligence company, which he mentioned in early 2023.
Since the second half of the year, Ideal Auto has consistently ranked first in monthly sales among new energy brands. In the field of artificial intelligence, the intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit of ideal cars are also rapidly advancing.
Build a 'car shaped AI machine'
In June of this year, Li Xiang was invited as a guest speaker at the Chongqing Automotive Forum, marking his first speech since the launch of the Ideal MEGA three months ago. Compared to this public interview, Li Xiang's speech at the Chongqing Automotive Forum was mainly limited to industry exchanges.
Li Xiang's two statements have focused on the field of artificial intelligence, rarely mentioning the products and commercialization of Ideal Auto. In June, Li Xiang announced the latest progress and future plan of the company in the field of automatic driving, saying that he would launch no map NOA (high-level auxiliary driving) in the third quarter of this year, and launch L3 auto drive system based on the company's self-developed large model and VLM visual model from the end of this year to the beginning of next year.
In November, reporters from Time Weekly experienced the image free NOA function of Ideal Car on site. The vehicle can now achieve automatic driving from parking space to parking space, and can automatically enter and exit highway toll stations, drive around the island, and more. Li Xiang believes that with the continuous evolution of technology, the improvement of computing power, and the expansion of models, unsupervised L4 level autonomous driving is expected to be achieved within three years.
Despite the rapid development of autonomous driving technology and the deployment of Robotaxis by peers such as Tesla, Li Xiang does not want to enter this field. He believes that autonomous driving technology can make vehicles become unmanned travel tools, but the demand for manual driving will still exist, and the ideal car product is a stable and reliable home product.
In addition to intelligent driving, Ideal Auto also focuses on the proactivity and interactivity of vehicle systems at the level of artificial intelligence. The in car interaction system launched by it not only supports traditional vehicle function control, but also supports certain generative AI functions such as painting, encyclopedia, etc.
Li Xiang himself also agrees with the statement that 'electrification is the first half, intelligence is the second half'. However, he believes that automotive intelligence is not traditional software defined cars, but true artificial intelligence. Nearly half of our annual R&D investment of over 10 billion yuan is invested in artificial intelligence
Start doing things low-key
Compared to the previous "king of Weibo" style of wild and unrestrained behavior, Li Xiang is now quite cautious. Under his leadership, Ideal Auto has also made multiple adjustments this year. In addition to the advancement of artificial intelligence technology, Ideal Auto has recently focused on products and services, which has to some extent distanced itself from the public opinion.
After the slow launch of the Ideal MEGA in March, Ideal Motors launched the Ideal L6 in April to stabilize market performance. In the product layout of Ideal Automobile, the Ideal L6 is positioned lower, and its starting price of 250000 yuan has also allowed Ideal Automobile to enter a more mainstream market and receive positive feedback.
Since its launch, the Ideal L6 has gradually become the best-selling product of Ideal Auto and the "ballast stone" for Ideal Auto throughout the year. In the first 11 months of this year, Ideal Auto sold a total of 442000 cars, ranking first among new energy brands. Among them, the cumulative sales of Ideal L6 have exceeded 160000 units, ranking first in sales of mid to large SUVs for six consecutive months.
Another major adjustment for Ideal Motors is the postponement of the launch of pure electric vehicle models. When reflecting on the issue of the launch of Ideal MEGA in March this year, Li Xiang himself stated that the limited charging network layout was not enough to dispel the anxiety of pure electric users, which was one of the important reasons for the setback of his pure electric product Ideal MEGA.
Therefore, before the subsequent launch of pure electric products, Ideal Automobile accelerated the layout of its charging network. On December 25th, Ideal Auto had 1400 supercharging stations, an increase of 1143 compared to the same period last year, making it one of the fastest brands among new energy vehicle companies to deploy supercharging stations.
However, the ideal car still has some distance to go from the sales target set at the beginning of the year. At the beginning of the year, Li Xiang set his sales target for this year at 800000 vehicles. Afterwards, when reflecting, Li Xiang decided to return to user value and no longer focus on car sales as the main guide.
From recent discussions on artificial intelligence technology, Li Xiang has a new goal.