Li Xiang, the chairman and CEO of Ideal Automobile, who had his wisdom teeth removed for this press conference, came with the company's flagship model.
On March 1st, the first pure electric MPV of Ideal Automobile, MEGA, was launched at a price of 559800 yuan. This also means that Ideal Automobile will officially start competing in the pure electric vehicle market.
In fact, Ideal Automobile has been laying out in the field of pure electric vehicles for a long time, but has not yet launched related products due to various reasons. Regarding the reason for not prioritizing the development of pure electric models, Li Xiang once stated that Ideal Automobile will not launch pure electric models until high-voltage fast charging technology is mature. "The 400kW fast charging technology requires support from three key technologies: a high-voltage platform above 800V, a national standard for 500Ah ultra fast charging, and batteries with a charging rate of 4C or higher." Li Xiang believes.
In order to solve charging and other issues, Ideal Automobile found CATL and, based on the Kirin architecture, both parties went through multiple iterations to finally create a 5C battery and apply it to Ideal MEGA.
At the launch event of Ideal MEGA, Li Xiang stated that MEGA can achieve peak 5C battery charging rate, with a peak charging power of over 520kW, and can charge 500 kilometers in 12 minutes. Meanwhile, relying on factors such as a 0.215 low wind resistance design, MEGA uses a 102.7 kilowatt hour battery and can achieve a range of 710 kilometers under CLTC conditions.
However, it should be noted that the implementation of the above charging speed requires the cooperation of ultra fast charging stations. Therefore, Ideal Automobile is also accelerating the layout speed of its supercharging network in national highways and cities.
"By the end of this year, we will build over 2000 high-speed and urban overcharging stations." Li Xiang introduced that in the next few years, Ideal Automobile plans to invest 6 billion yuan to build 5000 directly operated 5C overcharging stations, so that Ideal 5C overcharging stations can cover 95% of the country's high-speed and important national roads.
In addition to considering factors such as charging technology and facilities, the ideal MEGA ultimately chooses the pure electric technology route, which also includes the consideration of ideal vehicle performance. "The ideal MEGA adopts a pure electric technology route for considerations such as driving performance and wind resistance. The biggest feature of hybrid MPVs is that the engine or range extender is horizontally mounted, which takes up wheel space and causes limited front wheel corners," said Li Xinyang, the product manager of the ideal MEGA.
In terms of vehicle space, Ideal MEGA significantly compresses mechanical space through structural design. The official slogan of Ideal Automobile is "Two row ultra 7 series long wheelbase version, three row ultra 5 series long wheelbase version" and "Under full load, the trunk can also accommodate four 28 inch suitcases and two 20 inch luggage cases". Li Xiang even claimed that "the Ideal MEGA is the world's largest pure electric passenger car available for sale.".
In addition, according to Li Xiang, in terms of intelligent driving, the Ideal MEGA is equipped with dual NVIDIA Orin-X, a 128 line LiDAR, and a 360 degree camera. Coupled with the BEV large model and occupied network, the Ideal MEGA will start full scene intelligent driving in the upcoming OTA5.2 version to be released in the first half of this year.
It is worth mentioning that the background of the launch of Ideal MEGA is that the penetration rate of new energy in the domestic automotive market with a cost of over 500000 yuan is relatively low, currently hovering around 10%. This means that there are still huge opportunities in this niche field.
Cao Guangping, a partner at Chefu Consulting, believes that car companies are flocking to launch new energy MPV models because the product categories of new energy vehicles have not fully covered the niche market dominated by gasoline vehicles, and the development prospects of this niche market are promising. At the same time, the profit margin of high-end MPV models will be more substantial, which will help improve the profitability level of new energy vehicles.
Li Tie, co-founder and CFO of Ideal Automobile, also stated that since the second half of last year, the prices of raw materials for power batteries have decreased, and the prices of power batteries have returned to rationality. Ideal Automobile's pure electric products have ushered in a good opportunity to go public.
For Ideal Automobile, the Ideal MEGA is not only the flagship model of Ideal Automobile, but also foreshadows the design direction of Ideal Automobile's next three pure electric SUVs this year, and its importance is self-evident.
According to a reporter from the Daily Economic News, Ideal Automobile has high expectations for MEGA, with an expected annual sales volume of around 80000 units. This means that after the launch of Ideal MEGA, the average monthly sales will reach nearly 8000 units.
From the data, although the sales of domestic MPV models reached 1.093 million units in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%, outperforming the overall market, in terms of specific models, there were only three domestic MPV models with annual sales exceeding 80000 units in 2023, namely the Tengshi D9-DMi, Buick GL8, and GAC Trumpchi M8. These three models are either gasoline powered or hybrid. By comparison, pure electric MPV models such as the Tengshi D9 EV and Jike 009 have not shown outstanding sales performance, with annual sales not exceeding 20000 units.
In addition, Xiaopeng Motors' MPV model, Xiaopeng X9, has also started large-scale delivery and is currently accelerating production capacity to deliver orders in hand; And Huawei's flagship SUV model, the WENJIE M9, is also one of the strong rivals of the Ideal MEGA. At present, the Wenjie M9 has exceeded 50000 units and has started delivery.
Taking into account various factors, it is not very easy for Ideal MEGA to successfully break through the encirclement. For Ideal Automobile, although it has high expectations for Ideal MEGA, the main sales task at present is still the extended range products.
The reporter learned that the annual sales target of the four pure electric models of Ideal Automobile is around 150000 units. Based on this calculation, in order to achieve the annual sales target of 800000 vehicles, Ideal Automobile still needs to enhance the competitiveness of its extended range products.
Therefore, at the launch event of the Ideal MEGA, the 2024 Ideal L7, L8, and L9 models were also launched, with prices ranging from 319800 to 379800 yuan, 339800 to 399800 yuan, and 429800 to 459800 yuan, respectively. At the same time, the product strength was further enhanced by equipped with a 52.3kWh large battery and a standard Magic Carpet air suspension system across the entire series.
It is reported that the delivery target for Ideal Automobile in March is 50000 vehicles. With the introduction of a series of new cars, can Ideal Automobile achieve this goal as scheduled? The market and time will give the answer.