Since Li Bin, He Xiaopeng, and Li Xiang announced their plans to build cars, they have been called the “Three Car-Building Brothers” by the new forces in the industry. In some major events, they have appeared together from time to time, and even appeared in the same frame. The most recent one was in 2023 at the “China Automobile T10 Special Summit” held to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Chinese automobile industry. The three brothers once again took a group photo.
However, at the recently held China Electric Vehicles Forum of 100 People (2024), Li Bin and He Xiaopeng arrived as scheduled, but Li Xiang, a frequent visitor, was somewhat unexpectedly absent from the forum’s speech session. In addition, the forum is updated almost every day. N items of Weibo have not been updated for more than half a month, which really makes the outside world feel a little “abnormal.”
Li Xiang’s silence may be largely related to the MEGA, which was launched not long ago. This pure electric MPV, which had high hopes, experienced a storm of “p-picture” spoofs on the Internet after its launch, so much so that Li Xiang posted a photo on his personal WeChat A post on WeChat Moments angrily stated, “Although I am in darkness, I still choose the light,” and said, “We have begun to use legal means to deal with the organized illegal and criminal activities involved in the incident.”
Whether there was any criminal conduct in this incident is a matter for the judicial authorities. However, MEGA’s failure to achieve the expected sales target should be a high probability event. According to Li Auto’s previous work style, at least the number of large orders should be announced in time, but so far it has not.
Can MEGA compete, or can it achieve the success of Buick GL8 and Denza D9? Objectively speaking, it is difficult and not trivial. In addition to the controversy over the appearance design, the positioning of a pure electric MPV priced over 500,000 yuan is also highly questionable.
When it comes to building cars, Li Xiang is ambitious. He has previously said: “We are confident to challenge BBA’s sales in China in 2024, and strive to become the number one luxury brand in sales in 2024.”
But now, MEGA’s unfavorable start is obviously beyond Li Xiang’s previous expectations, which must have had a certain impact on him. The difficulties faced by MEGA are not just the current crisis of public opinion.
Are there shortcomings within the organization?
Among all the leaders of new car-making forces, Li Xiang is probably the CEO who is best at organizational construction and often shares some ideal measures with the outside world.
For example, he believes that organizational upgrades and changes will always exist and cannot be accomplished overnight. Moreover, the upgrade of organizational capabilities is closely related to scale. When the scale is small, the emphasis is on efficiency. But when the scale reaches a certain level, quality means efficiency, “because any low-quality decision, low-quality product, or low-quality manufacturing management capability may cost you billions or tens of billions, or even make you lose money.” Your company will go out of business.”
So as far as MEGA is concerned, is there the problem Li Xiang mentioned, is there a decision that is not quite correct? “I wonder if Ideal Internal evaluates risks when selecting models? Has anyone raised strong objections? If not, then this may be a failed organization. The organizational capabilities have no ability to anticipate and evaluate risks; if so, and it has been criticized Denied, then who led this selection? If it is Li Xiang himself, it is another approach similar to that of a family business, where personal weight is higher than collective decision-making. So, Li Xiang previously studied Huawei’s organizational management and R&D management, and learned IPD Management models, etc., may not be successful.” In the opinion of an industry observer, Li Auto may not be mature enough to optimize organizational efficiency and upgrade process management, although this is what Li Xiang himself has been working on. goals achieved.
Can category innovation continue?
Objectively speaking, Li Xiang’s Li Auto, which is helmed by Li Xiang, has achieved great success and created a miracle through the L7, L8 and L9 cars.
But what’s the logic behind this success? According to Zhang Yun, global CEO of Rees Consulting and chairman of China, real category innovation is the way to break the situation. The reason why Lideal’s previous models were successful was that Tesla did not extend the range or make family cars, while Lideal established the family car market through extended range. However, in the pure electric market, it is extremely challenging for Ideal to achieve the same results as extended range.
In fact, the problem faced by Li Auto is also a dilemma faced by most new energy vehicle companies in China.
Zhang Yun said that many car companies currently build cars based on a very bad method-the benchmarking method. Use Tesla as a benchmark and see if you can make a car that is the same as Tesla at a lower price or with better functions.
“With this method of building cars, will consumers compare the products of car companies with Tesla? This assumption does not exist, and in fact it is useless to be better, because there is no mind at all. It is based on this assumption Products basically have no chance.” Zhang Yun said.
Judging from the product characteristics of MEGA, Li Xiang still wants to innovate the traditional MPV category, otherwise he would not pay tribute to Steve Jobs. It just might take a little more homework.
I wonder if Li Xiang can bring us a “comeback against the wind” surprise after his silence.
Post time: Mar-29-2024