Shanghai has just experienced the “hot fire fading” stage after the plum rain season. As the temperature rises after the beginning of the dog days, the temperature this week is close to 39 degrees. Shanghai people just came out of the “bathroom” and entered the “oven”.
This kind of weather is not very friendly to new energy vehicle owners who need to charge outdoors. The scorching sun and the heavy charging gun are a bit different from the expectation of luxury.
Zhao Peng used to be a traditional luxury brand car owner. When he decided to move into the world of new energy vehicles, he still hoped to maintain the “prestigious” luxury. But after a comparison, he found that traditional luxury brands seemed to have lost some key elements in their progress. So,He turned his attention to domestic high-end new energy brands.
The fact is that there are more and more consumers like Zhao Peng. In the “Rich Car Market Insight Report” released by Yiche Research Institute this year, we found that BBA has not changed in the past decade, but the people who buy BBA have changed. The changes in the past two decades have not only reshaped China's wealthy class, but also reshaped China's wealthy car market.
The emotional value of traditional luxury car brands seems to have begun to dissipate, and consumers are beginning to re-arrange “high-end & luxury brands” in their minds.
The consumption habits that have been ingrained in our mindsets seem to have been hit by a new shock. The emotional value provided by traditional luxury cars suddenly seems to have lost its appeal?
The “emotional value” of new technologies
“For example, I couldn't find the HUD switch in the menu by chance, so I wanted to control it by voice. But after trying for a long time, none of the traditional luxury cars could turn it on. Either they didn't understand it or they couldn't operate it. With this simple try, I knew which car was truly smart.”
Mr. Liu is also the owner of a domestic high-end new energy brand. As an engineer, he hopes that what he buys is a real smart car.“They all look smart in promotional videos, but sometimes you will know the difference when you try it yourself.”
Mr. Liu's small case seems to only illustrate the interconnection between functional modules, but behind it is a reflection of the depth and breadth of a car company's R&D system, which largely determines the performance of subsequent OTA upgrades and the opening of more personalized scenarios.
In essence, today's high-net-worth individuals have completely different definitions of “high-end” and “playability” than before. Cars are industrial products, so a key selling point of “old-school” luxury cars is mechanical performance. However, after the maturity of the new energy vehicle industry, cars have changed from a means of transportation to a life scene, carrying many product functional demands that have continued from the mobile era and the smart era.
For example, the interaction between the car system based on natural language, and the powerful computing power that brings more powerful product power, are usually much sexier than discussing “whether the gearbox is AT or CVT” at present.
If a user who has grown up in the mobile and smart eras works every day in an environment with high-speed Internet and widespread smart services, and then gets in a car and regresses to the industrial age, the driving experience will be completely fragmented – just like it is hard to imagine a person living in a cyberpunk city but relying on a horse-drawn carriage to travel, even if the horse runs quite fast.
This different understanding of the word “high-end” becomes more representative of the times when applied to a specific car model. For example, after the release of NIO ET7, users were concerned about its intelligent driving computing power exceeding 1000 TOPS, the upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295P smart cockpit chip in the executive version, and the label of “the first Chinese brand pure electric sedan with ultra-long-range, high-precision mass-produced lidar”, which is completely different from the focus in the era of fuel vehicles.
After the outbreak of generative AI, this change in cognition has become more and more obvious.
Mr. Liu, mentioned above, was actually most impressed by NIO NOMI GPT. Many people think that voice assistants can only give mechanical answers. In contrast, Mr. Liu feels that his NOMI is more like a personal assistant, or “Agent” in popular terms.
NOMI can not only chat about the rise and fall of a few stocks on the way to work, but also intelligently select some key financial news and report them to Mr. Liu in real time. If he drives to pick up customers, NOMI is almost Mr. Liu's “second brain”.
The ultimate product strength may be the panacea to break down the ideological opposition. Some new Chinese brands are using down-to-earth learning and rapid iteration strategies to achieve a level of parity in the eyes of consumers in terms of driving control, manufacturing, and quality, which are the strengths of traditional luxury brands.
Mr. Liu was originally a fan of fuel vehicles. Because of a friend's comment that the service was good, he tried the NIO ET7 with aversion to new energy vehicles. “After trying it, I realized what it really is. Not only does it surpass the smart experience, but I am also surprised that the driving experience is much more comfortable than my BBA.”
“The key is that it can be upgraded. It also has the self-developed ICC intelligent chassis domain controller and CDC dynamic suspension damping control, which can upgrade the driving experience and make the chassis texture always feel new,” praised Mr. Liu.
As a member of the generation that grew up with the mobile Internet era, Mr. Liu’s love for cars is not only about “control”, but now he also wants to play with “car computers” and “functional upgrades”. This is a new “emotional value” brought about by new technologies.
This may be the real reason why NIO ET7 can challenge the BBA “56E” market segment. The industry has also produced an interesting slogan “The next car after 56E will be ET7”, because the more realistic and cruel statement is “Compared with 56E, ET7 is no longer a product of the same era.”
“Chinese car buyers are very interested in technologies such as digital interaction, connectivity and ADAS functions,” said a survey by McKinsey, a world-renowned consulting firm. Chinese consumers have a better understanding of the emotional needs of luxury car consumption – they admire technology and innovation, and this series of changes in the Chinese market has become the Achilles' heel of traditional luxury brands that are slow to react.
A data from Weilai shows thatNIO is the first brand that BBA users associate with when switching from oil to electricityA large part of the users of NIO's ET7 model come from BBA's “56E” users. The BBA models that originally “monopolized” high-end political and business occasions are gradually being replaced by new forces. The appearance and interior of the recent 24 NIO ET7 executive version have been iterated again, far exceeding the slow pace of “three years of modification and five years of replacement” of its competitors, allowing the executive sedan's driving experience to be continuously updated.
The ET7 Executive Edition is more than that. It has gradually become the first choice for state guests and a new consensus for high-end business activities in the intelligent era, including the official designated vehicle for the 2023 Shanghai International Import Expo, the 6th World Manufacturing Conference, and the “Summer Davos” Forum. In these new scenarios, this group of high-end new energy vehicle users seem to have won new emotional value under the recognition of mainstream values.
What beat instant noodles is takeout, and what beats charging is battery replacement
The different understandings of products by “natives” in different eras have also indirectly affected the entire circle of high-net-worth individuals.
In the past, when Europeans bought an Audi A8 or Americans bought an F-150, their dream lives were different: the former expected to drive on the German highway without speed limits in a four-wheel drive, while the latter expected to drive through the bumpy roads to the lakeside cottage. Their demand for the value of cars had a very clear imprint of the times.
After twenty years of demystification of foreign-funded cars, this “pastoral” marketing image has been criticized as old-fashioned, just like ancient Roman-style home decoration.
Today, domestic car brands are becoming a new label for high-net-worth individuals. In particular, Generation Z has a different understanding of consumption than before, and they may even express their support by saying they have “no need to use” but “actively pay”.
Foreign YouTubers are keen on flying thousands of miles to China to shoot videos of roads full of new energy vehicles, shouting how incredible it is to be so quiet on these roads.
In addition, each circle has its own topic of conversation, and on a more emotional level, this has almost become a criterion for judging whether a person has successfully integrated into a certain group. In the era of fuel vehicles, people's topics of conversation were basically fixed on “high fuel consumption” and “many minor problems”. On this issue, there is not much difference between luxury car owners and ordinary car owners, and the speeches of both parties in various forums are usually similar.
It has to be said that this is a tragedy unique to the era of fuel vehicles – no matter how luxurious the brand image is, it cannot become a “beauty filter” for ordinary commuting life.
This experience gap has led to personality changes for the “new middle class”. When trying out new energy vehicles, it is the convenience of “charging” and “battery replacement”. To some extent, people use this to judge whether a new energy vehicle company has sufficient strength and whether its understanding of the product is inclusive enough.
Therefore, the “NIO squat” has become a reflection of people's curiosity about new automotive technologies from big cities to small towns.
Mr. Liu is the first car owner to buy a NIO car in their county. Today, the county is even more popular with middle-class people like Mr. Liu. There are not only Starbucks, Heytea, Sam's Club… in the county, but also a big square box “NIO Battery Swap Station”.
“Every time I change the battery, there are always friends who come to ask me what kind of car this is, how much it costs, whether the battery replacement is reliable, etc. I do like to chat with them, but I always say that the reason why battery replacement really impresses me is not just that it is fast, but that I don’t have to carry a heavy charging gun on rainy days, and I don’t have to toss back and forth because the charging gun is not supported. I think this is a real luxury experience.” said Mr. Liu.
Different from other electric brands, in addition to its fast charging network, NIO’s more acclaimed energy replenishment method is the “battery swap service”, and it has single-handedly included traditional automobile groups such as Geely and Changan into its battery swap cooperation network.
It is understood thatOn average, there is a NIO battery swap station for every 200 km of highway, and for 80% of urban users, there is a NIO battery swap station within every 3 km.With the launch of the 150kWh ultra-long-range battery pack, users' long-distance needs are further met, and the vision of “charging is more convenient than refueling” and “electricity goes farther than oil” is not far away.
It is difficult for a car owner to cover up the embarrassment of queuing for charging by using the excuse that “battery replacement” has nothing to do with the car itself. It is often not your competitors that defeat you, just as it is takeaways that defeat instant noodles. The key is not to become a better opponent, but to become a new species.
Invisible “Hidden Assets”
“Which company can have such a good relationship between car buyers and car sellers?” This is a joke from a Weilai user. Such emotional connection is not visible in the financial statements.
Just like the NIO ET7 owners Zhao Peng and Mr. Liu mentioned earlier, they all knew about NIO from different perspectives, but stayed with NIO because of its complete and systematic experience.
Through the personal experience and communication of every user, China's new high-end brands seem to be forming a circle: through word-of-mouth experience sharing, more and more users are beginning to accept luxury domestic cars and demystify traditional brands. On the other hand, this also reflects the mutual recognition within the new circle.
It is this group of high-end circles with high knowledge, high income and high energy that NIO has impressed. They care more about “time”, the efficiency of the overall service, the quality of details, and the leading technology. Take the owners of ET7 as an example. The first- and second-tier users account for as high as 88%. More importantly, more than 24% of them are CEOs and partners, and 53% are middle and senior management of enterprises above CXO and director.
For this group of users, the top three of their last car was the 56E from BBA. First of all, it must be a competition of basic product strength and technical strength, and then the new “emotional value” provided by technology and services has been recognized.
Therefore, the “emotions” of these users have become NIO's invisible “invisible assets”, bringing about a real word-of-mouth effect.
These “invisible assets” have attracted many users. The services provided by NIO have been integrated into every aspect of their lives. Even a type of cookie in the NIO Life mall is becoming a hot item among white-collar workers.
In addition, many of Weilai's services may seem a bit “crazy” to outsiders, but in the eyes of these high-end users, they are truly thoughtful and time-saving measures:Free door-to-door tire repairs and free energy-replenishing shuttle services have become commonplace, and there are even NIO stations in various cities that provide users with extremely personalized services such as walking pets and picking up children.
According to the latest retail terminal data, NIO has ranked fourth in the high-end brand sales ranking in the first half of this year. Under the attribution of sales of pure electric vehicles above 300,000 yuan, NIO has become the brand with the highest sales; at the same time, NIO also occupied 5 seats in the top 20 pure electric vehicles above 300,000 yuan in the first half of the year.
In the high-end pure electric market with a price of more than 300,000 yuan, NIO is the only dominant player, occupying more than 30% of the market share. In markets such as Shanghai and Jiangsu, its market share has even reached 50%.
In the opinion of car owner Mr. Liu, modern people are short on time, and NIO's technology brings not only product superiority, but also efficient collaboration brought by interconnection, allowing products and services to integrate into a new car-using experience, which is a direct and new “emotional value”.
This is even described by many car owners as the “appropriateness” of the new smart car era, which not only conforms to the current smart era, but also can resonate with the needs of users at all times.
Perhaps, the systemic competition in the automotive industry that we often talk about is reflected in the provision of multi-dimensional emotional value to users, and once you have tried it, perhaps everything can never go back to the way it was before.
