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China Electric eMobility eV Li Auto Li Xiang Sales Target

Li Auto says confident it will outsell German luxury brands in China in 2024

CEO looks down on local peers, arguing that their sales are so low that they don't deserve to be taken seriously.

Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI), the buzzy Chinese car-making startup, has set an ambitious goal -- to outsell German luxury brands in 2024.

"With the delivery of the all-electric model and next year's Li L6, we are confident that we will surpass BBA in our total sales in 2024," the company said on Weibo yesterday while sharing insurance registration figures for last week.

"BBA" in China refers to German luxury brands Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, and Li Auto appears to be aiming to outsell one of those three brands in China next year, though it didn't specify.

For reference, BMW Brilliance, BMW's joint venture in China, had retail sales of 653,976 units in 2022, essentially unchanged from 651,236 units in 2021 and ranked 14th in the China Passenger Car Association's (CPCA) top 15 sales ranking.

and FAW-Volkswagen are the top two in the ranking, with 1,804,624 and 1,779,077 units sold in 2022, respectively. Mercedes-Benz and Audi did not make the list.

From January to May this year, BMW Brilliance's retail sales were 274,763 units, up 9.1 percent from 251,880 units in the same period last year, placing it at No. 9 in the CPCA's latest top 10 sales ranking. Mercedes-Benz and Audi are still not on the list.

Li Auto yesterday shared vehicle insurance registration figures showing it sold 8,400 vehicles in the week of June 5 to June 11, bringing the cumulative sales so far this month to 11,900.

As of June 11, Li Auto had sold more SUVs than any of the "BBA" brands in China this month with just three SUVs, it said.

All of Li Auto's models currently on sale are extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), essentially plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), including the five-seat Li L7 and the six-seat Li L9 and Li L8.

The company is expected to launch its first all-electric model by the end of the year, which will be an MPV (multi-purpose vehicle, or van) powered by the latest Qilin Battery from Chinese power cell giant .

On September 22, 2022, in a warm-up for the Li L8's launch in a few days, Li Auto said it will also launch the Li L6, a midsize five-seat SUV priced within RMB 300,000 yuan ($41,850).

As it eats into the German luxury carmaker's market, Li Auto is continuing to learn from the strengths of these established luxury brands.

"In the offensive ground game, the role models are of course the BBA, which are the best sellers in the market priced at RMB 300,000 and up. we learned from them how to open 4S stores, how to choose locations, and reduce customer acquisition costs to 1/5 of stores located in malls," Li Auto founder, chairman and CEO Li Xiang said on Weibo yesterday.

Li Auto also learned from these German luxury car companies how to operate in Shanghai, which does not offer free NEV license plates for EREVs, and boosted the company's sales in Shanghai to a peak in 2022 in one month's time, he said.

Before this year, Shanghai offered free license plates to consumers who bought NEVs, including battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as well as PHEVs.

Starting this year, only consumers who purchase BEVs will receive free license plates in Shanghai, while PHEVs, including EREVs, will not be eligible for the benefit.

In Li Auto's view, its only competitors are German luxury car companies, and local brands are not worth mentioning.

After the company shared its insurance figures for last week yesterday, it was accused by a Weibo user of the move as a continued attack on its local peers.

In response to the Weibo user, Li said that the sales of these local peers are so low that they are not worth mentioning, and that its core focus has always been on the market where BBA is located.

Li used the Chinese saying "three watermelons and two dates (仨瓜俩枣)" to describe the sales of its local counterparts, implying that they were too far behind Li Auto.

Li Auto's two main peers, (NYSE: NIO) and (NYSE: XPEV), both registered around 1,500 units of insurance last week, with 2,800 and 2,200 units from June 1 to June 11, respectively.

It is worth noting that both NIO and XPeng currently offer only BEVs, a fast-growing but currently small market in China.

In January-May, China's passenger vehicle retail sales were 7.63 million units, with NEVs contributing 2.42 million units, or 31.7 percent, according to the CPCA's figures.

BEVs sold 1.64 million units from January to May, contributing 21.5 percent of all passenger car sales.

($1 = RMB 7.1681)

CPCA rankings: Top-selling automakers in China in May

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China Electric eMobility eV Insurance Registrations Li Auto Li Xiang

Li Auto stops sharing weekly sales data, CEO explains why

Li Auto CEO said they have been complained about by many of their peers, so they are temporarily unable to publish insurance data from last week.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) continued to share weekly auto insurance registration numbers in China after they became unavailable on major channels starting in April.

Now the automaker has stopped sharing those numbers as well, and its founder, chairman and CEO Li Xiang explained why.

"We have been complained and reported by many peers, so we can't release the insurance registration data for the time being since last week, very unfortunate," Li wrote on Weibo today.

Notably, earlier today, multiple versions of a table purportedly showing the insurance registration data for the first week of May circulated on Chinese social media, with Li claiming that much of the data was fake.

"I saw that some of my peers couldn't stand the fact that some people started faking the insurance registration data (which every car company buys) and took it upon themselves to release the real data for the first week," he said.

Li Auto's insurance was not less than 6,000 in that falsified data, but 7,000, he said.

Previously, we had access to those numbers every Tuesday, and it was Li Auto's practice to share a portion of them later to show off that it was leading the pack among new car makers.

The company last shared those numbers on May 5, when it provided a table showing that it sold 8,100 units in the week of April 24 to April 30.

Li Auto delivered 25,681 vehicles in April, another monthly high, while surpassing the 20,000-delivery mark for the second consecutive month.

On May 10, Li Auto reported its first-quarter earnings with guidance that second-quarter vehicle deliveries would range from 76,000 to 81,000.

This means that it expects to deliver a total of 50,319 to 55,319 vehicles in May and June.

Insurance registrations for week ending Apr 30: Tesla 11,500, Li Auto 8,100, NIO 2,600

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China Electric eMobility eV Expectations Li Auto Li Xiang

Li Auto CEO predicts China NEV penetration to exceed 80% by Dec 2025

The years 2023-2025 for China's smart EV market will be like the last three years of World War II in history from 1943-1945, said Li Xiang.

China's Mar passenger NEV retail up 23.6% MoM to 543,000, CPCA data show-CnEVPost

Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI), predicted a month ago that China's new energy vehicle (NEV) penetration rate would reach 70 percent by the fourth quarter of 2025.

Now, perhaps fueled by optimism from the Shanghai auto show, he's making an even bolder prediction.

By December 2025, NEVs will account for more than 80 percent of all new vehicle sales in China, Li said in his WeChat status today, adding that the five permanent NEV brands will be born by then.

The years 2023-2025 for China's smart EV market will be like the last three years of World War II in history from 1943-1945, Li said.

Notably, this comes just a month after Li last made a bold prediction.

On March 25, Li said on Weibo that NEVs will contribute 70 percent of new car sales in China by the fourth quarter of 2025.

It's crossing the chasm theory that growth starts to accelerate when a new thing accounts for more than 30 percent, he said.

For the full year 2022, retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles in China were 5.67 million units, up 90 percent year-on-year, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Retail sales of all passenger vehicles in China in 2022 were 20.54 million units, up 1.9 percent year-on-year. This represents a 27.6 percent penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles in China in 2022.

In March, retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles in China were 543,000 units, contributing 34.2 percent of all passenger vehicle sales of 1,587,000 units.

In the past few years, annual passenger car sales in China have remained at about 20 million units per year, or about 1.67 million units per month.

If Li's latest forecast turns out to be accurate, it would mean that by December 2025, China's monthly NEV sales will exceed 1.3 million units.

Li Auto is one of the most successful EV startups in China, currently offering three models -- Li L7, Li L8 and Li L9 -- all extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs).

The company delivered 20,823 vehicles in March, the second time since last December that it has exceeded 20,000 units.

Li Auto delivered 52,584 vehicles in the first quarter, up 65.8 percent year-on-year and up 13.53 percent from the fourth quarter of last year.

On April 18, Li Auto officially unveiled its all-electric solution based on the 800 V high-voltage platform, capable of giving a battery electric vehicle (BEV) a 400 km range on a 10-minute charge.

With the release of this solution, Li Auto will officially enter a phase of parallel development of its EREV and BEV product lines. By 2025, Li Auto's product array will include one super flagship model, five EREVs, and five BEVs, it said.

By that time, Li Auto's models for the market priced above RMB 200,000 will fully meet the needs of family users, the company said.

Li Auto could reach 40,000 monthly sales in 2023, exec hints

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China Electric eMobility eV Li Auto Li Xiang Lithium Lithium Carbonate Lithium Prices

Lithium carbonate prices to fall sharply as demand far below expectations, Li Auto CEO says

In January and February, insurance registrations for passenger cars in China were down more than 25 percent from a year earlier, Li Auto CEO said, citing insurance registration data.

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Battery Swap China Electric eMobility eV Li Auto Li Xiang Nio

Li Auto CEO says battery swap model promising in cost reduction

If electric cars can be sold to consumers without batteries, the cost can be lower than fuel cars, said Li Xiang.

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