315 Car Black and Red List

Starting from the fourth quarter of 2022, after the launch of Xpeng G9, Xpeng Motors’ sales levels have gone downhill. According to common sense, the release of new products will often boost brand sales, but after the release of Xpeng G9, Xpeng's sales declined month-on-month.

Many netizens believe that this is the epitome of Xpeng Motors’ failure to hit the high-end market. In fact, since Xpeng launched its third model, the Xpeng P5, its brand sales growth has hit a bottleneck, but it still maintains a high level. However, the launch and delivery of the Xpeng G9 has given Xiaopeng a wake-up call, and we are looking forward to it. The sales growth did not appear, but declined. This was indeed beyond Xpeng Motors’ expectations and also caused trouble for Xpeng’s subsequent development.

After entering 2023, Xpeng’s sales performance is still poor. In January, Xpeng delivered 5,218 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 56.62%. Affected by the premature Spring Festival this year, it is understandable that Xpeng's sales in January were slightly lower. However, Xpeng's delivery volume in February was only 6,010 vehicles. Compared with the same period in February 2022 (with the Spring Festival holiday), the delivery volume is still the same There has been a decline.

For Xpeng, which has a richer product matrix, competition is becoming increasingly fierce but sales are gradually declining. This is really a serious problem and may even determine the fate of the company.

Although it has attracted Wang Fengying, known as the "Iron Lady" to join, there has been a lot of news in recent months that Xiaopeng has ushered in a wave of executive resignations. In fact, starting from the second half of 2022, when Xpeng decided to reshape its internal organizational structure, many senior management positions within Xpeng have been adjusted.

First, co-founder and president Xia Heng resigned from the company’s board of directors as executive director, and He Tao was also rumored to no longer hold a specific position. Later, Li Pengcheng, the former vice president in charge of public relations business, switched to Avita.

At the annual summary meeting on January 18, 2023, He Xiaopeng said: We must break and build again, reshape the organization and values, and find problems from senior executives and middle and senior managers. This also seems to confirm the internal turmoil within Xpeng since last year.

In addition to internal adjustments at the enterprise level, Xpeng's path to high-end impact at the product level has become increasingly obvious with the setback in the launch and delivery of Xpeng G9. In fact, not only Xpeng G9, but also the discussion about Xpeng's product matrix has not stopped since the launch of Xpeng P5.

As one of the three well-known new power car companies "Wei Xiaoli", Xpeng Motors' product positioning is undoubtedly the lowest among the three. Therefore, since the second model Xpeng P7 was launched, Xpeng has been committed to making the brand impact the higher-end market. However, there seems to be some problems with Xpeng’s product planning.

In September 2021, Xpeng’s third model P5 was officially launched. At that time, the price was 157,900-223,900 yuan. Although the overall price was slightly lower than the Xpeng P7, the price of the high-end models was actually the same as that of Xiaopeng. Peng P7 is highly overlapped. The most important thing is that the high-end models of the Xpeng P5, which is positioned at a lower level, have much higher configurations than the Xpeng P7. Even lidar is the first to be installed on the Xpeng P5. Then there is a problem! The final result is that the sales performance of Xpeng P5 is not outstanding, and Xpeng P7 naturally becomes the sales leader.

As more and more pure electric cars with coupe attributes appear on the market, even the sales advantage of the Xpeng P7 among its peers is no longer guaranteed.

Xiaopeng G9 is another high-end product launched by Xiaopeng, but it experienced some crises on the second day after its launch. Xiaopeng G9 adjusted the configuration and price of its products on the second day after its launch, which caused a great sensation at the time. This episode seems to confirm the rumors that the Xpeng G9 product is not strong enough and sales are poor. Facts have proved that there is indeed a problem with the product strength of Xpeng G9. This time it hits the high-end, it seems to have failed again. Behind the repeated failures, perhaps there is indeed a problem with Xpeng Motors itself.

As He Xiaopeng said, reshaping Xiaopeng’s values ??is also an imperative self-salvation. In the eyes of ordinary people, Xiaopeng's story may no longer be worth its price. In other words, the price-performance ratio of Xiaopeng's products is not enough to support the price of its products. To put it more simply, Xpeng's cars are not worth the price in the eyes of consumers. Xiaopeng’s product strength has a big problem! From this point of view, the problems Xiaopeng has to face are quite serious.

Product concept and positioning issues may be classified as corporate strategies that need to be adjusted, but product quality issues do require Xiaopeng to pay close attention to them. In the complaint list of Chezhi.com, the number of complaints about Xiaopeng is rising rapidly. Cheshijie Technology found that the most complained about Xpeng products were Xpeng P7, Xpeng P5 and Xpeng G9.

As for complaints about the Xpeng P7, the most frequent complaints are multimedia system failures and abnormal noises in the car body. For example, a car owner who took delivery of his car in January 2022 had to repair it more than three times due to abnormal noise problems in the car body, but the problem was not repaired. I also went to the 4S store twice for the problem that the Bluetooth key could not start the vehicle. In addition, this car owner's air conditioner made abnormal noises and the driver assistance system also experienced malfunctions.

Not only that, other car owners said that the car's center console, air conditioning vents and other interior parts will have abnormal noise problems when exposed to high temperatures and direct sunlight, and cannot be solved. At the same time, many car owners said that their car body parts were faulty, such as rearview mirror adjustment motor failure, taillight strip cracking, abnormal noise + failure of the drive motor, etc.

There are also many complaints about Xpeng P5. Some car owners said that the 360° panoramic image only has a rear view lens, and the central control screen is malfunctioning. In addition, many car owners said that the battery life of the Xpeng P5 has been severely reduced. The nominal battery life version of the 460 kilometers actually only has about 230 kilometers.

As the latest flagship SUV, although the Xpeng G9 has not yet received large-scale product quality feedback, many car owners have expressed feedback about its excessive motor buzzing, and the current manufacturer has also There is no direct way to eliminate or improve it, which turns off many potential users.

Many users said that some of the features of the Xpeng G9, such as the "5D music cockpit", have no practical effect; although "seat ventilation and heating" is available, the backrest is not; "seat massage" If the intensity is too small, it would be better than nothing. Too many useless configurations reflect Xiaopeng’s lack of actual user experience. And this happens to be something that brands such as Ideal and NIO attach great importance to.

Not only that, in terms of user experience, Xpeng has recently made a huge joke due to OTA upgrades. Recently, a car system update by Xpeng actually requires the car owner to walk to the front of the car, kneel or half-crouch, and face the front camera for facial recognition authentication. This is the so-called "Kneeling Authentication Gate". Although this bug has been corrected, it actually puts the "user thinking" advocated by He Xiaopeng, who has a profound Internet background, to the ground through repeated friction. Anyone with a little experience may know that as long as this bug is actually tested by an engineer with a little experience, it will not be pushed openly to users.

Recently, Xiaopeng P7i was officially launched, priced at 249,900-339,900 yuan. At the same time, the main focus of Xpeng P7i this time is still the high-precision hardware stack they have been pursuing, that is, lidar on the car. In the past two years, many car companies have indeed begun to try to install lidar, but many car companies are still quite pragmatic and cautious about installing lidar on the basis of cost considerations.

Why? This is mainly because the road environment in our country is too complex. Even if lidar is installed on the car, it can achieve more than L2 level assisted driving and reach L3 or even L4 level assisted driving functions. However, after it is finally put on the road, it will not be possible due to various restrictions. Is the practicality of lidar that can only be considered half a decoration in exchange for real money and silver still so strong? If this is regarded as the biggest selling point and promoted all the time, will users pay for a configuration that cannot be used for practical purposes? This really requires Xiaopeng to reflect on itself and see if it is really necessary. There is another point that we must also express to the majority of consumers, that is, the maintenance cost of lidar is quite high, and Xiaopeng's lidar happens to be always placed in a relatively sensitive part like the front of the car. If a collision occurs, it is very likely to impact the lidar and cause damage.

Written at the end:

As one of the representatives of new car-making forces, Xpeng’s influence is declining at a speed visible to the naked eye. The reputation accumulated by the early products is being exhausted by the lack of product strength. This is a problem that Xpeng Motors must solve. In addition, which users should Xpeng's products serve? Should the cost and practicality of newly added technology configurations be considered? How can the most basic product quality issues be improved? Once these are resolved, perhaps Xiaopeng can get back on track.

(Text by Cheshijie Technology Li Liang)

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