MONA M03, Xpeng Motors’ savior or troublemaker?

Suddenly, like a spring breeze, many brands became popular in the car circle.

Multi-brand operation is increasingly becoming a routine operation in the current new energy vehicle industry. After the launch of NIO's second brand Ledao, Xiaopeng also began to take action.

On July 3, Xiaopeng MONA M03 was officially released, with an estimated price of less than 200,000 yuan. From the name, this car still has traces of Didi. In August last year, Didi sold all its car-related assets and R&D capabilities to Xiaopeng Motors. After less than a year of dressing up, this A-class car with Didi's genes officially came out of the boudoir.

Because of this origin, some people say that this car completely lacks Xiaopeng's family design language. If the car logo is covered, it is difficult to tell that this is a Xiaopeng car.

No matter how beautiful a girl is, she will eventually get married. At the car launch event, He Xiaopeng said a lot. Putting aside the fancy words, let's take a look at what core selling points this car, which will shoulder the heavy responsibility of Xiaopeng's dual market channels, can bring to users.

There is no doubt that the intelligent driving system is its most amazing equipment.

In the public's perception of Xiaopeng, it is the first echelon of domestic intelligent driving, and it will follow this idea when making product layout. If this is true, although Xiaopeng MONA M03 is not equipped with laser radar, the pure visual intelligent driving system should be equipped in it.

In other words, users may only need to spend 150,000 yuan to get the intelligent driving function on Xiaopeng's 200,000 yuan level models.

Intelligent driving is the biggest highlight of Xpeng's models.

The second is low price. Xiaopeng's official statement is that it will focus on the market below 200,000 yuan. Let me add here that most of Xiaopeng's models have already reached this price range. I really don't know how they will divide their product lines at that time.

As a medium-sized SUV, the starting price of Xiaopeng G6 is only 179,900 yuan now, and the starting price of Xiaopeng G9, a medium-to-large SUV, is only 243,900 yuan. If MONA wants to widen the gap with Xiaopeng's existing models, the price should be around 100,000-150,000 yuan, otherwise it will fall into internal friction.

In fact, the idea behind Xiaopeng MONA M03 is the same as that of Weilai: to delegate some of the existing technologies to lower the overall selling price and attract users with limited budgets.

Ledao is considered to be the key to NIO's breakthrough. Can Xpeng MONA, which is designed in the same way, also take on this important task?

The difference between the two is that Ledao is a sub-brand of Weilai, but MONA is just a brand-new series. Don't underestimate this small difference, the two will have a big difference in terms of budget, autonomy and other treatments.

91che would like to make a bold guess here that Xpeng Motors may have two main purposes for positioning MONA in this way.

1. Cost saving. Generally speaking, a second brand needs to have an independent marketing team, sales and service network, and brand identity, which will increase costs. Xiaopeng, which has been losing money for a long time, does not want to spend a lot of money anymore.
2. Speed ​​up. The launch of a new sub-brand requires re-establishing brand influence, which is not easy to do in the short term. In this case, it is better to directly borrow Xiaopeng’s existing brand assets.

But the reality is that no matter how Xiaopeng works on its brand positioning, MONA may find it difficult to achieve the desired results, especially compared with Ledao.

The reason why Ledao has gained more expectations on the Internet is mainly because it is well matched by NIO. Because the average price of the NIO brand is close to 400,000 yuan, it has blocked some users who are unwilling to buy NIO. Many consumers have to give up because of the high price. When Ledao appeared, its core technology is similar, and it can share the battery swap network with NIO. Naturally, the "cheap version of NIO" can attract some users.

MONA is unlikely to produce the effect of "cheap Xiaopeng". The average selling price of Xiaopeng G6 and P7 is around 200,000 yuan. As the price war intensifies, their prices may drop further. If the price of Xiaopeng MONA M03 is between 150,000 and 200,000 yuan, once Xiaopeng Motors' existing models continue to reduce prices, it will only cause trouble for itself. And if the MONA series cannot open up a gap with Xiaopeng Motors, then what is the point of going to such great lengths to make a MONA?

If Xiaopeng MONA M03 sets the price at around 100,000 yuan, can it attract more consumers with its low price?

This is actually very difficult.

Due to the low sales volume, Xiaopeng Motors' cost control ability is not strong. Xiaopeng's supply chain should not be able to support such a high-volume model with a price of more than 100,000 yuan. Don't forget that He Xiaopeng once went to the workshop to tighten screws due to production capacity. Once Xiaopeng enters this red ocean market, it will directly face BYD, Geely and other big manufacturers. It is absolutely impossible for MONA to win against such giants that have both technology, scale and are good at cost control.

To take a step back, even if Xiaopeng ignores the losses and forces the Xiaopeng MONA M03 to be a "low-price, high-spec" product, and it really gets the recognition of users, with Xiaopeng Motors' current capabilities, how to deliver it is a big problem.

Low-end models must be sold in large quantities. Low-end models that are not sold in large quantities are worthless. However, Xiaopeng is too small and has limited delivery capacity. Once the orders explode, it will be a headache for Xiaopeng.

Moreover, once Xiaopeng MONA M03 is sold and delivered on a large scale, it will seriously erode the image of the Xiaopeng brand. The ultimate result is that Xiaopeng will become a low-end brand through and through.

This is different from the situation of Ledao. The "low-end" of Ledao is relative to the price of the NIO brand. The starting price of the first model, Ledao L60, is expected to be 219,900 yuan, and the price of the main model may be more than 200,000 yuan; while the low-end of Xiaopeng MONA is really low-end.

Tesla is a good example to refer to in this regard. The news that Tesla will launch a cheap car has been circulating on the global network for at least three years, but it has not yet landed.

Cheap models seem to be able to make Tesla's sales soar, but Musk has been hesitant, mainly because he thinks that the cheap version of Tesla will damage the brand image; at the same time, with Tesla's current production capacity, it may not be able to guarantee the delivery of the cheap version of Tesla.

Xiaopeng Motors' current models are priced relatively low, so there is not much room for maneuver. Whether as an independent brand or as an independent car series under Xiaopeng, MONA can only play a limited role, and may even have a counterproductive effect.

If Xiaopeng Motors just wants to take advantage of the popularity of MONA to launch some new models and transform its existing product system, such as letting it replace the Xiaopeng P5, then it is understandable. However, it is also questionable whether the model can be sold by changing its name.

In fact, MONA was originally positioned for the B-end market, otherwise Xiaopeng would not have taken over Didi. Now that the MONA series has entered the general C-end market, the difficulties it faces have increased dramatically. How to operate this new series of cars well is a big problem for Xiaopeng Motors. If it is not done well, it will become a hot potato and a trouble maker for the company.

In June 2024, Xpeng Motors sold 10,668 vehicles, barely staying in the club of monthly sales of 10,000 vehicles. The launch of MONA is an attempt at a "new ship" before Xpeng spreads its wings, but can changing the name really change one's fortunes?

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.