With a pre-sale price of 219,900 yuan, Ledao L60 was officially unveiled. Can the “simplified version of NIO” be a hit?

Have you noticed that today’s new energy vehicle manufacturers prefer to have sub-brands?

Not to mention Geely, Great Wall, Chery, and Changan, which are all expanding their business, BYD, which did not have many sub-brands in the past, now has four independent brands: BYD, Denza, Yangwang, and Fangchengbao.

On May 15, NIO also joined the race, and its second brand Ledao was officially launched. At the same time, Ledao's first mid-size SUV Ledao L60 was also unveiled, with a pre-sale price of 219,900 yuan. So, what can this car bring to NIO?

There are many sub-brands in the automotive industry, and many of them have very different styles from their parent brands, such as Fangchengbao and BYD. However, judging from the situation of Ledao L60, its blood relationship with Weilai is still very obvious.

In terms of appearance, Ledao L60 is slightly different from the NIO brand and has some personalized designs, but the overall style has not changed and is still dominated by a young and fashionable style.

In terms of intelligent driving, Ledao L60 will also adopt NIO's existing technology, but will adopt a lower-cost pure vision solution, which is similar to Hongmeng Zhixing's Zhijie S7.

Ledao L60 is developed based on NIO’s third-generation technology platform NT3.0. The entire series supports the 900V silicon carbide platform, so its power performance will not be bad.

At the same time, Ledao L60 will be produced on the same line as NIO ET5, sharing the same production process and quality control system with NIO's main brand to ensure product quality.

In addition, Ledao L60 can also be used with Weilai Gong offer Battery swap network and battery leasing program. However, at present, Ledao L60 only supports the third and fourth generation battery swap stations, and the number is relatively small, so it is necessary to wait for NIO's previous charging stations to be upgraded.

In other words, the Ledao L60 is still the same as NIO. If BYD's sub-brands are enhanced versions of the main brand, Ledao is equivalent to a simplified version of the NIO brand. Of course, not only the performance is simplified, but also the price. The Ledao brand has entered the price range of more than 200,000 yuan in one fell swoop.

There are generally two reasons why car companies launch sub-brands. The first is to occupy more market segments, and the second is to reflect different brand positioning. The relationship between Weilai and Ledao belongs to the second reason.

Among the many new car-making forces in China, NIO's positioning is relatively high. The lowest-positioned NIO ET5 has a starting price of 298,000 yuan. At the same time, since its establishment, NIO's monthly sales have never exceeded 20,000 vehicles. One of the main reasons is that the pricing is too high, which is beyond the affordability of ordinary users.

In NIO's view, its products have powerful performance and its battery swap network is also quite attractive. If it can guarantee certain product performance, lower the price appropriately, and then add the convenience brought by "battery swapping", it is likely to gain recognition from more users. This is the original intention of launching the second brand.

In fact, NIO does have an urgent need to quickly increase its sales volume. The automobile industry is an industry that wins by scale. NIO's monthly sales have always been suppressed below 20,000 vehicles, and in some months, monthly sales have not even exceeded 10,000. This has kept NIO's unit cost high and its gross profit margin unable to increase.

In addition, NIO is working hard to build a battery swap network with astonishing costs. If sales volume does not increase, the utilization rate of these battery swap stations will decrease, which may eventually lead to the embarrassing situation that a battery swap network is built but there are no cars to swap batteries.

Theoretically, the second brand Ledao can solve this problem. It is positioned lower and should bring good sales. After the sales scale expands, Weilai's production costs will continue to decline, and the battery swap stations will have a large number of users, which can enter a virtuous circle.

It can be said that NIO will definitely launch its second brand, which may be the only way for it to get out of its current predicament. For other brands, sub-brands may be for "going wild" and opening up new markets; but for NIO, a second brand can change its destiny.

According to the official news released by NIO, the overall performance of Ledao L60 is still good. It is affordable and has powerful performance. It has good performance in power, space, intelligence and other aspects. It can be said that this car has the strength to enter the mainstream market.

In addition, Ledao L60 has unique selling points such as "battery swap" and "battery leasing". As the network of NIO battery swap stations continues to advance, this may become the core competitiveness of NIO and Ledao, attracting more users.

However, it should be noted that the current competition in China's new energy vehicle market is very fierce, and the pure electric mid-size SUV is also a very crowded track. Models such as Xiaopeng G6, BYD Tang EV, Model Y, BYD Song L, Denza N7, and Deep Blue S7 all have outstanding strength and will become strong rivals of Ledao L60.

More importantly, Ledao L60 will be launched in September, which is 4 months away. According to the development speed of China's new energy market, the world may be completely different in 4 months. It may be questionable whether Ledao L60 will still have advantages in price and product performance by then.

From an objective point of view, the high price is indeed an important reason for the poor sales of NIO, but it may not be the only reason. Ledao L60 is actually a cheap version of NIO. So, can a high-end model sell well immediately after the price is reduced? This is difficult to say.

It can only be said that the Ledao L60 only looks good now, but if the sales are not good after it is launched, it will not only fail to help NIO, but may even become a burden. The results of these will not be seen until it is officially delivered.

There is nothing wrong with NIO launching a second brand, lowering the average selling price, and attracting more users. But whether Ledao L60 can be recognized by users is still unknown. In China's new energy market, anything can happen.

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.