Li wants to predict the future: in 2024, it will enter the era of "complete" intelligent electric vehicles.

In the spring of 2023, at Li's media communication meeting, Li Xiang, Chairman and CEO of Li, delivered a speech of 105 minutes with a short five-page PPT, and the compiled manuscript had more than 20,000 words.

So what does Li want to say? To put it simply, after he led Li to complete the process of "from 0 to 1", he made a comprehensive and detailed output on how the company will develop from 1 to 10, and the reasons behind it, the challenges it faced and the problems it solved.

The full text of this speech has been published by many media, while the official driving school has refined Li Xiang's prediction of Li's future and industry, and viewed the development logic of the new energy vehicle market in the next five or ten years from Li Xiang's perspective.

First, the story of extending the journey will be told in 2030.

The first thing to understand is why Li has now completed the process of "from 0 to 1" and moved to the stage of "from 1 to 10"?

This is not that Li wants to talk casually, nor that he "feels" that he has reached this stage, but that it is supported by financial data.

Li's financial report for the fourth quarter of 2022 shows that "Li's operating profit in the fourth quarter (excluding equity incentives) exceeded 500 million yuan, reaching 568.7 million yuan, with an operating profit margin of 3.2%. In addition, the net profit in the fourth quarter was 265.3 million yuan, and the quarterly free cash flow was 3.26 billion yuan. Positive financial data shows that the company has gradually begun to shift from the initial stage to a larger scale. "

In other words, in the fourth quarter of last year, Li began to make money-earning 265 million yuan, realizing the self-hematopoiesis of selling cars, not just using financing money.

"When you go from 0 to 1, you actually need to verify your viability. From 1 to 10, you carry forward the verified ones. " Li Xiang said in an interview with China Entrepreneur magazine.

Now that Li has proved his successful method, the next step is how to expand the scale.

Li wanted to go back to the first year of 20 16. When he was working on the Li Yi project, he proposed that all their challenges were two. The first challenge is the difficulty of charging, and the second challenge is the high cost of batteries.

"I said that the charge is to replace the standard of fuel vehicles, because we consumers have no obligation. When I buy an electric car, the user's overall experience, movement radius and efficiency are lower than those of a fuel car. Therefore, we think about the charging challenge from the perspective of completely replacing fuel vehicles. " Li Xiang explained that at the same time, because the battery is made up of core precious metals, the easier it is to sell electric vehicles, such as the explosive growth that began in the second half of last year, the more expensive it will become.

At that time, he and the team thought of three paths: the "fast charging plan" of changing electricity, driving range and 10 minute charging range.

After a series of discussions and exclusions, Li chose to expand the scope. "The extended range can also control the weight of the car with less batteries, and it can also solve the charging problem of long-distance driving, which is more in line with our SUV."

In fact, Li Xiang no longer needs to repeat the market prospect of extended range, because the sales volume has proved the user's choice.

Li ONE has become an explosion with a monthly sales of over 10,000 yuan, which means that Li has completed the survival stage of "from 0 to 1". Nowadays, the L9, L8 and L7 models that are rapidly launched are exactly the process of Li's carrying forward the past and opening up the future.

Li said that the prospect of the first quarter of 2023 has reached a new high again, with an estimated delivery volume of 52,000 to 55,000 vehicles, up 64.0% to 73.4% year-on-year.

"Looking back in 2030, we will still adhere to the two routes and advance at the same time, and then make the extended range efficiency higher and better. On the other hand, it does better on the whole high-voltage pure electricity, and provides two choices according to the user's own needs. "

Second, the new story of high-voltage pure electricity and 800V overcharge

"In the past stage from 0 to 1, the extended journey helped us gain a firm foothold and earned us considerable income." Li Xiang said, "This income scale and income growth rate can support us to do pure electricity."

Starting from 2023, Li will open a new field and will also be a new tough battle: high-voltage pure electricity.

Different from the outside world, Li Xiang did not oppose pure electricity and extended range when thinking about pure electricity, but took serious insight as the core technical route.

"Whether we do extended-range electric or high-voltage pure electric, the first core purpose is actually to solve the charging problem. We can charge 400 kilometers in 10 minute when we use 4C battery, and 400 kilometers in 20 minutes when we use 2C battery. "

Li Xiang thinks that pure circuit lines have two core problems:

1, the principle of charging piles is like a restaurant. The pursuit is the turnover rate. Doing six or seven orders a day can make ends meet, and now there are generally only two or three orders;

2. The time cost of users waiting for charging is too high, which also causes the problem of low utilization rate of charging piles. If it is shortened to 10 minutes, the mileage can be filled, and the user experience is basically the same as that of a fuel car.

"To do this, there are actually two core elements. The first core is to use a high-voltage platform, which can achieve such a charging speed. At the same time, the second advantage of the high-voltage platform is that when we use silicon carbide with the high-voltage platform and better wind resistance coefficient, we can greatly reduce the battery cost and significantly improve the efficiency. "

According to Li Xiang, the best-selling pure electric medium and large SUV now has about 65,438+000 kWh, achieving a cruising range of 600 kilometers. But in fact, it is ideal to use 800 volt high voltage platform with better wind resistance coefficient and optimized silicon carbide and overall efficiency. The same cruising range can be achieved with about 80 kWh, and the vehicle will be lighter. Because the car is lighter, the use of aluminum can be reduced, and the cost of bicycles will be reduced by about 30,000 to 40,000 yuan.

"You can see the 800V high-voltage platform electric vehicle we launched, because 4C is still selective, and it can probably achieve the same price as the extended range, which may be different from what you think, because today everyone thinks that 800V silicon carbide will bring more expensive prices, but it is not. It can save a lot of costs. "

According to Li Xiang, on the pure level stage, Li will also have some self-developed technologies such as silicon carbide functional modules and three-in-one motors. At present, the measured results show that the ideal pure electric vehicle can save about 15% battery power compared with the same 400V mainstream IGBT products under the same driving mode.

In other words, the ideal first pure electric vehicle launched at the end of this year may have the same size and configuration as the ideal L9 and the same price.

Li Xiang also thought about how to lay a high-power fast charging station with the introduction of high-voltage pure electric products.

"We believe that to launch electric vehicles, charging piles are products, not services, and charging piles are the products themselves. If we provide 4C, but 4C doesn't have a perfect charging network, it is actually equivalent to buying a 4G mobile phone, but there is only 2G network, so we think it belongs to the product itself. You don't have to worry about the speed and determination of laying charging piles at all, because it is not as expensive as everyone thinks. "

Li Xiang made a calculation on the spot: an overcharging station on an expressway can pull about 640 KVA to 800 KVA of electricity; If this is the storage capacity, it will generally be 3+ 1 station-1 480 kW charging pile with three 250 kW charging piles; If 3000 overcharging stations are built by 2025, the total cost will be 654.38+000 billion yuan, but it can be shared for five years, and the ideal is an enterprise with an annual income of 1000 billion.

"In fact, the cost is much lower than everyone thinks, and it is much cheaper than building a factory." Li thought calmly.

So, how does Li plan the high-voltage charging network? Li Xiang put forward the solution logic of different scenarios-slow charging at home, fast charging in the city and high-speed overcharging. Therefore, Li believes that a better way to build over-charging in cities is to build near gas stations, such as on the ring road. Where there is a gas station, it should be built, and there is coverage along the expressway.

"And the overcharge we built will also be enjoyed by other brands of 800-volt models, ensuring that every other friend's car can also run efficiently. In the long run, we believe that under the normal charging price, after the overcharge system runs smoothly, it will definitely not lose money. As for how much money you earn, it depends on your own operating skills, but at least it is entirely possible not to lose money. "

To some extent, his answer is also a response to Wei Lai's previous proposal of "I hope friends will build more charging piles".

Third, All in AI is the bright spot.

ChatGPT is undoubtedly the hottest word in the whole industry now. However, for the automobile industry, the subversion brought by the large-scale language model and pre-training model behind ChatGPT and DALL-E is still ignored by traditional automobile enterprises-even "perceived". These traditional car companies are still using AI and supercomputer marketing vocabulary in a big way, but they have not really invested heavily in artificial intelligence.

However, at Li's communication meeting, artificial intelligence was promoted to the level of corporate vision: "In 2030, (Li) will become the world's leading artificial intelligence enterprise", so that at least nearly 10,000 words of speeches were centered on the theme of "Technology: Artificial Intelligence Revolution of Intelligent Electric Vehicles".

"Many people say that we are more cautious in artificial intelligence, but in fact we have long been deeply aware of this. After determining that this route is feasible, we will go all out. Our real self-research investment in core intelligent driving began after Tesla ran the general logic model. " Li Xiang's remarks can be said to be an annotation on Li's investment direction in the next seven years.

The "Tesla logic model" that Li wants to mention is actually the FSD launched by Tesla under the leadership of Andrej Karpathy, senior director of autonomous driving algorithm. He began to use shadow learning, large model training and other technologies to get rid of the original "white box for assisted driving" mode and let the machine learn by itself.

"When is a smart electric car really smart? The terminal is not intelligent. The terminal just continues the function of the mobile phone. Why does it continue the function of mobile phone? Because Android has built a very good ecology, consumers don't want to use Android, but want to use the ecology behind Android, because there is an ecology of maps, an ecology of entertainment and audio-visual, and an ecology of a large number of application developers. But I believe that the era of change that truly belongs to smart electric vehicles should start with the real 2.0 operation. "

"I made a prediction myself. I think this time point, especially mid-to high-end cars, will appear in 2024. The real city NOA…… ... is based on the big model and BEV technology (bird's eye view) ... One is that more than 60% or even more than 80% of the cars in the city are given this function to drive, and the safety is no problem unless others violate the rules. Even if there is an accident, it is likely to be a small scratch. At this time, there will be great changes. Just like consumers buy a 20-30-story building, whether there is an elevator or not is the fundamental difference. "

These two paragraphs should be the most important contents and opinions of Li in this communication meeting. He believes that after 2024, at least mid-to high-end cars, if they can't provide urban NOA, will affect consumers' purchase decisions-completely enter the era of smart electric vehicles, otherwise they can only sell non-intelligent electric vehicles forever.

From this, he derived two judgments:

1, these enterprises using Orin computing platform will basically deliver NOA (based on large model) for testing for the first time in the fourth quarter of this year. He personally believes that by the end of this year, most head enterprises can reach the level of Tesla 202 1 at the end of the year, and by 2024, everyone can generally reach the level of Tesla in North America at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.

2. Li will not provide cities in the original way, nor will he divide cities into cities. When it ideally provides urban NOA, it will provide this NOA function based on a large-scale model covering all cities.

This also corresponds to the information before the ideal aspect: it is planned to conduct an internal test of early bird users in NOA, the ideal open city of AD Max, in the fourth quarter.

As for the investment in AI, Li did not disclose it further. However, the financial report for the fourth quarter and the whole year of 2022 shows that Li has continuously increased his investment, investing 2.07 billion yuan every quarter and 6.78 billion yuan every year; In 2022, R&D investment doubled, with a year-on-year increase of 106.3%, and the annual expenditure accounted for 15.0%. ...

Looking at it from another angle, according to the scale of 1000 billion yuan and the R&D ratio exceeding 10%, Li's R&D expenditure can reach1000 billion yuan. This level is equivalent to the R&D investment level of Lenovo, Didi and other Internet companies in 202 1, and Xiaomi's R&D investment is more than1300 million yuan.

Fourthly, about the market forecast.

At the communication meeting, Li Xiang and the senior management team not only comprehensively expounded the technical route and corporate vision, but also conducted extensive exchanges on the current market competition situation. Although the content is limited, it is also very helpful to understand the new energy vehicle market in 2023.

China automobile market will be under pressure in 2023.

Li wants to admit that the market was difficult in the first quarter. The difficulty comes from two aspects. One is that the sales volume of this year was overdrawn in February, and the other is that two head enterprises in the industry fought a price war, which affected the development of the whole automobile market. Li Xiang believes that the whole market will be under pressure this year, whether it is the new energy market or the entire passenger car market.

Fortunately, Li is lucky. First, the second generation products are more competitive and have more leading products at the same price. In addition, the ideal L series benefited from Tesla's price reduction-Tesla voluntarily released the price of 300,000 yuan-which attracted many new users to enter the market.

"This is a place where we are doing well and a lucky place, but I don't think we will be lucky forever. We still have to make all kinds of preparations." Li wanted to say it himself.

Li will enter a stage of "starting to pay attention to market share" this year.

Li Tie, CFO Li, thinks that if the business, supply chain and organizational capabilities are stronger, with the current product strength of the ideal L series and the user value brought by the products, it should actually have a larger market share.

"Both computers and mobile phones are under pressure. When global shipments are declining, it is time for head enterprises to expand their market share." Li Tie said, "(Ideally) in the SUV market of 300,000 to 500,000 last year, it gained almost 9% market share. Next, we want 20%. What is the concept of 20%? It is a leading brand. " The leading brand he refers to is the top three position in the market.

The gross profit margin of 3.20% is healthy.

"If you want to be a car company that stays at the poker table, you basically have to earn hundreds of billions of dollars. If you want to be a world-leading enterprise, you will basically earn trillions of dollars. So how does this income scale operate? This has become very critical. We can't rely on financing forever ... When cars are the hardest to sell, such as the economic crisis, cars are the hardest to sell and there is no financing at all. " Li Xiang clearly explained the importance of gross profit margin to automobile enterprises.

As an intelligent electric vehicle enterprise, in an ideal state, the threshold of health is 20 points of gross profit margin, R&D investment is basically above 10 points, and the sales management cost is 7 to 8 points if it is done well. At the same time, we must bear certain risks and capital investment, such as building factories. Moreover, they observed that in addition to the ideal, Tesla has more than 20 points, and BYD and dealers also have more than 20 points, which is relatively healthy.

"Otherwise how to invest in research and development. We can't say that when the capital market is good, we will invest in R&D, and when the capital market is bad, we will shrink research and development. This is not the case with automobiles. The planning of any car takes more than five years, so the gross profit margin is the focus here. Of course, the higher the gross profit margin, the more difficult it is for enterprises to operate, and the lower the gross profit margin, the easier it is. Negative gross profit margin is equivalent to sending money, which is the easiest. " Li wants to add something.

4. If you want to rob BBA users, you must ensure that about 10%- 15% is the existing car.

This logic is a bit anti-cognitive, because it was thought that the new forces adopted the order system, and the car was booked first and then delivered. However, some of Li's cars can be seen in the market now. Does it mean that the ideal order thickness is not enough?

In this regard, Li Xiang made a special explanation: the existing cars have actually existed since 2022, because the ideal aspect found that when they broke into the market of 400,000-500,000 yuan and provided two cars in the range of 300,000-400,000 yuan, they would rob BBA's stock market, which is a zero-sum game. At this time, users buy BBA, and almost 100% of this price has existing cars, and quite a few users just want to buy existing cars when they come.

So since last year, Li has guaranteed that about 10%- 15% of cars are existing cars. These users don't care so much about what colors and configurations they have to have, but prefer to drive their cars home immediately. "Of course, the existing cars are not directly placed in stores, but in" provincial areas ",and each area is equipped with a certain amount of existing cars according to the needs of users."

Li Tie also added to this. If we want to achieve 20% of the existing cars, on the whole, we need to manage and operate in a way of sinking the center of gravity, and manage all cities by province. Because the provinces are completely different, the decision-making power of existing cars is given to "provinces".

Ideally, the more you go to the first-tier cities, the more you will find store managers complaining that they will lose many customers every day-they just come in and ask if they have a car, but if they don't, they leave. "You can't challenge everyone's common sense. Although you told him that Tesla was like this, anyway, someone came in and someone left, and we opened the rights to them. "

Wen | Liu

Figure | Network

This article comes from the author's Che Yi license plate driving school, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.