Selling 40,000 units per month, the ideal is sharpened with determination.

A 100,000-word article: Ideal Automobile Breaks Through with Monthly Sales of Over 40,000 Units

After 8 or 9 years of testing and battling in the Chinese market, the gap between the new forces in the automotive industry has gradually widened. Ideal Automobile, which has created a hit model L7, has set a new record by selling over 40,000 units in a single month.

In the just-concluded October, Ideal Automobile achieved a monthly delivery volume of 40,000 units, with a cumulative delivery of 284,600 units in the first ten months, approaching the target of 300,000 units for the whole year.

The unstoppable sales momentum has fueled Ideal Automobile's ambition to strive for a monthly sales volume of 50,000 units and a trillion-yuan scale. It aims to completely break away from the "new forces" circle and become a giant in the domestic luxury car market and even the entire automotive industry.

However, as a "8-year-old" newcomer in the automotive industry, Ideal Automobile still has a lot to learn in terms of technology and organizational operations. This is also the path that must be taken to become the ultimate winner. Can Li Xiang, who claims to be a product manager, successfully lead his dream of building a car and become the first "cultivation system" automotive industry giant?

Unstoppable Momentum

The fact that Ideal Automobile was able to achieve over 40,000 units in October means that it not only seized the real market demand but also made a breakthrough in production capacity.

Li Xiang, the chairman of Ideal Automobile, once said that the third quarter was the only bottleneck in production capacity (34,000 vehicles per month). In June, he revealed that because the management team at the beginning of the year believed that the sales and supply targets should be set at 360,000 vehicles, but considering the economic situation and other factors, it was adjusted to 306,000 vehicles. This led to a mismatch between the order quantity given to suppliers at the beginning of the year and the pace of production increase for several key components, which took more than a quarter to catch up.

Now, with the expansion of production capacity in both the complete vehicle and the supply chain, the daily output of the Changzhou factory has reached 1,800 units, which is about 54,000 units per month. Next, in November and December, Ideal Automobile will challenge the monthly delivery volumes of 45,000 and 50,000 units, respectively.

In fact, Li Xiang made a prediction on Weibo half a year ago about this achievement.

"Manufacturing and products are a community of destiny. Ideal Automobile decided from the first day of its establishment to build its own factory and control the entire manufacturing process." In Li Xiang's view, investment in manufacturing ultimately reflects in sales. This year, the Changzhou base alone can generate over 100 billion yuan in revenue.

In addition to production capacity, the market's attack on Huawei's HarmonyOS has also boosted Ideal Automobile's sales. Starting in early September, HarmonyOS launched the new M7 and received 80,000 pre-orders in 50 days, once again disrupting the situation and launching a "heavy blow" against Ideal Automobile's sales pillar, the L7.

Li Xiang, who has always been high-profile on Weibo, remained silent for a while during that period, holding a closed-door strategic meeting to discuss how to turn the cash in hand into competitiveness and sales, and then lock in the winning position before the industry's final showdown in 2028.

Soon, with large-scale offline subsidies and the introduction of on-site vehicle delivery, Ideal Automobile took the lead in delivery volume by increasing production capacity while the Seres factory was digesting orders, temporarily resisting HarmonyOS's sudden attack. Sales have been soaring, making Li Xiang proud once again.

On October 31, the day before the delivery volume was announced, Li Xiang went "crazy" on Weibo again. He stated that after surpassing the 40,000 mark, the next challenge for next year is to achieve a monthly sales of 50,000.

He even added boastfully, "I'm talking about the current three models (L7/8/9). If the average monthly sales are only 50,000 next year, I will have to go find a job."

It should be noted that even a monthly sales of 50,000 represents an annual sales of 600,000. And next, the strategic battle of Li Xiang's cars is about to begin: by the end of the year, Li Xiang will launch the flagship all-electric MPV MEAG, aiming to become the top-selling model among all passenger cars priced above 500,000 yuan; and next year, a more entry-level and youth-oriented L6 model will be released. The product lineup will be more diverse, and sales are expected to be higher.

Insiders from Li Xiang revealed to Wall Street News that their sales target for next year is to reach 700,000 to 800,000 units, which is what Li Xiang referred to as "total sales surpassing BBA".

Clearly, Li Xiang is no longer satisfied with just entering the billion-dollar revenue club, nor is he content with being just a "new force". He has already sharpened his knives and aims to become the "number one" in the domestic luxury car market and a top 10 player in the domestic automotive industry, achieving a leap in status.

However, the competition in the second half of the new energy vehicle market is becoming more intense, with more heavyweight competitors entering the fray. Li Xiang cannot claim victory just yet.

Still Need to "Catch Up"

In the "battle" between Li Xiang and Wenshijie in October, although Li Xiang took the lead, if the production capacity of Wenshijie keeps up, the delivery volume of the new M7 at the end of the year will be close to or even surpass the Li Xiang L7. Currently, the Wenshijie factory that produces the M7 is planning to produce 750 units per day, which is equivalent to 22,500 units per month.

The product competition is only superficial, what really strikes at the heart of Li Xiang is the key weakness exposed under the attack of Wenshijie - intelligent driving, which is the sharp blade that opponents use to target Li Xiang's high-end lineup.

In fact, at the Ideal Strategy Conference last month, Li Xiang had already reflected on the fact that Huawei's killer feature, intelligent driving, was ahead of his own.

More fundamentally, the market's understanding and demand for intelligent driving are rapidly increasing.

Currently, Huawei and Xiaopeng, the leaders in domestic intelligent driving, are aggressively expanding their coverage nationwide. In terms of products, the appeal of intelligent driving is gradually becoming evident.

During an interview at Xiaopeng's 1024 Technology Day, Chairman He Xiaopeng revealed to Wall Street News, "For G6 and G9, more than 70% of users choose the high-end Max version with intelligent driving, and the data proves that a larger range of users prefer XNGP"; coincidentally, a person close to Huawei stated that the current optional rate for the high-end intelligent driving of the new M7 is around 70%.

And the prices of these models are generally around 300,000 yuan. This is a "betrayal" to Li Xiang's high-end positioning, which not only affects the sales of the main L7, but also weakens the product competitiveness of flagship models such as L9 and MEAG. It can be said that the turning point of intelligent driving has arrived, and the opportunity is fleeting. In the environment where Xiaopeng and Huawei are aggressively competing and Tesla's FSD is about to enter the Chinese market, the ideal goal of "monthly sales of 50,000" is facing unprecedented challenges.

In response to this, at the strategic meeting in October, Li Xiang proposed that "insufficient investment can only be solved by strengthening investment." According to insiders close to the ideal, he hopes to accelerate the development of intelligent driving by introducing large-scale models.

On October 10th, Ideal publicly announced the recruitment of more than 50 positions related to intelligent driving, covering various categories such as algorithms, intelligent driving large-scale models, software and hardware, decision planning, high-precision maps, and simulation testing. It also stated that Ideal will adhere to the standard configuration of intelligent driving and strive for L4 level in subsequent models.

In terms of products, pursuing explosive sales is a must for "product managers" like Li Xiang. In his view, the two most important products of Ideal are electric vehicles and organizational processes.

At the Electric Vehicle Hundred People Conference at the end of March this year, Li Xiang once admitted, "After starting my own car manufacturing, I found that the industry chain is so long and the difficulty is so great." He openly stated that the biggest challenge here comes from organizational capabilities.

"The integration of our original Internet company capabilities, automotive dealer capabilities, and automotive factory capabilities without internal friction has become the biggest challenge. The only way is to learn the best practices from around the world, like IBM and Huawei." Li Xiang said.

Therefore, since the end of last year, Ideal has started the transformation of its organizational structure, and Li Xiang said, "We need to prepare for revenue in the hundreds of billions and trillions."

Now that the goal of hundreds of billions is about to be achieved, and crossing the trillion mark is a new level, can Li Xiang's transformation of these two important "products" help Ideal achieve a leap in class?

At the strategic meeting a month ago, Li Xiang set a new goal: to achieve a sales volume of 3 million units by 2028. This is the entry ticket for the remaining 4 or 5 giants on the final table, and it is also ten times the target of Ideal this year.

From being unknown and doubted to achieving skyrocketing sales this year, Ideal has proven countless skeptics wrong. In this market where winners take all, Li Xiang, who has fought hard to win back a city, has become the person who is least willing to fall behind and give up.

The past success of Ideal was based on the positioning of the "dad car", capturing the hearts of many middle-class families. In the second half of the intelligent era, can Li Xiang, who claims to be a product manager like Elon Musk, keep up with the rapidly emerging trends and once again demonstrate the ability to replicate "blockbuster products", successfully break free from the circle of "new forces", and become a true automotive giant?

The next five years will be the time for Li Xiang to shine.