"We predict that there will be particularly clear top three companies in the new energy market with a value of over 200000 yuan by the end of this year, and they may even account for 70% of the market share." On March 1st, Liu Jie, Vice President of Ideal Automobile Business, made this judgment in an interview with a reporter from The Paper.
Liu Jie confidently said, "Among the top three, we and Wenjie are definitely among them."
The data shows that in the past February, there has been a significant differentiation in the car market. Wenjie and Ideal ranked first and second among the new forces with 21100 and 20300 vehicles respectively, while the sales of other car companies generally did not exceed 10000 vehicles.
The comparison between ideal cars and the automotive industry has always been a hot topic in the industry. However, within Ideal Automotive, including CEO Li Xiang, Huawei is often more inclined to be seen as a "teacher".
In Liu Jie's view, competition from top companies will persist for a long time, which is necessary and beneficial for the market. "At present, with Huawei as a strong competitor and as our teacher, we feel very lucky."
On March 1st, Ideal Automobile released its first pure electric vehicle model MEGA at its spring press conference. With the official release of MEGA, Ideal Automobile has also embarked on an unprecedented product year since its establishment 8 years ago.
It is reported that the 2024 Ideal L7, Ideal L8, and Ideal L9 will also begin large-scale user delivery in March. In addition, this year, Ideal Automobile will also release multiple new cars, including the Ideal L6, to further expand its product matrix. By the end of the year, Ideal Automobile's product line will include 4 extended range and 4 pure electric models, totaling 8 models.
With these 8 models, Ideal Automobile is set to hit its annual sales target of 800000 units.
Liu Jie stated that Ideal Automobile is currently in the new energy vehicle market of over 200000 yuan, with a market size of approximately 2.6 million vehicles last year and a new energy penetration rate of around 40%. It is expected that this year, the market size will reach 3.5 million vehicles, with a penetration rate of over 50%, and there is huge room for growth.
The goal of 800000 vehicles means an ideal market share of over 20%. In the fourth quarter of last year, Ideal's market share in this market had reached 16%. "This year, we have a market foundation of 16%, and we also have Ideal MEGA, L6, and three high-voltage pure electric models that will be launched in the second half of the year, so we are very confident in our market share target of over 20%."
Regarding the sales contribution of different technological routes, Liu Jie judged that this year, in the market of over 200000 yuan, the sales proportion of extended range and pure electric models is expected to be halved. For Ideal, due to the relatively short sales cycle of pure electric models this year, extended range models will still be the main force in sales.
Regarding the controversy over the two technological routes in the industry, he candidly stated, "There is no need to define competition with a technological route. Enterprises first gain users and then win competition; rather, they win competition first and then win users."
In addition, Liu Jie revealed that the newly launched MEGA's sales target for this year is to challenge the monthly sales of 8000 vehicles, which is higher than the previous market expectation of around 6000 vehicles.
Delivery data shows that Ideal Automobile delivered 20300 vehicles in February, a year-on-year increase of 21.8%. Since self delivery, the cumulative delivery volume of Ideal Automobile has reached 684800 units.