Reported by Pulsestacks on May 16th, after a decade of brewing and three years of preparation, NIO's sub-brand has arrived as scheduled.
On the evening of May 15th, NIO officially unveiled the "ONVO Ludo Car," focusing on the mainstream family market. The brand name signifies "family happiness and household management." The first intelligent pure electric mid-size SUV, Ludo L60, was also revealed alongside.
The Leador L60, aimed at the Model Y, is built on the third-generation NT3.0 technology platform. It is longer, wider, and offers more space than the Model Y. It excels in energy consumption, aerodynamic coefficient, interior design, and driving experience. The new car is priced at 219,000 yuan, 30,000 yuan cheaper than the Model Y, and will be available for delivery in September.
NIO Chairman William Li stated that Leador aims to redefine the standard for family cars, emphasizing a joyful family experience and optimal total cost of ownership throughout the vehicle's lifecycle.
In 2024, Leador will play a significant role for NIO and will be a key player in their pricing strategy. The plan includes the release of three models priced between 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, with the second and third models currently in development.
Li Bin previously mentioned that NIO started preparing for a second brand in 2021.
At that time, in the field of new energy vehicles, BYD and Tesla had monthly sales exceeding 40,000 units, leaving others far behind. With various forces at play, the Chinese new energy vehicle market also showed signs of transitioning from a dumbbell-shaped structure to a spindle-shaped one.
Li Bin clearly saw this trend, and NIO urgently needed high-volume models to expand market share and increase the chips on the table.
Leisure Dao emerged.
In addition to Leisure Dao, NIO is also preparing for a third brand positioned in the 100,000-200,000 range, codenamed "Firefly." This way, NIO can enter the 100,000-300,000 price range.
Of course, Leisure Dao, which focuses on the family market, will bear greater responsibility.
During the 2023 financial report conference call, Li Bin stated that the second brand is aimed at pursuing sales volume. This also means that Leisure Dao will inevitably "charge into battle" in the price war, while also avoiding tarnishing NIO's high-end brand image.
Since its inception in November 2014, NIO has now completed a full decade. The public's awareness of the company began to take shape around November 2016.
At that time, Li Bin held the first official event in London, unveiling the English brand NIO, the brand logo, and the first model, the all-electric supercar EP9. In May 2017, this model set a record-breaking lap time of 6 minutes and 45.9 seconds at the Nürburgring, earning the title of the fastest electric supercar globally at that time. With a price tag in the tens of millions, NIO was born as a high-end brand.
In December 2017, NIO launched its first mass-produced vehicle, the mid-to-large-sized all-electric SUV NIO ES8, marking the beginning of NIO's mass production era.
Over the course of 10 years, NIO has invested over 43 billion yuan in research and development, enabling the company to establish comprehensive capabilities in automotive research, design, manufacturing, sales, and service. NIO has independently developed technologies across 12 technical fields, with over 8,700 patent applications.
Just a few days ago, NIO's 500,000th mass-produced vehicle rolled off the production line at NIO's second factory in the New Bridge Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industrial Park in Hefei, Anhui.
The younger brother once known as the "one who might accidentally punch the master," has now mastered martial arts and is stepping into the next crucial phase of development.
Supporting the user-oriented enterprise positioning, NIO, one of the most important "moats," is entering a new historical stage. As of May, NIO has established strategic partnerships for battery swapping with six car companies including Changan, Geely, Chery, JAC, Lotus, and GAC, with a total of over 2400 battery swapping stations nationwide, including 797 stations on highways.
According to the plan, NIO will build another 1000 battery swapping stations this year. With the introduction of Leador, NIO's battery swapping system will be divided into dedicated and shared networks, with the dedicated network exclusive to NIO brand, and the shared network available for NIO, Leador, and other brands.
Leador's President, Ai Tiecheng, jokingly remarked on-site, "Leador adds power, industry ranks second." Currently, Leador has over 1000 available battery swapping stations, 25,000 self-owned charging piles, and over a million available third-party charging piles, showing a clear advantage in the energy replenishment system.
Of course, besides the energy replenishment system, behind Leador lies its 10-year accumulation of research, production, supply, and sales capabilities. This is also the confidence behind NIO's "dare to be the best in the world."
Securing a place in the 200,000-300,000 level market won't be easy.
In recent years, the competition in the mid-size pure electric vehicle segment has been extremely fierce, with each model being a flagship for its respective company. To address this challenge, besides having product competitiveness, delivery assurance, and service systems, other capabilities are also necessary.
Leador's President, Ai Tiecheng, has previously worked for companies like Procter & Gamble, InterContinental Hotels Group, and Disney, possessing extensive brand management experience. More importantly, he also holds another identity, as the 107th user of NIO's founding model, the ES8.
Since 2015, Ai Tiecheng has been associated with NIO. In January 2021, he joined NIO and established the Alpine (LeDao internal code name) team, witnessing firsthand NIO's growth along the way. Qin Lihong posted on the NIO app, "Handing LeDao over to him, we are full of confidence."
Li Bin said on the scene, "We have more than 11,000 colleagues, and we will definitely do a good job with the car (LeDao), and doing things right, this is Tiecheng's job."
In 2023, NIO's revenue reached 55.618 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.89%, but its net loss attributable to shareholders expanded by 45.24% to 21.147 billion yuan. During the same period, XPeng and Li Auto also reported losses that were better than NIO's. More significantly, NIO's gross profit margin decreased by 4.9 percentage points to 5.5% in 2023.
In terms of performance, NIO still faces profitability challenges, and the focus is not solely on profit margins. However, as Li Bin previously mentioned, in a marathon, the most comfortable segment is when the rhythm is smooth. Compared to previous years, this year has been a good one for NIO in terms of setting the pace. "With fewer internal and external disruptions, next year will mark the beginning of the release of third-generation products."
Looking further back, NIO is a typical example of Anhui Province nurturing emerging industries through investment. The strategic cooperation with Hefei in 2020 gradually helped NIO emerge from its crisis. Anhui has been like a benefactor to NIO, and each of NIO's models comes from its factory located in Anhui Province.
In 2023, Anhui's automobile production reached 2.49 million vehicles, ranking second in the country, hosting seven complete vehicle enterprises including Chery, JAC, NIO, and Volkswagen Anhui, and accelerating the development of the new energy vehicle industry cluster. On Li Bin's social media platform, several automotive industry leaders such as Wang Chuanfu, Yin Tongyue, and Xiang Xingchu predicted that by 2027 at the latest, Anhui Province's automobile production will double within 2-3 years. The proportion of NIO's share in these 5 million vehicles will to some extent depend on the market acceptance of NIO and the "Firefly" project.
"NIO's investment in infrastructure that is rechargeable, interchangeable, and upgradable, its service experience, forward-looking technological capabilities, mature manufacturing and quality systems, and robust support from its supply chain management and partners, give us the confidence and ability to serve a wider range of users," said Li Bin.
