The ambition of self-branded cars to compete with Tesla's Model Y is now quite evident.
On September 24th, at Huawei's autumn full-scenario new product launch, the Smart R7 co-developed by Huawei and Chery was officially released.
The new car comes in four models, with prices ranging from 259,800 to 339,800 yuan.
Positioned as a pure electric coupe SUV, the Smart R7 is the first coupe SUV of HarmonyOS Smart Driving, equipped with HUAWEI ADS 3.0 high-level intelligent driving, and adopts a brand-new end-to-end architecture.
"The price of the Smart R7 is very sincere, with a loss of 30,000 yuan for each car sold," said Yu Chengdong, Huawei's Executive Director, Chairman of the Terminal BG, and Chairman of the Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, at the launch event.
It is worth mentioning that when the new M7 was launched in August this year, Yu Chengdong also stated that selling a basic M7 pro would result in a loss of more than 20,000 to 30,000 yuan.
Yu Chengdong said, "Tesla's Model Y is a very popular product in the pure electric SUV market.
The goal of the Smart R7 is to compete with Model Y with specifications that surpass Tesla's Model X."
This is already the third new model from self-branded cars targeting Tesla's Model Y in just over a week.
Previously, on September 19th, NIO's second brand, Le Dao, launched its first model, L60, with prices ranging from 206,900 to 235,900 yuan, and the battery rental starting at 149,900 yuan.
Following that, on September 20th, Zeekr's first mainstream SUV, the Zeekr 7X, also officially went on sale, offering three versions: rear-wheel drive intelligent driving, long-range rear-wheel drive intelligent driving, and long-range all-wheel drive intelligent driving, with prices of 229,900 yuan, 249,900 yuan, and 269,900 yuan, respectively.
The above three models, both in terms of product definition and price range, have a significant overlap with Tesla's Model Y, the best-selling car in the submarket.
At the launch event, An Conghui, President of Geely Holding Group and CEO of Zeekr Intelligent Technology, directly stated: "Most of the pure electric SUVs on the market today have not stepped out of Tesla's product definition logic; they are all followers of Model Y."
On September 23rd, a widely circulated chat image showed that William Li, Chairman of NIO, used the phrase "six major sects attacking the Model Y together" to describe the current competitive landscape.
Many self-branded cars are targeting Tesla's Model Y market because the submarket has a huge capacity.
The Model Y is not only the best-selling car in the new energy vehicle market but also the best-selling car in all categories.
In the market where competition has intensified over the past year, Model Y has consistently held the top sales position, with cumulative sales of nearly 470,000 units and monthly sales of over 45,000 units in August this year, making it a hot seller that even its sibling Model 3 cannot match.
However, the slow product iteration of Model Y has also given self-branded cars an opportunity.
The strategy of self-branded cars to compete with Tesla is generally to become its "substitute" or to provoke an arms race.
To enhance product competitiveness, the aforementioned car companies have generally started a new round of competition in terms of intelligence and high-end configurations, focusing on personalized functions such as intelligent driving, smart cockpits, larger sizes, and more design-oriented shapes to upgrade new models, striving to achieve a product advantage of "what others don't have, I have; what others have, I'm better."
More importantly, self-branded cars can offer lower prices.
Under the concentrated "fire" attack of self-branded cars, it seems that the territory long occupied by Tesla's Model Y at the top sales position may also inevitably be shaken.
According to public data, since the pre-sale of Zeekr 7X was launched, orders have exceeded 58,000 units in 20 days, and the number of locked orders exceeded 10,000 units within three days after the official launch.
William Li directly stated that Le Dao L60 "exploded in orders," and according to plan, the delivery volume in December this year will reach 10,000 units, and it will be increased to 20,000 units by March next year.
HarmonyOS Smart Driving also announced that the Smart R7's order volume has exceeded 10,000 units within 24 hours of pre-sale; at the launch event, Yu Chengdong said that the Smart R7's order volume has exceeded 30,000 units in less than two weeks of pre-sale.
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