The ideal speed has been refreshed once again. On October 18, Li Auto announced that after 58 months, the one-millionth Li Auto vehicle has officially been delivered. Two years ago, the birth of the L9 marked Li Auto’s official entry into its growth phase. Now, Li Auto has set a new milestone.
This milestone belongs to Li Auto, making it the first Chinese new energy vehicle company to reach one million sales, and it has also set the record for the fastest luxury vehicle brand in China to achieve one million sales. This milestone also belongs to the Chinese automotive industry, adding another brand to the one million club after BYD and Aion.
While Li Auto continues to excel in a fiercely competitive market, it is increasingly refraining from discussing competition. Competition is inevitable; what’s important is staying true to the mission. Li Auto’s original mission is encapsulated in six familiar words: focusing on user value. It’s simple and straightforward, yet few automotive companies truly achieve it.
Li Auto CEO Li Xiang stated: “We create products that exceed user expectations, and the recognition and support from our users are our motivation for continuous progress. Li Auto is committed to collaborating with high-quality local suppliers to allow the 'Li Chain' to grow quickly and healthily. In the future, we will embrace the technological transformation of the smart electric vehicle era, continuously improve product quality and service levels, and allow more families to confidently choose Li Auto's products.”
Product definition creates bestsellers, becoming the first choice for Chinese family users
Li Auto's journey to one million vehicles has not been smooth, facing many doubts along the way. When Li Auto first proposed creating cars for family users, the market generally viewed this as a narrowing of the target audience. However, Li Xiang judged that among consumers purchasing vehicles priced above 200,000 yuan in the Chinese market, as much as 89% are family users. In short, this is a blue ocean market worthy of investment.
Li Auto excels at market insight and is equally adept at identifying user needs. Since its establishment, Li Auto has continually innovated on the product side to meet the needs of family users, bringing forth extended-range electric technology, a spacious six-seat layout, full-car voice interaction technology with multiple screens, smart driving technology, and 5C ultra-fast charging, thereby reshaping the standards of the entire electric vehicle market.
As seen from the current sales results, Li Auto has firmly captured the luxury new energy mindset among family users with its strong product definition. Its first product, the Li ONE, redefined the family SUV and became the first model among new car manufacturers to surpass 210,000 sales.
Since 2023, the total delivery volumes of the family-oriented five-seat flagship SUV Li L7, the family-oriented six-seat flagship SUV Li L9, and the family-oriented six-seat luxury SUV Li L8 are ranked first, second, and third, respectively, in the market of new energy vehicles priced above 300,000 yuan. Among them, the cumulative delivery volume of the Li L7 has surpassed 220,000; the Li L9 has exceeded 210,000; and the Li L8 has surpassed 180,000. Additionally, the family-oriented five-seat luxury SUV Li L6 has exceeded 110,000 cumulative sales since its launch in April this year, setting a new delivery record for new forces.
Related data shows that Li Auto’s popularity index reaches 54%, ranking first, while its Net Promoter Score (NPS) ranks second, continuously leading among new energy vehicle brands.
Self-developed technology is the fulcrum for achieving one million sales; the focus of new technologies remains on user value
From the first month of its inaugural product, the Li ONE, selling 1,000 units to the Li L series averaging over 30,000 units monthly, and now becoming the first new force to reach one million deliveries, “Li Speed” continues to be refreshed. Undoubtedly, the fulcrum for Li Auto’s rapid sales growth is self-developed technology.
On October 23, Li Auto announced the comprehensive rollout of its new generation dual-system intelligent driving technology architecture, end-to-end + VLM, which is the industry’s first deployment of a dual system plan, allowing smart driving to truly think like a human and operate like an experienced driver, further enhancing the value of intelligent driving products. In the second half of the year, Li Auto made remarkable progress in intelligent driving, first announcing the nationwide launch of the map-free NOA in July, and subsequently beginning an internal test with 1,000 people and a public test with 10,000 people by the end of July and in August. As of now, Li Auto's intelligent driving training mileage has exceeded 2.5 billion kilometers, with NOA accounting for 80% of this mileage.
In the realm of intelligent space technology, Li Auto’s fully self-developed multimodal cognitive large model, Mind GPT, is truly designed around in-vehicle scenarios, possessing the capabilities of understanding, generating, retaining knowledge, and reasoning. With the support of Mind GPT, the Li class has entered the era of large models, capable of generating safe, accurate, and logical dialogues, understanding language, answering knowledge questions, and reasoning logically. It supports customized functions such as AI task master, AI drawing master, tuning master, and kid mode, making the Li class a valuable assistant for every family member.
Li Auto is a good partner, driving suppliers to shift from technology-first to user-first
While the industry was still focused on ramping up production capacity, Li Auto achieved the industry miracle of “上市即上量，上量即高质量” (launching immediately to scale, and scaling while ensuring high quality). A crucial aspect behind this success is Li Auto's collaborative model with suppliers. To create products that exceed user expectations, Li Auto does not simply rely on directly procuring mature solutions from leading suppliers but instead chooses to collaboratively develop with like-minded partners, tackling technical challenges and pushing the limits.
One of Li Auto's suppliers, Desay SV, has made many unique attempts in the smart cabin domain with Li Auto. Together, they have not only tackled challenges in product form, such as the triple-screen configuration of Li ONE, but have also achieved joint development during the partnership to integrate their core technologies and reduce costs. Desay SV states, “Such collaboration is unprecedented.”
Li Auto extensively utilizes local suppliers and collaborates with Huichuan United Power to develop a front-drive five-in-one integrated powertrain; collaborates with air suspension supplier Konghui to develop Li Magic Carpet Air Suspension™, bringing air suspension, traditionally reserved for luxury cars priced over one million yuan, into the price range below 400,000 yuan; and works with CATL to jointly develop the industry's first mass-produced 5C ultra-fast charging battery. They are also assisting Sunwoda in building and operating a battery PACK production line in Jiangsu.
It can be said that Li Auto's journey to one million vehicles is also the journey of the “Li Chain” to one million. Li Jun Tian, co-founder of Huichuan Technology and chairman & general manager of Huichuan United Power, stated, “The million units produced by Li Auto also represent a million units for Huichuan United Power. Most of the components like dual electronic control are supplied by Huichuan United, so our products have also reached a new scale.” As Li Auto continues to expand, the over 20 young partners in the “Li Chain” are gradually growing into industry leaders, breaking the monopoly of international suppliers. As of the first half of 2024, air suspension suppliers Konghui and Baolong ranked first and second in the Chinese air spring market, respectively. LiDAR supplier Hesai, chip supplier Horizon Robotics, and millimeter-wave radar supplier SenseTime have all gained more favor from OEMs through collaboration with Li Auto.
After eight years of collaboration, Bosch expresses admiration for Li Auto's commitment to focusing on user value. Zhang Ying, executive vice president of Bosch Smart Mobility Group in China, notes that the co-creation with Li Auto subtly influences Bosch’s philosophy. For example, regarding braking systems, Bosch has shifted from a technology-first approach, only providing the best-performing products, to a user-experience-centric approach, customizing the vehicle’s control systems based on four distinct user scenarios (urban commuting, high-end business, rugged off-roading, extreme sports). She mentioned, “There is a lot of communication between Bosch and Li Auto’s R&D teams, not only in project discussions but also in deep discussions on the development trends of new technologies. During this process, we realized that we are collaborators, which is what we now refer to as ‘winners working together.’” Zhang Ying stated, “In refining future steer-by-wire products, very few companies domestically or globally resonate with us on future technology development. However, through co-creation with Li Auto, we discovered that while they were completing heavy development projects, they were also deeply considering future technology advancements, even if those considerations may not apply to this generation of products but rather to the future.”
Desay SV similarly understands the significance of fighting for user value during the collaboration with Li Auto. “We’re not focused on competition itself, but rather on how we can continuously upgrade, innovate, and iterate on our products in response to technological advancements and market changes,” said Desay SV CEO Xu Jian.
Li Xiang has expressed pride in Li Auto's extensive use of Chinese local suppliers, emphasizing their commitment to user value, and driving cost reduction through localization and scaling, making high-end features a standard and promoting technological equality.
The million sales milestone not only signals the rise of new force automotive companies in market competition but also indicates that new brands have the capability to provide necessary support for China’s new energy vehicle industry to move into the global arena.
Finally
After nine years, Li Auto continues to be a company that maintains a high level of sensitivity and insight towards external factors. Those who have engaged with this company consistently mention Li Auto’s commitment to their original mission and their thinking about the future of technology.
Li Auto’s next step is to continue investing in research and development in the field of artificial intelligence, aiming to use AI robotics to transform the efficiency and experience of the physical world, benefiting every family served by Li Auto and each member within those families.
What remains unchanged is their commitment to providing products that consistently exceed user needs.
Today, Li Auto enjoys a healthy gross margin and ample financial reserves, fueling its ongoing research and development in core technologies and empowering more supplier partners to drive the development of China’s new energy vehicles towards higher quality.
