Tang Jing, president of Li Auto’s first product line, recently responded to the problem of MEGA Home’s long delivery cycle commonly reported by users through video. He said frankly that the current users who order the regular version of the ideal MEGA generally have to wait for two months or even longer, and the core contradiction stems from itCapacityA significant gap between preparation and market popularity.
Image source: @老汤哥Tango
Tang Jing used data to reveal the underlying logic of production capacity planning, initially based on the market expectation of benchmarking the 500,000-level benchmark MPV Toyota Alpha (monthly sales of about 1,700 units), the maximum production capacity ceiling set for MEGA is only 1,650 units/month. However, after the debut of MEGA Home at this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, it received a response that exceeded expectations, and the surge in orders forced an emergency increase in production capacity. He explained that the automotive industry chain is long, and it takes time for the supply chain to coordinate and adjust.
Despite the challenges of capacity increase, Ideal is making full progress: JuneyieldIt has been increased to 2,500 units; the target is 3,000 units in July; August production capacity is aiming for 3,300 units or higher.
This means that the actual production capacity is doubling from the basic value of 1,650 units, and Tang Jing promised that the team will work overtime to speed up delivery, but also admitted that capacity expansion is a long-term process, and called on users to understand that “good food is not afraid of being late”.
In response to the question of why 8,000 units were planned last year and 3,000 units are now difficult, Tang Jing revealed the lessons of history. Last year, Ideal had extremely high expectations for MEGA sales, with foundries and supply chains allocating 8,000 units/month production capacity. However, due to multiple factors after listing, the actual sales volume was far lower than expected, and only more than 500 units were delivered in a single month at the most difficult time, and even production was temporarily stopped due to inventory pressure. The large-scale emptiness of production capacity has led to huge losses for Ideal and supply chain partners, and the partners have transformed the production line to other models in order to stop losses, and finally only retained the production capacity of 1,650 units.
Tang Jing specifically pointed out that MEGA Home’s unique two-row zero-gravity swivel seats, living room floating tables and other configurations, as well as the upgrade demand of the old MEGA Ultra, are the key bottlenecks that currently restrict the climb of production capacity. Ideal is making every effort to break through the 3,500 production capacity mark in August to alleviate delivery pressure.