Weilai, which has always taken customer service as its core competitiveness, can’t afford it after all.
On April 10th, Li Bin, CEO of Weilai, announced at the communication meeting that the owners’ rights and interests of new car buyers would be readjusted on June 1st. The first car owners who bought four models of Weilai ET7, ES7, EC7 and ET5 all needed to buy and install household charging piles at their own expense, and the number of free power changes per month was reduced to four.
At the same time, the NOP+ autopilot service of Weilai will no longer be free, and the monthly subscription mode will be started from July 1st, and the subscription price is 380 yuan/month.
The euphemistic name of adjusting users’ rights and interests is actually depriving users of their rights and interests, and it is not the first time that Weilai has done this.
In 2019, at that time, there were only two cars in Weilai’s product line, namely ES8 and ES6. The first car owner could enjoy free nationwide power exchange service for life, and there was no limit to the number of times and the power station change. In addition, users at that time could enjoy a lifetime free warranty with no time limit and unlimited mileage.
In October 2020, Weilai began to adjust the policy of "free power exchange". If users still want free household charging piles, they will only have the right to charge for 4 times a month. If they give up free household charging piles, they will only get 6 times. Free charging. This policy continued until May 31 this year, and after June 1, as mentioned above, charging piles have to be charged, and the number of free charges has been reduced to 4 times.
According to Wei Lai’s estimation, after the adjustment of the owner’s rights and interests, the user needs to pay an extra fee of nearly 30,000 during the vehicle use cycle. In the big environment of car companies fighting price wars, Weilai’s operation is undoubtedly equivalent to rising prices against the trend.
Qin Lihong, the co-founder and president of Weilai, made no secret of this. He believed that Weilai’s price still reflected the value. "Although the rights and interests of users have changed now, four free power exchanges can meet the needs of more than 90% users. Now, which company can send more than 300 kwh of electricity for free every month?"
The implication is that Qin Lihong is telling everyone that although Weilai’s service has shrunk, it is not as good for users as before, but it is still better than other car companies, and the service value is still high. Users should be satisfied and grateful!
However, it may be known for a long time that user rights such as free charging piles and free power exchange are hidden in the price of Weilai’s products, and the shrinking of user rights is not only equivalent to disguised price increases, but also means value discounts!
Li Bin had previously said that what he cared about most was not the delivery volume, but the user satisfaction. With innovative after-sales service experience, Weilai has indeed achieved high user satisfaction, but with their subtraction in service again and again, the so-called satisfaction has gradually become an empty concept.
At this communication meeting, Qin Lihong also said, "The extra charge for power exchange is equivalent to the money for several cups of milk tea. We think it is reasonable to use this money to support the development of the whole power exchange system."
Let’s popularize it here first. Weilai’s current power exchange station is charged according to the degree of power exchange and the electricity charge in the corresponding area, and the cost ranges from 100 to 170 yuan, which is really enough for everyone in a family to drink a cup of milk tea.
Of course, as a brand with an average selling price of more than 430,000 yuan, Weilai’s users will not care about this more than 100 yuan, provided that Weilai will set the charging policy from the beginning, and don’t make any difference between the old and the new. Now, the power exchange service has been reduced from the original life-long free service to only four times now, which undoubtedly brings a huge psychological gap to users.
Don’t say that changing the power four times is enough. Whether it is enough or not is a matter for the user, but how many times to change the power for free is a matter of the attitude of the manufacturer. This alone is worth writing a "joint statement" by all Weilai users.
Obviously, Weilai is trying to pull users together to pay for the huge loss of power exchange service.
As of March this year, Weilai has built 1,322 power exchange stations, and the daily average number of power exchanges has exceeded 45,000. Every 1.9 seconds, a car leaves the power exchange station with full power. However, the average daily power exchange times to each power exchange station is only about 34 times, which is far from the service limit of 312 times per day for the second generation charging station.
According to Shen Fei, vice president of Weilai, in order to break even in power exchange business, the average daily power exchange times of each power exchange station should reach 50-60 times. To achieve this goal, the delivery volume must be doubled, but Weilai has no such growth potential. In 2022, Weilai delivered 122,500 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 34%. In the first quarter of this year, their cumulative sales volume was 31,000, a year-on-year increase of 20.5%.
There are more and more products, but the growth rate of sales has been declining. Under such a dilemma, Weilai plans to add 1,000 power stations, which means an increase of 75% on the basis of the existing 1,322 power stations! In the context of the obvious slowdown in the growth rate of pure electric vehicles, where can Weilai get enough new cars to "feed" these power stations?
It is inevitable that the losses will continue to expand. According to public data, in the seven years from 2016 to 2022, Weilai’s accumulated losses have exceeded 70 billion! On this basis, 1,000 new power stations will be built, and the loss will exceed 100 billion just around the corner!
The user service system piled up by huge losses will collapse sooner or later, and the shrinking of users’ rights and interests this time is undoubtedly the prelude to the collapse.
From Weilai’s point of view, it seems understandable to sacrifice a little user interest in exchange for a breathing space. But from the user’s point of view, what they spend money on is only products and services. Why should they worry about the loss of the enterprise?
Perhaps Weilai overestimates the loyalty of users and mistakenly thinks that users can share the difficulties with themselves, but they have always ignored an important issue: users recognize Weilai because they are willing to spend money on services, which can make users really taste the sweetness. In other words, Weilai’s so-called user loyalty is all based on unreasonable money.
Now, Weilai really can’t afford it, and began to reason with users gradually. Qin Lihong has directly stated that "free power exchange will definitely gradually decline in the future until it is fully charged".
It is indeed the correct business logic to make up for the loss by reducing the service cost. The question is, when the label of "service" gradually weakens, what will Weilai rely on to win users? Without the support of users, what will the loss-making pit be filled with?
How to break this infinite loop is Wei Lai’s biggest headache at present. (Text | Superman)
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