On August 30th, at the Chengdu Auto Show, NIO President Qin Lihong once again talked about the previously discussed weekly car sales chart. Qin Lihong said, “The weekly data of compulsory insurance is not the sales data of every household, and it is not encouraged or promoted to be released under the Anti Unfair Competition Law.” “For our NIO, the data is incorrect and inaccurate every week.” At the same time, Qin Lihong also stated that the weekly car sales chart is the number of insured persons for compulsory insurance, not sales data, and the difference between the two is quite significant.
In fact, this is not the first time Qin Lihong has expressed his views on the weekly car sales chart. As early as July 27th, Qin Lihong had stated, “Our brand is not authorized, why use our brand to publish weekly rankings? Can we remove our brand?” At the same time, he also said, “The weekly ranking data is not rigorous. We have never authorized any organization to publish the weekly ranking with NIO, and this data has never been recognized by us. Only four or five people in the company know NIO’s weekly sales data. We call on relevant departments to manage it.” NIO CEO Li Bin said that the Fortune Daily publishes sales weekly ranking data on a quarterly basis, which is not rigorous, and also exacerbates competition.
In addition to NIO’s Qin Lihong and Li Bin expressing their views on the weekly sales chart, NIO Vice President Ma Lin also called out to Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang on Weibo, stating in a post: Don’t engage in low-level internal competition. The weekly ranking has a hint of low-level internal competition, so I suggest you stop!
In addition, Ma Lin also pointed out that each enterprise publishes the audited delivery volume every month, which can basically reflect the operating situation of the automobile company. This monthly figure is more effective for users to understand the market situation and help consumers make decisions. However, weekly rankings can interfere with the normal operation of enterprises. Huawei and Ideal are currently selling well in the extended range field. NIO and Tesla are selling well in the pure electric field. However, putting products of different prices, categories, and with or without fuel tanks on the same list cannot reflect the objective situation of the market. Making a list must be reasonable and comparable to each other
In addition to NIO executives expressing dissatisfaction with the weekly sales chart, Geely Vice President Yang Xueliang also commented on his personal Weibo account, stating that he also opposes the practice of releasing weekly sales charts. In addition, Peng Motors executives also expressed their views on the weekly sales chart last month. Huang Honglin, General Manager of Product Marketing at Xiaopeng Motors, once commented on the weekly sales data list released by Ideal Motors, saying, “Please pay attention to official information, roadside agencies are indeed not very reliable
Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng recently made remarks at the Xiaopeng Motors AI intelligent driving technology launch event, possibly targeting the weekly sales chart. It states that there are significant differences between the intelligent driving environment in the United States and China, and the American industry is more focused on how to improve end-to-end intelligent driving solutions. However, when I returned to China, I saw that my competitors were still busy making sales charts, only thinking about how to make money, rather than technological innovation and breakthroughs. This is not what technological competition should be like.
It is worth mentioning that the earliest release of the “weekly sales chart” was for Ideal Auto. Ideal Auto will release its weekly sales chart to the public starting from the fourth week of March 2023, with a fixed release time of one week’s sales data every Tuesday. For data sources, the list will indicate “China Automotive Data Terminal Retail Data”. Up to now, Ideal Auto has stopped releasing weekly sales charts twice. The first suspension was in May 2023. At that time, Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, posted on his personal Weibo account, saying, “Due to complaints and reports from many peers, we are unable to release real insurance coverage data from May 8th to May 14th. It is very regrettable
The second time the weekly sales chart was suspended was in 2024. At that time, the interruption lasted for seven consecutive weeks. Of course, the discontinuation of the weekly sales chart this time is somewhat related to the sales failure of the heavyweight model MEGA under the Ideal brand. In May July 2024, Ideal Auto resumed its weekly sales chart. At that time, in this weekly ranking, Ideal Auto ranked first in sales among new car making brands.
Regarding the resumption of the weekly sales chart, Ideal Auto responded in May, saying, “After the suspension of the list, many users who come to the store to buy cars will ask their first-line partners about the sales situation of Ideal Auto. Product sales are an important basis for many users to make purchasing decisions, and first-line partners need real data to explain to users. In addition, during the period when we suspended the list, various sales information appeared in the market, which required us to handle many related inquiries. For the sake of consistency in external communication, we have decided to resume the release of the sales chart
Regarding the recent opinions expressed by car company executives on the weekly sales chart, Ideal Auto has not responded positively, but the weekly sales chart continues to be released. As the CEO of Ideal Auto, Li Xiang once shared an illustration of a fable about covering his ears and stealing a bell on his personal circle of friends on July 30th, accompanied by a “shh” emoji, suspected of responding to the weekly ranking incident.
Industry insiders have pointed out that the continuous update of Ideal Auto’s weekly sales chart is actually a “marketing tactic” that allows consumers to see the top position of Ideal Auto’s sales from the weekly chart data, thereby strengthening their impression of Ideal Auto’s sales.
