"What does Jiyue 07 mean?"

At the press conference, Xia Yiping shouted, "We're all in!"

Indeed, they are all in.

With a limited-time discount starting price of 199,900 yuan, the launch of Jiyue 07 is highly competitive and has even been hailed as a thunderbolt in the pure electric sedan market. Whether it will shake up the competition remains to be seen, and Xia Yiping will have to continue his all-in effort.

However, with Jiyue 07, Xia Yiping, as the CEO of Jiyue, does have something to back up his "all-in" approach. That something comes from a staggering figure: Xia claims that Jiyue 07 is a "sedan with over 100 billion yuan invested in its development."

That 100 billion yuan includes Geely's 4-year, 18 billion yuan investment in the SEA architecture, CATL's over 70 billion yuan investment in the Qilin battery, and Baidu's over 170 billion yuan investment in Apollo autonomous driving technology. With this tripartite technical support from Geely, CATL, and Baidu, Xia Yiping has more confidence.

With the arrival of Jiyue 07, Jiyue, which had been operating with a single model, has finally entered the era of dual-model operations. The pace may seem slow, but it doesn't diminish Jiyue 07's ambition to compete with Tesla.

Two Pitfalls Encountered

Jiyue 07 carries high expectations, undoubtedly.

After all, with the support of Li Yanhong, Chairman and CEO of Baidu, Zeng Yuqun, Chairman of CATL, and Li Bin, Founder of NIO, all gathered together, Jiyue 07 inevitably bears a heavy responsibility.

One of those responsibilities is to establish Jiyue's brand reputation and achieve a breakthrough in sales. The other is to uphold Jiyue's commitment to intelligence, which has been a continuous effort.

It won't be easy. After all, in the three years since Jiyue's inception, it has yet to achieve any notable success.

Recently, Xia Yiping led his team in a review of Jiyue 01's launch and operation, identifying some issues. "We overlooked one crucial aspect: at the time of our first product's launch, not enough users were aware of our brand," he said.

Indeed, for an unknown brand to rise to prominence in the market is a pipe dream.

In October 2023, Jiyue's first model, Jiyue 01, was launched. Based on Geely's SEA architecture, equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8295 chip, and powered by Baidu's Apollo autonomous driving system, Jiyue 01 boasted top-tier intelligent cockpit and autonomous driving capabilities.

However, the market did not reward this ambitious brand and model with favorable results. Since its launch, Jiyue has been tight-lipped about Jiyue 01's monthly sales figures, only recently revealing partial numbers: 444 units in June, 1,019 in July, and 2,117 in August. While not optimistic, there has been progress.

The reason is simple: as an "unknown" brand, Jiyue failed to address marketing challenges effectively. In today's market, even the best products can struggle to gain recognition without proper exposure. Jiyue's hasty debut resulted in a lack of market awareness.

Furthermore, Jiyue's market communication strategy for its products was flawed. After launching Jiyue 01, the brand overly emphasized intelligence as its core selling point, even to the extent that it became the sole focus of its marketing messaging.

"We were overly optimistic about Jiyue 01's prospects, believing that intelligence was the key selling point. This led to a loss of direction in our communication efforts," Xia Yiping said.

Xia Yiping explained that Jiyue had overlooked a critical issue: as a new brand, the journey from market entry to customer awareness, test drives, and ultimately sales conversion is challenging and involves a lengthy decision-making process.

"Lack of traffic is our biggest problem," he said. Therefore, raising brand awareness is Xia Yiping's top priority.

From sales and marketing to after-sales service, Jiyue is building its systems from scratch. Navigating through the challenges with Jiyue 01, Xia Yiping and his team encountered many pitfalls. Speaking about Jiyue's development, Xia once shed tears on stage, saying, "We sold over 200 units in January and over 100 in February. It was tough for me personally."

It was only after the launch of Jiyue 07 that Xia Yiping felt confident enough to say, "At least now we know exactly what to do." He and his team have gradually found their footing in marketing.

Aspiring to Break Out

Still grappling with brand recognition, Jiyue aspires to "break out," and Xia Yiping has taken on the role of internet celebrity himself.

Xia Yiping shared that Li Yanhong has been encouraging him and was the first to suggest he become an internet celebrity. Li advised Xia to learn from Dong Yuhui, using a scientist's passion to make car features and AI intelligence more accessible and compelling – in other words, to tell Jiyue's story.

"Only by stepping forward can I solve more problems," Xia said. "Simply writing articles, hosting press conferences, and conducting reviews is not enough." In January this year, Jiyue overhauled its marketing team, with Xia Yiping taking the helm personally and Andy Gao, a former Tesla executive, leading the user operations department.

"We haven't done much in the past; we've just worked harder," Xia said. To break out, Jiyue has made numerous attempts.

For instance, Xia Yiping has made some controversial statements. He first called out fake end-to-end technology, saying, "100% end-to-end is just a marketing gimmick." Then, at an AI autonomous driving conference, he criticized the entire industry, stating, "Billions invested in autonomous driving are just creating roadkill, and smart cockpits without large models are pseudo-smart."

These controversial statements drew a mix of criticism and attention to Xia Yiping's livestreams. While many criticized him, he reasoned, "I prioritize marketing efficiency. Every penny spent should reach a customer. You can market positively or negatively. When you criticize me, it means you already know about Jiyue, and that's a success for me."

Admittedly, Jiyue has made many marketing mistakes, but it has consistently sought its own path. While the journey has not been smooth, the direction is now clearer than when it was feeling its way in the dark.

"As a latecomer, if we merely copy what others are doing without a solid foundation, we cannot succeed. Others' success stems from their systematic capabilities, so blindly imitating them is not an option," Xia Yiping said.

As communication channels expand, the change in Jiyue's sales figures is evident. Recently, Jiyue began disclosing monthly sales figures for Jiyue 01, which is a positive sign. In July, Jiyue surpassed 3,000 locked orders, prompting Xia Yiping to comment in an interview, "The surprise came too suddenly; we can't keep up with deliveries."

However, Xia Yiping is aware that this surge in sales is not enough to sustain Jiyue's survival; 3,000 units are far from the threshold for real competition. "Our current goal is to gradually increase monthly sales from 2,000 to 5,000 and then to 10,000 units," he said.

Therefore, a second model, Jiyue 07, is crucial.

To avoid repeating the mistakes of Jiyue 01, Jiyue aggressively promoted Jiyue 07 before its launch, with the sole aim of making it a breakout hit.

"At first, I was hesitant to record videos and say certain things," Xia Yiping said. "It was tough to endure criticism initially, but after two weeks, I became numb to it. Now, I can film over 80 short videos a month and even participate in challenging live tests."

"I sleep very little, averaging just five hours a night. I believe in working harder and achieving more in a single day than others can in several," he added, proving that successful CEOs are not big sleepers.

When he's not sleeping, Xia Yiping is fully involved. He participated in Jiyue 07's rollover challenge, where the vehicle rolled down a 30-meter cliff for 14 rotations to test its structural safety. He also personally conducted a 1,200°C flame gun experiment, feeling the battery's temperature change under intense heat with his bare hands during the aerogel test.

These unconventional moves have been costly for both the vehicles and the CEO, but they have significantly enhanced Jiyue's brand reputation. "Last month, Jiyue released over 13,000 videos, generating over 100 million exposures," Xia Yiping noted.

Whether people will overcome the decision-making process and visit Jiyue dealerships ultimately depends on the product strengths of Jiyue 07.

Can Jiyue 07 Deliver on All Its Selling Points?

"What does Jiyue 07 mean?"

Industry insiders know it's the chip that keeps Jiyue in the game. But how confident is Xia Yiping in Jiyue 07's success? It's unclear.

Nevertheless, Xia Yiping is hopeful. "If I had to compare it to something, I'd say it's like Tesla's unmade Model 5 because we've created a car that Tesla hasn't," he said.

Xia Yiping believes that if Elon Musk were to build a larger sedan than the Model 3, it would likely bear similarities to Jiyue 07. His confidence stems from Jiyue 07's integration of resources from Baidu, Geely, and CATL.

Built on Geely's SEA architecture, Jiyue 07 moves the A-pillar back by 65mm, creating a smoother silhouette and more spacious interior. This structural change cost 300 million yuan to achieve.

Equipped with a high-performance three-electric system invested in at the billion-yuan level and CATL's latest Qilin battery, Jiyue 07 adopts 800V silicon carbide technology, achieving a maximum electric drive efficiency of 96.5%. The standard version offers a CLTC range of 660 km, while the long-range version boasts a maximum CLTC range of 880 km.

Xia Yiping believes that Jiyue 07 surpasses Tesla's Model 3 in terms of range and overall vehicle dimensions. However, the fundamental reason Jiyue 07 can compete with Tesla lies in its intelligent driving capabilities.

Jiyue has upgraded Jiyue 07's previous PPA intelligent driving system to Apollo Self-Driving (ASD), a high-level autonomous driving solution that combines pure vision with end-to-end large models. It is the first time globally that L4-level autonomous driving technology has been applied to passenger vehicles, making Jiyue the only Chinese and one of only two global players with pure vision-based high-level autonomous driving capabilities.

Xia Yiping is confident in the "pure vision" approach. "If you want autonomous driving to be ubiquitous, highly generalized, and end-to-end, pure vision may be the best choice right now," he said.

However, he doesn't intend to prioritize end-to-end technology as a marketing tool. "I don't think it's necessary because many people don't understand it," he explained, adding that Jiyue takes a conservative approach, focusing on balancing experience and safety while gradually evolving towards segmented end-to-end solutions.

At this stage, where end-to-end technology is not yet mature, a segmented approach allows for better control over outputs. Current solutions like Jiyue's ASD and Huawei's ADS 3.0 adopt this segmented end-to-end technology. Additionally, Jiyue has upgraded its cockpit to an AI-native large model, enhancing its perception, understanding, and execution capabilities.

Xia Yiping believes that "2025 will mark the beginning of the elimination of non-high-level autonomous vehicles, which will completely lose their competitiveness." He predicts that "several capable brands will launch autonomous driving services nationwide in Q4 this year."

In other words, Xia Yiping believes that Jiyue can stay in the game with its autonomous driving capabilities.

Jiyue 07's order data supports his confidence. Within 48 hours of its launch, Jiyue 07 received over 5,000 orders, with the 880km long-range version accounting for 75% and the ASD high-level autonomous driving option selected by 76% of customers.

However, at Jiyue 07's launch event, Xia Yiping clearly learned from the mistakes of Jiyue 01, emphasizing design and safety as key selling points.

"With Jiyue 01, we focused solely on intelligence as our core selling point, neglecting other advantages like handling and space. For Jiyue 07's launch, we've strengthened our intelligence messaging while also highlighting handling, range, and space," he said.

While more and more consumers are drawn to intelligent driving, Jiyue must showcase its product's full range of strengths to fully leverage all its selling points. Xia Yiping hopes that Jiyue 07 will be the turning point for the brand.

The question remains: can Jiyue 07 deliver on all its selling points?

"Behind Jiyue's two launched products, Jiyue 01 and Jiyue 07, the core software and all functions are identical," Xia Yiping said, revealing a potential pitfall. If Jiyue 01 failed to impress consumers with its intelligent driving capabilities, how will Jiyue 07 fare?

Pricing-wise, Jiyue 07 enters a competitive territory, priced between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan in the pure electric sedan market, where it faces rivals like Xiaomi's SU7, Tesla's Model 3, and BYD's Han EV. Securing a foothold in this fiercely competitive landscape will be a tough battle for Jiyue 07.

Everyone is waiting for Xia Yiping's answer.

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