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As the first production car of Zhiji, the presence of Zhiji L7 in the high-end pure electricity market is getting lower and lower.

A few days ago, SAIC released April sales figures, of which Zhiji sold 2009 cars, the first production car Zhiji L7 only 79, and Zhiji LS7 accounted for 96% of the total sales, reaching 1930.

It is worth mentioning that at the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, Zhiji Co-CEO Liu Tao set a sales target of 45000 vehicles, while Zhiji accumulated sales of 5774 vehicles by the end of April, with a target completion rate of 12.8 per cent. In other words, if Zhiji wants to achieve its sales target, it needs to sell more than 4900 vehicles per month over the next eight months, and according to the current development of Zhiji, more than 95% of the monthly sales of 4900 vehicles will be contributed by Zhiji LS7, which is a lot of pressure on Zhiji and Zhiji LS7.

It is understood that Zhiji will take Tesla as the target, and Zhiji will release its third model in the second half of the year, regardless of its size or price, which will directly mark Tesla Model Y. In addition, the fourth model will be released in the first half of 2023, targeting Tesla Model 3. Based on the brand image established by L7 and LS7, Zhiji hopes to gain more market share and sales through the upcoming release of these two models.

Zhiji Automobile, jointly built by SAIC, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech and Alibaba, was established in December 2020. SAIC owns 54% of the shares and is positioned as a high-end new energy brand. It has been highly expected since its birth. Perhaps aware of their late entry, compared with the "Wei Xiaoli" brand launched the first model a year later, Zhiji released its products less than 20 days after the brand launch.

With the reputation of SAIC and Ali, Zhiji car, which adopts the strategy of "holding high and beating high", once attracted a great deal of attention from the market at the beginning of its sale. In April 2022, Zhiji L7 was officially listed with an official price range of 33.88-578800 yuan. As for the sales volume of the L7 model, Zhiji said at that time that this model was expected to be among the top three in the delivery volume of medium and large luxury pure electric cars, and when this model came on the market, Zhiji also said many times that "Zhiji L7 has become the fastest luxury pure electric car with a cumulative delivery volume of more than 350000 yuan in China."

Based on the favorable atmosphere created by Zhiji officials, coupled with Zhiji relying on Alibaba, SAIC Group and Zhang Jian Hi-Tech Group, this brand and products have indeed won widespread favor both inside and outside the industry. However, shortly after the listing of the L7, there were a series of problems in the market, such as false marking of power batteries and discrepancies between the configuration of delivery models and the distribution of vehicles, which had a great impact on its sales.

The car sold 203cars in the first month, ranking eighth on the list of large new energy models in the month, while BYD Han, ET7 and Polar Krypton 001 ranked in the top three with 25209, 4349 and 4302 respectively, according to the Federation of passengers. Since then, the Zhiji L7 has not achieved significant growth. From July to December, the sales of the Zhiji L7 were 816,608,455 respectively. By the end of 2022, the total sales of the Zhiji L7 was 5000.

In February this year, LS7, the second production car of Zhiji, officially went on sale, with a price range of 30.98-459800 yuan. The marketing momentum of L7 LS7 is indeed louder than that of L7. Zhiji sold 1937 LS7 vehicles in March, while April was roughly the same as in March. Therefore, the continued growth of LS7 may determine the market position of Zhiji for a long time in the future. Liu Tao said in an interview with the media that he hoped to use the LS7 to help Zhiji stand in the queue of high-end brands and win more market share through a higher "value ratio".

Since the beginning of this year, the volume in the passenger car market has suddenly intensified, and Zhiji has to face one after another price war and increasingly pressing competitors. Nowadays, more and more independent car companies are starting to launch high-end brands, such as BAIC Polar Fox, Dongfeng Lantu, Changan Avita and so on. These high-end brands rely on traditional car companies and do not have to worry about funding, but it is precisely because of this that the management concept of these brands is too traditional. In any case, if Zhiji wants to complete the "high-end" recognition of the brand by users and the market, the disadvantage still lies in the problem of brand awareness, and does not invest a lot of money in large-scale marketing.

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