China's new energy vehicles have surpassed a penetration rate of 50% for the first time, meaning that for the first time, the number of people buying new energy vehicles has exceeded those purchasing fuel-powered cars. Previously, it was often said how quickly new energy vehicles were growing, but in reality, buyers of fuel-powered cars still constituted the majority. It was only in July that the transaction volume of new energy vehicles truly surpassed that of fuel-powered cars, marking a milestone.

Looking at the delivery data from major new energy vehicle manufacturers, there were many highlights in July. For instance, Xiaomi, which just went public, delivered over 10,000 units, NIO maintained a stable delivery volume of over 20,000 units for three consecutive months, and Zero Run set a new record for transaction volume.

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However, among new energy vehicle manufacturers, the most impressive performance came from Li Auto. In July, Li Auto delivered a total of 51,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 49.4% and a month-on-month increase of 6.8%. Not only did it once again break through the 50,000 sales threshold, but it also set a new record for the highest monthly delivery volume, establishing the highest monthly delivery record for a new force in the automotive industry.

Prior to this, Li Auto had just experienced the "unexpected first quarter" and the "toughest second quarter":

In the first quarter, January and February, due to the impact of the Spring Festival, Li Auto's monthly delivery volume saw a significant decline, with February almost falling below the 20,000-unit threshold. In contrast, AITO, leveraging the advantages of its intelligent driving, overtook Li Auto in sales.

Then, in March, after being anticipated for half a year and with high expectations, Li Auto's first all-electric flagship MPV, the MEGA, was launched. It was originally planned to be released in March to stabilize the first quarter's performance. However, possibly due to over-optimism about pure electric products, unreasonable channel planning, and some negative online opinions about the MEGA, its sales were disappointing, leading to a 180-degree reversal in Li Auto's first-quarter report. Li Auto's CFO, Li Tie, stated at the performance briefing: "The second quarter will be the most challenging quarter for Li Auto this year."

After starting against the odds, Li Xiang quickly made significant adjustments to the new car launch plans and operational strategies set at the beginning of the year. Originally, four pure electric models, including the MEGA, were planned for release this year. After the MEGA's cold reception, the release of all pure electric models was postponed, focusing first on the "infrastructure" for pure electric vehicles—the charging network.

Through actual user research, Li Auto found that for these high-end pure electric models, users are most concerned not only about the quality of the car itself but also the impact of the charging network on purchasing decisions. The convenience of charging during daily use greatly affects the experience of using an electric vehicle, especially for large MPVs like the MEGA, which has a battery pack exceeding 100kWh. Without access to supercharging, the experience is significantly impacted. Therefore, Li Auto's pure electric plan returned to the layout of the charging network, going back to the process from 0 to 1, expanding the supercharging layout in cities and on highways.As of August 11th, Li Auto has deployed over 711 Li Auto Supercharging stations nationwide, equipped with 3,318 charging piles. The company plans to have more than 2,000 Li Auto Supercharging stations with over 10,000 charging piles available across the country's highways and cities by the end of the year. The coverage rate in the core urban areas of key cities is expected to exceed 90%, and the coverage rate of national highway mainlines is projected to be over 70%.

For new energy vehicle manufacturers like Li Auto, which is positioned in the luxury mid-to-large SUV and MPV market, having a sufficient number of self-operated supercharging stations is a necessary condition to sell well in pure electric models. The ability to adjust strategies promptly when sales at MEGA are not ideal also demonstrates Li Auto's strategic flexibility, which is something many large enterprises cannot achieve.

However, the adjustment of pure electric models is only a strategic direction adjustment and has not brought immediate growth to Li Auto. What refreshed Li Auto's monthly delivery record of 50,000 units in July?

Firstly, the timely launch of the Li L6 filled the most important piece of the puzzle for Li Auto in the mid-to-high-end family car market. It can be said that with the L series product line, Li Auto has fully covered the entire price range of products in the key market of 200,000 to 500,000 yuan. The 200,000 to 300,000 yuan price segment, which the L6 corresponds to, is the largest piece of the cake in this market, and the L6's performance has lived up to expectations.

Launched in April, the delivery volume increased from 2,000 units in April and May to 13,000 units, and then exploded in June and July, breaking through 20,000 units for two consecutive months, firmly occupying the C position in the 200,000 to 300,000 yuan price range.

Secondly, there was a significant update to the intelligent driving technology. Previously, Li Auto's biggest competitor, AITO, relied on its leading intelligent driving technology to surpass Li Auto. Li Auto has been very fast in OTA iteration and upgrades this year, pushing upgrades 9 times in the first 7 months, mainly focusing on intelligent driving. In May, they launched the map-less NOA (Navigation On Autopilot), which does not require high-precision maps, is not limited to cities or towns, and can activate NOA as long as the vehicle can initiate navigation.

Looking at the push time, Li Auto is the second Chinese company after Huawei to fully push the map-less NOA.

According to Li Auto's offline statistics, after the release of the map-less NOA, the proportion of users testing NOA increased from 23.8% in May to 46.5% in July. The iteration of intelligent driving technology has brought a large number of new users to Li Auto. The breakthrough in Li Auto's delivery volume in July owes a great deal to intelligent driving.

In addition, Li Auto has made a greater breakthrough in intelligent driving by launching the end-to-end (E2E) + Vision Language Model (VLM) for a thousand people. The E2E model is used to handle conventional driving behaviors, with information transmission, reasoning calculation, and model iteration being more efficient from sensor input to driving trajectory output through only one model, making driving behavior more human-like. For example, when intelligent driving encounters a narrow road with oncoming traffic, it might have required a long string of code to analyze each piece of data and then make a decision, which was quite rigid. However, the E2E model can intelligently learn from a large amount of video data, allowing it to respond quickly and make decisions in similar scenarios, enhancing the intelligence of intelligent driving.

The VLM model is used when the E2E model encounters completely new driving scenarios, using the visual language model for logical thinking and outputting decision information to the E2E. This intelligent driving solution has greatly enhanced users' confidence in Li Auto's smart driving capabilities and has greatly boosted sales. It can be said that the breakthrough in smart driving technology has opened up a larger space for Li Auto's imagination.In just a span of five months, Li Auto has experienced the "unexpected first quarter," the "toughest second quarter," and then returned to its peak in the first month of the second half of the year. The delivery volume of Li Auto perfectly demonstrates the outstanding resilience and agility of Li Auto's vehicles. Having gone through this roller coaster experience, it is believed that Li Auto will become more patient, more focused on user value, and improve operational efficiency. In the second half of the new energy transformation, Li Auto will walk more steadily and further.