NIO's second son has started earning money to support his family, and NIO Chairman Li Bin's schedule has been even more full recently. Just the product launch event, he held several sessions one after another. Since mid April, Li Bin has been present at the pre-sales of NIO ES9, the launch of the all-new Ledao L90, and the pre-sales of Ledao L80, making him so busy that he only stayed for one day at the industry event, the Beijing Auto Show. On the evening of April 28th, Li Bin appeared in Hangzhou without stopping and unveiled the third model of Ledao, the L80. Strictly speaking, the L80 is not a brand new model. It is built on the same platform as the Le Dao L90, which was launched last year, and is the "five seater version" of the L90. But both in terms of naming conventions and publishing processes, Li Bin has provided L80 with extremely high resource support. Many car companies and brands in the market have both three row and five seater models that originate from the same source and are released on the same platform. But the Ledao L80 not only launched a new product line, but also did not appear together with the recently updated L90. Instead, it was released separately and independently - from pre-sale to launch, everything that should have been available was fully displayed. Even just this past Sunday, Li Bin did a 12 hour slow live broadcast of the Dunhuang campsite for Ledao L80 alone. Li Bin explained in a media group interview after the pre-sale of the L80 that the L80 has a more dynamic and slender appearance, and also maximizes the performance of the latest generation pure electric platform in terms of space. By creating a separate product series, it can clarify the character of this car. This is undoubtedly another bold gamble for NIO at present. Although NIO achieved its first operational turnaround in the fourth quarter of last year, earning a net profit of 1.25 billion yuan, this new star in the automotive industry, who has invested billions of yuan in the past decade, is still not wealthy and is still cutting back on expenses internally. One detail learned by EO Automotive is that recently, NIO also revoked some of its employees' rights to charge and exchange cars.

The resource tilt under cost compression, like the allocation of energy by the helmsman, intuitively reflects the high expectations placed on the Ledao L80. Obviously, as a large five seater pure electric SUV targeting the home market, the Ledao L80 bears the heavy responsibility of NIO's volume this year. In terms of pricing strategy, the Ledao L80 is also quite aggressive. The pre-sale price of L80 starts at 245800 yuan, and the BaaS battery rental method starts at 159800 yuan - it is already 20000 yuan cheaper than L90 before it is officially launched. You should know that the main difference between L80 and L90 is only the number of seats and spatial layout. Both cars are equipped with flagship core technologies from Ledao and even NIO in terms of overall vehicle safety and lightweight, and the cost difference is not significant. Generally speaking, the difference between the 5-seater and 6-seater versions of the same model on the market is about 15000-20000 yuan. According to informed sources, Li Bin had previously thought that the cost difference between these two cars was not much, and the price did not need to be much different. However, he still decided to give sufficient space to the L80, so the pre-sale price had already been set beyond market expectations. By comparison, the pre-sale price of L80 is 34000 yuan higher than that of L90 pre-sale during the same period last year. From the feedback at the press conference and the subsequent performance of Xiaoding, it can be seen that the L80 has the potential to become a small bestseller. Shen Fei, Senior Vice President of NIO and President of Ledao Automotive, stated in a media group interview the next day that the pre-sale orders for the L80 were "slightly better" than the same period last year for the L90. Yiou Automobile has also learned from the front line that the L80 has received a good response and has become the traffic driver for its stores in recent times. After pre-sale, the L80 has arrived at first tier stores, and test drives have been launched during the May Day holiday. A salesperson from a store in Shanghai said that 90% of the recent customer flow is coming to visit L80, and during the holidays, they have to receive about dozens of groups of users every day, of which about 80% will pay earnest money. At present, due to the large number of potential users and the limited number of test drive vehicles, it is necessary to make an appointment in advance for the test drive. Moreover, during peak holiday periods, there were rare cases of "combined test drives" conducted on a group by group basis. Seizing the 'window period', Ledao is the second brand launched by NIO, which officially debuted to the public in the tenth year of the company's establishment. Compared to NIO's commitment to the high-end market of over 300000 yuan, Ledao is targeting the price range of 200000 to 300000 yuan and focusing on family cars. This is a powerful tool for NIO to enter the mainstream market hinterland and enhance economies of scale. Taking 2025 as an example, NIO has set a sales target of 440000 vehicles, doubling year-on-year, with Ledao being a key player. In the past few years, NIO has invested heavily in core areas such as vehicle development, sales and operation, and energy replenishment to build a sustainable high-end new energy brand. As of now, NIO's cumulative R&D investment alone has reached about 70 billion yuan, making it the car company with the highest R&D rate. However, the high-end brand with annual sales of hundreds of thousands of vehicles is not large enough to dilute various expenses, and NIO has been deeply mired in losses for a long time. Therefore, the birth of Ledao's second son was aimed at increasing sales and earning money to support the family from the first day.

However, the development of Ledao has not been smooth, and the first model can be said to be unfavorable. In September 2024, the Ledao L60 was launched. It is a five seater mid size SUV that is clearly benchmarked against the Tesla Model Y. It entered the market with the attitude of "increasing quantity and reducing price", with a starting price of less than 210000 yuan, which is 43000 yuan lower than the Model Y. At the beginning of its launch, it won a large number of orders. However, the good times did not last long. Although the L60 was a big hit, its subsequent sales performance was mediocre - in the third month of its launch, the monthly delivery volume of L60 barely exceeded 5000 units, and although it briefly surged to over 10000 units at the end of the year, its stable monthly sales were only around 5000 units thereafter. This is still the result of continuously improving sales equity. Last year in the first half of the year, Ledao's terminal sales policy was relaxed, and it also launched the option of "preferred cars", which provides high discounts for high-end existing cars. At that time, a front-line person told EO Auto that premium cars once accounted for 80% of store sales. Ledao went through a difficult first year, but fortunately, after the launch of its second model, it ushered in a turning point. In August 2025, the Ledao L90 will be launched. This is a large three row SUV with a starting price of 265800 yuan. In the first month of its launch, it delivered over 10000 units and delivered nearly 50000 units throughout the year, winning the annual sales championship for pure electric large SUVs. The hot sales of L90 not only bring confidence to the development of Ledao, but also verify the competitiveness of the latest generation of pure electric platform technology in the large car market: before the launch of L90, large three row SUVs were basically the world of range extender, and the share of pure electric models was only 1/5 of the range extender; Since the launch of the L90, the potential of pure electric models in this niche market has begun to be released. Coupled with the later launch of the NIO ES8, by March this year, the pure electric penetration rate in the large three row SUV market has reached 37.4%, ranking first.

When the L90 was launched, Ledao had already completed iterations in organizational structure, internal processes, and other aspects. The reason why the L90 and L60 had completely different performances was not only related to the different stages of the Ledao brand, but also directly due to the different ecological niches of the two products. When the L60 was launched, the mid size SUV market in the 200000 to 300000 yuan range was already crowded with competitors, including absolute champions such as Tesla Model Y with monthly sales of tens of thousands, as well as strong challengers such as Jike 7X and Ideal L6. It can be said that it is one of the most fiercely competitive battlefields in the new energy market. The large three row SUV market in which the L90 operates is a blue ocean where the competitive landscape is far from settled, especially in the mainstream market of 200000 to 300000 yuan, where the supply of pure electric and even new energy vehicles is relatively scarce. Previously, the third row SUV market was firmly dominated by the leading models of Ideal and Wanjie, but pure electric models in the 200000 yuan range had not yet formed a scale. The L90 entered the market with a good price and significant product advantages, quickly receiving strong feedback from the market. There is a widely quoted saying - "Choice is greater than effort." For a brand new like Ledao, quickly seizing a position in a sparsely populated niche market is easier to open up than struggling in a fiercely competitive saturated market. An insider from Le Dao also told EO Auto that the L60 was born at a somewhat untimely time. In the pure electric mid size SUV segment, it came too late, while the L90 seized the golden window period of less than half a year. Now, the third model of Ledao, the L80, is also about to be launched. The L80, similar to the L90, is relatively "avant-garde" in its niche market and has a certain first mover advantage. Li Bin introduced in a group interview after the press conference that the proportion of pure electric vehicles in the large five seater SUV market last year was only 6.4%, "because there was no good product supply". In contrast, the proportion of pure electric vehicles in the overall five seater SUV market has reached 28.8%. This also means that the Ledo L80 is expected to replicate the story of the Ledo L90, quickly opening up the market in a vacuum zone where mature pure electric vehicle models are scarce.

Take the 'difficult but correct' path

When Ledao was first launched, it was almost controversial. In fact, using different brands to create different segmented markets is a classic strategy in the automotive and even consumer goods industry. Audi and Volkswagen within the Volkswagen system, Lexus and Toyota within the Toyota system, are all mature precedents. Li Bin has also explained multiple times that a brand has a limited price range and launching more affordable models requires starting a new business outside of NIO. However, as a new force in the automotive industry that has only been established for a few years, NIO's resources are limited after all. Its main brand has not yet established an absolute leading position in the market, and if it aggressively expands its business boundaries and launches a second brand, it will naturally face questions such as lack of strategic focus and efficiency. In the past few years, NIO has established a barrier to high-end brands through product innovation and the construction of charging and swapping systems. However, in terms of sales and business performance, NIO is not the most outstanding one. In direct contrast, Ideal Auto started later and had fewer resources than NIO. While NIO's monthly sales were still hovering around 20000, Ideal had rapidly grown into a new dominant force with an annual sales of 500000 vehicles. When Ideal had achieved stable profits, NIO continued to rely on external financing for continuous investment.

However, since its launch, the controversy surrounding the brand itself has significantly decreased. On the one hand, as the development stage evolves, exploring new brands has become a choice for more new forces, and Li Bin's strategic vision has been confirmed. Recently, it was revealed that Zero Run Motors, which has recently topped the sales list among new forces, will launch a second brand in 2027 with a product price of over 300000 yuan. On the other hand, in less than two years since the delivery of the new car, Ledao has sold nearly 150000 vehicles, which is already a good result for a brand new brand with only two models in mass production. Ledao shares NIO's technological reserves and charging and swapping infrastructure, bearing the responsibility of NIO's sales leap. Li Bin also set extremely high sales targets for Ledao in the early days, but from the birth of Ledao, it is destined to be a muddy road full of hardships. Although multi brand operations are a common practice in the automotive industry, the difference of Ledo lies in that it is one of the few mainstream brands derived from high-end main brands in the history of automotive development, following a "top-down" path - Audi has long been established independently of the Volkswagen system, Lexus was incubated by Toyota, and there are relatively few industry precedents for high-end brands to put aside their status and enter the mass market. Although BMW and Mercedes Benz have developed MINI and Smart respectively, the latter two are mainly positioned as boutique cars, which are extensions of the main brand's genes and have not truly entered the mainstream market. NIO's layout of the third brand "Firefly" is also based on this idea. In the business concept, Ledao carries the needs of mass household users beyond NIO's main brand. After NIO establishes its reputation as a high-end new energy brand, it can naturally attract a large number of potential users. In this way, it can not only ensure the high-end tone of NIO's main brand, but also gain a huge volume in the mainstream market. But Li Bin still underestimated the difficulty of building a new brand's reputation. As a sub brand incubated by a new force, Ledao did not emerge as easily as expected. Li Bin has repeatedly stated that the biggest problem with Ledao is that "many people don't know". In fact, the conversion rate of Ledao is very high, even among the top in the industry, but the proportion of users who did not have Jianlian or Jianxin in the order pool before is still relatively low. Internal evaluation shows that the brand awareness of Ledao is equivalent to that of NIO five years ago and some of its competitors three years ago, and now it is in its third year of existence. According to informed sources, at the beginning, Li Bin requested that the words "NIO" not appear in all places where "Ledao" appeared, because "Ledao" wants to be an independent brand and "cannot be mixed with NIO". Later, Ledao L60 sales did not improve for a long time, so the strategy was adjusted again. At present, the brand awareness and recognition of Ledao still heavily rely on NIO, and potential users can also be considered a subset of NIO supporters. After recognizing this reality, NIO further adjusted its channel strategy this year. Previously, Ledao had always been an independent sales channel. This year, NIO will vigorously promote the SKY store model in the sinking market - Ledao will showcase and sell together with NIO and Firefly in one store. On the one hand, this can improve the efficiency of channel development, and on the other hand, it can also maximize the leverage of NIO's brand resources. But for Ledao, only accepting NIO's intended users is far from enough. To truly open up the situation, it is necessary to gain attention and support from a wider range of car buyers. That is to say, in the medium to long term, Ledao needs to "expand its circle". The trend of automobile consumption is upward upgrading. Brands such as Volkswagen and Toyota have a huge base of users, and higher priced models and high-end brands can naturally meet the subsequent needs of their users. But Ledao, born from the "top-down" strategy, is destined to have a long journey by searching for atypical demands in the already relatively small high-end user base. Only by stepping out of NIO and establishing a profound brand label and user accumulation as an independent mass market brand, can the gears of Ledao's explosive sales truly turn. NIO has taken a difficult but correct path by using its second brand to compete with the mainstream market: first, it solves the technical threshold of pure electricity, exchanges high R&D and infrastructure for core competitiveness, and after establishing a foothold in the high-end market, uses different brands to solve the problem of scale. Although it is difficult for Ledao to open up the market, this path also means that Ledao's starting point may be the ceiling for other mass market brands. The technological changes brought about by electrification are giving rise to new methodologies. If NIO can take this rarely followed path, it will write its own footnote in the history of the automotive industry - Ledao is not NIO's "youth version", but a new species of mass market brand born at a technological high point and redefined