Until now, Li Auto has produced only plug-in hybrid crossovers, but the future model line will be fully electric, and its the first representative will be a large and very impressive single-volume Mega.
The Li Auto company (aka Li Xiang) was founded in 2015 by Chinese media tycoon Li Xiang, it operates under the Li trademark, which stands for Leading Ideal and at the same time indicates the name of the founder. The current Li Auto lineup consists of three related plug-in hybrid crossovers — L7, L8 and L9, they differ from each other in size and some design elements.
All Li Auto crossovers are range extender hybrids of the sequential type, in which the internal combustion engine is not directly connected to the wheels and is used as a generator to increase the electric range. Most other Chinese startups that launched around the same time as Li Auto relied on all-electric models, but Li Auto's hybrid strategy was more successful.
Among young companies created in China from scratch, and not under the hood of large automakers, Li Auto is today the most productive: in the first three quarters of this year, according to CAAM (China Association of Automobile Manufacturers), it sold 244,225 cars (+ 181% compared to with APPG). For comparison, here are the sales of pure electric vehicle independent Chinese companies in the home market for the first three quarters of this year: Nio — 109,993 units. (+33.4%), Leapmotor — 88,827 units. (+1.4%), Hozon Neta — 81,582 units. (-26.6%), Xpeng — 81,429 units. (-17.5%), HiPhi — 1735 pcs. Among the electric vehicle brands of large corporations, today only GAC's Aion is more successful than Li Auto: from January to September it sold 359,487 cars (+97.2%).
Meanwhile, Li Xiang, as an experienced media manager with a keen sense of the trends and demands of the mass audience, realized that the time had come for Li Auto to switch to electric vehicles. A new stage in the company’s development is being carefully prepared; today Li Auto held a presentation at which it said that its future electric vehicles will have an 800-volt architecture, for which Li Auto will build its own network of charging terminals in China with a power of up to 500 kW. A terminal of such power allows you to replenish the range by 400 km in just 9 minutes 30 seconds, and by 600 km in 22 minutes (assuming that the electric car is equipped with a battery with a capacity of 100 kWh). Already this year, Li Auto plans to install 300 of its own terminals in China, and by 2025 their number should increase to 3000.
The first electric vehicle under the Li brand will be the large Mega minivan, spy photos of which have been published by Chinese media for several months. Today, Li Xiang on his page on the Chinese social network Weibo published two full-length photos of Mega with the caption “Guess what kind of gear this model has?” Li Xiang has not yet given an answer, but it is understood that the aerodynamic characteristics of the Li Mega will be the best in the class.
The full premiere of Li Mega will take place in December, sales will begin in January, deliveries in February. There are no technical details yet, we only know that Li Mega will be quite powerful and fast, its overall length will exceed 5.3 m, and the initial price will be about 500,000 yuan (6.65 million rubles or 68,300 US dollars in translation at the current exchange rate ).
We would like to add that Li Auto is not yet entering foreign markets, trying to gain a foothold in its homeland as much as possible. Nevertheless, Li crossovers are imported into our country in commercial quantities by gray dealers; they are found quite often on the roads of large cities.
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