Leapmotor, How Did It Join the Global Top 4 in New Energy? Self-Research and Self-Manufacturing is the "Life-saving Ticket"

In the elimination phase of new energy vehicles, how can one survive? Leapmotor broke out of a sea of red competition and led far ahead. What does it rely on? Let's look at Leapmotor's "assets",The answer is actually just four words: Self-Research and Self-Manufacturing.

Leapmotor's half-year report is out -- revenue 38.11 billion reached a new high for the same period, net profit 210 million for three consecutive half-years, H1 global sales 356,000 units made it into the global new energy top four (BYD, Tesla, Geely, Leapmotor), and July became the first new force to exceed 100,000 deliveries in a single month.

Some believe that in today's highly mature supply chain, car companies don't need to manufacture everything themselves.

But the reality is that batteries, motors, and electronic controls account for over 50% of the total vehicle cost. If these lifelines are held by suppliers, car companies are left with only design space for the body and seats, essentially regressing into assembly plants. When the price war intensifies, car companies without self-research barriers won't even have the room to lower prices without considering suppliers' moods.

Among new forces, Leapmotor is not the only one that can achieve full-stack self-research, and all have achieved good results; Zeekr, Fangchengbao and other "factory second generations", supported by the R&D and manufacturing foundation of parent companies, start off just as fast.

The new energy track seems to compete on sales volume and visibility, but it is actually a contest of industry chain control. Those brands that are unwilling to put in the hard work in core links such as intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, and three-electric systems, overly rely on external procurement, and only understand "opportunism", will find it increasingly difficult in the elimination round.

Leapmotor's differentiation lies in it having truly made "self-research" a systematic cost control method. Zhu Jiangming explicitly stated in the internal letter for the 10th anniversary that Leapmotor's vehicle self-research and self-manufacturing ratio covers 65% of core component costs, with a final goal of over 80%.

Self-research and self-manufacturing is Leapmotor's solid foundation for "quality not expensive", not just a slogan. This is mainly reflected in several specific actions:

First is the platform integration of core components such as batteries and electric drives.

The three-electric systems, especially power batteries, account for a large portion of the total vehicle cost, so seeking profits from upstream is a required course for car companies. Leapmotor's approach is to accelerate full-stack self-research from cells to PACK; At the same time, for solutions like 800V silicon carbide high voltage, because the battery packs and core components like electric drives achieved self-research and platform unity, it was possible to "overnight" switch the entire C series and B series.

Without the foundation of self-research and self-manufacturing, this speed would be impossible.

Second is converting self-research advantages directly into price and configuration competitiveness.

For example, B01 and B10, bringing global 800V and 3C fast charging, AR-HUD configurations that were previously only available in the 200,000 yuan class directly to the 100,000 yuan class, relies on mass production of self-researched components reducing BOM costs.

A10 brought LiDAR and advanced intelligent driving into the 100,000 yuan range for the first time, with monthly sales near 30,000 units. It expands the path of scale efficiency together with the newly launched A05 starting at 63,900.

Against the backdrop of generally pressured industry vehicle profit margins,Leapmotor was still able to maintain a 12.6% gross margin, where vertical integration played a decisive role.

Zhu Jiangming summarized this model as "transferring 10% gross margin from the parts link to users, while the whole vehicle still maintains a healthy 14%-15% gross margin" -- core components held in one's own hands provide the confidence to offer concessions.

Third, this ability has begun to be exported externally.

On August 24, Leapmotor Automobile held a deepening strategic cooperation agreement signing ceremony with China FAW in Changchun. Both sides will carry out deep collaboration in fields such as new energy whole vehicles, intelligent assisted driving, powertrain, power batteries, intelligent chassis, and embodied intelligent robots.

In addition, overseas is also an important link. Leapmotor's H1 export volume reached 96,000 units, up 372.6% year-on-year, Europe has already deployed over 1,000 outlets. Leapmotor is leveraging Stellantis's overseas capacity to promote localization assembly and mass production in places like Malaysia, Spain, and Brazil.

Crossing over from an OEM to become a Tier 1 is itself an endorsement of technical strength.

Of course, self-research is not omnipotent, and Leapmotor is also reviewing and improving its weaknesses. Regarding intelligent driving, although urban pilot assistance has been pushed to the entire series, there is still a gap compared to Huawei and XPeng's first-tier level.

This September's Annual Technology Conference, Leapmotor will release intelligent assisted drivingWorld Models that reach the industry's first-tier level, finally making up for this required course.

It will also releasea series of the latest technical achievements in the three-electric fieldto prepare for the next stage of advancement.

It is worth mentioning that Leapmotor's flagship SUV D19 sales in July also exceeded 10,000 units. Leapmotor, through the platformization of the ABCD series and a high proportion of self-research and self-manufacturing, has provided a development model for new energy car companies: players who can make self-research and self-manufacturing a moat have a higher chance of surviving in the elimination round.