Despite the ongoing debate over whether the announcement of the weekly sales figures is related to internal competition, the new forces in the car market have released their monthly sales figures as usual.

On August 1st, Li Auto, Nio, Leapmotor, Xpeng, and NIO Automobile successively disclosed their July delivery data. Li Auto achieved a new high in monthly deliveries after six months, delivering more than 50,000 vehicles in a single month. Leapmotor took second place with a delivery volume of 22,093 vehicles. Nio ranked third, with sales remaining stable at over 20,000 cars for three consecutive months. Xpeng and NIO Automobile lagged behind, with delivery volumes hovering around tens of thousands of vehicles.

In July, Li Auto delivered 51,000 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 49.41%, setting a new historical high for monthly deliveries. From January to July, it has delivered a total of 239,981 vehicles. The Li ONE model continues to exhibit impressive growth, and it has become a popular product in the price range of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan.

Leapmotor, which also set a new high in monthly deliveries, delivered 22,093 vehicles, an increase of 54.12% year-on-year for two consecutive months. From January to July, Leapmotor delivered a total of 108,789 new cars, the fastest-growing enterprise among new automotive forces this year.

On July 30th, Leapmotor International shipped its first batch of C10 and T03 to Europe from Shanghai Port, marking an important milestone in the cooperation between Leapmotor and Stellantis Group. Starting in the fourth quarter of 2024, Leapmotor International will also launch C10 and T03 models in the Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific, and South American markets.

Nio delivered 20,498 new cars with a year-on-year growth of 0.18% but a 3.35% decrease from the previous month. From January to July, Nio delivered a total of 107,924 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 43.85%.

In July, Xpeng delivered a total of 11,145 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 1.24%. From January to July, it has delivered 63,173 vehicles, with a year-on-year increase of 20.46%. Although Xpeng's monthly delivery volumes have remained around 10,000 vehicles for the past few months, the Xpeng P7 model reached 1,459 deliveries in July, accumulating a total of 14,602 deliveries in seven months.

Although ranking last with a delivery of only 11,015 vehicles in July, NIO Automobile is still accelerating its global strategy. It is reported that within 72 hours of its launch in Thailand, the NIO X pure electric SUV has received more than 1,000 orders.

"Looking at the domestic market, I found that everyone is competing to list their weekly sales rankings," quipped He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xpeng Motors, at the Xpeng AI driving technology conference on July 30. On the same day, Ma Lin, Vice President of Brand and Communication Assistant at NIO, stated on social media, "Don't engage in low-level internal competition. The weekly rankings imply what I mean by low-level internal competition." Ma Lin also pointed the finger at Li Auto as being guilty of "internal competition." Later, Li Xiang, Chairman of Li Auto, responded on social media with the story of the "Old man of Guo, who deceived himself."

Although opinions differ on the attitude towards "internal competition," the war in the field of "end-to-end" large-scale smart driving models among new car-making forces began quietly in July. At the Xpeng Motors AI driving technology conference, Xpeng Motors announced that it will push the AI Tianji system XOS 5.2.0 version to global users on a full-scale basis and XNGP will achieve full national opening of "unrestricted cities, routes, and road conditions." Xpeng Motors is the second company, after Tesla, to achieve mass production of end-to-end large-scale smart driving models.

Three days ago at the NIO Innovation and Technology Day, NIO released its smart driving technology architecture NADArch2.0. NADArch2.0 has been upgraded to an end-to-end architecture with a world model introduced at the algorithm level, directly generating driving decisions from the raw sensor data, reducing information losses in traditional programs. NIO announced that smart driving based on NADArch2.0 will be phased in for release in the second half of this year.

At the Ideal Auto 2024 Smart Driving Summer Release earlier in July, Ideal Auto released a new smart driving technology architecture based on an end-to-end model, the VLM visual language model, and the world model. At the same time, it also kicked off the "Early Bird Program" for the new architecture.

Although the rankings on the delivery list change every month, the competition in the smart driving field has just begun. As Li Bin, the director of NIO Inc, said, "We are running a marathon, and the competition in the entire industry is still very long. It is difficult to say who has already possessed the city moat of smart driving in the very early days."

Under the rapid iteration of AI technology, new forces in auto industry have to go all out.