What is Li Auto aiming for by adjusting its sales system three times within half a year?

With the arrival of the Li Auto i8, Li Auto has entered a new round of comprehensive adjustment period.

On the one hand, from the perspective of consumers, seven days after the release of the Li Auto i8, there was a rapid adjustment to the product price. The previous Pro/Max/Ultra versions were uniformly adjusted to a standard version priced at 339,800 yuan, and the rear - entertainment screen package could be optionally installed for 10,000 yuan.

On the other hand, in areas where consumers have little perception, Li Auto itself is also making rapid adjustments in multiple corporate dimensions, including supply, production, sales and other aspects, as well as the corresponding personnel, organization and departments.

Among them, the latest adjustment by Li Auto involves the sales end.

On August 14th, according to reports from multiple media outlets, Li Auto announced in an internal meeting that it would adjust its sales and service system. The "Five Major War Zones" established in March were abolished, and the headquarters would directly manage 23 regions across the country.

In addition, Han Xi, the former head of the Central Zone of the original Five Major War Zones, was appointed as the person in charge of Li Auto's sales business and reports to Ma Donghui, the president of Li Auto.

If we look at the situation in recent years, this new round of adjustment in Li Auto's sales level is, of course, not an isolated act - to some extent, it is a necessary move in Li Auto's process of further entering the pure - electric battlefield, and also an embodiment of Li Auto's continued upward development with "growth" as the core driving force.

The core of the sales system reform is to embrace pure - electric vehicles

Li Auto's reform of the sales system this time is more like an external manifestation of the rapid response of its self - correction mechanism - the core logic is that since the beginning of 2025 until now, Li Auto's sales system has still undergone several reforms.

And behind these reforms, there is an important background: the continuous deepening of Li Auto's pure - electric strategy.

In March 2025, Li Auto's "Sales and Service Group" underwent a large - scale reform and adjustment - this business segment includes retail, after - sales service, charging, quality operation, overseas business and other sectors, and the overall person in charge was Zou Liangjun, the then senior vice - president of sales and service.

In this reform and adjustment, Li Auto made drastic adjustments to the retail segment. The original 26 war zones were merged into five major war zones: East, West, South, North and Central, and each war zone was responsible for its own sales volume, profit and NPS (Net Promoter Score).

The heads of these five major war zones all reported to Zou Liangjun.

It is worth mentioning that in this adjustment, Han Xi, the former vice - president of sales in charge of the overall retail business, was appointed as the head of retail in the Central Zone. In media reports, this change was interpreted as reducing management levels and strengthening competition.

Regarding this adjustment, Li Auto responded at the time that this move drew on the experience of international enterprises such as Apple in regional management, promoting the regional organizational upgrade of "in - depth regional service + headquarters ability empowerment"; moreover, by decentralizing decision - making power to the five major regions, each region could quickly respond to the personalized needs of local users.

In the interpretation of the outside world, some media and industry insiders said that on the one hand, this move was to prepare for the annual sales target; on the other hand, it was to prepare for the launch of the pure - electric SUV - after all, with the distinction between pure - electric and extended - range products, the regional attributes of new energy vehicles are more obvious.

However, three months later, the situation changed significantly.

On June 27th, Li Auto issued an internal letter announcing that the original "Sales and Service Group" and the "R & D and Supply Group" were merged into the "Intelligent Vehicle Group", with Ma Donghui, the president of Li Auto, as the person in charge, reporting to Li Xiang, the chairman and CEO.

It is worth mentioning that in this adjustment, Zou Liangjun, the former senior vice - president and head of the Sales and Service Group, was transferred to be a company consultant.

According to Li Auto's official statement, the establishment of the "Intelligent Vehicle Group" is to better achieve value creation, value transfer and business closed - loop for users through end - to - end operation and in - depth collaboration of R & D, supply, sales and service.

In this regard, an industry insider close to Li Auto analyzed that this adjustment by Li Auto is essentially to further eliminate departmental barriers and also to better layout the sales end for the launch of Li Auto's pure - electric SUV.

From this perspective, the round of reform carried out by Li Auto in mid - August actually showed signs in June.

The above - mentioned industry insider said that after Li Auto established the Five Major War Zones at the sales end, each war zone was prone to act independently in order to complete the sales tasks, which was actually not conducive to Li Auto's overall efforts at the sales end to expand new customers. Therefore, after more than three months of trial, Li Auto had already started to think about the next step of adjustment.

In essence, after the organizational adjustment in June, the adjustment at the sales end in August was actually predictable.

This industry insider said, "The core logic here is that Li Auto wanted to see the market feedback after the launch of the first pure - electric SUV, the Li Auto i8. After the i8 press conference, Li Auto realized that the reform of the sales end was imperative."

Solving the problem of dual - front operations of "pure - electric + extended - range"

For Li Auto at present, the key problem that the company as a whole needs to face is how to maintain the original sales momentum after the product system officially enters the era of dual - front operations of "pure - electric + extended - range".

Of course, the most crucial model for Li Auto at present is naturally the first pure - electric SUV, the Li Auto i8.

At the end of July, the Li Auto i8 was officially launched at a price ranging from 321,800 yuan to 369,800 yuan. This price not only formed a large gap with the previous pre - sale price of 350,000 to 400,000 yuan, but also showed the outside world Li Auto's determination to enter the pure - electric SUV market with the same starting price as the Li Auto L8.

However, soon after, the Li Auto i8 underwent a price adjustment one week after its release.

Specifically, based on the market feedback from the large - order data, the Li Auto i8 took the original Max version as the standard version, unified the latest price of the Li Auto i8 at 339,800 yuan, and offered the "Rear - cabin Entertainment Screen Package" for 10,000 yuan as an optional item, realizing the simplified update of the Li Auto i8 product system.

The purpose, of course, is to better meet the needs of potential consumers.

Regarding the price update of the Li Auto i8, an industry observer who has been following Li Auto for a long time told Zhijian Time that this update was a very difficult decision. After all, from the perspective of product supply, this involves major adjustments to the supply chain. For example, the battery supply from Sunwoda and the intelligent driving chips from Horizon all need to be quickly negotiated and reach a consensus in a short period of time.

Therefore, it requires great courage and execution.

Of course, from the perspective of the sales end, after the re - pricing of the Li Auto i8, the explanation cost for consumers has indeed been reduced to some extent.

An industry insider who has been engaged in automobile sales for a long time told Zhijian Time that the initial starting price of the Li Auto i8 was 321,800 yuan, which was the same as that of the Li Auto L8. It did seem very sincere; but from the perspective of the sales end, front - line salespeople need to spend a lot of effort to explain to consumers whether they should buy a pure - electric or an extended - range vehicle at the same price of 321,800 yuan, which is quite difficult.

That is to say, the same starting price actually increases the difficulty for front - line salespeople to convey value to consumers.

From this perspective, the unified adjustment of the Li Auto i8 to start at 339,800 yuan avoids the direct comparison with the three versions of the Li Auto L8, and for 349,800 yuan, consumers can get the same configuration as the previous Li Auto i8 Ultra version, which is a major incentive for car owners.

"This is also good news for front - line sales," said the above - mentioned automobile sales industry insider.

Of course, for many front - line salespeople of Li Auto, as the Li Auto i8 starts to be sold together with the Li L series, the new product system of "pure - electric + extended - range" is something they have to adapt to.

The logic behind this is very simple. In the product pattern after the addition of pure - electric vehicles, when facing new potential customer groups, they need to convey the inherent product advantages of the Li L series as an extended - range product to potential extended - range users, and also need to convey the value of the pure - electric Li Auto i8 as a pure - electric product to users who care more about pure - electric vehicles, and the two types of sales pitches cannot conflict with each other, so this puts forward new requirements for front - line salespeople.

So, will the abolition of the Five Major War Zones be beneficial to the increase in sales of Li Auto's "pure - electric + extended - range" product system?

In this regard, the above - mentioned industry insider believes that there are still variables in the short term, but in the long run, it will definitely be helpful; the reason is very simple. For Li Auto, the core purpose of the sales end should still be to maximize the development of new customers. The model of the Five Major War Zones has currently been considered unsuitable for the current situation - but the adjustment itself actually requires a process.

"It can be understood that the current adjustment is also a preparation for the upcoming Li Auto i6."

Li Auto's pure - electric journey also needs to go from 0 to 1

In the process of moving towards pure - electric vehicles, Li Auto and Li Xiang behind it have actually been continuously improving their capabilities through corrections.

On March 21, 2024, after the unsuccessful launch of the Li Auto MEGA, Li Xiang, the CEO of Li Auto, issued an internal letter to all employees. In the letter, he clearly stated that the company mistakenly regarded the 0 - to - 1 stage (commercial verification period) of the Li Auto MEGA as the 1 - to - 10 stage (rapid development period) for operation, which was a misjudgment of the rhythm of the pure - electric strategy by the company.

Li Xiang also clearly stated that the Li Auto MEGA and high - voltage pure - electric vehicles must go through a 0 - to - 1 stage like the Li Auto ONE and extended - range electric vehicles.

Therefore, from the subsequent performance of the Li Auto MEGA, on the one hand, Li Auto continued to firmly convey the use value of the MEGA to gain more recognition from target users; on the other hand, based on the product problems feedback by users, it launched the Li Auto MEGA Home version on the basis of the original MEGA product.

It can be said that from the current situation, after a series of adjustments, the Li Auto MEGA has successfully made a comeback. A direct evidence is that in June 2025, the sales volume of the Li Auto MEGA exceeded 2,300 units, ranking first in the sales of MPVs priced over 500,000 yuan.

Of course, the comeback of the Li Auto MEGA does not mean that Li Auto's pure - electric journey has completed the 0 - to - 1 process.

The reason is obvious - after all, the Li Auto MEGA is a pure - electric MPV model priced over 500,000 yuan, and the market space it targets is limited. Moreover, after the unsuccessful launch of the MEGA in 2024, Li Auto adjusted the rhythm and naming method of its pure - electric SUVs, and the MEGA thus became a separate product series.

Therefore, for Li Auto, the Li i series, which is positioned as pure - electric SUVs, is what truly verifies its pure - electric systematic capabilities and large - scale market effects.

So, how to evaluate the series of performances of the Li Auto i8 after its launch?

In this regard, an analyst who has been following the automobile market for a long time told Zhijian Time that in comparison, if the problem with the launch of the Li Auto MEGA in 2024 was due to over - confidence and a misjudgment of the rhythm, then the launch process of the Li Auto i8 actually reflects that Li Auto has full respect for pure - electric vehicles, "even a bit too cautious".

Precisely because of this cautious attitude, the Li Auto i8 was willing to give up some profit margins and adopted the same starting price as the Li Auto L8 in the initial price positioning. The core logic was to use this price to reduce the migration cost of Li Auto L8 extended - range users to pure - electric vehicles, that is, to "stabilize its own basic market".

This logic is actually not wrong - but the problem is that its focus is on price, rather than the inherent product value such as "refrigerator, color TV, big sofa" that users value more. And the latter is what potential owners of the Li Auto i8 care more about.

So, Li Xiang said in the subsequent price adjustment of the i8, "We got stuck in inertial thinking."

Fortunately, after a series of challenges, both Li Xiang himself and the entire Li Auto company have fully understood that after the success of the extended - range series, including the Li Auto MEGA and the Li Auto i8, Li Auto's pure - electric journey is actually a more challenging and intense war - it will also be a long - term battle.

And this adjustment of the sales system in August