Often exceeding 10,000 and accumulating over 50 million, how unreliable are the small deposits of automotive companies?
It has become a common practice in recent years for automobile companies to announce pre - sale orders (also known as "small deposits" in the industry, which are refundable). This is mainly because new - force car manufacturers sell new cars directly to users, and pre - sale orders can more clearly show the market response of products to potential car - buying groups.
Due to the intensifying market competition and the sales growth pressure faced by automobile manufacturers, pre - sale orders have also become an alternative marketing tool. On August 31st, well - known automobile commentator Wu Pei mentioned on his personal Weibo that there is a phenomenon of data falsification of "over 10,000 small deposits" in the automobile industry. From his statement, this has become an industry - wide problem.
Automobile manufacturers often announce pre - sale orders when the number "exceeds 10,000" or at a certain time point after the pre - sale starts. Xiaomi SU7 has changed the definition of "small deposits". They do not announce the pre - sale price when the new car is first unveiled and only start accepting orders until the official launch - they call it "large deposits". In fact, this deposit is a "small deposit" within a certain period of time and is only non - refundable after the order is locked and becomes a "large deposit".
Since the first - sale order data of Xiaomi SU7 and YU7 are very impressive, with nearly 90,000 orders for the former in 24 hours and nearly 300,000 orders for the latter within just one hour of its launch. Automobile manufacturers pay more attention to the promotion of pre - sale orders. However, not all brands and CEOs have the brand influence and marketing ability of Xiaomi and Lei Jun. Therefore, in the face of the benchmark set by Xiaomi cars, many brands are forced to be "ingenious".
The Competition of Pre - sale Orders
Generally speaking, the main public activities for the launch of new cars of new - energy brands are now divided into two parts: the pre - sale release and the official release. Most automobile companies start accepting users' pre - orders after the pre - sale release. The user's reservation deposit usually ranges from 99 yuan to 5,000 yuan.
Some automobile companies do not announce the number of pre - orders and large - deposit orders, such as NIO and Tesla. After the Ideal MEGA, Ideal Auto also no longer announces the number of pre - sale orders. Xiaomi Auto also does not announce the number of pre - orders because they do not have a pre - sale stage. However, Xiaomi's large deposit (5,000 yuan) is refundable within a limited time (7 days after placing the order) and can also be regarded as a pre - order.
In November 2023, the Ideal MEGA was unveiled and started accepting reservations at the Guangzhou Auto Show. It received 10,000 pre - orders in one hour, shocking the entire automobile industry. This model created several "firsts" for Ideal Auto - the first mass - produced pure - electric model, the first MPV model, the first model with a price of over 500,000 yuan, etc.
The shock in the automobile industry came from the fact that this pre - sale result demonstrated the potential of Ideal Auto in the high - end pure - electric market. This potential is a "threat" to any new - energy brand. In March of the following year, the Ideal MEGA was officially launched, but it did not live up to the potential shown by the pre - sale orders. It was not because of the authenticity of the pre - orders. The fundamental reason was that the Ideal MEGA encountered very negative public opinions, which made users have bad associations.
"However, the conversion rate of the pre - orders of the Ideal MEGA was still good. The conversion rate of the first - batch reservation users was about 30%, but the subsequent orders did not keep up. Of course, this conversion rate also fell short of the internal expectations." said an insider from Ideal Auto. The delivery volumes of the Ideal MEGA in the two months after its launch were 3,229 and 1,145 respectively, and then declined month by month, with the lowest month having less than 500 vehicles.
Xiaomi caused another sensation. In March 2024, when the Xiaomi SU7 was launched, it received 10,000 orders in 4 minutes, and another 10,000 orders 3 minutes later. Finally, it had 88,898 orders in 24 hours. No automobile manufacturer had achieved this before Xiaomi Auto. Later, Xiaomi YU7, whose order growth rate exceeded that of Xiaomi SU7, received over 289,000 orders within just one hour of its launch.
Judging from the actual delivery volume, there is almost no doubt about the authenticity of Xiaomi Auto's order numbers. The outside world's doubts about the real order number of Xiaomi YU7 are because this model has not significantly helped Xiaomi Auto increase its delivery volume. The first - batch delivery of Xiaomi YU7 started on July 6th, and large - scale delivery started in August.
However, according to the delivery data announced by Xiaomi Auto, the delivery volume in July exceeded 30,000, a 20% increase from over 25,000 in June. It can be calculated that the delivery volume of Xiaomi Auto in July was only a little over 30,000. The delivery volume announced by Xiaomi for August also exceeded 30,000. According to Xiaomi Auto's habit of announcing delivery volume ranges, the delivery volume in August may not exceed 35,000. It can be seen that the large - scale delivery of Xiaomi YU7 has not yet driven a significant increase in the overall delivery volume of Xiaomi Auto.
Judging from the change in the delivery cycle of Xiaomi YU7, the main factor restricting its rapid volume increase is still insufficient production capacity - currently, only the first - phase factory of Xiaomi Auto can operate at full capacity, which is not enough to support the production capacity ramp - up of Xiaomi YU7.
However, the "Xiaomi effect" has spread in the automobile industry, especially in the past two years. An unnamed person from a new - energy brand under a traditional automobile enterprise said: "The two Xiaomi models are the key discussion topics at marketing meetings. Later, many CEOs of automobile enterprises went on the track, held live - broadcasts, and answered users' questions on social media, basically learning from Xiaomi Auto's approach. Of course, we also need to establish users' perception through pre - sale results."
"At least make the users think it's a hit." he said. Now, when a new car is launched for pre - sale, at least the data of over 10,000 small deposits should be presented. For some models targeting the mainstream market or in a price range with high competition pressure (such as 200,000 - 300,000 yuan), brand owners value the small - deposit data more. "Exceeding 10,000 is not enough."
A college student in Shanghai confirmed that he had received part - time jobs such as "participating in the new - car pre - sale press conferences, launch press conferences, and test - drives at the store" and also received the task of placing pre - orders. After placing the pre - order, he could get a refund after the automobile enterprise announced the data, usually within 24 hours. The remuneration for each part - time job or task ranges from 80 to 150 yuan.
Therefore, for automobile brands, the cost of boosting the small - deposit data is not high. In the marketing budget of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions for a new - car launch, the budget for "polishing" the small - deposit data may only account for about 2%.
The Declining Credibility of Small - deposit Data
In the face of competition pressure, the competition among new - energy automobile brands regarding small - deposit data continues.
On August 15th, after the new - generation IM LS6 was officially unveiled, IM Motors announced that the small - deposit orders exceeded 10,000 in 30 minutes. The pre - sale price of this car has been reduced to 209,900 yuan. Through the superposition of small - deposit benefits and subsidies and other preferential policies, the official price is very likely to be lower than 200,000 yuan.
On August 29th, at the Chengdu Auto Show, the 2026 - model MPV Dreamer of Voyah Auto started pre - sale and also achieved the result of over 10,000 small - deposit orders in one hour. But the most eye - catching one was Zeekr 9X, with 42,667 small - deposit orders within one hour of the pre - sale start, and the pre - sale price range is from 479,900 yuan to 569,900 yuan.
Well - known automobile blogger Sun Shaojun believes that the credibility of this data is relatively high. Because he found through research data that within 48 hours after the pre - sale of Zeekr 9X started, the average new orders per store were 90 - 120, and the number of Zeekr's stores in China is about 500.
But this still cannot dispel the outside world's doubts about the authenticity of Zeekr 9X's small - deposit data - within one hour of the launch of the 2025 - model AITO M9, the pre - sale orders only exceeded 3,800, less than one - tenth of Zeekr 9X.
However, the new AITO M7 soon stole the limelight from Zeekr 9X. On September 6th, HarmonyOS Smart Mobility announced that the pre - orders of the new AITO M7 exceeded 150,000 within 24 hours after the start of reservations. This result is only second to Xiaomi YU7.
The small - deposit data announced by IM Motors, Voyah Auto, Zeekr, and AITO still need time for verification. But in the past five years, as a by - product of the direct - sales system and user operation of new - energy automobiles, the credibility of small - deposit data is declining.
Li Pengcheng, who once served as the vice - president of XPeng Motors and Avita Technology, subtly criticized the common "small - deposit data competition" in the automobile industry: "According to incomplete statistics, from the beginning of the year to now, the small - deposit orders of Chinese passenger cars have exceeded 50 million, and 80% of them were completed within 72 hours of the new - car release."
However, the tracking and statistical data of the Passenger Car Market Information Joint Conference of the China Automobile Dealers Association shows that in the first eight months of this year, the cumulative wholesale volume of national passenger cars was 17.934 million, and the retail volume was 14.698 million, with a year - on - year increase of only 9%. Considering that the announcement of small - deposit data is basically concentrated in new - energy brands and new - force car manufacturers, the proportion of these more than 50 million small - deposit orders that are converted into actual sales may be less than 5%.
This article is from the WeChat public account "Power Plant", author: Hua Zijian, published by 36Kr with authorization.