China Merchants Securities (HK) coverage of Li Auto in a research note sent to investors Thursday, maintaining a “buy” rating on Li Auto-W (02015), with a target price of HK$234 and a valuation of 7x2022EP/S. The report also tells investors watch out for market and data disturbance risks in the first quarter and recommend buying on the cheap.
The main views of China Merchants Securities (Hong Kong) are as follows
- Hot sales : The company delivered 12,000 units in January, up 128.1% year-on-year , with strong performance in the EV industry off-season; The company ranked second in China’s EV deliveries in January , the first/third Xpeng/NIO delivered 13,000/10,000 units respectively.LI Auto delivered over 10,000 units for three consecutive months, setting a delivery record for a Chinese brand luxury model with a starting price of over 300,000 RMB（$47.300）.The cumulative deliveries of the LI ONE since its launch reached 136,000 units.
- Channel expansion: As of the end of January, the number of retail centers nationwide has reached 220, an increase of 14, covering 105 cities; 276 after-sales service centers and authorized sheet metal spray centers, covering 204 cities. 2022 store target doubled to 400 compared to 2021.
Li Auto will release the X01 in 2022
- The X01, the first model of the company’s next-generation X platform with extended-range technology, will be unveiled in the second quarter of 2022, with deliveries expected to begin in the third quarter of next year, Li Auto executives said.
- Li Auto’s X01 model measures 5,150/1,980/1,800 mm in length, width and height, which is larger than the current Li ONE’s 5,023/1,960/1,755 mm.
- It has a 44.5kWh battery capacity and a pure electric range of 155km under WLTC conditions. It also supports fast charging, with a 20-80 percent charge time of 36 minutes.
Self-research results are obvious, AEB gets breakthrough
Li ONE winning the championship in the AEB test of Dong Chedi (a Chinese auto information service platform).Li Auto is the only Chinese brand in the top 5 of the list, and is the only one that can accurately identify lateral vehicles and two-wheeled vehicles; the excellent performance of AEB indicates a lower accident rate and ensures passenger safety. Li Auto adopts the self-developed “monocular camera + millimeter wave radar” vision fusion solution, which is more capable of recognizing pedestrians and two-wheeled vehicles and is close to the road conditions in China; Li Auto is also one of the few car companies that choose to develop their own AEB.
