JD.com aims to reshape the car selling logic

Author | Wang Xiaojun

Editor | Chai Xuchen

An ordinary family electric vehicle was marked up to 78.19399 million yuan within 4 hours. This meticulously designed auction frenzy by JD.com has once again witnessed the "aggressiveness" of internet strategies in the Chinese automotive market.

On October 22, the auction for JD.com's "National Good Car" No. 001 special edition came to a close. This electric vehicle, which was expected to sell for only 100,000 to 120,000 yuan, started bidding at 1 yuan and, after 23,733 bids, was finally sold for the astronomical price of 78.193399 million yuan.

Of course, the successful bidder can deduct the deposit from the payment. Participants can choose to forfeit the payment or cancel the order after payment, with a deduction of 100 yuan from the deposit. In other words, even if the auction fails, only a 100 yuan deposit will be deducted.

When JD.com set the starting bid for the "National Good Car" No. 001 special edition at 1 yuan, it was destined to be more than just an ordinary car transaction. The low deposit threshold of 100 yuan allowed a large number of users to join the bidding with a "just for fun" mentality. During the auction, the price broke 800,000 yuan within a minute, exceeded 10 million yuan after 16 minutes, and surpassed 25 million yuan in less than an hour.

JD.com continuously amplified the hype through social media reminders and topic interactions, transforming the sale of an ordinary car into a phenomenon-level marketing event. After all, the scarcity of "No. 001" is the core driving force behind the skyrocketing price. In the collector and capital circles, "first edition" and "limited edition" often mean excessive premiums.

In recent days, JD.com's cooperative "National Good Car" has finally revealed its name: Aion UT super. According to the information currently released, this car also has several highlights in terms of product features.

In terms of the three electric systems, based on CATL's chocolate battery swap technology, the vehicle is equipped with a 500 km range battery and achieves a quick battery swap in 99 seconds. This energy replenishment solution addresses the range anxiety of electric vehicle users and has become one of the car's most prominent selling points.

In terms of the intelligent cockpit, the Aion UT super is equipped with "GAC Huawei Cloud Vehicle Machine" technology, supporting cloud computing power calls and TB-level storage space, capable of running large applications and enabling quick uploads via mobile apps.

In terms of space design, the vehicle adopts a standard A-class car platform but is relatively spacious for its class. In terms of dimensions, the Aion UT super has a wheelbase of 2750 mm; rear legroom of 905 mm; lateral space of 1385 mm; and front seats that can be reclined.

The high-profile auction of the No. 001 car is just one part of JD.com's bold foray into the automotive industry. JD.com's ambition is to reshape the automotive consumption market with internet logic, allowing users to "buy cars like buying phones."

Before this grand launch of car sales, JD.com's automotive dream has been in the making for several years. As early as 2015, JD.com invested in Nio. It launched a complete vehicle trading platform in 2018. By 2022, it upgraded "Jingchehui" to "JD.com Car Maintenance," and in 2023, the automotive division became independently operated, further showcasing JD.com's ambitions in the automotive sector Currently, JD.com has nearly 3,000 directly-operated stores and over 40,000 cooperative outlets, which will become important channels for its car sales business.

JD.com's role in this cooperation is very clear—exclusive seller, without direct involvement in manufacturing cars. However, this precisely reveals JD.com's greater ambition: to be an asset-light ecosystem integrator rather than a heavy asset manufacturer, building a complete lifecycle service closed loop covering "buy-install-maintain-use-exchange" for automobiles.

This time, JD.com relies on its over 600 million active users and consumer insight capabilities to participate in product definition. In the "National Good Car, Defined by You" campaign, JD.com collected user suggestions, attracting over 300,000 participants to interact. This means that JD.com's car sales are not only a transformation of sales channels but also reflect the automotive industry's shift from a manufacturing-led to a user-centered value chain reconstruction.

With the development of the new energy vehicle market, the value chain of the automotive industry is also changing. The trend of software defining automotive value is becoming prominent, with subscription services, data monetization, and personalized services becoming new value increments for automotive products.

It is expected that by 2030, the value composition of automotive products will show a pattern of hardware accounting for 40%, software for 40%, and content services for 20%.

JD.com's asset-light model aligns perfectly with this trend. It does not directly participate in manufacturing, avoiding the risks associated with heavy assets, and embeds itself into the high-end segments of the automotive industry's value chain through user insights and service systems. The shortcomings of traditional car manufacturers are being magnified, while JD.com, with its control over user data and service channels, is expected to carve out a share at the high end of the value chain.

Industry insiders have stated that the real challenge JD.com faces in selling cars is how to change consumers' car-buying habits and perceptions, as well as to provide good after-sales service. After all, as a major consumer product, the decision-making logic of consumers differs significantly from that of ordinary goods.

Today, young consumers are becoming increasingly rational; they no longer focus solely on price but pay more attention to product quality and after-sales service. JD.com's previous after-sales service has a relatively good reputation among major e-commerce platforms, but it remains unclear whether this after-sales capability can be reflected in car sales. For instance, if the models sold have quality issues, how responsibility will be divided is still difficult to determine.

This auction frenzy of 78.19 million yuan will eventually come to an end, but JD.com's automotive ambitions are just beginning. The moment the high price hammer fell, JD.com threw down a challenge to the traditional automotive industry.

In the future, with the official release of the Aion UT super during the Double 11 shopping festival, JD.com's car sales model will face real market testing.

As competition in the new energy vehicle sector becomes increasingly fierce, whether JD.com can truly disrupt the long-standing automotive sales pattern remains an unknown. However, it is certain that the boundaries of the automotive industry are dissolving, and a channel revolution led by internet companies is beginning to unfold