Li Auto MEGA: One Incident, Four Heartbeats, Three Observations
And, love at first sight.
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An Accident
The Day Li Auto MEGA Launched My NIO ES8 Went Mute
You guys, this is wild.
Today, the day of the Li Auto MEGA launch, my NIO ES8 suddenly turned into a "mute" this morning. Its amplifier failed — no sound at all. Not even the click-click-click of the turn signals.
It felt like the car was giving me the cold shoulder. I laughed and cried at the same time: Does it know I've been eyeing the MEGA? Did it find out I'm going to test-drive one?
I pulled out my phone to snap a photo for a funny Moments post. Suddenly, a Rene Liu song randomly played on screen — "Cheng Quan" (Letting Go). Seriously, wild.
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Four Reasons My Heart Skipped
Why Did the MEGA Get Me?
① Love at First Sight
I'm the textbook MPV target user: three kids, one dog, parents along for the ride — the car's often at full seven-seat capacity. I've driven my NIO ES8 for three years. It's great in most ways, but the space just doesn't cut it. The third row is cramped as hell. So I've been keeping tabs on various MPVs. After a year of looking around, everything looked the same. Aesthetic fatigue. I couldn't pull the trigger on replacing the ES8.
Not long after buying the ES8, (I'll spare you the ten-thousand-word rant, mainly about how William Li's NIO Phone and battery swap station strategy disappointed me), I became known in my friend circle as a "Li Auto shill," always nostalgic about the six months I drove the Li Auto ONE in Beijing. So I'd had high hopes for this all-electric MPV Li Auto had been cooking up.
Then one day last year, I was half-reclining on the couch when I suddenly came across a spy shot of the MEGA.
I jolted upright.
It was so different, like it had time-traveled from the future — or even flown here from the future.
At today's Li Auto launch event, when the MEGA made its cool entrance, I felt the same thrill as seeing Coldplay take the stage at a concert:
Li Auto chose to give the MEGA a nickname: "Highway Bullet Train." Now the entire marketing strategy revolves around this nickname. Brilliant.
"Highway Bullet Train" precisely captures the MEGA's silhouette, amplifies its distinctive look, and helps cement it in users' memory through a catchy moniker.
The icing on the cake: the name also carries positive connotations — speed like a bullet train, intelligent assisted driving as safe as one.
There's been tons of controversy around the MEGA's looks. Under every Weibo post praising its appearance, you'll find even more comments trashing it.
But whatever. Aesthetics and love are subjective. And I reckon deep down, I just have a thing for controversial products, for breaking rules, for jumping into the fray.
By the way, I'd like to urge car brands to consider dropping the bad habit of copying phone naming conventions. Stop with the X9, ES8, L9 nonsense — boring, emotionless, forgettable.
Give us more fun names: Beetle is a cute, nimble little bug. Sagitar is the brave, freedom-chasing Sagittarius. Even Passat is a reliable seasonal wind that returns every year.
② Form Follows Function
"Form follows function" is a classic principle of industrial design.
It means a design, especially for an industrial product, can't pursue beauty alone, let alone attention-grabbing spectacle. If there's only one priority, it's functionality that delivers value to users.
And the magical thing is, when you make design serve function, it often produces a kind of naturally stunning beauty.
The MEGA was designed to look like a bullet train to break through wind resistance.
Drag directly impacts range for an all-electric MPV. The higher the drag, the shorter the range.
Simulation data shows that for every 0.01 improvement in drag coefficient, range increases by 6-8 km.
Most business-style MPVs have drag coefficients above 0.3. The Porsche Taycan's is 0.22. The MEGA's drag coefficient shattered the mass-production MPV record, making it the lowest-drag MPV in the world.
This means with a 102.7 kWh battery pack, the MEGA achieves 710 km of range.
③ Space, and Transformable Space
The third row is my biggest pain point with the NIO ES8. Though my family always politely volunteers "I'll take it, I'll take it," everyone knows how cramped it is back there.
The Li Auto MEGA's third row won me over with five design details:
- Easy entry and exit;
- Large enough side windows with sufficient outside view so it doesn't feel oppressive;
- A center armrest for the third row — comfortable for two passengers when lowered;
- Backrest angle adjustable across 10 degrees, maxing out at 36 degrees — plenty of recline;
- Seat height of 350mm — no sitting-on-a-stool feeling.
The interior space is large enough to transform into various configurations. The lifestyle scenarios showcased on the official site are genuinely enticing.
The MEGA's trunk fully delivers: even with seven people on board, it still fits four 28-inch and two 20-inch suitcases.
④ 9 Minutes 30 Seconds of Charging for 400 km of Range
The MEGA's 800V ultra-high-voltage platform and 5C ultra-fast charging technology push peak charging power past 520 kW, with peak current exceeding 700 A.
Per official data: 9 minutes 30 seconds of charging for 400 km range; 12 minutes for 500 km.
NIO's battery swap stations must be trembling.
A Bonus
Wild Imagination
SugarDesign, a big name in car design on Weibo, let his imagination run wild and came up with a MEGA trailer kit. @Lamianshifu quickly produced 3D models based on Sugar's renders.
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Everyone in branding and product has one ultimate aspiration: to become a symbol.
The Li Auto MEGA's unique form and function give it massive potential to become exactly that.
The bonus above comes from netizens' creativity. When such creativity happens once, ten times, a hundred times — a symbol becomes a symbol.
KOL Songguo Ba put it well in a video: "Every era has its products. Before MEGA, all MPVs looked a certain way; after MEGA, we learned MPVs could look like this."
Three Observations
My Three Observations on Xiang Li
① Methodological Persistence
Xiang Li insists on one thing: at Li Auto, every team effort starts with PEA (Product Experience Assessment). Whether building a service, hosting a launch event, or developing a product feature — any product move, even something as small as the compass needle style on the in-car map, or the support team wanting to shoot executive portraits — must go through PEA review.
At first glance, this is a product methodology. Look closer, it's a management approach. Look even closer, it's a cultural instrument.
I find PEA remarkably simple — plain language, no pretension.
② Positive Freedom and Negative Freedom
In recent years, "finding oneself," "pursuing inner consistency," and "seeking negative freedom" have become mainstream among young people. I'm immersed in this discourse, and in the social and economic environment that birthed it — naturally, I've come to accept these values.
But whenever I look toward Xiang Li and Li Auto, I sense a group of people roughly my age and background, treating a product and building an enterprise with such earnestness. This is the embodiment of "positive freedom." Looking at them, I feel like I'm bathing in an energy field, feeling propelled forward.
When we were deciding on the name "Tangdao" in the early days of the brand, a friend asked me: Doesn't your name seem uncharacteristically un-optimistic for your upbeat style? She misunderstood. "Tangdao" sounds like "lying down" (tang dao), but it's not just about lying down — it's about encouraging the courage to choose rest, the freedom to decide when to pause and when to continue.
The best state is resting when you rest,任性地说"今天我就不" — sleeping however long you want; but striving when you strive, secreting dopamine, gaining accomplishment, reaching the peak of Maslow's hierarchy.
Having both negative freedom and positive freedom — that's the good life.
③ Dare to Put Yourself Out There
Xiang Li has a course on the Dedao app: Xiang Li: 16 Lectures on Product Practice. Exceptionally high quality. A few years ago we produced The Fair Marketing Course, and I was responsible for two episodes — so I know intimately the work behind creating a course.
But why is Xiang Li willing to invest so much time in this Dedao course? His ROI expectations must be substantial. By his own repeatedly emphasized PEA methodology, his goal "can only be one thing, and it must be a result — something users would say themselves."
— Take me as an example. Because I took this course, I upgraded from someone who liked Li Auto and had invested in its stock for four years, to someone who trusts Li Auto even more, and is willing to stay up late writing an article like this one.
So Xiang Li's goal in creating the course: by sharing his passion and focus for product, and his product methodology, build user trust that "Li Auto makes good products."
The scarcest thing in this world is trust. And putting out content is the lowest-cost way to build it.
I recently started updating my WeChat public account and podcast "Crossing," partly inspired by Xiang Li. Active content output brings me one clear benefit: because "output is the best input," when I started trying to write, it also pushed me to understand and think more deeply, find opportunities, and spark innovation.
Final Words
Creating Beauty Together
Electric vehicles are the Forbidden City summit for product managers of this era.
Cars are products that can bring genuine happiness to the greatest common denominator of people. Creating a car can carry the grandest ambition, build the greatest influence, leave behind the most time-transcending product.
I regret not finding an angle to throw myself into the EV entrepreneurship wave, but I've followed it passionately. Watching from the shore, I've been there in spirit, participating in the greatest innovation journey of this era in China.
The MEGA moves me, even excites me — beyond its unforgettable design, brilliant marketing strategy, and heart-stirring product features, there's also this company's increasingly strong management and culture:
David Zhang, partner at Matrix Partners China — one of Li Auto's investors — shared a Weibo post by Xinchuxing CEO He Lei. Attending the Li Auto MEGA Sanya launch event, he praised the execution: "Actually, many of the details I mentioned above weren't pre-planned. They were temporary fixes after discovering issues on the spot. But the key is that everyone on the Li Auto team, after finding a problem, is willing to push for improvement and take responsibility — not a 'not my problem' attitude. Organizational efficiency is the ultimate weapon!"
In his repost, David Zhang wrote: "Extreme attention to detail, organizational efficiency, every employee's sense of ownership — these are the roots of all beauty."
In a year when spiritual energy is universally depleted, here's hoping Li Auto keeps pushing forward, creating more beauty.
Hi, I'm Koji, and "Crossing" is my personal newsletter. The name comes from something Steve Jobs said — standing at the intersection of technology and the humanities.
I'm co-founder of sleep environment brand Tangdao and content company The Fair. I previously founded Jiepang App, and was involved in the early days of Fanfou and Jumei International Holding Limited.
As a quintessential cross-border entrepreneur, from mobile internet to e-commerce, from content to consumer goods, I let curiosity roam across various "crossings."
Feel free to add me on WeChat: YuanchengYang