Independent Auto Enterprises' Collective Second Rush: Dongfeng, BAIC And Great Wall, Who Can Win?

Great Wall Motor's new high-end electric vehicle brand "SL project" has emerged.

According to qixinbao, on December 10, Shanghai haver Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "haver automobile technology") was renamed as Shanghai salon Zhixing Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "salon Zhixing"), and its business scope included import and export of goods, sales of new energy vehicles, sales of new vehicles, sales of new energy vehicle power exchange facilities, etc. Li Peng, the legal representative of the company, is the vice president and digital executive officer of Great Wall Motors and the founder and CEO of Xiandou intelligent. One day ago, Li Peng sent a war message to the new forces of car making at an event: "the tide is coming, we should bow in and enter."

Since this year, from arcfox of BAIC new energy, Lando of Dongfeng, independence of gac-ea'an, to Zhiji automobile launched by SAIC combined with ALI, new high-end brand project of Chang'an and SL project of great wall motor. China's major independent car companies have fully opened the road to the second high. Different from the past, this time "Chonggao" has very distinct characteristics, creating a brand new high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand.

Brand upward is a difficult problem faced by Chinese local automobile enterprises for many years. In the past few years, Chery Guanzhi (which has been acquired by Baoneng), Geely link and Great Wall wey have been launched successively, trying to break through the ceiling of independent brands and challenge the mainstream joint venture brands.

Compared with a few years ago, China's independent brands are facing both more fierce stock competition and opportunities brought by the unprecedented changes in the industry in a century. Therefore, in this round of "rush up", automobile enterprises are facing a completely different market environment. "Intelligent" and "electric" are two common keywords for automobile enterprises to create new brands.

Under the stock market, it is more difficult to break through the stock market. Driven by the new energy and intelligent network connection, the industry reshuffle is a good opportunity for the brand to go up. In addition, Weilai and Lingke have established good brand samples before. " On December 14, Zheng Fu, global senior partner of Roland Berger and vice president of Greater China, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter.

Compared with the market positions of Mercedes Benz and BMW, which have been established for many years in the field of high-end traditional fuel vehicles, the rapid rise of new brands such as Tesla and Weilai makes the outside world see the possibility of breaking through the market of high-end electric vehicles. However, although the independent car companies are in the layout, it is bound to be a small number of players who can finally come out.

All major players in China

From the perspective of time line, local auto companies that have clearly launched or prepared for high-end electric brands include: BAIC arcfox, Dongfeng lantu, SAIC Zhiji, new high-end brands launched by Changan United Huawei Ningde era, and "SL" project of great wall motor. In addition, GAC sets AIAN brand as an independent brand and also aims at high-end products. Geely already owns high-end brand Volvo and high-end electric brand polestar. FAW's red flag has also launched a number of pure electric vehicles.

The central enterprises represented by FAW, Dongfeng and Chang'an, local state-owned enterprises represented by BAIC, SAIC and GAC, and private enterprises represented by great wall and Geely, namely, the six largest state-owned automobile groups in China and the two private enterprises with the largest market scale, will be involved in the field of high-end pure electric vehicles.

Overall, the development of electric vehicles has become a consensus in the industry. The rapid growth of Tesla and Weilai shows that the high-end electric vehicle market has a good prospect and is a feasible way.

"Domestic automobile enterprises have been passive in competition with foreign enterprises for a long time. They can't win by only relying on low prices and cost performance. They need to develop some high-end products, accumulate stamina and strive for breakthroughs." On December 13, an Qingheng, former director of BAIC group, said in an interview with the reporter of 21st century economic report.

From the development characteristics of the automobile industry, the market may not need so many automobile brands. However, for Chinese local automobile enterprises, there is little room for brands to seek breakthrough in the era of fuel vehicles. Emerging electric vehicles will provide more opportunities.

It is worth noting that BAIC, Dongfeng, SAIC and Changan have put the new high-end electric brands in the most important position in the independent business of the group.

At present, among the new brands mentioned above, only BAIC arcfox has put its products on the market. In the business layout planning of BAIC, arcfox will be the only high-end brand in BAIC's independent future, and will undertake the important task of BAIC's independent brand upward.

On October 24, the first new car of arcfox, α T, was officially launched, with the price of 241900 yuan to 319900 yuan after subsidy. From the perspective of product price and positioning, arcfox has a direct competitive relationship with Tesla and Weilai.

Lanto's first mass production vehicle will be launched on December 18 and will be launched in the third quarter of 2021. In July this year, Dongfeng Motor Group named the Chinese name of H business unit of high-end electric vehicle project as "Lan Tu" and released the concept car. In a short period of half a year, Lan Tu took out a mass production vehicle, and its propulsion speed was very fast.

On November 26, SAIC Group announced that the high-end brand l project, named "Zhiji automobile", was jointly built by SAIC Group, Pudong New Area and Alibaba group. It is the first automobile science and technology innovation company in China with a founding wheel of 10 billion, positioning itself in the high-end intelligent pure electric market. It is said that SAIC and Shanghai Pudong New Area share 72%, Alibaba 18%, and 10% are jointly owned by employees and users. This is the first electric vehicle enterprise jointly established by Chinese automobile enterprise and Internet company.

Also announced with other enterprises to jointly create a new brand is Changan Automobile. On November 14, on the Changan Automobile Brand day, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, revealed for the first time that Changan Automobile is working with Huawei and Ningde times to create a new high-end intelligent car brand. It is pointed out that the new brand will be based on a brand new electric platform "CHN".

This is not the first time that Chang'an automobile has tried to upgrade its brand in the field of electric vehicles. As early as 2017, Chang'an and Weilai established a joint venture company Changan Weilai. According to the idea at that time, the company's positioning will be higher than Changan, but lower than Weilai. However, the company has not made any substantial progress since its establishment and has not launched any products. In June this year, Li Bin, the founder of Weilai automobile, resigned as chairman of Changan Weilai, and Tan benhong, executive vice president of Changan Automobile, took over the post. At the same time, Chang'an Automobile increased capital to Changan Weilai. After the completion of the capital increase, the direct shareholding ratio of Changan Automobile in Changan Weilai reached 95.38%, and only 4.62% remained in Weilai automobile.

On the whole, new energy vehicles have become a new track of competition in China's automobile market. Based on the insight into the user's use scenarios of electric vehicles and the grasp of the development trend of the industry, China's independent brand car companies have opened a new round of competition on the track of high-end new energy vehicles.

Four challenges

It is not easy for a brand-new brand to be recognized by the market and consumers, and it is more difficult for high-end brands.

Looking at the global luxury car market pattern, the first-line brands such as Benz, BMW and Audi have obvious market advantages and are also in the lead in the Chinese market. After years of accumulation, Toyota, Honda and Nissan successively launched Lexus, Acura and Infiniti in the 1980s. Only Lexus is outstanding in the Chinese market, and Acura and Infiniti are separated from the second-line luxury edge. From the development history of the automobile industry, only a few high-end brands stand out.

"What is a high-end brand? Price itself is part of the brand. However, it is very important to innovate the system and take the lead in technology. High end products still need quality and service to meet the expectations of users. " In September this year, Li Bin said in an interview with the 21st century economic reporter.

In the field of high-end electric vehicles, Tesla and Weilai have attracted much attention from the industry. Although Weilai's market scale is limited and still in the loss stage, Weilai's brand building has been recognized by the industry.

However, for the new players, especially the "national team", there are differences in enterprise background and innovation environment, and the brand building success of Tesla and Weilai can not be copied.

BAIC and Changan hold hands with Huawei and SAIC with ALI. Although there is a slightly different path for companies to explore with the Internet.

With the development of automobile industry to new energy and intelligent network connection, automobile enterprises need to introduce some corresponding partners to strengthen their weakness, especially in software level.

However, if we want to make this cooperation model go through, we also need to face multiple problems.

"It is still difficult for car companies to cooperate with Internet companies. How to cut interests? What is an independent company? These are challenges. " Some car companies told reporters of the 21st century economic report.

Zuo Yan'an, former chairman of JAC automobile, believes that the in-depth cooperation between Internet giants and traditional automobile enterprises may be an important solution for Chinese style electrification and intellectualization. The success of this model depends on the sincerity and pattern of both sides, the content and structure of cooperation, the efficiency of cooperation, the rationality and balance of resource input and benefit distribution.

Compared with the new forces of automobile manufacturing, the local traditional automobile enterprises have certain advantages in creating high-end brands. For example, we can rely on old products to support electric vehicles, and mobilize the resources of the whole group to support electric vehicles. But the problems are also obvious.

"First of all, it is relatively difficult to introduce, use and retain high-end talents due to the constraints of the system and mechanism of large-scale enterprises; second, the research and development ability of control software and intelligent system software of electric drive system is relatively weak, which can be described as hard enough and soft enough, and the corresponding R & D human resource structure needs to be revolutionary optimized; third, the imagination of traditional automobile enterprises is limited by" unbearable " Fourth, the overseas financing ability is relatively weak affected by multiple factors. " Zuo Yan'an clearly pointed out the above four challenges.

In an interview with the 21st century economic reporter, most people in the industry said that only a small number of people can succeed in the end, and the market will finally give the answer.

"I think the impact of this wave of high-end can improve the original brand image of the enterprise as a whole. But in the end, if the average price wants to break through 300000, it's very good to be able to run one family or two. " Zheng said.