On December 9th, Southeast Automobile held a grand press conference in Fujian and released a new brand LOGO.
I still remember that at the beginning of this year, after breaking away from Mitsubishi's shareholding, Southeast Auto has not made a particularly big move, except for the release of a commemorative version called DX5 Blue Penguin & Polar Bear, which seems to have gradually faded from everyone's vision.
But in fact, in the previous year, Southeast Automobile's new plan has been exposed, the new LOGO and DX9 models, at this conference, Southeast Automobile also released another new car A-class SUV CROSS Southeast N7, focusing on the young consumer market.
I don't know if you have found that the two new cars this time are not traditional SUV models. As the first model to use a new LOGO, the DX9 is not an SUV as expected by the outside world, but a B-class SMV model, which is characterized by taking into account the domineering SUV and the spatial attributes of the MPV. In terms of use scenarios, Southeast hopes that this new car can not only impact the business market, but also impact the home market, so as to achieve the switching of the whole scene.
The other model, the N7, has the feeling of GAC Mitsubishi's Yige, which also focuses on the CROSS market. Southeast Cars also understands. If you want to force the fuel market, and then continue to compete with other independent brands or joint venture brands in the traditional SUV market, you may be able to pull a group of early adopters with this extremely small market segment.
Whether the determination of the southeast can withstand the impact of the current new forces
Chen Wenhao, chairman of Southeast Automobile, said a classic quote at the press conference: The road is obstructive and long, and the line is coming; the future can be expected. The simple understanding is that even if you know that southeast automobile will be very difficult in the future, as long as you face the difficulties, you can finally get a good future. But in fact, before the product strength of Southeast Automobile has been relying on the Mitsubishi process and engine to do "endorsement", and now after losing the halo blessing of Mitsubishi, how can Southeast Automobile impress consumers to be willing to place orders?
Putting aside the current situation of product strength, in terms of marketing and after-sales, Southeast Automobile has also reached the "bottom". Southeast automobile poor quality, after-sales service is not in place has been a lot of consumer complaints, has been, Southeast's SUV models DX3, DX5, DX7 in the major car complaint websites have received a lot of problems such as brake failure, hanging gear problems, and more sad for consumers is that Southeast Automobile's after-sales attitude and charges are extremely unreasonable, so that consumers have questions about the brand.
In contrast, in terms of the new forces of car manufacturing, for the car purchase link and after-sales service are doing their best to please consumers, Southeast Automobile in the spread of voice and offline stores gradually shrinking at the moment, how to let consumers feel the "new" of Southeast Automobile, is indeed a problem.
It is worth mentioning that the sales volume of Southeast Automobile in 2021 is not optimistic, as of August this year, Southeast Automobile has sold a total of 5625 units, only slightly closer to the value of 1000 vehicles than the similar fate of Hainan Automobile, which is obviously far from the brilliant period, and after leaving Mitsubishi, the reliability of its three major parts can not continue to enter the top three of its own brands before, it is worth a question mark, after all, in the spare parts outside the three major pieces, Southeast has been repeatedly caught in the complaint storm, and the reliability of the new car is still worth verifying.
How far can the "bird" fly
To a large extent, it depends on whether Fujian will continue to increase its support for Southeast Automobile. It is not difficult to find that in addition to the southeast, Fujian's Mercedes-Benz and Golden Dragon are all focused on commercial vehicles, and in civil vehicle companies, Southeast Automobile is the only object. At a time when the country is vigorously developing the "14th Five-Year Plan" and promoting the new four modernizations, the government has become an indispensable part of helping local enterprises to develop new energy vehicles. Instead of supporting foreign enterprises, it is better to support Southeast Automobile, which has been rooted in the local area for many years.
After separating from Mitsubishi, Southeast Automobile also reached a number of agreements with the Fujian Provincial Government, among which the Fuzhou Municipal Government and Fuqi Group led the launch of the reform of the shareholding structure of Southeast Automobile, and the shareholders of Southeast Automobile were changed to Fujian Automobile Industry Group, Fuzhou Transportation Construction Investment Group, Minhou County Construction Investment Group and Taiwan Zhonghua Automobile.
With the support of the government, in the future, Southeast Automobile will definitely exert its new energy sector, and at present, there is only one DX3 EV400 model from "oil to electricity", which has lagged far behind other car companies in terms of competitiveness. As a model produced in 18 years, after being upgraded based on the DX3 EV, it has not been upgraded for more than 3 years, and it can be said that it has become a marginal product in the market.
Therefore, at this press conference, Southeast also revealed the arrival of a new pure electric car, and named It Southeast A7. Like many car companies, Southeast has developed a new pure electric platform for the A7 this time, and said that under the platform, it can produce models with wheelbase sizes between 2650-2900mm and 400km-800km cruising range. Judging from the current concept map, the Southeast A7 may be the same as the Audi A7, which is a sneaky body design, and the interior design is also quite futuristic.
However, the official did not disclose the mass production time of this car this time, the entire conference looked down, southeast this time the turn action appears to be slightly conservative, compared to other car companies do not have particularly eye-catching features, if the next DX9 and N7 continue to focus on the more civilian cheap route, can still have a certain competitiveness with other competitors in the market, but if you want to force the brand to turn upwards, Southeast Automobile still needs to think carefully.