Author | Zhang Kun
Edited by | Wang Xin
Source | Car Prophet
After nearly three years of dormancy, Avita Technology finally handed over its first test answer sheet.
On November 15, the first official public event of the Avita brand was held in Shanghai.
At this eye-catching conference, Tan Benhong, chairman and CEO of Avita Technology, who wears gray suit jackets and white board shoes and a LOGO logo pinned to his chest, surprisingly, did not follow the conventional brand release routine to start with Avita's strategic planning, but spent nearly one and a half hours answering 2 core questions: "Why does the market need a new car brand", and "Why Avita"?
"The needs of consumers are always advancing." In Tan Benhong's speech, he logically clearly believes that there is no market that has not been fully filled, only unmet consumer needs. He believes that the current market still lacks an "emotional intelligence electric car", using scientific and technological progress to achieve the unity of "high-end luxury" and "warm and considerate". Avita is one such electric vehicle brand that can achieve emotional intelligence.
For the viewer, what emotional intelligence is seems difficult to understand, and what such brand positioning means is still slightly hollow before touching the real driver's seat. Frankly speaking, in the current fiercely competitive smart electric vehicle track, people's requirements for the new smart electric brand "Avita", which has been preparing for a year, are obviously completely different from when "Wei Xiaoli" was just launched. At least in that era, both consumers and public opinion could tolerate the imperfections of these new enterprises, because the public's mind had not yet formed such a concrete understanding of the experience of such enterprises and products.
Although she arrived late, Avita, how to accept all the harsh questions from the outside world has become the topic that the outside world and public opinion are most concerned about before and after this conference.
One goal: emotional smart electric vehicles
At this conference, the most eye-catching place of Avita is nothing more than the positioning of its own "emotional intelligent electric vehicle".
In the official words of Avita, it is explained: "Based on the insight into user needs, the Avita brand for the first time proposed the "E.I. User Demand Theory System", that is, emotional intelligence. It forms the theoretical basis of the Avita brand: emotional intelligence. ”
What exactly is emotional intelligence?
Tan Benhong, Chairman and CEO of Avita Technology, said: "Starting from the psychological needs of consumers, we actively explore future-oriented humanized travel technology, create an emotionally intelligent travel experience for users, and create a full-scene interconnected smart life. We firmly believe that intelligence will eventually be full of emotions, and are committed to promoting the acceleration of the 'era of emotional intelligent electric vehicles'. ”
"For Avita, choosing 'emotional intelligence' is our dream, and we hope that everyone will feel our design, function, and even voice and brand characteristics in the future, which can bring everyone a feeling of emotion and companionship, so that users can be more moved." That's one of our key strengths and the directions we're working towards."
We've tried to simplify these statements: Avita's emotional intelligence can be broadly summed up as the perfect unity of high-end luxury and warmth and thoughtfulness, but, by its very definition, Avita is a technology company oriented towards a travel lifestyle. This can also be understood as the brand value that the Avita brand will adhere to in the future.
Are the two user needs of high-end luxury and warmth and thoughtfulness contradictory? In the past, high-end brand products will make users have a sense of distance, it makes users admire, giving people a feeling of being on top, a bit of a sense of uprightness. Therefore, the high-end products that made users feel distance in the past naturally could not bring a warm and considerate feeling of closeness. However, Tan Benhong said, "as the wind of smart technology blows into the automotive industry, the barrier between high-end luxury and warm and considerate is broken."
The fusion of reason and sensibility is not an easy task. Tan Benhong, who has been working in the automotive industry for nearly 24 years, fully demonstrates the pragmatism of a senior automotive person. He gave an example in a media interview after the press conference: "Our first model, the Avita 11, accelerates within 4 seconds from 000 kilometers, is this technically the only way we can do it?" Is it okay in 3.8 seconds? Is it okay in 3.5 seconds? Technically, anything is possible, but in terms of driving experience, this speed can be uncomfortable. This violates the requirement of warmth and thoughtfulness, and it should not be one of our ultimate goals. Therefore, we say that the pure pursuit of technology is not enough, it should serve the ultimate goal of welding high-end luxury and warmth and thoughtfulness. ”
From this understanding, what Avita wants to do is not only a simple technical patchwork and shape of the stacked design, but to start from the user's point of view, using the scene-based design method from the inside to the outside to use design thinking to balance complex functions, to meet the user's use needs and emotional experience, the seemingly rational and emotional needs of the opposite of a high degree of unity.
The most important thing to achieve this goal is the seamless access of technology. For the future of intelligent electric vehicles, compared with cumbersome, showy technology, simple, empowered invisible technology and design can more impress people's hearts. The avenue is invisible, and the moisturizer is silent, which can highlight the invisible wisdom charm of science and technology.
Why play the "emotional intelligence" card at the beginning of the brand? It is because in Avita's eyes, the high-end luxury of the current automobile market is no longer the exclusive property of traditional big brands, nor is it the endorsement of history. Young brands, young fashion brands, as long as there is a brilliant design and innovative user experience, can still create high-end luxury products. Because under the influence of intelligent technology, the user's consumption concept has changed, and technology has redefined the standard of high-end luxury.
A more straightforward understanding is that the current high-end luxury and warmth and thoughtfulness in the automotive market have a new definition under the blessing of technology, and this is a blank consumer segment that other car brands on the market have not paid attention to. Because of the gap in the market, a brand like Avita that has entered the market can quickly cut into the actual needs of users and launch intelligent electric vehicles that real users need to connect with user emotions.
This is a market opportunity for Avita.
The understanding and pursuit of "emotion" and "technology" runs through the birth of this new brand. The name "Avita Avatr" originally came from the English word Avatar, which means "avatar". Tan Benhong said that Avita's mission is to become the "embodiment of wisdom that understands you" around each user.
However, now with only a Iveta 11 model that has not yet been mass-produced, the outside world has not yet been able to glimpse the full picture of Avita's so-called emotional intelligence pursuit in automotive products. But in this imagination alone, Avita has told a new story that everyone has not heard in the era of automotive intelligence, which is worth looking forward to.
I turned my birth with a golden spoon into a golden rice bowl
If the emotional intelligent electric car is put on other brands, everyone may play a question mark. But in Avita, everyone seems to feel that it is not abrupt. After all, behind Avita there is Changan Automobile, ningde era and Huawei.
Public opinion is highly concerned about Avita, and it is precisely because the three partners behind it are too famous and important in today's automotive field. People also hope to see a deep collection of the top technologies of the big three on top of Avita, born with a golden spoon and a birthmark.
Avita didn't disappoint everyone too much. At the press conference on the 15th, although there was no excessive disclosure of product data, the outside world still saw that the Avita 11 had an endurance of at least 700 kilometers, less than 4 seconds of zero hundred acceleration time, and 200 kilowatts of high-voltage super fast charging and 400Tops' top hash rate...
If you try to throw these data into the market for horizontal evaluation, the price of the models that can be compared with it is more than 400,000, which is completely a luxury consumer market and products.
The benefits are obvious. After all, it is equipped with Huawei's full-stack intelligent solution, and at the same time has Changan Automobile and Avita 11 endorsed by the Ningde era, and any giant behind it can bring consumers the confidence to buy.
However, huawei, Chang'an, and Ningde eras have not only blessed Avita. At the press conference, Avita revealed that the ADS intelligent driving provided by Huawei, Huawei's intelligent cockpit solutions and some Huawei electric drive systems, the advanced three-electric technology of the Ningde era, and the manufacturing process of Changan's excellent vehicles will be perfectly blessed on top of Avita.
However, Avita also clearly recognizes that a smart electric vehicle company dominated by traditional car brands must break the inherent model and way of thinking in order to transform into a technology company that is with the times.
Tan Benhong said bluntly, "Even with CHN, Avita can't lie down and win."
This sentence can be translated as how Avita achieves a breakthrough, more depends on the role it plays. As the saying goes, being born with a golden spoon does not mean that you can always eat with a golden rice bowl in the future market.
Eye-catching changes start with management teams and architecture.
At the event site, Wang Lin made her first public appearance as chief marketing officer. According to the data, Wang Lin previously worked for IHG Greater China as chief marketing officer, and has also held brand management positions in many world-renowned companies, including Apple Retail Greater China and Chanel China. After joining Avita, she will be responsible for the two core areas of brand strategy and user development, covering brand management, digital marketing, public relations, channel development, user experience and other user-centric business units.
Chief Design Officer Nader Faghihzadeh was based at the BMW Group and was responsible for the interior and exterior design of concept and production cars such as the BMW 7 Series, the BMW iNEXT Concept, and the BMW i8 Roadster. After joining Avita, he will be responsible for Avita's brand concept, full range of products and user experience design in Munich, Germany.
In addition to the above two, whether it is Chief Strategy Officer CSO Ma Xinjie, Chief Product Officer CPO Hu Chengtai or Chief Financial Officer CFO Liu Shibin, they all have mature and stable industry experience and are elite leaders in various industries. In the management team of the Avita brand, elites from all walks of life are gathered. In order to break the traditional thinking in the new brand strategy, new organizational structure, new business model and new management team, form a unique competitive business model, and achieve a breakthrough at the brand level on the road of exploring intelligent and high-end thorns.
In order to bring together the elites of these fields, Avita Technology adopts an organizational structure of two countries and three places, with companies in Shanghai, Chongqing and Munich, Germany.
Among them, Chongqing is a global vehicle planning center, a global vehicle research and development center, and a global vehicle manufacturing center. Shanghai is a global brand center and a global software research and development center. Munich is the global design hub.
Avita pioneered a new model of "cooperative car building" in the 3.0 era
At the press conference, the pace of Avita's development was also disclosed: Avita 11's first in-white body has been successfully trial-produced in The Chongqing factory in October this year: in the second quarter of 2022, Avita 11 will be officially released, and the retail network will be unveiled one after another; in the third quarter, Avita 11 will achieve the first batch of mass production and user delivery.
For the next five years, Avita has planned four models.
Auto prophets have pointed out in previous reports that China's new energy intelligent vehicles have experienced 3 stages of development, and the new energy intelligent automobile companies in the early 1.0 era operate with the founder's aura; the new energy car companies in the 2.0 era seek a certain degree of openness and begin to lightly integrate the industrial chain; and in the 3.0 era, China's automobiles have no future. Deeper integration is needed, and new cars are not new and have no future, and they lose a new foundation.
In the Chinese auto market, where a new generation of cars has formed a certain circle of influence, Avita's future space may be vast, but there is not much room left for it. Even at the capital level, Avita can no longer conservatively choose to invest herself.
This includes innovative moves such as Changan Automobile's relinquishment of Avita's controlling stake after the first round of strategic financing, which is not included in the consolidated statements of listed companies, and the introduction of strategic partners for in-depth industrial synergy such as CATL.
Tan Benhong does not shy away from such sensitive issues. "Avita definitely needs a lot of money to develop, but what kind of return do we have to think about giving investors? Only then will it be possible to keep the brand running." Avita soon officially launched the Series A financing to attract well-known market-oriented capital and industrial capital to join, and to gather more strategic partners and capital forces. In the future, Avita Technology also has an independent listing plan, which will introduce strategic partners with more diversified backgrounds and strong strength to work together.
"The automotive industry is destined to be a marathon with no end in sight. On this track, Avita will play a long-termist, staying curious, exploring the unknown, embracing change. As Tan Benhong said at the beginning of this conference, Avita is not only the product of global automotive technology changes, but also the result of partners' reflection on the past many years, but also the future of mobility.
For Avita, while time is tight, on the brand new segment, it's just the beginning.