Uneasy
In order to be able to "Chang'an" in the city
Remember: Year of the Ugly/Morning Home November 12
One
From Buddhism to mourning, from inner rolls to lying flat, these buzzwords that arose from young people have unconsciously penetrated into all walks of life, and the automotive industry is no exception.
When the automotive industry began to frequently use "inner rolls", the essence was nothing more than the intensification of stock competition under the trend of gradual saturation of the market. In addition, in the post-epidemic era, the uncertainty of the global market has increased, and "lying flat" has become the choice of some car companies, but that has always been not the choice of Changan Automobile.
Along the way, Changan Automobile has the belief of being uneasy and going against the tide. From getting rid of joint venture dependence, to returning to high-speed growth, to exploring the road of new energy, it knows better: the so-called shortcut is just to take every step steadily.
Enterprises that can be called excellent will never be easily crushed by the "black swan" event, because they have the courage to open the top of the wind boat and are good at turning crises into opportunities.
As the most eye-catching brand in China's passenger car market this year, Changan Automobile has surpassed the sales list for more than four consecutive titles, and is expected to return to the throne of "independent brother".
According to official data, Changan Automobile's cumulative sales in the first ten months exceeded 1.93 million units, an increase of 22.2% year-on-year, of which the cumulative sales of the autonomous sector in the first ten months were 1,496,127 units, an increase of 25.1% year-on-year.
Obviously, the Changhong momentum of the autonomous plate is the backbone of Changan Automobile's soaring in the stormy car market. The emergence of this new situation is not the birth of Changan Automobile, but the reward of the capital market for its success in staged "weaning".
It is not difficult to find that in addition to the eye-catching growth rate, the reason why Changan Automobile is unique is that among all the large automobile groups in China, Changan is the only independent brand to carry the flag and get rid of the dependence of the joint venture brand.
Changan is China's most senior car company, the predecessor can even be traced back to Li Hongzhang in the period of the Foreign Affairs Movement founded the Shanghai Ocean Artillery Bureau, it is by virtue of the "old state-owned enterprise" identity, Changan Automobile took the lead in enjoying the spring breeze of the tide of the times.
It has successively contacted suzuki, Ford, Mazda, logo Citroen and other foreign capital, and established a joint venture company, and its product camp has also expanded from mini cars such as Alto to cars, SUVs and MPVs, and Changan's territory is constantly improving.
Then, after a round of elimination in the market, Changan Ford and Changan Mazda stayed behind and became Changan's main profit "cow". Of course, this example of making money lying on the joint venture was not unusual at that time, and changan lay flat under the skirt of the joint venture, as well as SAIC, FAW, GAC and other automobile groups.
Relying on others is ultimately unreliable, And Changan Ford's performance jumped violently to catch Changan off guard, which also made it deeply aware of the simple truth that "iron still needs to be hard".
In the face of crisis, awaken, wean, and save yourself.
In order not to be dominated by the panic of "Ford sneezing, Changan lives in the ICU", under heavy pressure, in the first half of 2018, Changan Automobile launched the "third entrepreneurship", under the order of Zhu Huarong, president of Changan Automobile, Changan Accelerated the speed of strategic direction adjustment.
It is precisely because of this difficult period of autonomous deep adjustment that now the independent brand has become the main backbone of Changan Automobile and become an independent side.
With the emergence of blockbuster models such as CS75 PLUS, Changan Automobile is getting closer and closer to dawn, and has achieved SUV + sedan "two-legged running" walking. In October, Changan CS75 series and CS55 series both exceeded the 20,000-vehicle mark, Yidong series sold more than 10,000 vehicles per month for 20 consecutive months, Changan passenger car high-end product sequence UNI in the high-end market also continued to sell more than 10,000 vehicles per month, and at the same time, Changan Auchan X5 also achieved 5 consecutive months of breaking 10,000.
What is valuable is that this is not just a data pull, but an endogenous growth of the value level.
In recent years, the two major series of PLUS and UNI have successfully driven the overall increase in the unit price and gross profit margin of Changan's own brands. Relevant data show that from 2018 to 2021, the average price of Changan Automobile's own brand models increased from 77,200 yuan to 100,200 yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 12.2%.
Chang'an, the reason why many people regard it as a sample for studying the rise of independent brands, is because it broke through the fog in the thorns everywhere, and resolutely walked towards a forward and upward independent road after awakening, and it taught many independent brands with advanced experience: get rid of dependence, that is real growth.
But growing up, does not mean that you have to start to accept what cannot be changed, change what you can change, the tide of the new four modernizations suddenly came, Changan Automobile can not get rid of the fate of being wrapped up in it, then only to find their own "uneasiness", overcome their "uneasiness", and forge ahead in exploration.
The electrification of car companies is by no means a shout slogan, this is a complete self-inward change.
"Weaning" is certainly something to be proud of, but its side, the marginalization of the joint venture brand, has caused The profit of Changan's entire Changan Automobile Group to fall sharply, and even fell into a loss in 2019.
Ford's inattention to the Chinese market, Mazda's intransigence to consumers, so that Changan Ford and Changan Mazda in the past few years showed a cliff-like downward trend, without the blood supply of the joint venture brand, Changan in technology research and development and energy innovation have to rely on themselves.
Children without umbrellas can only run hard. After Changan's independent brands were forced to carry the flag, they began to concentrate on product launch and technology research and development.
Its self-developed Blue Whale Power has gradually become a technical benchmark in the hearts of Chinese consumers, but the increasing market share of the "Blue Whale Family" has not alleviated Changan Automobile's anxiety in the face of the new energy era.
At present, the domestic electric vehicle track competition has accelerated into the "second half", Tesla's market value has exceeded trillions, BYD is breaking through the bamboo, the delivery volume of new forces such as "Wei Xiaoli" has repeatedly reached a new high, new forces such as Weima, Nezha, and Zero Run are eager to try, and traditional new forces such as GAC Aean are also gradually entering a better situation.
At the advent of the era of intelligence, Changan, as a veteran traditional car company, is naturally not willing to sit still, and it also has a clear goal.
In Changan's "14th Five-Year Plan", Zhu Huarong proposed, "Unswervingly transform into an intelligent low-carbon travel technology company, build efficiency and software capabilities into core competitiveness, build a "new car + new ecology" industrial company, and move towards a world-class automobile brand." ”
In order to solve the "fall behind crisis", many traditional car companies are using "science and technology stories" to draw a big pie, how do we judge that Changan is a doer? There are three bases.
First, Changan is not a person who passively enters the new track, but one of the earliest car companies in China to lay out new energy vehicles. From the timeline, Changan is definitely a leader in the field of new energy, since 2001, it has begun to study new energy technology, and completed the industrialization of China's first hybrid car in 2007. Although it has suffered some losses in the innovation dimension, it is enough to show that Chang'an has its own plans.
Second, Chang'an officially launched a charge towards the era of electrification, and has a certain technical reserve and operational experience.
For many years, Changan Automobile has been insisting on investing in the future, investing 5% of its sales revenue in research and development every year. Judging from the results, all the efforts of Changan Automobile have also been rewarded.
Nowadays, in the field of intelligence and new energy, Changan Automobile has mastered many key technologies such as L3 level automatic driving, APA6.0 remote intelligent parking, Changan "smart core", Changan super collector electric drive, blue whale iDD hybrid system and so on.
At present, Changan Automobile has new energy models such as Yidong EV, Benben E-star, CS55E-Rock and so on. In the first nine months of this year, Changan Automobile's cumulative sales of new energy vehicles were 71,000 units.
Third, Chang'an's ambitions have not been weakened by "being late." In the face of Geely, Great Wall and other opponents have proposed to achieve 3.65 million and 4 million new energy vehicles by 2025 by 2025, Changan Automobile has updated its own target, 3 million vehicles, accounting for 35%.
Geely has a pole krypton, the Great Wall has a salon, and Changan's Avita, after a three-year gestation period, has appeared in front of the public in a low-key manner with the first strategic model of the new dedicated electric vehicle platform, C385. This also proves that Changan Automobile hopes to develop a new brand in a more pragmatic way, rather than blindly pleasing the capital market.
It is known that Shan Shan is late, and Chang'an also simply appears with "Wang Fried". The end of Avita E11, which condenses China's top scientific and technological strength, arrived as scheduled.
This uneasy new car, standing on the shoulders of Huawei and the Ningde era, has become a proper spoiler of the electric vehicle track, breaking the doubt that Changan does not have a new energy high-end brand.
Having the heart to do it and being able to do it well are never the same thing. Success is a combination of ambition, determination and perseverance.
Although from the perspective of GAC's Eian and Geely's extreme krypton, the creation of new brands can reduce the resistance to change, But Changan must realize that as a state-owned enterprise, it is more complex than the problems faced by private enterprises such as Great Wall, Geely and BYD, and the intensity and depth of change in terms of operation speed, system reform, structural change, and development of new energy need to be greater.
Young Avita, whether it is influence or scale can not be compared with early players such as Wei Xiaoli, whether it can impact the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market, but also rely on the later sales to speak.
However, from the perspective of the shareholding structure of Avita Technology (Changan's shareholding is less than 50%), at least Changan Automobile is still relatively firm in taking steps in the mixed reform. As long as it is given enough patience, I believe that Avita Technology will deliver an answer sheet that satisfies the market.
Since it is not comfortable to be a passer-by in the new energy era, changan must also invest funds and technologies to continuously lay the foundation for realizing its blueprint, and promote itself to move towards technology companies, especially it should be more active in learning from Huawei's ICT technology accumulation and experience in the field of consumer electronics, survive first, and then strengthen itself.
I never thought that Changan should be like Heliqi and regard Huawei as a "soul predator", after all, times have changed.
The competition format of the automobile industry is no longer a zero-sum game and a single fight, but a symbiotic and inclusive ecological competition, which is a new arena that can only be won by inclusive pluralists.
Changan has given full play to its decades of car-making experience and supply chain capabilities, and I think its cooperation process with Huawei should be more like the fusion of two different sets of DNA, and then look forward to evolving a more powerful gene.
Self-redemption is true redemption. In this silent struggle, Chang'an must show his determination to live to death.
Because, the extreme fox alpha S, The tepid performance of the Xilis SF5 tells Changan a fact, Huawei is not a master key, not a life-saving straw, how to use Huawei to improve its independent research and development capabilities is what it really needs to think.
Facing the future, Changan Automobile plans to invest a total of 150 billion yuan in the whole industry chain in the next five years, accelerate the construction of software and intelligent capabilities, still actively build a new industrial model and technology ecology, and work with strategic partners such as Tencent, iFLYTEK, Chinasoft International, Horizon, and NavInfo to continue the "entrepreneurial plan" originally set.
The speed of change of the times is accelerating, the challenges are increasing day by day, and the competition in products and services has been broadened to the competition in all fields such as talent, capital, data, and ecology.
If Changan's current success is the strength of the entire system, it is not only in products, marketing, and channels. So whether Chang'an can open a new situation in the future must be an ecological force.
Chang'an, which once relied on joint venture blood transfusions, and now This technological Chang'an, which has taken the lead in opening the exploration of the empowerment of the "meta-universe", are walking on a not very comfortable road, but the former is struggling, and the latter is moving forward gracefully.
Born like a reverse journey, a reed to sail, the final situation is not achieved, everything is possible.