Since the middle of December, brother tanks on Weibo "eat melon" can be said to have eaten to the end, the feeling is that everyone is rushing KPIs at the end of the year. Leaving aside Wang Lihong, Wei Ya, etc., just li bin and Shen Hui's views on traditional fuel vehicles in recent days have attracted the attention of the entire automotive industry. For Li Bin's views and Shen Hui's rubbing heat, Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Automobile, seems to have intentionally or unintentionally rubbed a wave of heat, and spoke again after "disappearing" for many days, turning over an old "old melon".
Judging from the Weibo content that Li wants to publish, there are only eight words: thanks for the spur, continue to work hard, and with an "arched hand" expression and a columnar data comparison chart. Judging from the content of the picture, it is mainly the comparison of the amount of insurance in the ideal ONE and Volkswagen's medium and large SUVs.
According to the picture content, in December 2019, the number of insurances on the ideal ONE was only 1011 units, and the total number of Touareg + Tuon was 13173 units; in September 2020, the number of insurances on the ideal ONE was 3830 units, while the total number of insurances on the Touareg + Tuon was 9304 units. It was precisely this month that Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan shelled that the extender was the "worst solution." Perhaps Feng Sihan only expressed his views on technology at that time, and did not name specific car companies, but at that time, the main driving range extender electric plan in the domestic market was only the ideal car. Therefore, Li Xiang and Feng Sihan formed a "liangzi" at this time.
Fire by range extender technology?
After 24 months, the ideal ONE officially climbed to the top spot in the field of medium and large SUVs. In this regard, the cylinder brother has to ask everyone a question here: "Do you think that the ideal ONE's extender technology is really good enough?" ”。
In fact, the ideal car has been controversial since it was the main range extender technology. Song Jian, executive vice president of the Automotive Engineering Development Research Institute of Tsinghua University, once said that range extender hybrid can be seen as a kind of plug-in hybrid, as for which of the two technologies has more advantages, it is necessary to analyze and discuss from multiple dimensions, including production costs, internal structure, etc.
From the principle structure point of view, the power efficiency of the extender is not as good as the plug-in hybrid. The extender is mainly an auxiliary power system composed of engine and engine coupling. In layman's terms, the engine in the extended range hybrid is not a direct power output unit, but plays an auxiliary function to provide energy support for the battery and motor. Combined with many technologies, the range extender technology has both a pure electric driving mode, and the engine provides power reserves for the motor, while the remaining energy is charged for the battery, which can realize kinetic energy recovery.
Due to the cumbersome structure of the range extender power system, most domestic range extender models are trying to increase the capacity of the battery pack, coupled with the engine and the expanded capacity of the car fuel tank, the weight of the vehicle exceeds a certain bearing limit, invisibly bringing certain pressure to the space layout. In the state of battery power or power loss, rely on small displacement engines to provide power assistance, and through the conduction mechanism consumption, low efficiency and high energy consumption. For example, many car owners who have tested the ideal ONE or the ideal ONE have told the cylinder brother that the fuel consumption performance of the ideal ONE at high speed is not very good.
In addition to the fuel consumption problem, the ideal ONE still has many product problems. Taking the chassis of the ideal ONE as an example, although it has been optimized, there is still a certain difference between the chassis of the whole vehicle and the positioning of the "Daddy Car". In other words, the ideal ONE has room for improvement in terms of the premium feel of the chassis, the softness of the seat fill, or the suppression of the chassis aftershocks.
Ideal ONE Success Secret?
I have to admit that the ideal ONE does have some flaws in the power scheme, but we cannot completely deny this power technology, after all, the existence is reasonable. However, brother Cylinder believes that when Li wants to publish on his Weibo about its insurance volume exceeding the sum of the large and medium-sized SUVs of the public, has he ever thought that the success of ideal ONE is not because of how strong the range extender technology is, but how well the ideal ONE product fits with the needs of domestic consumers.
At this point, Brother Cylinder believes that the secret of the success of the ideal ONE lies in its precise locking on the target user. To be honest, the ideal ONE product positioning gives me the feeling of taking the sword to the side, by accurately anchoring the target population and meeting the needs of this part of the people to create a product. Remember that Li Xiang said before that there is no model on the market that is really designed for family users, and even the back row of many cars is simply punishing the family, so many family users choose only to choose a relatively suitable model among many models. Of course, what we must admire is Li Xiang's decisiveness, compared to other brands in the product positioning to add a number of attributes, the ideal ONE product positioning is relatively single, the main home SUV market, such as in size, intelligent configuration and other aspects to meet the needs of users.
Combined with the advantages and disadvantages of the ideal ONE, the reason why the product can become a popular model in the market is that the disadvantages of the ideal ONE are not fatal, because the people who buy it do not care about these problems. At the same time, ideal ONE is now in a good situation, lacking the same positioning of high-quality products. Specifically, there are only a few six-seat SUVs that can be green at present, and even if there is, then the product competitiveness is not as good as the ideal ONE, either the size is not as good as it, or the comfort, the configuration is not as good as it, or the endurance of the pure electric model cannot meet the needs of users like the ideal ONE.
Will the public fight back?
While Li wants to tweet back against Volkswagen Group (China) CEO Feng Sihan, everyone is looking forward to whether Feng Sihan will fight back. However, after some inquiries, it was found that due to the relatively slow launch of Volkswagen brands in China in the past two years, the sales growth was slow, and the sales of fuel vehicles declined, Feng Sihan may step down as CEO of Volkswagen Group (China). For the news, Feng Sihan also confirmed the authenticity of the information at a communication meeting held a few days ago, Feng Sihan said: "Management will be adjusted, including his position in China. I was surprised and honored to see my career plan reported in the media. ”
I have to say that volkswagen's transformation speed is still a beat slower, and the time to market for ID. series models is still relatively short, and it is not enough to fully show its due strength. It is worth mentioning that since the end of 2020, Volkswagen has been deeply involved in the crisis of chip shortage, and Volkswagen needs to face many problems such as production capacity, resulting in a delay in delivery speed. In this regard, we believe that the war between the ideal car and Volkswagen has not yet begun.
summary
In general, we must recognize that the ideal ONE is indeed a good product in today's automotive market, but only for now. When more and more car companies begin to pay attention to this market and launch corresponding products, we do not know whether the ideal ONE can maintain its advantages at this stage. In addition, as the once hegemon of the global automotive market, will Volkswagen continue to decline? Brother Cylinder thinks not, after all, the accumulation of many years is still there. In other words, the war between the new force car companies and the traditional car companies has not yet broken out, and all the "good news" at this stage is almost only temporary.