For the executives to "mouth hi" back the pot, new energy vehicle companies can not escape the fate
" I don't understand why anyone still buys a fuel car, but what good is there but the smell of gasoline?"
Recently, Weilai CEO Li Bin said such a sentence while promoting his own products in an interview, and the practice of holding and stepping on it quickly caused heated discussion on social platforms.
Most netizens believe that Li Bin's statement is too one-sided, too confident in the current stage of electric vehicles, and some netizens bluntly say that the good feelings that have just been generated by the brand because of weilai's new car ET5 immediately disappeared because of Li Bin's words.
It is not uncommon for brands to pay for the handling and speaking style of their own executives, such as a sentence by Zhong Xuegao's founder " Love or not ", which is full of hatred across the Internet.
Tesla, Ideal Car and other new forces car companies have also had similar experiences.
Born in the golden age of the development of the Internet, the new forces are well versed in the marketing rules and playing methods that meet the tastes of the public, although there are only a few years of history, the presence in the market can sometimes be compared with the car companies with a history of more than a hundred years.
Perhaps it is precisely because of too much exposure in the public opinion field, the new forces are basically black physiques, and executives are more likely to become the fuse of the public relations crisis.
Executives are willful and the brand pays the bill
Internet genes are one of the most conspicuous "labels" on the new forces of car companies.
Water can carry boats, but also can cover boats, such a net red attribute to the car companies to bring publicity effect, but also means that their every move is exposed to the spotlight, a little careless may be in the mire.
Tesla team's treatment of female car owners at the Shanghai Auto Show is a typical example, after the owner complained about Tesla's brake failure, Tesla's vice president of external affairs Tao Lin's first reaction was "no compromise", Tesla's official Weibo also supported Tao Lin's attitude, repeating the three words "no compromise".
Such an arrogant attitude has not only caused many consumers to criticize, but also a number of official media including Xinhua News Agency and the State Administration of Market Supervision and other departments have also spoken out.
Although the matter eventually subsided after Tesla handed over the travel car data, the executives and the public relations team's approach was tantamount to directly "advertising" for the rights protection incident, and many related topics appeared on the hot search and headlines, and Tesla was once equated with "brake failure".
Let's take a look at the new domestic car-making forces.
In July this year, an ideal ONE owner broke the news that there was a mercury-like substance in the car seat, and when it was not yet determined what it was, ideal CEO Li wanted to directly anger on social media, "Rumors that we use mercury people and media, I wish you mercury in your blood and mercury in your brain", although it shows confidence in its own products, but also with some provocative meaning.
Since then, some industry insiders have analyzed that the possibility of "mercury" coming from all aspects of automobile production is extremely small, and the truth needs to be further investigated, however, Li Xiang's "intention to do things" has had an impact on the brand image, and the scope of the mercury incident that may have been a misunderstanding has been further expanded.
If Li's direct thoughts are only due to personality, then the executives of Nezha Automobile have touched the bottom line.
After the former traffic star Wu Moufan was criminally detained by the police, Peng Gang, the market leader of Nezha Automobile, openly said in the internal WeChat group that it was a big deal to ask Wu Moufan to be a spokesperson, and it was a big deal to apologize and dismiss the relevant personnel afterwards, which immediately caused heated discussion on the Internet.
The result of Nezha's treatment was relieved, Peng Gang and other employees who made inappropriate remarks were fired, which became the headlines of many media on the same day, and indeed brought exposure to Nezha according to Peng Gang's script. This exposure is not only extremely short-lived, but also brings a black history to the brand that cannot be erased, and it is really not worth it.
Back to Li Bin's pull on the fuel car, this interview was conducted after Li Bin personally released Niolai's second car model ET5, ET5 reduced the brand's price range to about 300,000 yuan, which can be said to be a product that helps Weilai to go and break into the mass market, with similar functions to Tesla Model 3.
Therefore, Li Bin touted his own products after the meeting, after all, sales are king, from the perspective of the representatives of new power car companies, expressing confidence and support for electric vehicles in public is also in line with his personality.
The reason for the dissatisfaction caused by this statement is that the current electric vehicle is not as perfect as Li Bin said, in some scenarios, fuel vehicles are still the first choice or even a must-have for consumers, and Li Bin seems to ignore the pain points of electric vehicle endurance and energy replenishment that everyone can see, and some people say bluntly that Li Bin is "carrying out a clear understanding and pretending to be confused?".
No matter how much self-selling and boasting, it cannot be separated from reality. What's more, Weilai has not been able to deliver the championship in the new force month for many consecutive months, and was once questioned by the outside world as a precursor to "falling behind".
Electric vehicles vs fuel vehicles
The reasons why the market balance is not tilted toward electric vehicles for the time being are similar to those of more than 100 years ago.
Lead-acid batteries appeared nearly 20 years earlier than internal combustion engines, so there were far more odorless and noiseless electric vehicles on the streets at that time than fuel vehicles, but more than 100 years later, fuel vehicles not only struck late, but also firmly dominated.
Why did the market choose fuel vehicles instead of electric vehicles?
First of all, the energy density of gasoline and diesel is far greater than that of the battery, the endurance is farther, with the expansion and improvement of the road, the demand for long-distance travel increases, and the advantages of fuel vehicles gradually appear, second, liquid is a more practical way of energy storage, which has the advantages of cheap, stable and convenient storage, which can maximize the efficiency of energy replenishment.
In addition, the demand for raw materials such as copper and lithium for electric vehicles is higher than that of fuel vehicles, which can easily lead to a situation of short supply.
In short, the market has chosen a way that is more convenient, affordable and durable in the short term, but if considered from the perspective of sustainable development, this approach is extremely polluting to human survival.
Therefore, many countries have formulated the general direction of energy transformation and introduced relevant subsidy policies to stimulate the market. Since then, the sales of new energy vehicles have taken the ride of the policy of Dongfeng, and data from the China Automobile Association shows that China's domestic market penetration rate has reached 16.4% in October this year.
However, the embarrassing thing is that the weakness of electric vehicles 100 years ago is still a weakness today, and although the battery technology to solve the fundamental contradiction has improved, there is no essential leap forward.
From the perspective of endurance, although the energy density of the battery has increased by nearly 3 times to 200-270Wh/kg compared with the previous level, it has been a great progress, but the comprehensive evaluation of many automotive bloggers and car owners, the actual endurance of most electric vehicles will be 7-8% discount compared to the level of official publicity, so the range extender model that is jokingly called "half-tone electric vehicle" by industry insiders has become the first choice for many consumers to alleviate mileage anxiety.
Entering the winter, the actual mileage of many models has been greatly reduced, and the automotive information platform Understand Chedi has recently tested a number of indicators of more than 30 pure electric vehicle models in the extremely cold winter environment.
The results show that the actual endurance of many popular models, including Xiaopeng P7 and Tesla Model3, is directly "waist chopped" compared with the official level, and the same is true for Weilai's EC6 and ES6 models.
Looking at the storage and replenishment of power energy, compared with the way fuel vehicles can complete the energy replenishment in a few minutes, electric vehicles need 1-2 hours even in the overshoot state, so the number of charging stations needs to be several times more than that of gas stations to provide electric vehicles with the same energy replenishment services as fuel vehicles.
This year's National Day holiday, a large number of electric vehicle owners wait for hours at the charging station, and even in order to compete for the charging pile, at that time, many people realized that the original capital and giants are competing for the new energy vehicle outlet, is still in the stage of charging, climbing, compared with fuel vehicles, but also spend a lot of time to make up for extra homework.
In summary, Li Bin's statement that "I don't understand why anyone still buys a fuel car" is indeed too one-sided and confident.
With the continuous advancement and optimization of battery technology and intelligent technology, new energy vehicles are likely to completely replace fuel vehicles one day in the future, but certainly not now.
epilogue
The marketing ability brought by the Internet gene is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, it can help the new power car companies to convey their unique "personality" to the outside world, such as Weilai's user enterprises and Xiaopeng's scientific and technological attributes, and improve consumers' awareness of the brand and their presence in the market in a short period of time.
On the other hand, it also means that brands are more susceptible to unexpected events, and founders or other executives sometimes even become the most direct trigger, so companies need to be more careful to deal with the various "accidents" that will affect the brand.
Although the core competitiveness of product quality and service is the foundation of long-term foothold, as there are more and more new players on the automotive track, soft power such as brand power and public relations will also become one of the keys to competition.
Produced by ZAKER News
Text / Bao Xingwa
Editor / Zeng Xiantian