Euler, who is very cute, does not mind "eating soft rice".
With the market positioning of pleasing female consumer groups, Euler's market sales in November reached a new high, with cumulative sales of 114,100 vehicles from January to November, an increase of 162.2% year-on-year. Yu Fei, general manager of Euler brand marketing, once revealed that the proportion of female users in Euler has reached 70%.
It has to be said that Euler's sense of smell is very keen, and the car purchase ability of the female consumer group it focuses on is steadily improving. According to the data released by the e-car Research Institute, the proportion of women's car purchases increased from 28% to 32% from 28% in 2015-2020, and the increase in the automobile market was dominated by women.
In the era of the quiet rise of the "her economy", eating soft rice is beyond reproach, but Euler, who has made a mess, has quite a posture of cutting users as leeks.
Good cat core, Euler "missing" heart?
Chinese did not deceive Chinese, Euler played the owner of the car around.
On December 6, CCTV Finance reported a news story that "Euler Good Cat is suspected of false propaganda and misleading consumers". Dong Yudong, general manager of Euler Automobile, apologized to users in an interview with CCTV Finance.
Perhaps it is difficult to resist the pressure of public opinion, on December 9, Euler gave two user rights and interests for the good cat model. On the same day, a piece of money called "Euler good cat gives compensation plan" rushed to Weibo hot search, can only say that good cat bitter car owners for a long time.
Previously, some car owners reflected that the Great Wall Euler good cat was suspected of false publicity, and the old Intel 4-core A3940 chip used in the central processor of the product host was not in line with the Advertised Qualcomm 8-core high-performance chip, and the chip performance after stealing beams and changing columns was far less than that of Qualcomm chips with powerful computing power, and the user experience was greatly reduced.
Under a heavy hammer, the bold Euler had no room for cunning. After the owner's rights protection and the fermentation of the incident, Euler officials immediately issued a document admitting: "The vehicle is indeed not equipped with a Qualcomm 8-core chip, which was originally planned to be installed on future models, but it was publicized in advance." ”
| Image source: Euler Good Cat Owner
At the same time, the official website of the Euler brand offline the previous text description of the Qualcomm processor in the car machine system.
Although the slogan "Love women more" is chanted, this does not delay Euler cutting leeks in the slightest. A good cat owner defended his rights under the official blog of the Euler brand, but after encountering official comments, he angrily erupted: "(Euler is) a brand that specializes in deceiving women", and the prospective owner posted in the euler good cat community of easy car: "I haven't picked up the car yet, I want to unsubscribe." ”
In this regard, some insiders believe that the counterfeiting of Euler chips may stem from the lack of cores. Previously, people on the Great Wall side had told the media that due to insufficient supply of chips, production capacity was limited.
Lack of core is a common problem faced by the entire automotive industry, but so far, other car companies are through their own methods to get through the difficulties. The head of the new force Weilai chose to postpone delivery, and Xiaopeng, who was also trapped by the lack of core, took the route of reducing the delivery, and the lack of chips should not be the reason for Euler to deceive consumers.
Some netizens posted on social platforms accusing good cats: A good cat and a mouse corrupt the wind evaluation of a whole domestic car circle, and the good hand of the Great Wall is played thinly. ”
This is not the first time that the Great Wall has been planted in the pit of false publicity, before there is a WEY series of standard Carplay function suspected of false propaganda, after there is Haval H6 so-called 5G expansion capabilities need to pay extra fees, repeatedly play word games with users is really not interesting.
In the incident of false publicity, car owners have undoubtedly become the biggest victims, but in addition to indignation, we should also face up to this storm is not only a corporate problem, but also an industry problem. At the beginning of the year, Xinhua News Agency issued an article pointing out that "false propaganda" and "false fire overspouring" have become hidden worries restricting the further healthy development of the automotive industry.
There is nothing wrong with selling cars to make money, but it is a shoddy loss of reputation, and the gain is not worth the loss. In the long run, car companies should also be responsible for the industry in which they live. "Products are easy to sell, people are difficult to buy", seemingly simple truth, but it is worth remembering brands such as Euler.
Upgrades become demotions, what about Euler?
Euler is not strong enough to produce products, can it withstand relegation?
Things have to start with the spontaneous combustion of Euler iQ in the second half of the year. In June this year, there were successive Euler iQ charging spontaneous combustion accidents in Taiyuan, Shanxi, because the model accounted for 80% of Taiyuan's Didi Express special vehicles, which was quite large. Therefore, after the incident, a number of local charging stations "blocked" the Euler tram and refused to provide charging services for it.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Great Wall Euler hastily recalled 16,216 iQ trams produced between July 7, 2018 and October 30, 2019, on the grounds that "spontaneous combustion may be triggered after long-term continuous and frequent fast charging".
According to public information, Euler iQ sold 13,882 vehicles in the two years from 2018 to 2019, and this round of recall is obviously a big move. Although Euler has always focused on the low-end market, low price should not equal low quality, and large-scale recalls have also exposed Euler's vehicle quality control problems.
What the owner did not expect was that the recalled Euler iQ made a new moth - the performance of the product did not increase but fell.
| Image source: Car Quality Network
On the car quality network, complaints about the upgrade of the iQ system are not uncommon. Some Euler iQ owners said: "After the upgrade is completed, the fast charging speed is twice as slow as before, the previous half hour can be charged 40%-60%, now half an hour can only charge 20%", "the endurance is less than 80 kilometers, especially obvious."
For the above situation, Euler only gave a blank check to be processed as soon as possible, and the detailed solution was far away. And the origin of all these problems is also due to Euler's "riot operation".
For the recalled problem vehicles, the meticulous Euler used the installation of procedures to limit the charging power of the vehicle to avoid the cost of replacing the battery, but the mileage and charging power have become the victims of the reverse upgrade, so the "brush machine" upgrade that treats the symptoms but does not cure the root cause, but the pit is miserable for the owners.
Under the toss, Euler iQ's reputation urgently needs to be "recharged". At present, the official guidance price of Euler iQ is between 127,300 and 150,300, according to car owners, the reverse upgrade of the iQ mileage is less than 400km, the same price by BYD Qin PLUS and GAC Aean Y up to 600km, both products are much more fragrant than today's Euler iQ.
Euler, who has not yet survived, cannot withstand such self-consumption, and in the face of the inner volume of the same level of products, Euler is in the embarrassment of a dilemma.
Euler still plays "Stand-in Terrier"?
The world has been suffering from domestic goods for a long time.
Behind the wild consumption boom of domestic products such as Hongxing Erke and Bee Flower, it is a major change in the concept of consumption in the new era, and the Chinese people are eager for the rise of domestic brands, and they will not hesitate to applaud if they make a little progress, but this well-intentioned tolerance should not become the brand's wayward dependence.
Wanting to take the road of paying tribute to the classics, and not grasping the scale, the red of the nova Euler is somewhat black. In the black cat, the shadow of the Honda E lingers; the punk cat blessed with retro elements is very similar to the Volkswagen Beetle; and the lightning cat is also labeled with the Porsche Paramela "flat" hat.
Through Euler, you can always think of models of other brands. At the end of the day, it's not enough to blame Euler's own brand influence.
For the similar incident of punk cat models, Volkswagen has clearly responded that it is verifying relevant matters and will take legal measures if necessary.
However, due to the fact that the term of protection of the original Beetle appearance patent has long passed, so legally speaking, if Volkswagen sues the Great Wall, the possibility of winning the lawsuit is not very large, and Euler has preemptively completed the application for approval of the punk cat design patent in July this year, so during the patent design validity period (June 2026), Euler can still promote the new car with confidence.
| Image source: Euler brand official
Even if this kind of eyeball-catching means is not clever, it is undeniable that the controversy has also made Euler get a lot of attention, but standing in the shadow of others is never a long-term way to survive.
Changjiang Securities pointed out in the "2020 China Auto Independent Brand Report" that with the improvement of experience and technology, as well as the grasp of domestic consumers' aesthetics, independent brands have gradually moved from imitation design to original design in the past, and formed a unique family design language, such as the "rhythmic design" of saic roewe series.
But today's Euler is still weak in terms of originality. In the market research of "A Little Finance", some consumers frankly said: "I don't like the appearance of domestic cars and foreign cars, after all, 'similar' and 'plagiarism' are really difficult to define." Imitation is only a short-term gain, the original intention of consumers is still to hope that domestic brands can play their own characteristics, a bit similar to domestic makeup bar, the automobile industry also needs more 'light of domestic goods', or look forward to the rapid growth of domestic brands, become a truly excellent, trustworthy top brand. ”
The development of independent brands needs the encouragement and tolerance of the market, but in imitation of the edge of the Euler less than a personalized label, when other brands with exclusive and original product design out of the circle, Euler can continue to meet the increasingly picky tastes of consumers?
Write at the end
Euler is not a "cat master" on the top, and consumers are not "shovelers" of infinite tolerance.
In the segment of the micro tram market, Euler has emerged by catering to the product elements of female consumer groups, but looking at the field of new energy vehicles, Euler has not been able to compete with the head force led by BYD, and after repeatedly chilling consumers, there are really not many opportunities for Euler to continue to make trouble.