Time is like water, fleeting. In the blink of an eye, the second decade of the 21st century is about to pass more than a year ago.
Even if the years can't spare everyone, everyone's memory can still retain the reflection of the past.
More than ten years ago, when the Internet was just booming, life was not as exhausting as it is today, everyone met for the first time, in addition to exchanging mobile phone numbers, they may use text messages to leave each other's Tencent QQ number.
Readers with certain life experience must also remember that in the era when China's automobile industry was just starting up and private cars were still a new thing, a small car with a price of only tens of thousands of yuan came out and became a "national god car" full of topics.
The name of this car is Chery QQ.
For Chery QQ, what do you remember?
It may be an advertisement that "tens of thousands of yuan can have the first car in my life", or it may be the controversy of "0.8L displacement can not go on the highway"... Of course, the most important thing to forget is its sales myth: the cumulative sales of more than 1 million units, and exported to five continents, nearly 100 countries and regions, has become a veritable "street god car".
More than a decade has passed, and people's means of communication have changed from DESKTOP IM tools on PC to weChat that is always online. The automotive market has also experienced the ebb and flow from the "SUV fever" and the "luxury car fever" to today's "new energy fever".
But something regular, as if it hadn't changed. In various fields of real life, the retro and nostalgic trends that arise from time to time are also a reminder of how much human beings are nostalgic for the past.
On December 28, Chery QQ took advantage of the east wind of electrification to officially announce the "resurrection" in Wuhu, Anhui, the base camp of Chery. At the same time, it also has a more fashionable name - QQ Ice Cream.
How about a car?
According to the old rules, we still have to talk about how the QQ ice cream car is. But after more than half a year of warm-up, the appearance, power, endurance and other information of this A00-class car has long been no secret. The most important "dry goods" at the day's press conference were still priced:
There are three versions of QQ Ice Cream, "Pudding" is priced at 29,900 yuan, "Cone" is 37,900 yuan, and "Saint's Substitute" is 43,900 yuan.
All three models are equipped with permanent magnet synchronous motors with a maximum power of 20 kW and a peak torque of 85 Nm.
The batteries are all made of lithium iron phosphate batteries, the first two versions have a battery capacity of 9.6 kWh, neDC range of 120 km, top version of the battery capacity of 13.9 kWh, NEDC range of 170 km.
As for other aspects, it can only be said that QQ Ice Cream is similar to another A00-class car that has created a sales myth in the market.
The same is the 2-door 4-seat layout, QQ ice cream body length, width and height are 2980 × 1496 × 1637mm, wheelbase is 1960mm, positioning A00 class pure electric vehicle.
This body size, naturally do not have to luxury too much rear space, but it is better to travel through the city. In addition, the rear seats in the car can be reclined proportionally, resulting in a good utilization of internal space.
Although at a glance, QQ Ice Cream and Wuling Hongguang MINI EV are a bit "face-bumping", but carefully comparing his predecessor fuel version of Chery QQ, we can't seem to say that it is simply imitating competitors, but more like carrying out some kind of design inheritance.
The body has become a boxy box shape, the front face has also become a closed grille common to pure electric vehicles, QQ ice cream or continue the most recognizable design on the fuel version of Chery QQ - the pair of "round and rolling" headlights.
The headlight group has changed from a simple oval shape to a "square with a circle" - the headlight shell and the overall style of the body are consistent, presenting a square and three-dimensional shape. But after lighting up, an inverted U-shaped LED strip + central headlights outline a pair of cute "big eyes".
Associated with the recent hot "squinting" controversy on the Internet, the appearance of QQ ice cream is still online.
Echoing with the front of the car, the rear of the QQ ice cream car is also boxy, and the most eye-catching is still the headlights on both sides - consistent with the shape of the headlights, with the overall shape of the tail, giving people a silly look.
Subject to price and cost constraints, the interior of QQ ice cream, the amount, or in a high emotional intelligence way to describe, is minimalist.
Simple to the common car machine in new energy vehicles, the central control screen is not available, instead, the conventional central control screen position is designed as a mobile phone bracket.
It is worth mentioning that the entry-level QQ ice cream priced at 29,900 does not have the "basic" functions on mainstream automotive products such as refrigeration and air conditioning, main driver airbags, and reversing radar images.
This seems to be similar to the product strategy of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV: using an entry-level low price to attract traffic, in fact, it still relies on the medium and high-end version of the model to go.
In order to cope with the youthful and personalized needs of consumers, QQ Ice Cream provides 7 colors of taro purple, sea salt blue, mint green, coconut white, lemon yellow, cherry blossom powder, light blue, and provides a variety of two-color body combinations.
To whom and how?
For a long time, for the A00-class car represented by the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, there has been a controversy about the "replacement of the old scooter".
At this point, Chery New Energy is very frank, saying that QQ ice cream is "the most extensive product covering the crowd among many new energy cars", and the main target consumer groups include: home users, female users, small-town youth, and silver-haired people.
For home users, when they already have a fuel vehicle and there is a need for additional purchases, they can purchase a QQ ice cream for commuting and picking up and dropping off children. After all, small and flexible, easy to park, low cost of use, is the innate advantage of small electric vehicles.
For female users, the purchase of QQ ice cream can be used for daily commuting in the city, and the eye-catching and cute appearance and interior are also a plus.
The idea is very good, how many female consumers will pay, it is actually not easy to say. Of course, there is also a very interesting topic behind this: nowadays, whether it is a luxury brand or a Volkswagen brand, whether it is an SUV or a sedan, the concept of "women's exclusive car" is now being hit.
However, Chery New Energy still has some confidence in pleasing female consumers. At the QQ ice cream conference, the official specially released the following PPT to prove itself.
For small-town youth, QQ ice cream stands out for its cost performance. In other words, Chery New Energy still wants to spread channels to a wider range of fourth- and fifth-tier cities, and like the Hongguang MINI EV, take the route of "rural encirclement of cities".
Finally, Chery New Energy also targeted the target group of QQ ice cream at the "silver-haired family".
At the press conference, the official only vaguely said that this car is also suitable as a "filial piety gift" for the elders, on the grounds that it can be green card, cost-effective, sufficient mileage, and convenient maintenance - as for which kind of products these advantages are for, or leave it to everyone to experience it.
As for how to win the favor of the above consumer groups, QQ ice cream compared to the largest competitor on the market, Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, the price is similar, the product strength advantage is not prominent, to achieve the same success as the latter, I am afraid that the more critical factor is still in the sales channel.
Therefore, in June this year, Chery reached strategic cooperation with Alibaba Cloud, Haier and other enterprises to launch a new car ecological brand iCar ecology.
The name is a bit cloudy, but in fact, it is based on digital technology, making the traditional dealer agency system more agile, more efficient, and more unified in service.
Up to now, 1,000 agent stores in the iCar ecosystem have signed contracts through online and offline channels. In this new marketing model, all dealers are first-level agents and directly connected with Chery New Energy. At the same time, based on the online system, it can realize the direct connection between users and enterprises.
In short, this model is lighter than the traditional dealer model, and the agent inventory pressure is small. Compared with the direct sales model popular among today's new forces, the expansion speed is faster.
"There will be Chery stores in the county market" is a goal set by Chery iCar Ecology. This also means that in the future, in the large shopping malls of the vast number of fourth- and fifth-tier cities, many stores that are selling QQ ice cream models will emerge.
For the next market expectations, Chery New Energy is also quite optimistic: the target is that in 2022, the sales volume of QQ ice cream + Chery small ants will exceed 300,000.
For comparison, the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV model, launched in July 2020, had a total sales volume of 127,600 in that year; from January to November this year, the cumulative sales reached 344,800 units.
So, can Chery New Energy replicate similar brilliance? This question, next year Chery QQ ice cream will reveal the answer for us.
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