For children, the perception of cars in childhood often starts from the logo (LOGO) on the toy car.
When you grow up, you have money to buy a car, and the LOGO, as a symbol of the brand, is also one of the most important factors for our consumers to choose a car.
According to a report released by J.D.Power, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, brands still rank fourth among the first factors considered by Chinese car consumers, behind only car quality, safety and performance.
This also explains why car companies have attached so much importance to brand image and LOGO in the course of more than 100 years of development. According to statistics, among car companies with a history of more than several decades, most of the brand LOGOs have been changed more than a dozen times.
Since January this year, as General Motors has remodeled the LOGO based on adobe family barrels, Kia, BYD, Geely, and even Tesla have changed the LOGO out of consideration for brand renewal. Why do big-name car companies choose to change bids in this year?
Industry insiders believe that last year's new crown epidemic caused a major change that has not been seen in a century. This year was supposed to be a post-epidemic era, but the mutation of the new virus and the recurrence of the epidemic have added too many variables to the global economic recovery.
How difficult 2021 will be for car companies can be seen just through fragile supply chains.
Since the second half of last year, the "chip famine" caused by the epidemic has become the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of car companies. Multinational giants such as Volkswagen, Toyota, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz have successively "been recruited", and the production of the best-selling models that were originally smooth has difficulties, and sales growth has stagnated. More companies have taken the opportunity to speculate on high chip prices, causing market chaos and further exacerbating the industry's predicament.
In particular, the outbreak of the Malaysian epidemic in June this year can be called a model case of the "butterfly effect". In August, ST's production line was shut down until the end of the month after hundreds of workers were infected and dozens died at its Mafa factory.
As the world's largest auto parts supplier, Bosch's ESP/IPB, VCU, TCU and other core component chips have been affected, resulting in a basic supply outage in August, and the affected car companies are countless, causing Bosch China Executive Vice President Xu Daquan to post in the circle of friends.
The situation of STMicroelectronics and Bosch is only the tip of the iceberg of the supply crisis in 2021.
In addition, the reform of the "new four modernizations" is gradually entering the deep water area, the consumption structure of the automobile market is also changing, and the young people represented by the "Z generation" are increasingly becoming the mainstream. Compared with fuel vehicles, smart electric vehicles are also beginning to be chosen by more people.
For smart electric vehicles with greater demand for components such as chips, the challenges to be faced in 2021 are only a lot more.
It can be seen that changes in the situation, changes in technology, and changes in the market are all driving changes in car companies. A good start is half the battle. Whether it is active to change or passive to respond to the battle determines the prospects of car companies in the new era.
The brand LOGO renewal is the first step in the car company's change, and it is also a symbolic step. Of course. It won't be the last step.
In the "army of re-bidding" in 2021, there is a special car company. It has only been 7 years since its inception, and the first model has only been on the market for 3 years.
What is even more surprising is that the brand was established in such a short time, and the car company has undergone 4 renewals. It is even more unique among the new forces.
In the most difficult period of 2021, the intelligent electric vehicles represented by them still strive to overcome supply problems and insist on launching higher quality products, technologies and services, showing users and even the entire industry the brand core of "loving and exploring".
And its brand name is so ordinary:
Xiaopeng Automobile, named after the founder He Xiaopeng.
Although famous car brands such as Ford, Toyota, Honda, Porsche, and Peugeot Citroen are all personal names, similar operations are still quite rare among the generally young Chinese car brands.
In the eyes of many people, Chinese entrepreneurs give enterprises their own names, that is, "soil". Even if you don't call "Xiao Peng" or "Da Peng", you are still "earth".
However, founder He Xiaopeng felt that this was not a matter.
"Xiaopeng cars are not soil." On the eve of the Guangzhou Auto Show in November this year, He Xiaopeng said in an interview at the latest brand renewal conference that the brand can be changed, the LOGO can be changed, and the name of "Xiaopeng" will not be changed.
Because he felt that under ordinary names, he could also do unusual things.
He Xiaopeng recalled that at the beginning of the establishment of Xiaopeng Automobile 7 years ago, the founding team reached a unified understanding when clarifying the company's development ideas, that is, the future domination of the world is not only electric vehicles, but intelligent cars.
However, in that period, even the market share of electric vehicles was minimal. As for smart cars, He Xiaopeng said that most of his friends at that time did not believe that someone in the Chinese auto market could do this well.
But Xiaopeng finally firmly chose such a path: to challenge the most unusual task.
Before Xiaopeng, another new force with service as the reputation of Weilai has begun to take shape in the market, Xiaopeng wants to make achievements in intelligence and form differentiation, it must switch tracks to master more core technologies.
So under the formation of the R & D team and continuous investment, Xiaopeng became the first Chinese automobile brand to develop itself in the full-stack of automatic driving; in 2020, it was the first intelligent car machine to launch full-scene voice operation; at the beginning of this year, Xiaopeng was the first to complete the 3,000-kilometer NGP intelligent pilot auxiliary driving expedition in China.
The achievement of several firsts has made Xiaopeng walk in the forefront of China's automobile intelligence. As a new electric vehicle company, Xiaopeng has not forgotten its foundation.
Therefore, in addition to the full-stack self-developed core technology, Xiaopeng also chose to become the first new force car company to build a factory, and has formed the layout of three major bases in Zhaoqing, Guangzhou and Wuhan: this summer, Xiaopeng Automobile Wuhan Project was officially launched, and the second phase of Zhaoqing Project has also been signed;
In order to relieve the biggest anxiety of consumers choosing electric vehicles, Xiaopeng Automobile has also built its own new energy vehicle charging network, as of November this year, Xiaopeng brand supercharging stations have accumulated 661 online, covering 228 cities, and will also run through 337 cities across the country in the future.
Since the establishment of the brand, Xiaopeng Automobile has released three models successively. So far, Xiaopeng's cumulative delivery volume has exceeded 110,000 vehicles, standing out from the nearly 100 new car-making forces that started 6 or 7 years ago and ranking among the best.
In the past November this year, Xiaopeng delivered about 15,600 vehicles, an increase of 270% year-on-year, not only an increase of 54% over the previous month, but also achieved a single monthly delivery of more than 10,000 for three consecutive months. Ranked first among the new car-making forces, and is expected to maintain the lead until the end of the year.
After 7 years of tempering, Xiaopeng Automobile has proved with a practical report card that even an ordinary name can achieve extraordinary.
If so, why does the new power frequently renew its brand?
The answer given by He Xiaopeng is that Xiaopeng Motors wants to explore not only smart cars, but more diversified intelligent travel fields. So we need a new Xiaopeng brand.
At the same time as announcing the renewal of the LOGO in November, Xiaopeng Motors released a seemingly incredible goal: to achieve mass production of flying cars by 2024.
He Xiaopeng said that he is sure that he can make this product and do it well.
After all, looking at 10 years ago, cars that could achieve automatic assisted driving looked incredible.
He Xiaopeng also believes that in the three time nodes of 2023, 2025 and 2027, China's automatic assisted driving will gradually change from the current intelligent assisted driving to automatic assisted driving to unmanned driving. At that time, the future of car mobility will change dramatically.
The strength of Xiaopeng Automobile lies in the continuous delivery data and the improvement of gross profit margin.
Just as the so-called quantitative change triggers qualitative change, the new LOGO is only the appearance, and the renewal of the brand core is the essence.
While continuously improving the degree of product intelligence, Xiaopeng Automobile is also strengthening the impact of brand spirit on users. The brand spirit of daring to explore runs through every important node of Xiaopeng Automobile in 2021.
At the end of 2021, Xiaopeng Motors, as the NBA's first intelligent car brand partner in China, held a live broadcast of the basketball "Love exploration night" activity.
This is not only a gorgeous footnote to the exploration of the brand spirit of Xiaopeng Automobile in 2021, but also a wayfinder to open a new chapter of the Xiaopeng brand in 2022.
Basketball is the common language of every pengyou who participates in the night of Xiaopeng Motors' love of exploration. It is worth mentioning that the guests present at the scene are also representatives of basketball lovers who stand out from the general public, and they also have a story about love and exploration between themselves and basketball:
Chen Dengxing, a former bank employee, quit his job because of basketball and spent several years practicing dunks;
Zhang Yuzhong, a hooker in his seventies, runs tirelessly on the court with young people year after year; 11-year-old Liangshan Blackhawks player Owen Jae from Guizhou, under the leadership of the coach, works day and night with his friends to imitate the shooting posture of NBA stars thousands of miles away in the depths of the mountains, exploring more basketball courts in their own way;
Wu You, known as the king of Chinese street ball, made a name for himself in the street arena and made an indelible promotion of Chinese street ball during the CL period, and today he still regards basketball as life... They all come together because of their love for basketball and continue to explore new heights in the field of basketball. Just as Xiaopeng Automobile has always adhered to the corporate values of "doing extraordinary things with ordinary names".
In addition, "debut is home" is the declaration of Xiaopeng Motors when it became the official market partner of the NBA in China. This also means that all the "Peng friends" who come to this stadium, whether they are watching live broadcasts online or offline, are indispensable members of the home field of Xiaopeng Motors.
And Xiaopeng Automobile is also because of its love and courage to explore, which has achieved the performance of today's domestic new energy vehicle leader.