Text/Hu Yao
Photo/From official
At the confluence of the two rivers, in the Chongqing Fashion Center, the big characters of "Auchan Z6" flutter in the cold river breeze, standing at the end of the red carpet of this new car tasting meeting. Different from the previous Auchan conference, all the materials of this conference did not add the word "Chang'an" prefix, but showed the word "Auchan" alone - which seems to mean that Auchan broke through the annual sales of 230,000 vehicles in three years, becoming the fastest growing young independent brand, and moving towards a new stage of brand transformation.
The new Z6, a new grasp of Auchan brand transformation
"The new smart sequence flagship model will boost the Auchan brand and achieve an annual sales target of 300,000 vehicles in 2022." This is a sentence that appears on the big screen at the beginning of the conference. This new smart sequence flagship model is the Auchan Z6.
Brand up, easier said than done. It is not difficult to launch a flagship model with a high image, but it is not easy to gain market recognition and stable sales. But Auchan clearly doesn't want to "retreat.". According to Auchan's sales target of 30,000 units in 2022, the Z6 listed in the second quarter will probably undertake the task of selling 70,000 units, close to 10,000 units per month. From the perspective of the official positioning of "refreshing the smart ceiling of 150,000-level fuel SUV", the price of the Z6 will be a little higher than that of the X7PLUS, and it will not touch the red line of the 200,000-level.
The trap that the flagship model can easily fall into is that it is high and low, and it is reduced to a mascot that does not call for seats. However, whether it is from the sales target or the price range, it can be seen that Auchan hopes that the Z6 will become a model that can be liked by more people and can be volumeted.
"How do we understand Auchan's brand upwards"? Deng Zhitao, deputy general manager of Auchan Automobile and general manager of the sales company, faced my questions. He said this: Auchan's brand upwards should actually be understood as brand transformation, and the display of sales scale and brand personality is the two directions of brand transformation, which can also be said to be two cornerstones. We have set a goal of 300,000 vehicles per year, that is, to unswervingly move Auchan's current position in the top ten sales of its own brands forward; and our conference also wants to highlight Auchan's own brand personalization.
Auchan's brand transformation, how will the road go? How do you personalize it while maintaining scale? We can feel some context from the debut of the Auchan Z6.
Brand personality is reflected through leading "intelligence"
Chang'an is the big tree standing behind Auchan, whether it is technical support or supply chain system. Chang'an's endorsement is also one of the reasons for Auchan's rapid development. You can still see this blood connection from the Z6. In terms of power, Auchan Z6 will be equipped with three kinds of power: Blue Whale IDD Global Hybrid System, Blue Whale 2.0T+8AT Power System, and Blue Whale 1.5T+7DCT Power System.
Among them, the Blue Whale IDD global hybrid system is composed of four parts: blue whale NE1.5T hybrid special engine, blue whale three-clutch electric drive transmission, large-capacity PHEV battery, and IDD intelligent control system. Its engine maximum power is 120kW, maximum torque is 250N·m, motor peak power is 85kW, peak torque is 280N·m, and the acceleration of 100 kilometers can reach 7.6s. Changan has taken the lead in installing this hybrid system on the upcoming UNI-KiDD, and the Z6 will be the second model to carry this hybrid system. Changan's most advanced technology has been put up and down so quickly in Auchan mass production models, which can be seen in the support of Auchan brand.
But under the wings of Chang'an, how does Auchan's personalization as an independent brand be reflected? From the use of auchan X5's 8-core chip to auchan X7's face recognition, it can be seen that auchan has taken "industry leadership in the field of intelligence" as the most powerful weapon. This is especially true of the Auchan Z6.
Unlike the X5 and X7 PLUS's On Style3.0 smart car operating system, Z6 will jump directly to The On Style 5.0 smart car operating system, skipping 4.0 directly from 3.0 to 5.0, which is not playing word games, but because 5.0 really achieves a comprehensive technological innovation.
In addition to the common 10.25-inch instrument screen and 12.3-inch central control screen, a 9.1-inch small European screen has been added, and this small European screen is specially designed for the first meta-universe avatar - navigator XiaoOu, which is used to interact with the driver and occupants in the car. On this basis, four-screen interaction (+AR-HUD), five-screen interaction (+Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi and other mainstream mobile phones) can be realized, and six-screen interconnection (+ smart wearable devices) can be realized.
The second metaverse avatar is "the user himself". Users can customize their own exclusive image through the fusion of Auchan Auto's advanced face recognition technology and voice reproduction technology. This function is not unusual, and it is available in self-owned brand models such as Pentium and Geely. But what is strange is that Auchan Z6 can start from a glance and promote voice interaction in the car by placing the camera in the center of the dashboard, while serving the main co-driver, coupled with the industry's first multi-modal fusion voice wake-up technology and line-of-sight tracking technology. "Eye Trigger" is the first in the entire industry, with a sense of technology and imagination.
The third meta-universe avatar is "car robot Z6", Auchan Z6 is equipped with the industry's first "off-the-car voice interaction system", the user outside the car a sentence "I want to go home", Auchan Z6 will immediately unlock the door, start the engine, set up navigation; when Auchan Z6 into the gas station, do not get off, Auchan Z6 will take the initiative to tell the staff: "I am Z6, 92 # gasoline please fill up"; when the next day to go out to work, you can summon Auchan Z6 to drive out of the parking space to the owner elevator door to wait. This series of magical operations benefits from auchan automotive EaglePilot 7.0 cloud eagle intelligent driving system, on the basis of which auchan Z6 can achieve full voice automatic valet parking, 15 radars, 5 cameras, 6 highly sensitive microphones, fusion perception, all-round detection, to solve the user parking difficulties, difficult to move the car and other problems.
In addition, under the OnStyle5.0 intelligent car operating system, Auchan X5 and X7PLUS are widely welcomed by users, such as clairvoyant, downwind ear, track mode, no wheat K song, bodyguard mode and other unique highlight products of OnStyle, which will also be retained and evolved to the 2.0 era.
The intelligence, imagination and matching hardware and software system on Auchan Z6 have created a number of industry debuts, and the "cannot be defined, imagination is not limited" this very mysterious-sounding evaluation may be its most accurate portrayal.
Design and practicality are the cornerstones of sales
The intelligence of personality is the biggest highlight on the Z6. But design and practicality are the cornerstones of the Z6's ability to guarantee sales.
In terms of design, it is said that the Z6 designers have poured 20 months of painstaking efforts on this model, and even in the third round of the design plan, they still completely overturned the design of the first two rounds, and finally determined to use "edge" and "mirror" as elements, using quadratic curves to show the balance between futurism, technology and softness. The 9 rows and 15 columns of time hourglass units of the front grille bite each other, and the size, profile, and angle are all expanded in an orderly manner according to the equal ratio series, and the overlapping of light and shade shows a continuous change trend. The streamer sharp headlight adopts a three-dimensional design, with 36 single-sided lights, a total of 72 LED light sources, with a dynamic lighting effect of flowing water. In the design of the tail, the designer said that the taillight design was inspired by the song "Heartbeat", so he designed a mood pulsating tail lamp, and the entire surface of the rear side and the turning area of the tail was formed in one go, and the silhouette was tight and powerful. In addition to being good-looking, the tail styling was a significant aerodynamic improvement for the design team, helping the Z6 achieve a low drag coefficient of 0.336.
For a large five-seat SUV, the sense of space is the user's most intuitive judgment of practicality. Auchan Z6 is 4699mm long, has a wheelbase of 2795mm, has a height of 1660mm, and has a shaft length ratio of 0.595; its width reaches 1890mm, making it one of the widest SUVs of the same class; compared with the length and width of Auchan X7PLUS4730mm*1870mm*1720mm and the wheelbase of 2786mm, it can be seen that the Z6 has more interior space, and the 0.878 aspect ratio shows the best low lying posture of the same level.
The Z6 is the first appearance, in addition to the naked eye visible appearance and interior, as well as the release of intelligent and powertrain, more information about the configuration of the new car has not yet been released. For this 2022 Auchan blockbuster new car, we can give more expectations.
Driving value view
Earlier, in a test drive event, I asked Auchan factory people why Auchan and Changan were developing their own smart cars. Since they are born from the same root, why can't we share Chang'an's technology? Just like chery and other independent brands. Wouldn't that save a lot of R&D costs?
Auchan's staff told me: the intelligent experience of a car involves the software, hardware integration and interaction of the whole car, if the two sides share a set of systems, just copy and paste, then in the subsequent iterative evolution of functions, it is impossible to do with me. If you want to do some targeted innovation, it will inevitably involve more communication and overall architecture changes, and the speed of functional expansion and iteration will be reduced, and it will not be able to achieve the experience we want to give customers.
In fact, this passage is placed on the current Z6, and it can be seen that Auchan is correct in insisting on independent development in the field of intelligence. Many of the smart experiences on the Z6 have many leading highlights even compared with the new power electric vehicles. And this will also be an important means for auchan brand to highlight brand personalization. Therefore, brand independence is not as simple as changing a car logo and changing the shape, and adhering to "me-based" is the key. Auchan's rapid development in the past three years is the successful practice of adhering to the "me-oriented" thinking.
According to Auchan's previous consumer survey report, the current Ochan brand has reached 28% without prompt mention, which is close to Chery, Baojun and BYD. With the listing of Auchan Z6, whether it is from the enrichment of product lines, sales increases, or intelligent experience upgrades and hybrid support, it will bring new opportunities for Auchan's brand upgrading and transformation.
"The car itself is not like a car, but like a partner." For Auchan, who has done a lot of in-depth exploration in the field of intelligent digitalization, perhaps the speed of brand transformation and upgrading will surprise many people.
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