Haval's significance to Great Wall Motors is self-evident.
It started out as just a model of Great Wall Motors. Later, a Haval H6 had more than a hundred configuration options. The emergence of the super brand Haval has transformed Great Wall Motors from a mediocre independent brand into a head automobile enterprise.
Since 2012, Haval Automobile has gradually grown independently as a sub-brand of The City Automobile Group, and in 2016, it won the championship of the total sales volume of its own brand in the whole year.
But from that year onwards, Great Wall Motors' sales were declining, and after 5 years, they hovered at the edge of the top 50, with total sales just breaking through 5 figures. At that time, Geely's fledgling Lynk & Co had sales of 6,000 units a month.
Just imagine, if Haval had not separated from Great Wall Motors to operate independently, there is a high probability that there would be no current Chehai tactics. Perhaps the Haval H6 will go down in history under another name, but Great Wall Motors may not necessarily become the biggest competitor to integrated brands such as Geely, Chery, and Changan.
However, even a brand as strong as Haval has sweet troubles - the more high-light the Haval H6, the more serious the problems facing Haval. A car supporting a brand is a story that people are willing to hear, but not a car company wants to see. As long as one of the many opponents can subvert the Haval H6, then it is definitely not only the Haval H6 that has fallen, but the entire Haval Automobile, and even the Great Wall Motor Group.
Haval had to avoid such a thing, so there was a series of product strategies of Haval Motors.
Why does Haval frequently push new cars?
In 2017, the year after Haval Cars topped the top, Haval began to move frequently, and in 2018 launched two blockbuster products - Haval F7 and Haval P8.
Haval P8 is known as the Great Wall Group boring head research and development of 4 years of big moves, its real performance is indeed very good, the driving experience is very good, the parameters are not false, which was a very great thing in that year. The Haval F7 is a model launched by Haval in order to attract the consumer force of the post-90s generation, which is different from the Haval H6 in terms of official positioning, although they have many similarities in parameters.
Before that, Haval's focus was to continuously tap the potential of the H6 car and try to introduce red and blue labels to subdivide its image. Perhaps the effect is not satisfactory, and it has caught up with the rise of the new generation of consumer groups, so it has changed its thinking and launched a model that intends to keep pace with the Haval H6.
When the Haval F7x was launched, Haval officials hoped that the Haval F series would achieve the target of 45% of the brand's total sales. Positioned, the H series is stable and practical, while the F series is a young sport.
Later, as we all know, the F series has been unremarkable over the years, and the short-lived F5 models have even been discontinued. The Haval F7 still has sales, but the full-year performance is not necessarily comparable to the haval H6's two-month sales.
At this point, the story of the Haval F series has almost come to an end, let's call it the Haval II model for the time being.
In 2021, Haval embarked on their third-generation product journey, which was named at the pace of the entire group and had a liberating posture. First love, red rabbit, big dog, god beast, these seemingly irregular or even difficult to speculate about each other's relationship models, in fact, have a lot in common - are compact SUVs.
Since the red and blue label strategy, Haval has begun to consciously or unconsciously want to recreate a god car to share the sales pressure of Haval H6, but also to make the development of the entire brand more stable. This is true of the F Series, as well as today's Third Age models.
Among the four models, the Haval Big Dog is closest to the Haval H6 in terms of size and pricing, but the positioning is slightly different, at least the similarity is not as good as the Haval F7. Although the price of first love and red rabbit is closer, the size is not quite right. As for the Divine Beast, it is more like an upgraded plus version of the Haval H6, and all the parameter standards have been raised one level.
Therefore, the four models of the third generation do not seem to be here to take over the Haval H6, and they are all crowded in the lane of compact SUVs, which is very intriguing. Among them, the Haval Divine Beast is the most eye-catching SUV with a length of nearly 4.8 meters.
When the Divine Beast arrives, can it open up a new world?
Once, the Range Rover Evoque, which is less than 4.4 meters long, refreshed our understanding of mid-size SUVs, and now, the mythical beast with a length of nearly 4.8 also refreshes the record for compact SUVs.
Leaving aside the size of the car, the Haval Divine Beast priced at 130,000-167,000 yuan is barely counted as a 150,000-level SUV model, its product strength is not bad, conservative evaluation is worthy of its pricing. Whether it is design, materials, NVH level and driving performance, it can become a benchmark for products at the same price.
The styling is avant-garde enough, the lines are very tough, and it can combine fashion and power. The material is solid enough, and the places within reach are handled with texture. The NVH level is the most surprising, the fine vibrations are well suppressed, the sound insulation is good, and the ride experience in the cockpit is even a little bit advanced. Needless to say, the 1.5T engine can also bring abundant power performance, definitely keeping up with the current average, don't forget that it is a compact SUV with a large size.
Overall, if you only evaluate this 150,000-yuan SUV from the perspective of a family car, it is definitely worth buying. So logically, it already has the prototype of the next popular god car that Haval wants.
But its actual performance remains to be seen. Haval has put a lot of effort into the model of the mythical beast, and consumers will soon be able to perceive the excellence of this car, but what significance can its success bring to Haval?
Even though the Mythical Beast is the third model of Haval Motors, it is still just an "upgraded" product. Of course, we can't deny that Haval's third-generation products are already very good, and the product positioning also reflects that the car brand is well versed in consumer psychological needs, but their core technology does not seem to have been iterated by leaps and bounds.
Today, the 1.5T engine and 7DCT transmission equipped by haval beast have been updated and improved many times, the parameters are better, and the performance is more stable. However, the fuel consumption problem that has long plagued Haval cars has not been better solved.
Turning around and looking at Geely Automobile Group, under the technical blessing of Volvo Cars, the overall technical level of its brand models has been improved. Looking at Changan Automobile Group, their blue whale engines, body safety and NVH level are the top presence in their own brands.
Therefore, it is very remarkable that Haval can compete with the technical iterations of its opponents by means of technological updates. However, such an operation inevitably makes people worry about the lack of stamina.
Of course, at the end of the era of fuel vehicles, perhaps turning around and investing in the field of new energy can embark on a brighter road, such as BYD. Just two years ago, Great Wall Motor Group launched the Lemon platform, which integrates fuel engines, hybrid engines, pure electric and hydrogen fuel cell powertrains, which may be the beginning of Haval's future.
Bell description
In the past, Haval was the pillar of Great Wall Motors, and the Haval H6 was carrying the entire group forward, but the longer this situation was maintained, the closer the Great Wall Motor Group was to the cliff.
Behind the scenery, it is actually full of anxiety. As a result, the appearance of the Haval Divine Beast had a hint of letting go. Such an excellent model is only 130,000 yuan, and if it is priced at 129,800 yuan, it is almost desperate.
If the response of the Haval Divine Beast is also plain, then who can carry the future of Haval Motors?