Written by | Chen Hao, Wu Xue
Edit | Yu Jie
Produced | Automotive Sankei
China's auto market in 2021 finally ended with a year-on-year increase of 4.4%. However, while the sales of mainstream car companies have risen, the Korean system has become the most obvious decline.
At the New Year's media briefing on January 10, 2022, Cui Dongyou, general manager of Beijing Hyundai, announced the achievements of Beijing Hyundai in the past year:
383,000 units, down 23.7% year-on-year.
In the face of this number, Cui Dongyou, who has been in office for more than a year, said bluntly: "Not satisfactory."
However, he doesn't seem to be too entangled in this.
In the eyes of the leader who once dominated the development of the modern European new energy market, the next electrification is the focus of Beijing Hyundai.
"The Beijing modern of the past will be different from the beijing of the future," he vowed.
So after six years of downturn, can Beijing Hyundai turn around with electrification this time?
Cui Dongyou, general manager of Beijing Hyundai
The first electric vehicle will be introduced in 2023, is it too late?
According to Beijing Hyundai's current product planning, in 2023, they will launch the first new electric model in the Chinese market.
At the same time, according to Cui Dongyou, this car is also the first time in the Chinese market.
Compared with the previous Hyundai models that will often choose the first place to be launched in the European and American markets, this time Beijing Hyundai has indeed made changes according to the needs of Chinese consumers.
And according to Choi Dong-woo, this change will become the norm in the future.
For example, in addition to this model, the Chinese market will not be later than europe and the United States when the IONIQ 5 mid-term remodel is introduced in the future.
However, despite this, there is still a situation that cannot be ignored - Beijing Hyundai chose to launch the first new electric vehicle in 2023, which is much behind Toyota and Honda, which are not too early to start electric.
According to the plan released at the end of 2021, this year, Toyota and Honda will list a number of electric models in the Chinese market.
Regarding this doubt, Cui Dongyou's statement is that Toyota and Honda launched new energy vehicles using a model jointly launched with Chinese partners, rather than relying on their own technical strength to launch a global model, so it is not a "substantial launch".
"Beijing Hyundai's electric vehicles came to market a little later, but it's not too late than Toyota and Honda."
To illustrate this point, he cites Hyundai's electric vehicle sales figures in the European market.
According to the data, from January to November 21, 2021, 1.008 million new energy vehicles were sold in Europe. Among them, the Hyundai brand is 70,000 vehicles, plus Kia, a total of more than 130,000 vehicles. The market share is 13%, second only to Tesla (15%) and Volkswagen (15%).
In contrast, from 2020 onwards in the European market, sales of hybrid models represented by Toyota and Honda have dropped by 40% with the tightening of emission regulations.
The implication is that Toyota and Honda have previously prioritized the development of hybrids, which has been proved by the market to be the wrong way.
However, toyota and Honda may not necessarily agree with this view.
Taking Toyota as an example, they have repeatedly said that hybrid is a more complex technology than pure electricity, and after splitting and reorganizing the powertrain of hybrid models, you can get the powertrain of PHEV (plug-in hybrid) and EV (pure electric).
Even in the field of batteries, Toyota's solid-state battery technology is at the leading level worldwide.
In this way, Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda have a deeper accumulation of technology in electrification, and I am afraid that they can only wait until the new car is listed and then compete with market feedback.
Channel Battle: Direct VS 4S Stores, Which is Better?
However, before the product is launched, In addition to creating momentum for its own product power, Beijing Hyundai has another problem to be laid out in advance - channels.
As we all know, unlike most of the fuel vehicles sold through the 4S store system, Tesla and China's new car-making forces have created a new sales model at the beginning of the game - direct sales.
So that traditional car companies like Volkswagen have also chosen the direct sales model after entering the electrification.
However, for the strong binding of electric vehicles and direct sales, Cui Dongyou has a different view.
According to him, Hyundai sells electric vehicles in the European market, "100% through the 4S shop system for sales."
In his view, the fundamental reason why Tesla and the new car-making forces choose direct sales is that "if these emerging companies want to establish a sound 4S shop system like traditional car companies, time and funds are far from reaching, so they directly overtake in curves." However, this method is not necessarily suitable for traditional car companies that already have perfect channels.
He further gave the example of Volkswagen in China: the Volkswagen ID series was introduced to China with direct and online sales, but the sales volume was not ideal. On the contrary, after returning to the traditional sales model in the second half of the year, the monthly sales volume broke through 10,000.
However, regarding this view, Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan does not seem to think so.
In an interview with the media on January 11, he just made it clear that "Volkswagen will build a number of ID flagship stores and further expand the id's special urban exhibition halls."
In addition to Volkswagen, most traditional car companies such as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are still in a state of inconclusive on what form to sell electric vehicles in the future. However, if you want to follow the sales model of traditional 4S stores, there is a problem that must be overcome - how to stabilize the price.
Judging from the current market feedback, the public that returned to the 4S store sales model has not been successful. It is reported that while the sales of Volkswagen's electric vehicles have risen, the transaction price has also dropped sharply.
This problem is also a great test for Beijing Hyundai, which has been questioned about "exchanging price for volume".
Write at the end
In 2022, Beijing Hyundai is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Cui Dongyou said, "Now all the employees of Beijing Hyundai are doing their best and doing everything possible to restore the original head position of Beijing Hyundai." ”
But after the effort, how much beijing hyundai's market performance can change this year, no one can be sure.
However, there are also some things in Beijing Hyundai that are clearly not going to change.
For example, after the brother brand Kia chose to adjust the stock ratio for the first time, in the face of the question of "whether Beijing Hyundai will make any moves", Cui Dongyou's answer is very clear:
"Beijing Hyundai and Dongfeng Yueda Kia are not the same."