The author | Mr. Dongguan Da
| Electric Guild
The divine chariot was going to heaven, and the gods and immortals could not stop it.
01 Hot Selling Tips
Recently, The Wuling Hongguang MINI EV has dominated the list again.
On January 14, SAIC-GM-Wuling released 2021 sales data showing that Hongguang MINIEV's sales in 2021 totaled 426452 vehicles, and its overall sales since its listing have exceeded 550,000 vehicles, ranking the global single model new energy sales champion for five times.
Many people will ask, why can Hongguang MINIEV be proud of the world in terms of sales? What is the secret behind the hot sale?
Wuling has given the reasons, which can be roughly boiled down to three points:
First, the large industry background, that is, the acceptance of new energy vehicles has been greatly improved, is an incremental market; second, Hongguang MINIEV is accurately positioned and is a scooter that everyone can afford; third, among the buying crowds, Wuling girls are the main group, and their social effects and communication are very large, making MINI EV a veritable net red car.
The official explanation is not unreasonable, but it is not the core factor, and the fundamental thing that really makes Hongguang MINIEV a hit is the price, price, or price.
Overall, the price segment of Wuling models is 42,800 to 82,800 yuan, and all living space is confined to the low-end consumer market with high tolerance for quality and high price sensitivity, and under the premise of not reaching the technical standards required for new energy vehicle subsidies, the price of Hongguang MINIEV directly explores the 28,800 to 38,800 yuan that other car companies cannot reach.
In the fiercely competitive new energy vehicle market, Hongguang MINI EV accurately cuts into the market segment without competitors with extremely low prices. Not only is the car purchase threshold low, but the cost of using a car in the later period is lower. According to the electricity consumption of 8kWh per 100 kilometers, it costs only 5 cents per kilometer.
Therefore, we believe that the availability of Hongguang MINIEV in terms of price, the "formality" that meets the bottom line of passenger car standards, and the ingenuity of the shape design are the core factors that make this car quickly capture a large number of consumers and create a myth of 200,000 sales in 200 days.
02 Low price and low quality
When the price comes down, the production cost of the main engine factory will inevitably decrease.
Not long ago, the automotive research team of Nagoya University in Japan dismantled a Wuling Hiroko MINIEV. The dismantled Hongguang MINIEV looked simple, but after dismantling, they were surprised and found a lot of subversive designs.
For example, usually electric vehicles will be equipped with kinetic energy recovery systems, which can better extend the range, but Hongguang MINIEV is not equipped with this system and simplifies some of the related electronic equipment. The motor cooling method is not commonly used water cooling, but the use of air cooling, there is no circulation system equipped with cooling water; the direct current into an alternating current inverter, so that the cost of this part of the cost is reduced several times.
In addition, the life of electronic components such as power semiconductors built into the inverter is shortened due to the effect of heat dissipation, and some of them use non-durable automotive chips, but semiconductors for home appliances. Therefore, the service life of the inverter is set at 8 years or 120,000 kilometers, which is shorter and has a higher failure rate compared with the general pure electric vehicle.
Of course, ordinary electronic components are prone to failure, but replacing the design of the entire module is easy to repair. Therefore, in the eyes of Masayoshi Yamamoto's team, the secret of Hiromitsu MINIEV's success is to use cheap and less durable parts and assemble them together in an easy-to-replace way.
In the end, according to the estimates of Professor Masayoshi Yamamoto's team, the total parts and assembly costs were only 480,000 yen (27,000 yuan).
Power batteries are the most expensive, accounting for almost one-third, up to 9,000 yuan;
Air conditioning compressor about 3400;
Charger, DC-DC converter, etc. about 3400 yuan;
Body, interior, etc. about 2800 yuan;
Motor, reducer, inverter about 2800 yuan;
The tire suspension of the driving system is about 2200 yuan;
Counting the assembly service cost of 3400 yuan, the total cost is about 27,000 yuan.
The Japanese have always been in the global leading position in small cars, and this time they may have found another way of building a car after dismantling the Hiromitsu MINIEV, but what Professor Masayoshi Yamamoto's team could not imagine is that these parts are almost all made in China, and there are no parts made in Japan.
Therefore, if Japan wants to build such a mini car, it is almost impossible to achieve the same low cost as the Hongguang MINIEV.
In fact, some domestic media have also disassembled Hongguang MINIEV before, mainly in terms of vehicle safety. At that time, the Hongguang MINIEV that was disassembled at that time was basically lowered to the floor level from the material to the configuration, the thickness of the front anti-collision beam was very low, and it was not equipped with a rear anti-collision beam, a side anti-collision beam, a rear headrest, a rear steel plate and an airbag.
However, considering the price, as a passenger car that refreshes the lower limit of the price of electric vehicles in China, it is not unacceptable.
03 Grab the sharpshooter
Can Hongguang MINIEV, which has such a low price, make money for Wuling?
As mentioned earlier, In 2021, Hongguang MINIEV will sell more than 400,000 vehicles, which accounts for almost 1/4 of SAIC-GM-Wuling's total sales, but in fact, this is not a "blessing" for SAIC-GM-Wuling's profit structure.
When the Hongguang MINIEV first began to sell well, SAIC-GM-Wuling insiders once said that the Hongguang MINIEV, which broke through the bottom line of the user's price psychology, was "indeed selling at a loss".
If you lose money, why do you have to sell like crazy?
THE ROLE OF SAIC-GM-WULING AS A "POINT CONTRIBUTOR" IN THE SAIC GROUP HAS MADE MINIEV LOSE ITS COMMERCIAL POSITION FROM THE BEGINNING OF ITS BIRTH, EVEN INCLUDING THE NORMAL "COMMODITY" ATTRIBUTES. However, for SAIC Motor, compared with the cost of purchasing new energy credits, the "no profit, high sales" MINIEV is obviously a more cost-effective choice.
If you only look at it from the perspective of Wuling, the lack of technical reserves like this, resulting in the high average fuel consumption of fuel vehicle lines, the existence of Hongguang MINIEV is extremely important. You think that Wuling Hongguang MINIEV is a loss of money to make a profit, in fact, for Wuling, earning is not only "what the people need, Wuling will make something", but also real money and silver.
Therefore, whether the people need it or not, it really doesn't matter, as long as they lose money to sell, someone will buy, as long as someone buys, in order to earn points, as long as there are points, in order to make real money on fuel vehicles, live in this market. Therefore, those car owners who bought Wuling Hongguang MINIEV at the price of "cabbage" need to pay tribute to the fuel owners.
But the reality is that for the car companies themselves, not only to fill the quality and safety of the loopholes need financial support, as a symbol of the competitiveness of the electric intelligence research and development, but also need a steady stream of capital investment. From the perspective of profitability curve, the positive solution of driving the brand premium by improving quality and technology has not been effectively realized on the transformation road of SAIC-GM-Wuling.
We checked, information from major domestic automobile complaint platforms shows that the large number of complaints against Wuling Hongguang models has been going on for many years, and before 2021, SAIC-GM-Wuling has not made a public official response and provided a one-time solution.
Recently, it has been reported that following the recall of one million vehicles in July 2021, SAIC-GM-Wuling is likely to launch a large-scale recall again in the first quarter of this year, or hundreds of thousands of vehicles.
Senior industry insiders close to SAIC-GM-Wuling believe that although SAIC-GM-Wuling continues to sell well, it has not yet found the correct answer to the proposition of how to balance the three aspects of expanding sales, improving quality and ensuring profitability.
As energy conservation and environmental protection gradually become the mainstream cognition of society, ultra-low-cost entry-level electric vehicles will continue to usher in opportunities for development, and the market heat of A00-level pure electric vehicles will continue, and we expect to reach the annual sales of one million vehicles.
At present, a number of car companies have thrown out the news that they want to enter the A00-class pure electric vehicle market, not only the Chery QQ ice cream that can be called the "flat replacement" of Hongguang MINI EV, including Geely, Nezha and a series of new and old automobile companies are aiming at this market.
For Wuling Hongguang, if it is still immersed in the logic of low-cost and low-quality car manufacturing, the road ahead must be very difficult.
If you want to become the most powerful competitor in the market, you must hold the core technology, upgrade from primary products to high-quality products step by step, shape a good brand image, and make the market share from small to large.
Only in this way can we face the wind in the fiery market.
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