"The most tender wave of leeks," owners joked when the Cyris SF5 was suspected of being discontinued.
Everyone found that the Cyrus SF5, which once occupied the C position of Huawei's store, is withdrawing from the stage and replaced by the new car Q&A M5 launched by Huawei's new brand AITO. It is reported that before the listing of the Q&I M5, Huawei stores have no longer accepted orders for SF5.
The first owners of the Cyrus SF5 did not expect that this car had just been sold in Huawei stores for half a year to be "hidden", and they had inexplicably become the "last batch of owners", and the most worrying thing was that the subsequent maintenance and OTA upgrade services of the vehicle would lose their guarantee.
On January 5, Cyrus officially released a letter to Cyrus SF5 users, making it clear that Cyrus SF5 would continue to accept user orders and arrange for someone to follow up and assist in delivery in a timely manner.
Source: Cyrus Official
However, at the end of the letter, the signature is Chongqing Jinkang Cyrus Automobile Sales Co., Ltd., and there is no Huawei figure.
Huawei completely "removed" the Cyrus SF5
On December 23, 2021, Huawei held a grand new product launch conference in Shenzhen, and AITO Asked The M5 made the final appearance. At that time, Yu Chengdong, Huawei's managing director, CEO of the consumer business, and CEO of the smart car solution BU, who had not yet recovered from the cold, spent nearly an hour introducing the new car.
For a time, the publicity of AITO was rolled out in a large area. On the second day of the conference, AITO's billboard appeared in the passageway of Beijing Capital Airport. Subsequently, the AITO experience store in Beijing's East Third Ring Road was officially opened, and a Qingjie M5 model was parked in the store. On the opening day, the store was overcrowded. In other Huawei stores, the roll-up of the M5 has also been firmly in the C position - the exhibition car has not yet arrived at the store.
A Huawei store in a shopping mall in Beijing Source: Future Auto Daily
The Xilis User Experience Center in Wufangqiao, Beijing, has been replaced with the AITO signboard. The home page Banner location of Huawei Mall is undoubtedly also the M5 of the world.
Source: Future Automotive Daily
Overnight, Xilis, which Huawei once praised, is fully withdrawing from Huawei's sales channels."
At present, the only channels to book Cyrus SF5 are the Cyrus APP and the Cyrus official website, and future auto daily inquired about Huawei's offline stores and learned that the store has temporarily stopped booking Cyrus SF5. In the Huawei Mall, the Cyrus SF5 is also missing. This has caused great dissatisfaction among the owners of Xilis, in their view, "removing the shelves (in Huawei) means a significant depreciation", after all, when everyone bought this car, most people were against Huawei.
A Cyrus SF5 owner complained, "Cars are not consumer electronics, and the depreciation rate is an important consideration when buying a car, not to mention that Huawei mobile phones have not been removed from the shelves in less than a year." In addition to fears of rapid depreciation, a Huawei car salesman told Future Auto Daily that the old car owners are most concerned about after-sales maintenance services.
In this regard, Xilis said that the first owner of the SF5, in addition to enjoying the 8-year / 160,000-kilometer warranty of the three-electric system, will also enjoy the lifetime warranty of the whole vehicle and the range extender; the first owner can get a discount of 10,000 yuan for other models of the company within 4 years.
Despite this, there are still car owners who express concern, although the after-sales channels are guaranteed, but the maintenance price is not stable. According to the association data, in the whole year of 2021, the sales of the Cyrus SF5 will be only 8169 vehicles.
Ownership is low, and car owners are worried that the supply of parts will not keep up. "I've never heard of a supplier producing parts for a long time for models with only a few thousand stocks." In the eyes of many car owners, even if the official suspension of production has not been officially announced, but without Huawei stores as a sales channel, SF5 is no different from "suspension of production". In this way, "the subsequent maintenance costs will be visible to the naked eye price increase."
So, why did Huawei completely "remove" the Cyrus SF5? An auto industry insider analyzed to Future Auto Daily that the Xilis SF5 was developed and produced by Xiaokang, and Huawei's participation was low. At the beginning of the sale, Huawei labeled this car as "Huawei Smart Choice" and recommended everyone to buy it. At this stage, Huawei stores and Huawei Mall cancel the booking channel of this car, which does not mean that SF5 disappears, but Huawei is no longer "recommended".
A salesperson said that there is another real reason for "stopping selling" the SF5 - most Huawei stores can't put a second exhibition car. Compared with the 4S store, the space of Huawei's store is very limited, "If you put two car mobile phones, can you sell them?" "According to the plan, AITO's product lineup will be further expanded.
According to Yu Chengdong, the AITO brand will also launch a medium and large SUV, and the M5 will also launch a pure electric version of the model, based on the three models under AITO, "Huawei will challenge the sales target of 300,000 vehicles in 2022, so that the annual sales of cooperative car companies can reach 100 billion yuan."
At that time, the cramped store space will become a major constraint on Huawei's car sales.
In order to achieve its goals, Huawei will renovate the existing authorized 2,000 stores. Up to now, there are about 500 stores with Huawei's car sales and test drive qualifications.
In fact, not only Huawei's resources are tilted towards AITO, but also Xiaokang Group. At the beginning of 2022, Zhang Xinghai, chairman of Xiaokang Group, said in his New Year's Day speech: The top priority in 2022 is to use the strength of all Xilix and the strength of the group to ensure the high-quality and massive delivery of the M5.
In the view of an auto industry insider, whether it is Huawei or Xiaokang, the focus will shift to the M5, and the "cold treatment" of the Cyrus SF5 is a timely stop loss.
So far, sales of the Cyrus SF5 have not been ideal. According to the data of the Association, from April to December 2021, the sales volume of the SF5 of Xilix was 129, 204, 1097, 507, 715, 1117, 1926, 1385 and 1089, respectively, totaling 8169 vehicles. Poor sales may be the biggest reason why Huawei and Xiaokang jointly "abandoned" the Cyrus SF5.
Will Huawei abandon Xiaokang?
So, can AITO or Xiaokang carry Huawei's "ambition" of selling 300,000 vehicles a year?
At present, the sales staff is more confident in the sales volume of the M5. A Huawei auto salesman told Future Auto Daily that before the exhibition car arrived at the store, a local test drive tasting meeting was held, "more than a dozen units were ordered on the spot, and the transaction rate was 70%. According to the staff, the order for the M5 has exceeded 8,000 vehicles, "and all of them are Dading (deposit 10,000 yuan) car owners." The salesperson said that when he attended the company's training, he didn't feel anything about the Xilix SF5, but he was very confident when he saw the interior of the Q&C M5." The salesman, who has sold cars in traditional 4S stores, believes that the interior of the M5 can impress consumers even more. Previously, the consumers of the Xilis SF5 had clearly expressed the two most dissatisfied places - the central control layout and the car machine, and the M5 had optimized these two places.
Source: Huawei official
More importantly, from the perspective of product strength, the M5 is indeed more bright in the competition of the Lance SF5, and the Huawei Harmony OS smart cockpit is a major attraction. Yu Chengdong described at the press conference that the Harmony OS smart cockpit broke the information gap between different devices, so that the vehicle is no longer an island, but a super terminal that can seamlessly connect with people, mobile phones, smart homes, smart watches, etc.
However, with the above evolution alone, I am afraid that it is not enough to support the heavy responsibility of annual sales of 300,000 vehicles, after all, even the "Wei Xiaoli", which is recognized by consumers, is only approaching the 100,000 annual sales mark. First of all, production capacity is a short board. According to the latest news revealed by Xiaokang Group, the M5 will be mainly produced at the Liangjiang plant in Chongqing, which has a production capacity of 30 vehicles per hour and a monthly output of 15,000 vehicles (double shift system), roughly calculating its annual production capacity of about 180,000 vehicles. That number is a far cry from Huawei's target of 300,000 vehicles.
Some industry insiders believe that in order to solve the problem of insufficient production capacity, Huawei may increase investment to increase production lines or rectify production lines.
According to the 2020 annual report of Xiaokang Co., Ltd., its Sandian Intelligent Factory in Chongqing High-tech Zone and its Vehicle Intelligent Factory in Shapingba are under construction. However, the capacity situation has not yet been disclosed, and there is no news at present when the new plant will be completed and put into operation.
Quality control is also a big issue. Future Auto Daily searched for Cyrus SF5 on the black cat complaint platform and found that the number of related complaints has reached 135. In the relevant forums, the phenomenon of Cyrus SF5's stuttering, crashing, steering wheel deviation and other phenomena have become the main reasons for car owners' complaints.
In addition to common problems, there are also owners who report that the front camera and right camera of the Cyris SF5 have been faulty, and real-time images cannot be seen in the picture; more owners have reported that the model has had a sudden stop during driving.
However, an OEM insider told Future Auto Daily that although the current quality control of Xiaokang is not satisfactory, the chances of Huawei finding new partners are not large, because "two (different companies) factories cannot guarantee the consistency of quality."
On the other hand, huawei is currently divided into two business lines in the automotive field, 2C and 2B, which are carried by Huawei's smart selection and HI models respectively. An industry insider believes that at this stage, Huawei can only promote more car companies and Huawei to cooperate with Huawei if it does a good job in AITO models and allows consumers to recognize the M5.
According to the information disclosed by the two sides, Xiaokang is responsible for the research and development, manufacturing, delivery, service and creation of the user experience of the AITO brand; Huawei is deeply involved in product definition, quality control and channel sales.
An employee of the Jinkang Technology Center told Future AutoMotive Daily that compared with the Race Lance SF5, Huawei's participation in the AITO brand has deepened. Zhou Lin, executive deputy general manager of Jinkang Xilisi Technology Center and general manager of the product line, revealed in an interview that since March 2021, Huawei's team has gradually penetrated into Xiaokang, including the R&D team, and the number has reached 400 to 500 people.
At the same time, Yu Chengdong once again stressed that Huawei "does not build cars", and Xiaokang has repeatedly reiterated that he is "not a foundry", not in the past, not now, and not in the future. An industry insider believes that in the cooperation between Huawei and Xiaokang, although Xiaokang has less right to speak, fundamentally speaking, the AITO brand belongs to Xiaokang. "(AITO) will be more like 'glory' in the future, although it is not Huawei's, but everyone will think that (AITO's) car is Huawei's car."
The author | Ding unique
Edit the | Li Huanhuan