Not long ago, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers announced the 2021 production and sales data, with annual production and sales of 26.082 million units and 26.275 million units, respectively. The significance of the two data is that in the face of chip shortage and repeated difficulties of the epidemic, China's auto market has ended three consecutive declines, ending with a synchronous growth of more than 3%.
China's auto market has successfully broken through, and every car company is making 100% efforts, and SAIC-GM is also one of them. In 2021, the three major brands of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac sold more than 1.33 million vehicles throughout the year, actively adjusting resources and optimizing the allocation of production capacity, and the final result was that the transaction price of each brand increased by 6-16%. SAIC-GM naturally understands the gold content of this report card, and after the high-quality end of 2021, they are rapidly investing in the transformation of 2022.
Three major brands, a clear upward path
In 2021, SAIC-GM is still in the top three of annual sales. In the face of the shortage of chip supply that has lasted for a whole year, this achievement is very difficult.
SAIC-GM has three major brands, Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac, how to better adjust the allocation of resources and stabilize the production capacity supply of key models of each brand is a problem that SAIC-GM has spent a lot of effort to solve in the past year.
Judging from the results, SAIC-GM does have the ability and tenacity of large enterprises to deal with risks. Let's take a look at what the three brands will reap in 2021.
In the mainstream family car field, Buick's brand image has been continuously promoted by the sales of high-end models, and in the terminal market, the positioning of high-end has been further consolidated.
Under the influence of saic-GM system adjustment, Chevrolet has a better development in 2021, with the popularity of the light mix system, Chevrolet Maribor XL, Explorer and Pioneer at the same level of cost performance highlighted, after the increase in sales, the three big cars in the whole brand accounted for nearly 50%.
In the Chinese market, Chevrolet has always been based on a distinct American and athletic personality, and now the three global models of Maribao XL, Explorer and Trailblazer have achieved sales growth, but in fact, they have also brought positive impacts to the Chevrolet brand from the perspective of recognition and word of mouth.
As for Cadillac, the traditional luxury car market where it is located is actually not optimistic in 2021. The chip crisis is only one of them, and the impact brought by the new forces led by Tesla and Weilai is equally fatal, and the final result is that traditional luxury brands such as Audi and Lexus have experienced negative growth. In this environment, Cadillac still set a new record with annual sales of 233,117 vehicles, and sales of sedan and SUV series were "evenly matched".
If cadillac mainly relies on SUVs in 2020, then with the CT4, CT5 after-wheel drive performance, American luxury and other labels in the luxury car market to establish competitiveness, in fact, in 2021 Cadillac's sales share, the car has contributed nearly half, especially CT5 increased by 13.6% year-on-year. As for the SUV field, the XT6 is still the TOP position of the 400,000-level luxury large SUV, with a year-on-year increase of 43.1% in 2021.
When we look back at the sales performance of SAIC-GM's three major brands in 2021, we can easily find a commonality: after actively solving the problems of chip supply and capacity allocation at the group level, Buick, Chevrolet, and Cadillac have shown flexibility and anti-risk ability in their respective competitive fields; rhythmically completing the replacement of product series, the sales structure of the three brands has shown a steady upward trend.
Aote can land, full speed transformation and upgrading
When analyzing Cadillac's sales, we noticed the crisis of traditional luxury brands. The price segment of 250,000-400,000 yuan has always been the comfort zone of luxury brands, but the arrival of new forces has in fact shaken the inherent status of luxury brands. In 2022, with the continuous penetration of smart electric vehicles, the pressure on traditional luxury brands will only be greater.
We're less worried about Cadillac. In 2021, while actively responding to the challenge of fuel vehicle production capacity, SAIC-GM quickly introduced the Ultium Aotene electric vehicle platform, and the first Cadillac LYRIQ born here has already been released to the public and entered the pre-sale process.
As GM's most advanced intelligent and electrified platform in the world, Aoteneng entered China just one year after its official launch in North America, behind which is SAIC-GM's active promotion of the forward-looking strategic plan of "electrification, intelligence and networking".
In fact, in the past 2021, one of the key tasks of SAIC-GM is the transformation and upgrading of the powertrain.
Aoteneng is naturally the focus. In October 2021, before cadillac LYRIQ officially opened the pre-sale, the Aoteneng Super Factory has been completed and put into operation at the Shanghai Jinqiao Base, and together with the Pan-Asia New Energy Test Building and the Guangde Battery Safety Laboratory, which were opened in March last year, SAIC-GM already has a full-link new energy complete system capability.
In the matter of electrification transformation, we always say that it is difficult for traditional car companies to turn around. But in the case of SAIC-GM's introduction of Aoteneng, what we actually see is the ability and boldness of large enterprises.
Before Aoteneng, SAIC-GM was not without technical accumulation in the field of new energy, and the sales performance of the Buick micro-blue series and Chevrolet Changhuan in 2021 has made SAIC-GM the top three in the sales of new energy vehicles of joint venture brands. However, after all, the Aoteneng platform is a highly intelligent and high-performance platform covering a variety of product types and multiple drive forms, and the battery research and development and local development based on this require a lot of investment and preparation.
In October 2021, the Aoteneng Super Factory was put into operation, which saw the execution of the big factories from the time, and also because of the accumulation of SAIC-GM in the research and development, test verification, supply system and other aspects of new energy vehicle technology over the years, the rapid landing of Aoteneng became a fact, from the time and technology, SAIC-GM has already had the foundation to lead the development of electrification.
Of course, the landing of Aoteneng is not just to keep Cadillac competitive as a luxury brand. Starting from 2022, Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac will successively complete the electrification transformation on the Aoteneng platform, from cars to SUVs to CUV, Aoteneng has given a variety of product types a flexible development basis, front-drive, rear-drive, four-wheel drive drive forms and a variety of battery sizes, which ensure that Aoteneng products have a higher performance ceiling, which will be the next stage of SAIC-GM competitiveness.
In fact, from the sales and awards won by SAIC-GM in 2021, it can be known that technology has always been its market appeal. The three brand models have successively popularized the 48V light hybrid and the eighth-generation Ecotec 1.5T engine, allowing consumers to see the possibility of continuous progress of traditional fuel vehicles, and SAIC-GM's dedication to technology has finally been transformed into market affirmation and sales have risen.
Intelligence + network connection, technology creates value
When reviewing the development process in 2021, SAIC-GM mentioned that in the past year, they have made many in-vehicle interconnection system functions upgrades for 1.37 million products under Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac. OTAs have become a highly valued ability for consumers when choosing their products, and in 2022, SAIC-GM will continue to continuously improve the product experience through OTAs.
OTA is a manifestation of SAIC-GM's intelligent development strategy, as early as 2018 SAIC-GM put forward the concept of "second engine", when in the three brands respectively promoted the localization of intelligent car research and development, focusing on infotainment, voice recognition, network upgrades, personal accounts and other close to the use of mobile terminals.
At that time, SAIC-GM had already taken the lead in providing 100G of free traffic per year, and the intelligent car machine experience was also one of the best in the joint venture car companies at that time. By 2021, when SAIC-GM once again mentions the accelerated landing of intelligence and networking, in fact, we can already see its new accumulation in this field.
The same is the OTA, by 2021 SAIC-GM launched new products, such as Buick Encore PLUS, is already based on a new generation of VIP electronic architecture products, which means that they have the ability of vehicle internal communication, data transmission, from the previous SOTA based on the vehicle system to the FOTA of the vehicle, including the upgrade of the power system and vehicle functions.
The introduction of vip electronic architecture is a continuation of the advantages of the traditional fuel vehicle field for SAIC-GM, because it gives the fuel vehicle the ability to iteratively upgrade.
This year, SAIC-GM will also introduce a new generation of VCS intelligent cockpit system, a concept that allows users to extend the technology experience from one screen to the entire cockpit, including intelligent interconnection and intelligent driving. The GM VCS smart cockpit will integrate advanced hardware equipment and interactive technologies, such as the command lane change and automatic lane change functions of the new generation Super Cruise, and then combine 5G communication and V2X vehicle-to-road coordination to achieve a higher level of driving assistance. As soon as we can see the ILC driver command lane change function on some models of the Buick GL8 launched earlier this year, SAIC-GM will also try to upgrade the OTA remote driving assistance system.
In North America, Super Cruise has long been the signature of General Motors, winning the Consumer Reports assisted driving evaluation championship in the United States for two consecutive years, but when it was previously introduced to China and applied to cadillac CT6, the functionality based on high-precision maps was limited.
With the landing of SAIC-GM's intelligent and networked strategy, in the next 5 years, Super Cruise will continue to iterate, and will continue to cover a variety of models of buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac brands, and create a comprehensive experience of intelligent cockpit together with intelligent interconnection system and OnStar, bringing more product value with scientific and technological innovation.
Asteron summary
In the past two years, the low profile of traditional car companies has made us mistakenly think that they are hesitant and difficult to transform on the road of transformation, but in fact, it is not the case, and the performance of SAIC-GM in 2021 is a good interpretation of "accumulation and thin hair": on the one hand, the continuous upward movement of traditional advantages, on the other hand, the steady advancement of electrification and intelligent transformation. In 2022, under the guidance of the strategic planning of "electrification, intelligence and networking", we will see SAIC-GM continue to perform well in the new science and technology track.
Figure | Sourced from the web
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