On January 17, the new Ford Mondeo was officially unveiled, the new car in the appearance of the continuation of the previously launched Ford EVOS family design, is expected to be officially listed within this year, and according to Ford's previously released information, in addition to the Chinese market, Ford Mondeo will be officially suspended in March this year, the future Ford in the overseas market will focus on electrification and cross-border models, SUV models. Although it is not excluded that the new Ford Mondeo, a model unique to the Chinese market, may be produced by Changan Ford and sold overseas in the future, it is clear that the new Ford Mondeo will become one of the only remaining fuel cars in Ford's product line. So what is the future of the new Ford Mondeo in the domestic B-segment car market?
The B-class car market is pouring in, and the traditional forces are no longer beautiful
Judging from the sales pattern of the domestic B-class car market in 2021, the best-selling model in the domestic B-class car market in 2021 is not a German joint venture B-class car such as Passat and Maiteng, nor a Japanese joint venture B-class car such as Camry and Accord, but the most unexpected dark horse - Tesla Model 3.
In 2021, Tesla Model 3 sales in the domestic B-class car market reached 272,972 units, which is nearly 100,000 more than the second-ranked GAC Toyota Camry (179,776 units sold in 2021), which is enough to highlight Tesla's strong appeal in the domestic passenger car market, making the pressure on many fuel B-class cars.
At the same time, from the sales list of domestic B-class cars in 2021, we can also find very obvious that the sales of Audi A4L, BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class in 2021 will exceed 100,000 units, of which BMW 3 Series will sell more than 170,000 vehicles in 2021, and Audi A4L will exceed 130,000 vehicles. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class is close behind with sales of about 126,000 units, while the traditional joint venture B-class sales champions FAW-Volkswagen Magotan and SAIC Volkswagen Passat have a poor sales performance in 2021, with the Passat selling only 114,769 units in the whole year, and the Japanese joint venture B-class cars in which camry, Accord and Tianlai performed much better than Maiten and Passat.
In contrast, as one of the first joint venture B-class models to enter the Chinese market, Changan Ford Mondeo sold only 33,302 vehicles in 2021, which is slightly better than in 2020 (25,027 units in 2020), but compared to the annual sales of more than 120,000 units at the peak of Mondeo, the gap is really large. Especially in 2018, Mondeo's sales fell directly from 111,364 vehicles in 2017 to 45,405 vehicles, more than half of which was cut in half, which is largely due to the fact that Mondeo's ultra-long life cycle makes its product competitiveness appear out of place in the increasingly fierce competitive pattern of the B-class car market, coupled with the impact of some negative information, making its sales continue to decline.
Cars are still the backbone of sales The key to Changan Ford's comeback is the new Mondeo
In fact, from the sales changes of Changan Ford in recent years, it can also be seen that since the total sales of Changan Ford brand began to decline sharply in 2018, the proportion of Mondeo in brand sales has not decreased much, although Changan Ford has gradually launched SUVs and crossover models such as Explorer, Ruiji, Ruijie, EVOS, etc., but the sales of cars represented by Forres, Fox, Mondeo, taurus still account for a large proportion. Changan Ford's best-selling model, the Forris, sold 43,001 units in 2021, and the second-place model was the Mondeo, which further proved that the sedan is still the pillar of Changan Ford's sales.
However, as far as the current competitiveness of the current Mondeo is concerned, it is difficult to help Changan Ford have too high a harvest in the joint venture B-class car market, and the Changan Ford EVOS that was previously unveiled has accumulated some popularity, but the Changan Ford EVOS positioned in a medium-sized SUV is still more unusual, and the new Ford Mondeo is obviously a more important mainstream model, so we see that the new Ford Mondeo unveiled this time uses the same new family design elements as EVOS, and the front face is an octagonal grille. The interior is a dot matrix layout, with split lights and a three-stage air intake design below, the overall look is very stylish and dynamic.
In addition, the new Ford Mondeo is also equipped with the ST-Line exterior kit, and the ordinary model is mainly distinguished in the front enclosing area, which uses a personalized black decorative strip through the lower air intake and extends upwards to the far and near light area on the outside, the sense of sport is more prominent, the hidden door handle is also very in line with the current trend, coupled with the taillight shape of the tail through, the interior of the light cavity also adopts a classic "three vertical" structure similar to the Ford Mustang, which is much better than the current Ford Mondeo in terms of visual perception.
And in terms of body size, the new Ford Mondeo length, width and height are 4935×1875×1500mm, wheelbase is 2945mm, compared to the current Ford Mondeo has a great improvement, its wheelbase and Ford EVOS is comparable, close to The Ford Taurus, the body length is longer than the Ford EVOS, reaching the level of B+ class cars.
At the same time, in the interior, the new Ford Mondeo is also more scientific and technological, basically continuing the interior design style of Ford EVOS, intelligent hugging cockpit integrates large-size HD LCD dashboards and integrated central control screens, and through the extension and spanning of design elements such as trims and stitches, the design elements such as instrument panels and door trim panels are perfectly integrated, and the visual width of the car is widened at the same time, which also makes the interior space appear more atmospheric and futuristic.
In terms of configuration and power, the new Ford Mondeo is also advancing with the times, and the new Ford EVOS is equipped with Ford's new generation of electronic and electrical architecture - FNV intelligent interconnection network architecture, using SYNC+ 2.0 Intelligent Mobility Interconnection System, with AI intelligent voice interaction system, VPA Zhixing partner, on-board 4G Wi-Fi hotspot, vehicle OTA online upgrade and other functions, and such as face recognition, gesture recognition and other functions. At the same time, the power combination of the 238-horsepower, 376N·m 2.0T turbocharged engine and the 8-speed automatic transmission is also consistent with the new Ford EVOS, which is also very good in performance.
From the current pattern of the domestic B-class car market, the market space left for the new Ford Mondeo is not large, but if the new Ford Mondeo can give a more sincere pricing in terms of product competitiveness and price, it may not be possible to create a new world in the fiercely competitive B-class car market, for Changan Ford, although electrification and SUV, crossover market is an important direction for transformation, but in the premise that fuel vehicles, especially cars, are still sales support, the market performance of the new Mondeo, It is a key model for the Ford brand to achieve a turnaround in China, and it is expected that this model will bring more surprises to everyone after it is officially launched.