The electrification transformation of the automotive industry is the trend of the times, and any car company cannot resist it, even the big devil who has been frantically attacking electric vehicles, "Akio Toyoda", has also compromised fiercely, and the irresistible trend can be seen from this. However, whether Toyota's trams can sell well, whether they can stay at the top of the sales list like its fuel vehicles, and whether Toyota can rely on trams to defend the country and mountains that have been hit by fuel vehicles in the future is still unknown.
We can't know the results of Toyota's electrification transformation for the time being, but the process of electrification transformation of luxury car companies such as BBA can be said to be relatively awkward as of now. How come the trams produced by BBA, a luxury brand, a big man in the fuel vehicle industry, and the arrogant overlord of the automotive industry, have not sold well and are sought after, but have made car companies and consumers buzz?
Let's first look at a representative work of luxury brand cars and the parameter comparison table of other brands of new energy vehicles.
From the table, it can be clearly seen that the representative work of the new energy model in the BBA, the tram that can be sold out of the hand compared with the current mainstream model of new energy vehicles, in addition to the price firmly occupying the "advantage", other parameters are relatively crotched, integrated together, exposing the extremely low cost-effective nature of the BBA new energy model, which in turn leads to the sales of BBA façade trams being lower than a mountain.
The only one that can get a hand in the three is the BMW iX3, with an annual sales volume of 21,000 vehicles, ranking among the best in the overall sales ranking of the new energy vehicle market, which is largely due to the fact that in early 2021, the price reduction of 70,000 in the 4 months of listing also made the BMW iX3 competitiveness increase sharply compared to the two competitors, which is also reflected in the sales volume. It can be seen that the inflated price is one of the reasons why the BBA new energy model pulls the crotch. As for the other reasons, let's analyze it below.
Non-pure electric platform
Mercedes-Benz EQC and even EQA and EQB are products developed on the fuel vehicle platform; The Audi e-tron is based on the MLB evo platform; BMW calls the BMW iX3 production platform "Smart Vehicle Architectures", and there will be gasoline, diesel, plug-in and pure electric drive forms on one platform. Translation: Non-pure electric platform.
The situation of non-pure electric platforms, which seems to be flexible, has many limitations. Flexibility is only for car companies, you can build multiple models on one platform. For a single model, such as a new energy model, the limitations are quite numerous.
Before talking about the specific limitations, let's briefly understand the significance of the platform for car companies and models.
Car companies develop platform technology, can develop a range of standards covering technical standards, power systems, vehicle manufacturing processes, and even production methods, quality monitoring standards, and other aspects, reducing manufacturing costs and improving product quality. The structure of the three major parts of traditional fuel vehicles largely determines the body layout and the utilization rate of space in the car. The new energy vehicle and fuel vehicle, the essence of the vehicle is not the same, two of the three major pieces have been replaced, the motor, electronic control, battery has become the core components of the electric vehicle, the transmission is no longer the traditional transmission, replaced by a simpler structure of single or two-speed transmission. From this point of view, the shared platform of oil trucks and trams is not a good solution.
In addition, electric vehicles need to focus on protecting the body parts are batteries, and fuel vehicles need to protect the engine and fuel tank, the three positions are different, and the protection focus is different, which leads to safety limitations.
In the frame part, the production of new energy models by the fuel vehicle platform can bring lower space utilization, more unreasonable mechanical layout, and lower overall safety, and the efficiency of the three-electric system will be greatly reduced.
In this context, the new energy model is built based on the fuel vehicle platform, and its limitations can be imagined, and the specific limitations will be reflected in the vehicle's endurance, energy consumption, practicality, safety and other aspects.
The development of pure electric platform requires tens of billions of cost inputs, if car companies do not have enough determination to the new energy route, it is understandable not to create a pure electric platform. Since they are reluctant to develop a pure electric platform but choose to build new energy vehicles, at least, they should let consumers see a reliable and acceptable model. However, the price of BBA's new energy vehicles is very expensive.
This can't help but remind people that the BBA did not identify the road of new energy at the beginning, and the creation of new energy models was a market test on the one hand, and on the other hand, it was a last resort under the pressure of carbon neutrality. From this point of view, buying BBA's current non-pure electric platform new energy models is like a guinea pig, which is using hard-earned money to pay for the tentative or purposeful behavior of luxury car companies.
Of course, it is not necessarily all hard-earned money, after all, the difficulty of making money is also very different for different people, but after all, money is not blown by the wind, and it is a pity to waste it in addition to this kind of car that abandons the brand premium and is far below the market average.
The car-making ideas of traditional car companies are inconsistent with the car purchase intentions of modern consumers
In the field of fuel vehicles, no one does not recognize the strong brand effect of BBA, but once it is replaced by the field of new energy vehicles, its brand effect of fuel vehicles can not have much effect. After all, consumers have established a more and more clear view of car purchase after entering the pit again and again, and improved the ability to seek advantages and avoid harms, and fewer and fewer consumers will only buy a valuable product for their feelings but do not agree with them.
In addition, the BBA and many traditional car companies' electrified models still use a family-style design language and lack of innovative spirit, which can easily cause aesthetic fatigue of consumers, which in turn leads to the fact that in the field of new energy vehicles, BBA's competitive strength at the same level is not so strong.
The entry of new forces of multi-share car manufacturing has further magnified the disadvantages of the transformation of traditional car companies
The advantages of traditional car companies in building cars are mainly concentrated on hardware technology and control, but the two major parts of the three major parts have been subverted, and their advantages have also been hit to a certain extent.
In terms of scientific and technological level, traditional car companies are naturally better than most of the new car-making forces, after all, many new car-making forces are originally high-tech enterprises, with the improvement of the degree of technology in modern society and the improvement of people's living standards, the demand for cars is also gradually spreading from hardware to software, comprehensively, the new energy models created by luxury brands, in addition to the price and brand, the products are really not competitive. Spending less money, buying a new power model with equal or even dominant quality and a higher degree of technology has naturally become a wise choice.
How do luxury car companies break through in the new energy market?
Entrepreneurs have an entrepreneurial perspective, and consumers have consumer analysis. The following is a simple analysis of the game-breaking method from the perspective of consumers.
First of all, if luxury car companies remain arrogant, the price will not drop, unless the parameters such as product strength are greatly improved, crushing the mainstream new energy models in the market. However, at present, the technology of new energy vehicles is basically in a bottleneck state, and the parameters will not be greatly improved for the time being, so maintaining arrogance and product strength unchanged is basically a dead end.
From another point of view, it seems that price reduction is not the style of luxury brands. BMW iX3 gained sweetness after the official drop of 70,000, because its pricing is not high compared to the other two. EQC and e-tron are priced higher than the other, much higher than the iX3, and although sales have not been good this year, the price is not low, and the price after the offer is equally prohibitive.
In this luxury car company to simulate the traditional Chinese car company, giving birth to a new luxury brand, perhaps a new choice.
summary
The electrification of the automotive industry has brought challenges that veteran mainstream car companies must face, providing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for new and non-mainstream car companies. The future of the automotive industry is unpredictable.
Regardless of the future of the automotive industry, for consumers: "good" to buy, "bad" not to buy, has always been so simple.