A few days ago, Baoneng Automobile held a new car tasting meeting and brought two new cars.
One is called BAO GX5 and the other is called QOROS 6.
The former is Baoneng's new energy brand BAO, and the latter is the familiar Qoros.
By the way, I also saw in the comments section that a lot of people are concerned about the question of "when to pay"...
So what did Po go through? What is the origin of these two new cars? Let's talk about them today.
Baoneng Group, Baoneng Automobile BAO, Qoros Automobile, it sounds chaotic enough.
Let's sort out the relationship first.
First of all, Baoneng Group is not a car company, it has four sectors: high-end manufacturing, international logistics, comprehensive development, and people's livelihood services.
Baoneng Automobile is one of the businesses that belongs to the high-end manufacturing sector.
As for the BAO brand just mentioned, it is a brand new brand released by Baoneng Automobile last year, focusing on luxury intelligent new energy vehicles.
What is the relationship between Baoneng and Qoros?
In 2018, Baoneng Group acquired chery's sold shares for 6.63 billion yuan, holding 51% of Qoros' shares, so Qoros was managed by Baoneng Group.
Therefore, now both THE BAO and QOROS brands are Baoneng Group, and the brand positioning of BAO is higher than that of Qoros.
It is worth mentioning that the establishment time of Baoneng Automobile is 2017, which is earlier than the acquisition of Qoros, so Baoneng has already planned to build a car. Baoneng's acquisition of Changan PSA is in 2020.
Those who were not born to build cars, and later acquired from many parties to participate in the construction of cars, are often referred to as new forces.
However, Baoneng is not very similar to other new forces.
It is not like Xiaomi, these technology companies want to build cars, unlike Weilai/Xiaopeng, which are Internet cross-border car manufacturers, unlike the leaders of traditional car companies who start a car again...
Because Baoneng has both a BAO new energy brand and a traditional brand like Qoros, it does not feel like a new force.
Look back at the two new cars.
BAO GX5 is a new energy SUV, the style takes a cross-border route, in addition to the logo of Baoneng Group. There are many cameras and millimeter-wave radar on the body, and it is estimated that the driving assistance function will be more complete.
BAO GX5 is expected to launch two configurations, the cruising range is 700km and 800km, respectively, the corresponding zero hundred acceleration time is within 8s and 4.5s, so the high-end model should be more interesting.
In addition, the new car is expected to roll off the production line in July this year.
Curiously, it seems that the entire network can not find the picture of the rear of the BAO GX5.
By the way, the BAO brand positioning is not only higher than Qoros, it will also benchmark the Mercedes-Benz BMW level... But Baoneng knows that the brand power is inferior to luxury car companies, so it has also been said that the pricing of BAO models will be lower than some luxury brands.
So I guessed that this BAO GX5 might be in the 200,000-300,000 range.
Speaking of which, I am reminded of one thing.
Now many car companies like to openly solicit car names, but when Baoneng released the BAO brand, it was a public collection of brand Slogan...
The importance of Slogan to a brand is self-evident.
Slogan was called for because he didn't even know what to do? Or are you just looking for a more casual Slogan? This is likely to cause some misunderstanding.
On the same stage was Qoros' new model, the QOROS 6.
It can also be called Qoros 6.
The QOROS 6 is a sedan whose design is different from other Qoros, and the overall design is more modern.
Later, the official picture was officially released, which was the design of the fuel version.
In addition, there is a pure electric version, and the details are different, such as the closed front face.
This year, Qoros 6 also played a slippery style, and I feel that the proportions are still harmonious enough. The dimensions are 4800/1874/1460mm in length, width and height, and the wheelbase is 2820mm.
And everyone cares about the dynamic aspect.
The fuel version will use a combination of 1.5T+6-speed dual-clutch transmission, maximum horsepower of 177Ps, maximum torque of 260N·m, and acceleration time of 0-100km/h of 8.5s.
The pure electric version of the model will be available in two configurations, 52kWh lithium iron phosphate battery and 72kWh ternary lithium battery, with a range of 450km and 600km respectively.
In fact, after Baoneng acquired Qoros, it launched a compact SUV - Qoros 7, I believe everyone has heard of it.
(Data source Sohu Automobile)
However, the high-profile Qoros 7 did not bring a good turn for Qoros or Baoneng, and its sales in 2021 basically belong to the marginal category in the compact SUV market.
Therefore, the launch of Qoros 6 will be another highlight of Qoros betting on the future.
Baoneng earlier announced that it would invest 10 billion yuan in Qoros from 2018 for new car research and development, and is expected to launch 26 new cars by 2022. However, this is clearly not done.
The reason for this is largely due to the lack of money.
(Image from the Internet)
At the beginning of 2021, Baoneng Automobile was exposed to the problems of arrears of employee wages, provident fund, and social security. In July, Baoneng Automobile also launched the second batch of layoff plans, and it is said that the employees in the automotive sector have been reduced from 23,000 to about 8,400.
So whenever there is any disturbance in Baoneng or Qoros, the comment area can see the discussion related to salary payment: Even when soliciting Slogan, he was ridiculed: "Bao, first settle the salary."
There are other rumors about Baoneng's new car.
Probably means that Baoneng is in financial difficulties, and the BAO GX5 unveiled today is actually the previous test car GX16. At that time, because I owed money to various suppliers, I couldn't even do the follow-up series of tests and experiments.
"The first model of BAO is only under the banner of Baoneng, but it is actually made by Shanghai Qoros", which is another corresponding statement.
How hard is Baoneng?
Baoneng Group's listed companies disclosed in October last year that Baoneng Group had a liquidity gap of about 20 billion yuan, so it was accelerating the processing of assets.
In terms of the automotive sector alone.
Even as a travel company under Baoneng Automobile, Linkage Cloud, has to rely on the wholesale sale of "Qoros tens of thousands of pieces" to withdraw funds for Baoneng and survive this long-standing capital crisis as much as possible.
So can Baoneng build a car in the end?
In the face of new car-making forces, everyone usually cares about the same question: Is it for "circle money"? And Baoneng has such problems as funds, which is easier to attract attention.
If you look at it from the current layout, Baoneng does not build a car like it is to "circle money".
First of all, Baoneng Group itself has not been listed, and there have been many car-making forces that are simply for "pit money", that is, through listing financing and other ways to achieve their goals.
Why is the group short of funds and can still build new cars?
In fact, the headquarters of Baoneng New Energy Automobile Group is located in Guangzhou Development Zone, where manufacturing, research and development, and operation can be done. The point is that the state-owned enterprises in the Guangzhou Development Zone have strategically invested 12 billion yuan in Baoneng New Energy Automobile Group, which is to help Baoneng develop new energy vehicles.
As a result, Baoneng Automobile's new car debut is considered by many people to be inseparable from this large investment.
By the way, Baoneng also has a lot of resources in car building.
Just said that Baoneng acquired Changan PSA, in fact, this is different from the purpose of acquiring Qoros. Baoneng pays more attention to the original asset value of Changan PSA, such as having two vehicle plants and an engine plant in Shenzhen.
In addition, Baoneng Group's own business can also help the development of the automotive sector, such as logistics business to provide warehousing and transportation services, CSG Group involved in automotive glass.
Of course, these can be seen as the advantages of Baoneng Group, but the car manufacturing line is not good, and ultimately it depends on the car line.
Baoneng is currently taking the "double brand" strategy.
Among them, for the Qoros brand, Baoneng's plan is much more low-key than before: in the future, Qoros Automobile will continue to carry out the route of "oil and electricity", and maintain the rhythm of launching at least 1-2 new cars per year from Qoros 7.
Therefore, the launch of the Qoros 6 is to bring up the rhythm.
In contrast, the development of the BAO brand, which focuses on the new energy market, is more difficult, after all, the brand awareness is not high, and the first model has not really been introduced to the market.
While the brand is new, the team can be "old" ...
(Toshiaki Otani)
New brands are indispensable to "digging people". In 2020, Toshiaki Otani, who served as the former general manager of Dongfeng Nissan and the director of Nissan's global electric vehicle/battery business department, joined Baoneng Motors.
Look at some other executives, including Kazuo Yajima (former developer of the Nissan Leaf series), Yukio Kishida (former head of Nissan AESC) and so on... Many of them have relevant experience with new energy and battery business.
How I feel this is doing the rhythm of "Another Nissan"... Of course, this can also be seen that Baoneng attaches great importance to the level of new energy technology.
Even if the team is strong, Baoneng seems to have more to solve than that.
For example, while Baoneng continues to expand the number of directly operated stores, the services of existing stores are often the problems that car owners or consumers complain about, and some consumers complain that they can't get a car for several months, and pre-sales and after-sales are not ideal...
Therefore, in addition to the driving role of the team behind it, the ability of Baoneng to build cars ultimately depends on the performance of the front-line battlefield.
It can make consumers go from wanting to buy to really buying, and the effort to be done must be more than a word difference. In the final analysis, the decision is in the hands of Baoneng.
It is still too early to make a conclusion about the future of Baoneng, at least until the launch of the BAO GX5 and Qoros 6.
And these two cars will be the new beginning of Baoneng or will it directly light up the bottom card? We really just have to wait and see...
Finally, what are your thoughts on the future of these two brands?