The author | Pen Spring and Autumn
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Recently, Daniela Cavallo, president of the Volkswagen Union, told the media, "Volkswagen must take more active actions in China to better understand the needs of Chinese consumers and gain more market share, especially in the software field." ”
Cavallo's comments are based on Volkswagen's failure to achieve its stated goals by 2021.
Sales are less than expected, Volkswagen electric vehicles are not god?
According to Volkswagen's 2021 sales, Volkswagen China's deliveries in China in 2021 were 3.3 million units, down 14% year-on-year, and the overall performance was poor.
In terms of new energy vehicles, according to Volkswagen's previous plan, 80,000-100,000 electric vehicles will be sold in the Chinese market in 2021, but it will eventually only sell 70,625 electric vehicles in China.
Fortunately, with the arrival of ID.6 and ID.3, as well as the ramp-up of production capacity, the Volkswagen ID series product matrix has gradually formed, and its delivery volume has also begun to climb. Delivered 5,810 vehicles in July, 7,023 vehicles in August, and the delivery volume in September exceeded 10,000 units for the first time, reaching 10,126 units, becoming the first domestic traditional car company with a monthly delivery of pure electric models of a joint venture brand.
In the following months, the Volkswagen ID series has been stable at a sales level of breaking 10,000. In December, sales of the ID series reached 13,787 units, selling more than 10,000 units for the fourth consecutive month. It can be seen that compared with the tepid ID series in the first half of the year, in the second half of the year, the Volkswagen ID series has gained a firm foothold. If the Volkswagen ID series is compared to a "new force", then its monthly sales of more than 10,000 results also allow volkswagen ID to stand on the same front as new forces such as "Wei Xiaoli".
However, is this something to be proud of? For the public, such achievements are obviously not enough! After all, "you're a public"!
According to data released by Volkswagen China, the cumulative sales volume of the Volkswagen ID series in China in 2021 was 70,625 units, and it failed to achieve the sales target of 80,000 to 100,000 vehicles set at the beginning of the year. For a car brand like Volkswagen, which has a volume of 3 million in China, the achievement of less than 100,000 vehicles is really a bit out of hand. In contrast, Tesla in the Chinese market has exceeded 50,000 wholesale vehicles for many consecutive months, and in 2021, China's sales have reached 320743, far exceeding Volkswagen.
So, this makes people wonder, why do Volkswagen electric vehicles not work in China? What is the problem with volkswagen?
Lagging behind in software prowess
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Herbert Diess once said, "In the future car competition, in-vehicle software will account for 90% of future automotive innovation." Tesla's advanced software systems in the field of electric vehicles have posed a threat to volkswagen. So Diess is pushing Volkswagen's software business unit to implement a "Tesla catch-up program."
How powerful is Tesla's software? Through the OTA update, Tesla can increase the range, improve the intelligent driving assistance capability, and even shorten the braking distance and increase the acceleration of 100 kilometers. In the past, it may have been necessary to go to a 4S store or a modification shop to complete the project, tesla only needs to achieve remotely.
In terms of software strength, Chinese brands represented by "Wei Xiaoli" also have certain strength, although they cannot surpass Tesla, but they are also much better than traditional car companies such as Volkswagen.
Take the Volkswagen ID series, its intelligent voice control system only supports functions such as listening to music and opening navigation, and even conventional operations such as controlling the skylight cannot be realized. The 100,000-class models of domestic independent brands can achieve these functions two years ago. Moreover, there are countless complaints about the ID series of car machines on the Internet. For example, the function is backward, and there are often card machines, and the design and operation experience of the car machine interface cannot be compared with brands such as Tesla and "Wei Xiaoli".
As for autonomous driving, not to mention, the intelligent driving of the ID series is currently only the most basic function, such as adaptive endurance, lane departure assistance and so on. Like Tesla and Xiaopeng, it is already possible to achieve "automatic driving in some urban scenes", such as having the ability of intelligent auxiliary traffic at traffic light intersections, customized follow-up of urban road conditions, intelligent auxiliary overtaking of urban road conditions, intelligent auxiliary speed limit adjustment, and intelligent auxiliary traffic around the island. In contrast, the Volkswagen ID series can not be done, let alone like Tesla, through remote upgrades, it can improve the performance of the vehicle and other operations.
In short, Volkswagen's definition of electric vehicles still stays in the era of fuel vehicles, still very "Volkswagen", moderate, ordinary design, lack of eye-catching intelligent experience. In the "Post-90s Car Preference Survey" report released by Tencent, more than 61% of post-90s generations believe that high-tech is a factor that must be considered when buying a car. Obviously, in terms of intelligence that young people pay attention to, the public has fallen behind, and the reason for the lag is that there is no strong software strength.
The proxy mode is weak
Diess has said before that electric vehicles cannot be sold, mainly because the terminal is not powerful.
In order to promote the sales of electric vehicles, North and South Volkswagen has adopted a new agency system model, that is, to select a part of the original dealers, let them sell electric vehicles in their own stores, the ownership of exhibition cars and test drives belongs to the manufacturers, and the agent stores are responsible for the display, invitation, test drive, delivery and after-sales of the vehicle, relying on the transaction volume and service to obtain commissions.
To put it simply, compared with the traditional distribution model, Volkswagen's agency model will adopt transparent unified pricing, consumers do not have to waste unnecessary energy in the bargaining process, and put their time in the product experience. And dealers will not have inventory pressure, while being able to do a better job. In this way, it is undoubtedly a matter of killing two birds with one stone.
But the reality is also not as beautiful as imagined. According to relevant sources, in order to stimulate the sales of electric vehicles, the commission given by the bicycle reached nearly 10,000 yuan. But even so, it can not improve the enthusiasm of salespeople and 4S stores.
On the one hand, electric vehicles themselves are niche products, and dealers are more willing to focus on fuel vehicles to alleviate the pressure on inventory. In this case, the 4S store has no motivation to sell electric vehicles; on the other hand, the success rate of electric vehicle sales is very low, and the process is complicated, and it is necessary to serve from product introduction to finally install charging piles for users. Compared with the new models such as Weilai and Ideal that separate sales and delivery, salespeople are very difficult and naturally will not be keen to promote their own electric vehicles.
Volkswagen naturally recognizes this, including the north and south of the public are actively layout experience store model, such as in the crowded business district into the experience store, but whether it is scale, speed, size, and service, there is a big gap with the new car-making forces.
There is not much time left for the masses
As one of the world's top two automobile companies, Volkswagen electric vehicles not only can not sell Tesla, but even with Xiaopeng and other independent brand new forces, there is a certain gap, which may be Volkswagen should also be very confused. However, there is probably no one more interested in success in the electric vehicle market than Volkswagen.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Customs and the State Administration of Market Regulation jointly issued the Announcement on the Average Fuel Consumption of Chinese Passenger Car Enterprises and the Credits for New Energy Vehicles in 2021. In terms of new energy points, the top three are Tesla, BYD and SAIC-GM-Wuling. The top three companies whose average fuel consumption is not up to standard are FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC-Volkswagen and Dongfeng Motor. Among them, FAW-Volkswagen generated a total of 1.183 million negative points, and SAIC Volkswagen generated 690,000 negative points, and the sum of the two was -1.873 million.
According to foreign media reports: last year, Volkswagen bought Tesla points for 3,000 yuan per minute, a total of 3.6 billion yuan, which is obviously an astronomical figure. It is understood that Tesla's revenue from sales credits in 2020 totaled $1.58 billion, not only much higher than the previous two years of $419 million and $593 million, but also more than the company's net profit of $721 million.
Moreover, some experts predict that it will rise to 5,000 yuan at the end of this year, because the current negative fuel consumption points have far exceeded the positive integration of new energy, and the supply is seriously in short supply. It can be seen that the public will have to pay a very high price for this. This is also an important reason for the urgent transformation of volkswagen.
Answer the comment
At present, the industry has formed a consensus, after 2025, new energy will usher in a critical period of development, then before 2025, volkswagen can not launch eye-catching intelligent products, and reform their own sales channels, which is undoubtedly a big test for the public. There is really not much time left for the public!