After 7 years of withdrawal, Opel will return in the form of domestic production.
Author: Lu Weijia
Seven years after exiting the Chinese market, Opel Motors has been rumored to be back.
Recently, a Stellantis Group insider revealed to the domestic media that Opel Motors is currently negotiating relevant cooperation matters with Dongfeng Group, and in the future, Opel Motors will return to the Chinese market in the form of domestic production, and the launched models will be based on the existing platform of PSA Group and produced in line with the group's models.
It has been delayed by GM
Looking back at Opel's journey in the Chinese market, it was not a short one.
Although Opel Motors entered the Chinese market as early as 1993, but Opel as an ordinary car brand, has not been in the Chinese market to achieve localization to establish a price advantage, and the layout of the product line is not perfect, the models launched by it are mostly unpopular cars in the Chinese market, resulting in the brand's presence in the Chinese market for more than 20 years is extremely low, even in 2015 when it withdrew from the Chinese market, Opel is a little-known car brand.
Therefore, although Opel has been born for nearly 160 years, and for many years the market share in the European market is second only to Volkswagen, Renault, Peugeot/Citroen and other brands, its annual sales in the Chinese market are only a few thousand, and even the small goal of 30,000 vehicles per year cannot be achieved.
Of course, the reason why Opel Auto will fail, in addition to not considering the realization of localization and the brand bias to a niche, is actually because it is restricted by the General Motors Group.
Since Opel Automobile was acquired by GM Group in 1931, it has been used by GM as a weapon to open the European market, and GM Group has limited Opel Automobile to the European market in order to avoid the formation of a competitive relationship with the Buick and Chevrolet brands after Opel Motors enter the Chinese market.
However, only a few people know that Opel is still closely linked to the Chinese market, and GM has been applying Opel's research and development results (platform and models) in Europe to the Chevrolet and Buick brands. Buick Regal is a rebranded version of Opel Insoya, Oncora is a rebranded Grandland, the previous generation of Veyron is a rebrand Atter, and Chevrolet Coppache is a rebrand of Andra.
It should be emphasized that all shell-changing models derived from Opel are priced more than Opel prototypes under the premise of higher brand awareness. To give a few examples, Buick Regal's starting price is less than 200,000 yuan, but Opel Insoya's starting price is higher than 300,000 yuan; Astra's starting price is about 30,000 yuan higher than Willon; and Andra's starting price is 80,000 yuan higher than That of Kopac.
It can be seen that the products developed by Opel Motors have actually been recognized by the Chinese market to some extent, but based on the constraints of General Motors, Opel Motors' 22-year journey in the Chinese market continues to be sluggish.
When the time came to 2017, GM based on the commercial strategy of "use up and discard", after squeezing out the residual value of Opel Motors, sold 100% of the equity of Opel Motors to the Stellantis Group, a joint venture between PSA and Fiat Chrysler.
Goodbye is already a pure electric brand
But then again, although the Chinese market indirectly recognizes Opel's products, if Opel Cars wants to successfully open up the Chinese market today, it must come up with new and competitive products. As for the domestic models that have been re-marked by GM, Opel Motors obviously cannot reuse them.
Perhaps Opel Motors also knows that its brand influence is not as good as Buick and Chevrolet, if it hastily introduces models such as Indo-Asia and Astra into domestic production, the result will inevitably be treated coldly by the market. So Michael Rochelle, CEO of Opel Motors, once said on The Stellantis Group Electric Vehicle Day: "We will return to China and bring 100% of Opel pure electric vehicles." ”
In other words, by the time Opel Returned to the Chinese market on another day, its identity had changed to a pure electric vehicle brand.
However, electrification reform is not easy, and if Opel Returns to the Chinese market as a pure electric vehicle, it is a challenge for both the Opel brand and the Stellantis Group to declare success.
So it's worrying that even though China is the world's largest new energy vehicle market, its market share exceeds 50% of the world's total. However, in this market of high-quality electric vehicles, consumers' requirements for electric vehicles are becoming higher and higher, and even Volkswagen, the brother of the joint venture brand, is currently relatively slow in the electrification process in the Chinese market.
I would like to ask Opel Motors, which is still in the stage of oil to electricity, what kind of electrification works can be put forward when it returns to the Chinese market? Based on this, I believe that none of you have much confidence in Opel's plans to produce and sell pure electric vehicles in China.
You say yes or no?
(Image from the Internet)
Today's topic
Are you optimistic about the return of Opel Motors?
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