Ruilan Automobile joined the "team" Geely to accelerate the seizure of the power exchange travel market

Reporter Sheng Lan Zhang Jiazhen reported from Shanghai

"Freshman, unstoppable! Ruilan Automobile sold 1,683 units in the first month of 2022. ”

Recently, with the official announcement of Sales in January 2022 by Geely Automobile Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Geely Automobile", 00175.HK), Ruilan Automobile has attracted the attention of the outside world as a new face. This is also the first time that Ruilan Automobile, as an independent brand, has been listed in the sales statistics of Geely Automobile together with brands such as Lynk & Co and Extreme Kr.

According to the announcement previously released by Geely Automobile, the full name of Ruilan Automobile is "Chongqing Ruilan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd.". "Ruilan Automobile is committed to creating an intelligent power exchange ecology and providing competitive power exchange products and services for the market."

The relevant person in charge of Ruilan Automobile revealed in an interview with the reporter of China Business Daily: "After the establishment of Ruilan Automobile, Geely Automobile will improve and upgrade the automobile research and development system, supply chain management, technology platform, sales channels and systematic manufacturing management plan of Lifan Technology (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Lifan Technology", 601777.SH). At the same time, Ruilan Automobile has cooperated with YiyiZhao energy, a subsidiary of Geely Technology Group, to jointly promote the power exchange model. ”

The power exchange travel brand landed

The reporter noted that in the latest sales announcement disclosed by Geely Automobile, the sales data of "Ruilan Automobile" appeared for the first time. According to the announcement, in January 2022, Geely Automobile's total sales volume was about 146,000 units, of which Ruilan Automobile sold a total of 1,683 units.

According to the information published by the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, on January 24, 2022, Ruilan Automobile completed the industrial and commercial registration procedures and officially settled in Liangjiang New District, Chongqing. The company's investment entities are Ningbo Geely Automobile Industry Co., Ltd. and Lifan Technology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geely Automobile.

According to the announcement previously released by Geely Automobile, the registered capital of Ruilan Automobile is 600 million yuan, and Geely Automobile and Lifan Technology each contribute 300 million yuan, each accounting for 50% of the equity. The legal representative of the company is the former vice president of Geely Automobile Group, coo of Fengsheng Automobile Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Fengsheng Technology"), and Lou Yuanfa, the current co-president of Lifan Technology.

According to the plan, Geely Automobile will lead the research and development of power exchange models, while Lifan Technology will be responsible for the layout and production of power exchange facilities. The relevant person in charge of Ruilan Automobile revealed in an interview with this reporter: "It is expected that by 2025, the Ruilan brand will form 5 to 6 power replacement models, mainly power exchange products, covering a number of key market segments. ”

In terms of the layout of the substation, Ruilan Automobile has identified Chongqing, Hefei, Jinan, Tianjin, Chengdu, Changsha, Haikou, Suzhou and Hefei as pilot cities for power exchange. The above-mentioned person in charge said: "The company has joined hands with Yiyi Torneng to establish cooperative relations with local travel enterprises, transportation groups and large urban investment platforms. It is planned to build 5,000 substations in 2025, achieve network coverage of 5km range of users in more than 100 cities across the country, and is expected to serve 1 million power replacement models. ”

In terms of business model, Ruilan Automobile will also introduce a variety of commercial promotion models such as cooperative operation, joint venture, and franchise. The reporter learned from Ruilan Automobile that at present, the company has collected about 800 dealers' cooperation intentions, and after screening, it has joined more than 50 companies, mainly based on dealer groups selling new energy models, and plans to achieve 500 channel coverage by 2025.

Reconstruct the brand sequence of electric vehicles

According to reports, Ruilan Automobile will form a new brand sequence in the era of pure electrification of Geely Automobile in the future with extreme krypton and geometry. Geely Automobile pointed out in the "Smart Geely 2025 Strategy" previously announced: "The positioning of each brand is different, among them, the geometric brand is oriented to the public pure electricity, the extreme krypton positioning is high-end intelligent pure electricity, and the power exchange brand is mainly oriented to the travel market." ”

In fact, before the establishment of Ruilan Automobile, Maple Leaf Automobile was considered to be responsible for geely automobile's role in "testing the waters" of the pure electric travel market. However, with the establishment of Ruilan Automobile, the outside world has also raised doubts about the development prospects of Maple Leaf Motors, and there is news that the brand may withdraw from the historical stage.

The reporter noted that on February 9, Maple Leaf Automobile posted on its official WeChat platform: "Due to the upgrading of the brand strategy, this public account will be temporarily updated from now on, please move to 'Ruilan Automobile'." ”

For the current relationship between Maple Leaf Automobile and Ruilan Automobile, Ruilan Automobile told reporters: "Maple Leaf Automobile is the brand name of Ruilan Automobile's products, and Maple Leaf Automobile and Ruilan Automobile are subordinate. ”

According to the information of Tianyancha, the Maple Leaf Automobile brand is subordinate to Fengsheng Technology, which was originally a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geely Technology Group, and was changed to a wholly-owned shareholder of Geely Automobile Group on September 2, 2021.

Fengsheng Technology, formerly known as Kandi Electric Vehicle Group Co., Ltd., completed the name and legal person change on October 31, 2019. In April 2020, Maple Leaf Motors was officially released as a new new energy vehicle brand under Geely Technology Group, and in July of the same year, Maple Leaf Motors' first new car, Maple Leaf 30X, was listed, and in 2021 Maple Leaf 80V was listed.

However, Maple Leaf Motors was previously positioned as a brand for the low-end market. For example, the reporter learned through the official website of Maple Leaf Automobile that after deducting subsidy fees, the price of Maple Leaf 30X is 68,800 yuan to 95,800 yuan.

Some industry insiders pointed out that the operation of Maple Leaf Automobile has been independent of the Geely automobile system before, and Ruilan Automobile, as the entrance of Geely Automobile to enter the travel market, shows Geely Automobile's determination to lay out various segments of the new energy market.

For the planning of its pure electric brand, Geely Automobile revealed in the "Smart Geely 2025 Strategy" that the geometric brand will successively launch more than 5 products newly created by pure electric architecture (including Haohan architecture) from 2022, covering the mainstream pure electric market. Based on the exclusive architecture platform, Ruilan Automobile will successively launch 5 intelligent pure electric products that can be exchanged by 2025, becoming a new force in the energy exchange travel technology ecosystem.

Vigorously develop the power exchange market

According to the announcement of Geely Automobile, as of December 2021, Geely Technology Group holds about 28.98% of the equity of Lifan Technology. In the eyes of industry insiders, one of the important reasons for Geely Automobile to invest in Lifan Technology is to "vigorously develop the power exchange market with the help of the existing resources of Lifan Technology".

Relevant information shows that Lifan Technology is one of the pioneers in the development of pure electric vehicles in the power exchange mode in China. In 2015, the company released its new energy strategy "i.Blue" 1.0 strategy and began to explore the power exchange model. In 2016, the company launched its first centralized energy station in Chongqing, which can achieve a 3-minute power change.

However, affected by problems such as the decline in product sales, Lifan Technology eventually went bankrupt and reorganized. Geely Metrojet and Geely Technology Group participated in the restructuring as industrial investors. In January 2021, Lifan Technology was officially launched, and in May of the same year, it restarted its automotive business and became a foundry of Maple Leaf Motors.

On May 18, 2021, Lifan Technology's first power-changing model, Lifan 80V, rolled off the production line in Liangjiang New Area, Chongqing. It is understood that Lifan 80V is the standard replacement model of Maple Leaf 80V, and Maple Leaf 80V is the second mass production model of Maple Leaf Automobile, based on the Geely GBRC power exchange platform, and is also the first electric vehicle under Geely Automobile to use power exchange.

It is worth noting that at the end of January 2022, Maple Leaf Motors announced its latest power replacement model on its official website - Maple Leaf 60S. It is understood that Maple Leaf 60S will operate through the online car and taxi market in the early stage, deeply cultivate the travel market, and after accumulating enough experience and data, it may be introduced to the civilian market. Among them, the pre-sale price of the Yixing version model is 141,800 yuan, and the pre-price of the U-Xing version is 171,800 yuan.

In this regard, Geely Automobile has said that the power exchange architecture used in the Maple Leaf 60S model is provided by the joint venture company established by Geely and Lifan Technology, which is in line with the business structure of Ruilan Automobile's "self-developed power exchange technology". Compared with the previous non-exchange of pure electric vehicles, maple leaf 60S vehicle-to-electricity separation mode can also provide users with a way to buy a car body and lease a battery.

"We will jointly lay out the C-end and B-end networks to establish a new image of Industry 4.0 to renew the user experience." For the layout plan of the substation, Ruilan Automobile told reporters that in the future, based on Geely Automobile's GBRC power exchange platform, Ruilan Automobile's planning will cover cars, SUVs, MPVs, and even logistics vehicles and light trucks, fully meeting the needs of different markets such as online car-hailing, private cars, taxis, and logistics vehicles.

(Editor: Zhang Jiazhen Proofreader: Yan Jingning)