Text | Travel by wire, author | Zhou Xiongfei, Editor | midnight
Following the crisis of rights protection caused by chip reduction, Euler Automobile was once again caught in the doubts of model suspension.
Recently, according to a number of media reports, Great Wall Motor's new energy vehicle brand Euler Automobile was exposed to the news of the suspension of the sale of models on sale, the suspended models are mainly Euler's black cat and white cat two models, Euler officially since the 15th of this month no longer accept orders for these two models.
For this news, the head of the relevant brand of Euler Automobile responded to the "Daily Economic News": "These two models have indeed been discontinued. After the response was reported by the media, the owners of models such as Euler black cat and white cat exploded for a while, and even some netizens said that "the car has not yet been handed, it is out of print." ”
Euler black cat (right) and white cat, picture source Euler auto official micro
Being caught up in the sudden suspension of models on sale, Euler is not alone in the new energy automobile industry.
At the beginning of this year, a rumor about "Huawei Smart Selection SF5 disguised suspension of production" was widely spread in the industry and on the Internet, for this news, Xilix and Huawei responded that they would continue to accept user orders, would not stop the production of models, and then arrange special personnel to assist in delivery.
However, according to the connection trip to visit Huawei's offline stores in Hangzhou, it can be seen that Huawei's Smart Choice SF5 car has been removed from the shelves, replaced by the M5 model announced at the end of last year. In cities like Beijing and Shanghai, such substitutions were completed before the Spring Festival.
As a result, with the removal of Huawei's smart SF5 stores, many consumers who bought this model complained about it, and even some car owners were ready to defend their rights, thinking that they had been cut leeks.
First Huawei's smart SF5 store was removed, and then Euler black/white cat was discontinued, the purpose behind this phenomenon may be to "make way" for new models.
According to Wired Travel, since the Debut SF5 was unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show last year and put on sale, its sales volume has not been as hot as Huawei's official claim, with sales of only about 8,000 vehicles last year, and it is rare to see this model on the road in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
Similar to Huawei's Smart Choice SF5, The Euler Black Cat and White Cat models have begun to decline in sales since January this year, and at the same time, due to the lack of cores, these two models are also in the predicament of short-term delivery and reduction.
In this situation, Huawei and Euler began to pin their sales hopes on new models. The former launched the Q&C M5 at the end of last year, and the latter also unveiled new models such as the Ballet Cat and the Lightning Cat at last year's Guangzhou Auto Show.
The situation in which old models "give way" to new models not only occurs in the new energy automobile industry, but also in the fuel vehicle industry. For car companies, can such an operation really be exchanged for sales?
01 Models on sale were suddenly discontinued, and car owners were "blinded"
"I really didn't expect such a ridiculous thing to happen."
When asked what she thought of the discontinuation of Euler's white cat and black cat models, Fang Yuan, who had already picked up the car, said to the connection travel. According to Fang Yuan, in May last year, through the recommendation of a friend, she was ready to buy a car, she knew the Euler brand, and in the process of seeing the car afterwards, she took a fancy to the Euler White Cat model.
"After learning about the Euler brand from a friend's mouth, I immediately went to the offline store to see the car, and was immediately attracted by the cute and small appearance of the Euler white cat, feeling that this car was very in line with my own taste, and then I ordered the car at the beginning of June last year, and then waited to pick up the car." Fang Yuan said so.
What she didn't expect was that she waited for half a year, and didn't mention the car until the end of last year. According to Fang Yuan's recollection, the initial sales of Euler said that it would take about two months to pick up the car, but after two months, she said that she needed to wait, and did not say the reason for the wait, and finally waited until December to mention the car.
However, Fang Yuan, who had only been driving the Euler White Cat for two months, learned that the Euler White Cat was going to stop production.
According to the "Securities Daily" report, on Tuesday night, an Euler automobile salesman said in his circle of friends that "from midnight tonight, remove the promotional materials and exhibition cars of euler automobile black and white cats." Both cars are no longer receiving orders, and orders that have been previously entered into the system are not affected. ”
In response to this news, some Euler related dealers quickly gave an affirmative reply, saying that they had received a notice from the manufacturer and no longer accepted new orders for black cat and white cat models on the 15th of this month, and the duration was unknown.
In order to verify this news, Wired Travel downloaded the official APP of Euler Automobile, and it can be seen that the detail pages for Euler black cat and white cat models in the APP have disappeared, and only euler good cat and good cat GT models are displayed in its APP.
The detail page about black and white cat models has been missing, screenshot from the Euler Auto APP
In addition, in the official website of Euler Automobile, although the detail pages of the model introduction of the Euler white cat and the black cat are still there, compared with the detail pages of the two models of the good cat and the good cat GT, the interactive page of booking a test drive and buying a car is missing, which shows that these two models do not support new user ordering.
According to the "Daily Economic News" quoted by the relevant person in charge of Euler, the two models of Euler black cat and white cat have indeed been discontinued.
For the reasons for the suspension of black cats and white cats, Euler officially responded, "Due to the shortage of chips and the supply of spare parts, the decline of national subsidies and many other reasons, the order backlog of black cat and white cat models is more, and the customer purchase cycle is too long, affecting the customer experience." In order to avoid bringing bad feelings to car owners who trust the Euler brand, considering all factors, we stopped receiving new orders for Euler black cat and white cat models. ”
Fang Yuan told Lianyuan travel that when she knew the news of the suspension of production, it was unacceptable, because the previous car purchase experience was very unpleasant, and now it is announced that the production is stopped, does this mean that the car she bought has become an out-of-print model, "After the car is broken, can you still guarantee that you can find parts to replace?" ”
In contrast, Fang Yuan may still be a lucky car owner.
Sun Xiaoning decided on the Euler Black Cat model in October last year, but as of now, there is no mention of the car. Contact sales, but also only to her to say because of the chip shortage, and so on. Because of this, when she heard the news that Euler Cars was discontinued, "I was devastated at that moment, and I really didn't know what to do." ”
Through the official APP of Euler Automobile, Wired Travel also saw a lot of car owners like Sun Xiaoning who have booked cars but have not yet mentioned the car, and these owners have published in the APP forum "The car has not been mentioned, the car is out of print" "Black cat / white cat If the production is discontinued, how to match the accessories after that?" and other comments.
Many of the car owners in the Euler APP are screenshots from the Euler Auto APP
Such a sudden suspension of production events, in fact, not only occurs in new energy vehicle companies, but also occurs in the process of "strong and powerful alliance" of large manufacturers and car companies.
In January this year, a message quickly circulated on the Internet, saying that "Huawei Smart Selection SF5 will be discontinued in disguise." According to some media quoting consumers, Huawei's offline stores across the country are being renovated, and the Huawei Smart SF5 model that was originally displayed and sold in the store has disappeared.
Huawei's Smart Choice SF5 is a new energy model developed by Huawei in cooperation with Xiaokang Co., Ltd., which was officially unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show last April and immediately began mass production, when Huawei said that this model would be sold simultaneously in Huawei's online and offline channels.
For the rumors of store removal, Wired Travel visited some Huawei offline stores in Hangzhou at that time, and indeed saw the same scene, and the Huawei Smart SF5 originally parked in the store has been removed. "The display of this model was recently cancelled and is no longer sold in stores, and the specific reasons are not clear." A staff member of a Huawei store once responded to the connection trip.
"The car has only been running for a month, and it has stopped production, so it won't be carried like this, right?" Liu Xiao, the owner of the car who saw the news that Huawei's smart SF5 was discontinued, sighed at the time. According to him, when he was visiting a Huawei store, he suddenly saw a car parked in the store, and then he became curious and test-drove, and then felt that the car was well settled.
But just a month after picking up the car in December last year, he learned of the news of the suspension of production, which was a bit unacceptable for a while, because he was worried that after the discontinuation of the model, the accessories would be difficult to match, according to Liu Xiao's words, it was equivalent to buying a "limited edition model".
In response to the Huawei Smart Choice SF5 suspension storm, Lianxing also asked huawei automotive BU for verification at the first time, and the other party responded that "Huawei Smart Choice SF5 will not stop selling, nor will it stop production, and then it will accept the booking of online orders." ”
In response to this response, Wired Travel downloaded the Huawei Mall APP, and by searching for "SF5", you can indeed see the details page of this model, which also appears on the official website of Huawei Mall. However, it should be noted that compared with the previous intention to pay the intention to pay, now you can only choose to test drive this model, and the option of intention to pay has disappeared.
The changes on the Huawei Express SF5 subscription page are screenshotted from the huawei mall official website
Because of such changes, many car owners are still worried about whether Huawei Smart SF5 will stop selling and discontinuing production. In the owner forum of the official APP of Xilis, some car owners can be seen to have published "Will Huawei Smart Choice SF5 be discontinued and discontinued?" "Does the suspension of sales affect the option of accessories?" and other comments.
According to the Securities Times, after Huawei's smart SF5 was exposed to the suspension of production, many car owners believed that they had "been cut leeks", and even many car owners said that they had joined the hundreds of people's rights protection group and were ready to defend their rights to Huawei.
From Huawei's smart selection of SF5, to Euler black cat and white cat, the car companies behind these models have now fallen into the storm of suspension of sale and suspension of production, although the voices of doubt and rights protection have risen one after another, but these car companies still continue their own layout and plans, and behind this also reveals the "small abacus" of car companies.
02 Removing the shelves, discontinuing the old model, and "making way" for the new model?
Just a month before Huawei's Smart Choice SF5 was removed on a large scale, Huawei once again released a new energy brand in a high profile.
At the beginning of December last year, huawei and its joint release of AITO, a new generation of high-end intelligent car brands jointly built by Xiaokang Co., Ltd. in Chongqing Liangjiang Smart Factory. According to the official introduction, AITO is an abbreviation of "Adding Intelligence to Auto", which means to bring intelligence into the car.
After the release of the new brand, its first model also appeared. At the end of the same month, at the winter flagship new product launch held by Huawei, with the introduction of Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of consumer BG, and CEO of smart car solution BU, AITO's first model, the Q&I M5, appeared on the stage.
Yu Chengdong and the M5 behind him
According to Yu Chengdong, the M5 is positioned as a medium-sized SUV, the power mode selects the ideal ONE, Lantu FREE the same extender mode, the car machine system is supported by Huawei's self-developed HarmonyOS system, this model has also become the industry's first mass production model equipped with HarmonyOS smart cockpit.
Wired travel has been in "SF5 sales are dismal, AITO high-profile debut, can Huawei help Xilis get out of trouble? The detailed parameters of the Q&I M5 have been described in the article and will not be repeated here.
It should be noted that similar to Huawei's Smart Select SF5, the sales of Q&I M5 are also supported by Huawei's offline channels. According to Yu Chengdong, since the date of release, the M5 will successively land in offline Huawei stores in 118 cities across the country, and achieve the first batch of deliveries at the end of February this year.
It was after this that the above-mentioned Huawei Smart SF5 was suddenly withdrawn from the store nationwide.
According to a Huawei store salesman quoted by Caijing Automobile, "This car (Huawei Smart Choice SF5) is only sold until the middle of January this year, and when the new car comes, it will put a new car, and the car will be put away and not sold." And the new car mentioned by the salesman is the Q&A M5.
The process of removing old cars and getting into new cars goes on very quickly. At the end of January this year, according to the Auto Industry and Economic Report, the local Huawei store in Beijing has completed the replacement of the display vehicle, and the M5 is displayed in the C position of the store in order to get more traffic and attention.
On the 13th of this month, Lianxing also observed that Huawei stores in Hangzhou, Shanghai and other cities have also completed the renewal of the M5, which is generally placed in the original position of Huawei Smart SF5. Before the M5 arrived, these stores also warmed up for them by erecting display boards related to the M5.
In contrast, in the Huawei Mall APP and official website, although the detail page of Huawei SmartSmart SF5 still exists and has not been removed, if you search with "SF5" as a keyword, you can see that the first line in the pop-up page is the order link of The Circle M5, and the link of Huawei Smart SF5 is ranked behind.
Under such an operation, some voices in the industry believe that Huawei is doing this, perhaps in order to let Huawei smartly select SF5 to give up sales channel resources for the M5. After all, Huawei's Smart SF5, which was once regarded as the main sales force by Huawei, did not take on this responsibility well.
According to the data of the Association, the sales volume of Huawei's Smart Choice SF5 in the month of listing was only 129 vehicles, and then the sales volume in May-December was 204 vehicles, 1097 vehicles, 507 vehicles, 715 vehicles, 1117 vehicles, 2205 vehicles, 1446 vehicles and 1089 vehicles, which can be seen that the monthly sales of the model were basically maintained at about 500-2000 vehicles.
From April to December 2021, Huawei's Smart Choice SF5 sales trend, the data comes from the Association of Passengers, and the mapping of online travel
By checking the sales data of domestic new energy mid-size SUVs from April to December last year, It can be seen that Huawei's Smart Choice SF5 only entered the top ten of the sales list in June, September and October, and the rest of the months did not qualify for the top ten sales.
From the perspective of annual sales, the total sales of Huawei's Smart Choice SF5 last year were 8169 vehicles, compared with the total sales of Tesla Model Y and Weilai ES6, which are also medium-sized new energy SUVs, which were 33544 vehicles and 29294 vehicles last year, respectively, almost 3 times that of Huawei Smart SF5.
Perhaps seeing the decline in the first battle of Huawei's smart selection SF5, Huawei and Xiaokang will push the M5 listing at the end of last year to further recover the decline in sales.
The phenomenon of letting old models "give way" to new models for the sake of sales may also be happening in the current Euler brand.
As can be seen from the above, the Euler brand has taken measures to discontinue the black cat and white cat models, and also attributed the reason for the suspension to external factors such as chip shortages. However, according to the surging news, the reason why Euler discontinued the black cat and white cat models may be to ensure the production and delivery of the higher priced good cat series models.
According to the understanding of wired travel, Euler Black Cat and White Cat were listed at the end of 2018 and July 2020 respectively, although the listing time has been successive, but in terms of positioning, they all belong to new energy mini-vehicles. From the perspective of price, the official guidance price of black cat is 5.98-10.28 million yuan; the official guidance price of white cat is 7.18-10.68 million yuan.
Due to their small and cute shape, coupled with the color scheme that can impress female consumers, these two cars quickly became the main sales force of Euler Motors after they were listed.
According to public data, the annual sales of Euler automobiles in 2020 reached a total of 56261 vehicles, of which the annual sales of Euler black cats and white cats were 46774 and 6651 respectively, and the sales volume of the two added up to 53425 vehicles, accounting for 94.95% of Euler's total sales.
At the end of 2020, Euler Automobile launched a new generation of models on the basis of black cats and white cats - Euler Good Cat. Compared with the former model, the price of Euler Good Cat is higher at 103,900-14.39 million yuan, and the model positioning is also upgraded to a small car, so in the eyes of the industry at that time, Euler Good Cat is the main model of the Euler brand.
After the emergence of the Euler good cat model, the sales advantage of Euler black cat and white cat began to decline.
According to the data of the Association of Passenger Transport, the cumulative sales of Euler automobiles in 2021 will be 135,000 vehicles, of which the cumulative sales of Euler good cats will be 50,000 vehicles, and the annual sales of Euler black cats and white cats will total about 80,000 vehicles. If you look at the proportion, Euler black cats and white cats accounted for about 61% of the total sales of the year, and Euler good cats were 37%.
This means that after a year, the sales share of Euler black cats and white cats inside Euler cars has dropped from about 94% to 61%. In January, this decline continued.
According to the data released by Euler, its total sales in January this year were 13,000 vehicles, of which Euler Good Cat sold 9,020 vehicles, and its sales accounted for 68% of total sales. In other words, the sales of Euler black and white cats as a percentage of total sales have fallen below 30%.
According to the surging news quoted by an Euler supplier revealed that due to the low price of black cats and white cats, low profit margins, manufacturer resources are obviously inclined to good cats, last year manufacturers have been ensuring the production and delivery of good cats, the pick-up cycle of good cats is obviously much shorter than that of black cats and white cats, and dealers are also willing to sell good cats.
With the launch of new models such as ballet cat and lightning cat at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November last year, in the industry's view, the discontinuation of black cat and white cat models by Euler may not only be for good cats, but also for the listing and sales of new models such as lightning cats.
Euler Lightning Cat, figure source Euler Auto Official Micro
According to Wired Travel, the ballet cat will be listed in March this year, and the lightning cat will also be listed in the second quarter of this year.
Now, whether it is Huawei or Euler Automobile, in the face of the failure of the sales of old models and the imminent launch of new models, they have chosen the same countermeasure - to remove the old models from the shelves and let the new models replace them. And after the implementation of such a method, can it really be exchanged for more sales?
03 After choosing "give way", can I win sales?
It should be noted that situations like this when old models "give way" to new models can be described as abound in the field of fuel vehicles.
In February 2020, Toyota Motor corporation announced that its Lexus GS series models would be officially discontinued after seven months, mainly to "make way" for the sale of lexus EEs, which are also medium and large cars. According to wired travel, the former's performance in recent years has been tepid, and it is reasonable to be replaced by a more youthful Lexus ES.
In June of the same year, FAW Toyota also announced that it would cancel its manufacturing plans and production capacity in the Prado, and would use these capacities for the flagship sedan Asia Dragon that will be put into production in the future; and by the beginning of this year, according to Autohome, the smart EQ forfour of Daimler-Benz's Smart brand had announced that it had stopped production, and this move would also "make way" for the Genie series model jointly created by Geely and Mercedes-Benz.
"In the automotive industry, it is actually a common phenomenon for old models to 'make way' for new models of the same type or the same positioning, and for any car company, they do not want to let the models that have fallen behind affect the sales of new models, and even affect the planning of the entire brand sequence." Zhou Kai, sales director of a leading domestic car company, said to Wired Travel.
Such a concept is more commonly applicable in the new energy automobile industry.
In the view of Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, with the development of the new energy automobile industry, more and more car companies will pursue faster and more effective iteration of products, if a product is put on the market without attracting attention, it will soon launch a new generation of products to continue to try, until explosive products are made.
In this way, although the iterative behavior of such a product is reasonable and legal in the business world, for car companies, it does not mean that more sales can be obtained as desired.
Take the M5, which has already been listed, as an example.
When the Q&I M5 officially landed in Huawei's offline stores, Lianxing had visited some business districts in Hangzhou on the weekend, Zhonghua as stores, and through observation, it could be found that the traffic of Huawei stores during the weekend was moderate, but it should be noted that many consumers will choose to see the 3C electronic products in the store after entering Huawei stores, and only a small number of consumers will be interested in the M5 parked in the store.
The Q&I M5 in a Business District in Hangzhou Huawei Experience Store
For this phenomenon, Wired Travel asked the sales staff of a Huawei store about the reason, and the other party explained that "because this model came to the store soon, many consumers did not know enough about it, and this situation will be improved after a period of time." ”
For the popularity of the Q&I M5, Huawei officials revealed at the end of last year that "at present, the number of national large orders for the M5 has exceeded 6,000." "But if you look at the situation of the offline store, the consumer's understanding and love of this car may not have reached the hot state."
The reason behind this may be that the M5 has not been much upgraded in terms of model and performance compared to Huawei's Smart SF5.
When the Q&I M5 was released, a number of new energy vehicle industry insiders and analysts expressed their views on the car for wired travel - basically and Huawei Smart SF5 did not change much, in other words, Q&I M5 can be seen as a "redesign" version of Huawei Smart SF5.
Whether in terms of model appearance and interior, or power parameters, the two models are relatively similar, only in terms of car software, the Q&C M5 is better than Huawei's Smart SF5. Wired travel has been in "SF5 sales are dismal, AITO high-profile debut, can Huawei help Xilis get out of trouble? This has been elaborated in the article.
"Q&I M5 and Huawei Smart SF5 are too similar, plus the prices of both are on the track of 250,000-300,000 yuan, not to mention whether the two will have internal friction, this price range track itself is very crowded, after the loss of Huawei Smart SF5, it is difficult for Q&I M5 to have a good sales performance." Zhang Xiang told Lian lian travel.
Huawei Smart Select SF5 (left) and Q&I M5, image source Cyrus official micro
In Zhang Xiang's view, there is also the problem of brand power. Because Huawei Smart Choice SF5 did not sell well, so that the public's awareness of the Cyris brand is insufficient, and now it has launched a new brand of AITO under Cyris, consumers still need a period of time to understand and be familiar with this brand, and Cyrus is basically not helpful for the growth of its sub-brands.
After talking about Huawei, let's look at Euler Cars.
Compared with the Q&C M5 and Huawei Smart SF5, the upcoming Euler Lightning Cat and Ballet Cat have great changes compared to the black cat and white cat models. For example, in terms of model size, the size of the Lightning Cat positioned as a medium-sized car and the ballet cat has also reached the level of a compact car, which is indeed much larger than the black/white cat positioned as a mini car.
In addition to the model, there is also a big improvement in terms of endurance. According to the current public data, the mileage of the ballet cat can reach up to 500 kilometers, and the lightning cat mileage data has not yet been released, but it seems that the maximum mileage in the industry will not be less than 500 kilometers, compared with the maximum mileage of black cats and white cats is only 405 kilometers.
In terms of intelligence, according to Euler's official introduction, these two models can have intelligent functions such as L3+ automatic assisted driving, full-scene parking, V2X Internet of Everything and ORA exclusive omnidirectional supersensitive system.
Although new models such as the Lightning Cat have greater optimizations and upgrades than black and white cats, this does not mean that there will be good performance after the listing.
At the end of November last year, according to the "International Finance News" and other media reports, Euler Automobile had a "chip reduction" rights protection incident on the Euler good cat model. In response to this incident, although Euler quickly spoke out, in the eyes of consumers, Euler did not face up to the problem and solve the problem, so that this rights protection incident is still fermenting.
Wave after wave, wave after wave. The recent re-exposure of the suspension of production has once again caused Euler to fall into consumer doubts and complaints.
"Generally speaking, car companies stop production for a certain model, although there is no violation of the law, but car companies also need to make a commitment to consumers that they will normally carry out after-sales maintenance services after the suspension of sales and reserve the corresponding parts." If consumers fail to enjoy the due after-sales service afterwards, they will still infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Xia Jinyan, a lawyer at Zhejiang Zeding Law Firm, told Lianxing.
Zhang Xiang also said that after the discontinuation of models such as black cats and white cats, Euler's after-sales protection and maintenance costs for these sold models will be further increased, which may be passed on to consumers, thereby harming the interests of consumers and making consumers lose trust in the brand.
These concerns also exist in Huawei's AITO brand.
For now, to judge how effective Huawei and Euler are in "giving way" to new models through old models, we have to wait until models such as the M5 and Lightning Cat are really mass-produced and delivered. But what is certain is that Huawei and Euler want to buy more sales with new models, which is full of challenges, and this needs to solve the consumer trust crisis.
"From the previous delay in picking up the car, to the current sudden announcement of production suspension, under the accumulation of these things, I have been very afraid that Houhai will choose and trust the Euler brand in the first place." Sun Xiaoning said this to the connection travel.
(At the request of the interviewees, Wen Zhongyuan, Sun Xiaoning, Liu Xiao and Zhou Kai were pseudonyms.) ）