Speaking of the originator of SUV models, at least in the eyes of the Chinese people, the Jeep brand is the most qualified one, because in many people, many SUV models are called "Jeep". As a century-old American brand, when it first entered the domestic market as an imported car, the price was high, the brand strength was strong, and it was even once regarded as a luxury brand. However, as many overseas brands start the localization process, Jeep also established a joint venture with GAC FCA, that is, Jeep's joint venture brand, as a result, now GAC FCA has basically lost its sense of existence in the field of joint venture brands, and the market situation is difficult to describe.
In January, Jeep's 5 major car series sales showed that the sales volume of the Grand Commander was 588; the sales of the Guide was 513; the sales of the Free Light was 130; the sales of the Free Hero was 33; the sales of the Grand Commander PHEV was 15, and the total sales of the five cars was 1279, that is, as a joint venture brand with 5 models, the Jeep brand sold less than 1300 vehicles in China in January. Of course, it is particularly regrettable that the light of Jeep's freedom, which once gave Jeep great hope, has now completely sunk. Thinking back to that year, Free Light, as the first medium-sized SUV model introduced by GAC FCA, once created a miracle of selling about 10,000 vehicles next month, and in the joint venture medium-sized SUV market at that time, there were few competitors who could match it, and now the monthly sales are only 130 vehicles, in contrast, it is lamentable!
GAC FCA, that is, the performance of the Jeep brand in the domestic market is actually very "fragmented", from the market level, GAC FCA has long been insolvent, as early as 2020, GAC FCA's net assets are only -331 million yuan, that is to say, if the GAC FCA fixed assets, non-fixed assets are all sold at a price, it still owes 331 million yuan to creditors. As an oem, such an asset structure actually means that GAC FCA has lost the value of its continued existence, so even if GAC FCA still exists, it is possible to "resign" to the domestic market at any time.
Some friends may say that the sales of GAC FCA continue to be sluggish, it must be because GAC FCA's products are too poor in terms of quality, the reason is that everyone knows that the manufacturing and assembly process of American cars does not dare to compliment too much! According to the 2021 J.D.Power release of China Vehicle Reliability Research Report, GAC FCA ranked first, and from the word-of-mouth reaction in the past few years, GAC FCA's products and other mainstream joint venture brand products do not have many common product defects and complaints. Of course, there is also a possibility that the sales volume of GAC FCA is too low, resulting in too small sample size, so the overall failure data is insufficient, resulting in a deviation in the results, but in our view, this influencing factor should be relatively small.
In fact, the decline of GAC FCA, in our view, may be related to the product selection in the process of localization. We all know that at present, the Jeep brand is the most well-known, but also the most trusted product in the market is the Wrangler, if the Wrangler can be domestically produced, after further reducing the price, it may indeed get more consumer recognition, look at the current market performance of the Tank 300 can be expected to achieve this result. The domestic SUV model introduced by GAC FCA is a city SUV, although it is also an SUV model, but it is difficult to represent the essence of the Jeep brand. In the field of urban SUVs, the Jeep brand models have limited advantages compared with other joint venture brands, especially compared with the urban SUVs of "old" joint venture brands such as Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, and General Motors. And as domestic SUVs become more and more powerful in design, quality, technology and other aspects, they have also poked the "tires" of Jeep brand products to a large extent, so under various factors, the Jeep brand has become what it is today!
If we say when Jeep will leave the domestic market, we really dare not say this, if the manufacturer has a lawyer's letter, it may take time and energy to deal with it. It can only be said that the current Jeep brand, or GAC FCA, has reached a very, very difficult moment in the domestic market, with a single monthly sales of less than 1300 vehicles, which is a very low sales performance for any joint venture brand, plus it is already insolvent in 2020, so it is possible for this brand to say goodbye to the domestic market at any time.