Produced | car talk in-depth group
Wen | Zhao Miaolin
Responsible editor| Yuan Guiyuan
I've always believed that Guangzhou is a very inclusive city.
It has towering skyscrapers, creating the largest CBD in South China, but it also hides the old town of Xiguan, which is "a bay of green water, lychees on both sides of the strait", and accommodates an urban village that provides a shelter for the social "Xiaobai".
It continues to develop and inherit the rich Lingnan culture, but it is also willing to accept and integrate new cultures imported from guests from all over the world.
And its inclusiveness is also evident in its automotive industry.
Looking back at the past, joint venture brands such as GAC Honda, GAC Toyota, and Dongfeng Nissan have opened up a new world for the city's automobile industry, and now it is the "new four modernizations" that have squeezed out new faces such as GAC Aean, Xiaopeng Automobile and even Evergrande Automobile.
Guangzhou, as the birthplace of these enterprises, not only embraces the past "homecoming Flowers", but also gives "newborns" the opportunity to climb up.
Old: The joint venture brand is stable
Undoubtedly, the automobile industry in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou is the world of joint venture brands, but compared with Beijing and Shanghai, Guangzhou is the slower one to develop, after all, its main automobile company GAC Group was only founded in 1997.
Although the age is slightly younger than BAIC and SAIC, as of today, GAC's automobile brands are not less, in addition to the three major Japanese joint venture brands GAC Honda, GAC Toyota, GAC Mitsubishi, as well as the American joint venture brand GAC FCA, the independent brands GAC Trumpchi, GAC Aegian, hechuang Automobile (formerly GAC Weilai).
Among them, more than half of its joint venture brands, especially GAC Honda and GAC Toyota, have been acting as profit cows over the years to feed the entire GAC Group and even the entire city's automobile industry.
This month, Guangqi Honda released the news, officially announced the cumulative production and sales of 9 million units, becoming the first brand under the GAC Group to exceed 9 million units in cumulative production and sales, and the sales figure of 78,489 vehicles last month was particularly eye-catching.
Gac Toyota, which was founded slightly later than GAC Honda, as of last year, the total sales exceeded 6.18 million units, and the sales performance in January this year reached 99,000 units, compared with FAW Toyota's first month of 41,000 vehicles, which can be described as a dimensionality reduction blow.
According to the production and sales express report released by GAC Group, gac motor group cumulative sales reached 2.144 million units last year, of which GAC Toyota's annual cumulative sales were 828,000 units, and GAC Honda's annual sales exceeded 780,000 units, which alone supported more than 2/3 of the group's sales.
This phenomenon has long been commonplace, after all, these two joint venture brands hold many "lethal" products in their hands, such as GAC Toyota's Camry, Leiling family, GAC Honda's Accord and Fit, etc., which are the products that are the bottom of the brand's sales, and each single one is definitely the best in the same class.
Compared with Liangtian, the current sales volume of GAC Mitsubishi is not particularly good, but with a strong fist product, Orlander can still guarantee a good life.
Last year, GAC Mitsubishi launched the pioneering work of its electrification strategy, Attuco, and opened pre-sales at the Guangzhou Auto Show, while also announcing that it will bring a blockbuster product this year, with the acceleration of the introduction of its new car, coupled with the blessing of Japanese word of mouth, GAC Mitsubishi may be rejuvenated.
GAC FCA is now one of the most embarrassing of GAC's joint venture brands, and its downward trend is particularly conspicuous in the report card of the group's various brands that have risen in sales.
Its Wrangler, Grand Cherokee, etc. were once its past phenomenon-level products, but unfortunately, when its sales soared with the help of SUVs, its product quality and service did not keep up with the development of enterprises, resulting in missed the best period of expansion.
In recent years, the brand's sales have declined year after year, last year's annual sales were only more than 20,000 vehicles, as a joint venture brand with a story, its average monthly status quo of thousands of vehicles is inevitably regrettable, and the operating status of consecutive years of losses really makes people sweat for it.
Some people speculate that because its brand is more marginalized, in the environment of the abolition of the share ratio restriction this year, its shareholding structure may usher in a huge change, and in the future it will move closer to the Stellantis Group, while the GAC Group will reduce its shares.
In addition to several joint venture brands of GAC, one of the city's old power giants is Dongfeng Nissan.
As the largest source of sales in Dongfeng Group's passenger car segment, Dongfeng Nissan has been very stable, with sales reaching 1.13 million units last year, breaking through one million for seven consecutive years.
Among them, the Japanese product brand is the main output force of the entire company, with a cumulative sales volume of 1.04 million units, and its annual sales of more than 510,000 Xuanyi, with an average monthly sales of nearly 50,000, is not too much to say that it is the "king of sales".
Of course, its stable total sales of more than one million can not be separated from its strong product matrix, in addition to Xuanyi, Tianlai two cars more than half of the results, as well as the SUV camp represented by Qashqai, it is undeniable that in the layout of the product matrix, the joint venture brand has always laid a good model for independent brands.
Last year, Venucia returned to the embrace of Dongfeng Nissan, the implementation of the dual brand strategy, and the development of the Japanese product brand in parallel, according to the data, Venucia's total annual sales of 878.16 million vehicles, an increase of 11.6% year-on-year, successfully achieved the annual sales target, it seems that Venucia returned to Nissan This decision is absolutely correct.
Among the many luxury brands, Dongfeng Nissan's Infiniti is somewhat tepid, perhaps because it is too Buddhist in terms of marketing, and sales are somewhat limited.
However, to Wang Lihong's blessing, it at the end of last year a wave of termination of the operation of bad artists, so that it in front of the public to get a lot of attention, successful circle of fans a large wave of people, with brand image, word of mouth blessing, it in product development efforts, may have the opportunity to fight with other second-tier luxury brands.
In addition, as an independent brand, GAC Trumpchi, as the "back wave" of the old forces, sales fell slightly in the first two years, but last year's cumulative sales of more than 320,000 finally achieved a turnaround, an increase of 10.35% year-on-year.
It is worth mentioning that the orders of Shadow Leopard, which were only listed in the third quarter, exceeded 70,000 vehicles during the year, which gave the Trumpchi brand a lot of encouragement, with the Trumpchi M8 and M6 models, it also allowed the brand to compete for a small world in the MPV market.
On the whole, although the epidemic, chip shortage, and "new four modernizations" have had a slight impact on the old forces, the joint venture brands in the city are still stable and do not show too much panic.
New: Independent brand innovation breakthrough
The automobile market has always been a retreat without advancing, there are stable forwarders in the old forces, and there is no shortage of people who lie flat and meet the cold, and many independent brands have quietly broken through in the ups and downs.
For example, GAC Aean, as an important brand built by GAC Group to test the waters of new energy, although it has not been established for a long time, it has also shown extraordinary strength and potential for upward rushing.
According to the data, GAC Aeon's cumulative sales reached 124,000 vehicles last year, an increase of 119% year-on-year, and it completed the sales target of 100,000 set at the beginning of the year a month ahead of schedule, doubling from 2020.
Due to the unusual role of the E-An brand for GAC Group, its achievements should have a great encouraging effect on the transformation of the entire group.
It is understood that in order to take advantage of the chase, the Aeon brand is currently increasing the construction of production capacity, in addition to the completion of the second phase of its intelligent ecological factory expansion project, the second 200,000-year production capacity factory will also be completed and put into operation at the end of this year, and will have a production capacity of 400,000 in 2023.
As for GAC's equally immature Hechuang Automobile, at the beginning of its establishment, it won the attention of many young people because of its joint e-sports IP.
Unfortunately, the competition of the new energy track is really "inward volume", because of the "shell change" questioning of its products, it has not yet appeared on the sales list, but with the pursuit of funds and the company's internal reform, it may not have no upward opportunities.
However, when it comes to Guangzhou's new power brand, it is necessary to mention Xiaopeng Automobile, which continues to be hot in the field of new energy.
As the "Wei Xiaoli" three head force, Xiao Peng often ranked at the bottom of the three, but last year, it broke this deadlock, surpassed Weilai with a delivery volume of 98,000, and reached the top, and the momentum of this year was equally rapid, with 12,922 new car deliveries again to win the first place.
Because of wave after wave of eye-catching achievements, in the past two months, words such as "counterattack" and "one ride against dust" have always accompanied Xiaopeng Automobile in the report, but the new energy market has ups and downs, and Xiaopeng Automobile must complete greater breakthroughs to keep the championship throne.
It is worth mentioning that because of its continuous expansion of its product lineup, in order to "add a fire" to the brand, Xiaopeng announced its sales target for 2022: to ensure annual sales of 250,000 vehicles and impact 300,000 vehicles.
However, this year's new energy subsidies and then decline, including Xiaopeng all new energy vehicles may face the problem of price increase, in the case of unpredictable consumers will increase the price of the car without objection to pay the case, Xiaopeng set the sales target, can be described as difficult, it wants to reach the standard, in the upcoming sale of G9 price performance advantage is not large under the premise, may have to further seek a breakthrough in the potential of P5.
Speaking of which, the cross-border Evergrande Automobile is definitely a member of the new forces, although the outside world has mixed praise and criticism, but in the voice of doubt, it has changed the "PPT car" style, sunk its heart to "work hard for 100 days", and it is difficult not to be moved by the determination to save the entire group.
In January, its first car was successfully rolled off the production line, which is also a little real skill, but there is a debt-laden Evergrande Group dragging, whether Evergrande Automobile can successfully achieve mass production delivery, in order to prove that cross-border car manufacturing is feasible, it is difficult to guess.
It is undeniable that relative to the past, in recent years, independent brands riding the "new four modernization" train, is constantly breaking through, it is predicted that in the new forces, the greatest potential is Xiaopeng and Eian, if they can develop steadily according to the status quo, the two may be able to become Guangzhou comparable to the joint venture giant players.
Although the current status of the joint venture brand is still difficult to shake, but it is still in a relatively weak state in the field of new energy, when the joint venture brand has just made up its mind to give up oil to electricity and overcome electrification, the new forces that have accumulated a certain amount of product strength are still a good time to seize the time to achieve overtaking.
In addition, as the central city of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, guangzhou's new image of the automobile industry is also reflected in the new auto parts and accessories, automotive intelligent development and other industries that are constantly landing in the city.
In 2019, the Yuexin 12-inch wafer project was put into operation in Huangpu District and Guangzhou Development Zone, with a total investment of 28.8 billion yuan, which is the first 12-inch chip production line in Guangzhou and the only mass-produced 12-inch chip production line in Guangdong Province.
Last year, the chip famine shrouded the automobile industry, so that the production and sales of many automobile brands are limited, with the development of Guangdong core semiconductor companies, it will promote the process of "chip localization", and the automotive companies rooted in Guangzhou will also enjoy its dividends, and the demand pressure for automotive chips will be alleviated.
In terms of automotive intelligence, previously iFLYTEK and GAC Group cooperated to establish Galaxy Zhilian, with software-defined vehicles as the main line, based on the intelligence and digital transformation of the entire automotive industry chain, upgrading and creating intelligent cockpit and vehicle networking services, and EAN V was equipped with iFLYTEK Flying Fish System 2.0 to achieve intelligent voice control of the whole vehicle.
It is worth mentioning that guangzhou's current autonomous driving industry is ushering in an invincible rapid development, and more and more autonomous driving companies choose to land here. Up to now, Guangzhou has gathered Wenyuan Zhixing, Xiaoma Zhixing, Woya (Didi), Apollo (Baidu) and other autonomous driving head algorithm companies.
With the preemptive development of Guangzhou's automatic driving industry, a number of car brands in the city that want to strengthen their products to become intelligent may also "get the moon first near the water", and cooperate with the automatic driving head algorithm enterprise to further strengthen the upgrading of the product to complete the automatic driving technology.
It is understood that Xiaopeng has set up an automatic driving company to borrow city-level pilot assisted driving to open the second half of the intelligent assisted driving war one step ahead of the industry.
Che Tanjun observation
Guangzhou, which is highly inclusive, accommodates the "new" and "old" of the automobile industry at the same time, and the layout of the coexistence of the old and the new presented by it is also the epitome of the alternation of the old and the new in the entire Chinese automobile industry.
Looking back at the past, before the development of new energy, the joint venture brand has always been the head of Guangzhou, relying on the breastfeeding of the joint venture brand, and the whole city has tilted towards it.
Nowadays, in the face of the "new four modernizations" hurricane, the pattern of the joint venture brand's long-term suppression of the market has finally been shaken, and this city with a strong innovative temperament has given birth to an enterprise with innovative spirit.
For example, GAC Aean, born from the old traditional car companies, based on new forces, such as the predecessor of the main creative team that served GAC's Xiaopeng, an innovator who is unwilling to run on the old road, and has achieved a different new force of car manufacturing.
Of course, this spirit of innovation also exists in established car companies, such as Dongfeng Nissan, Gaqi Honda and GAC Toyota, which are accelerating the creation of electrified products, such as GAC Trumpchi, which has decided to comprehensively reform, and Venucia, which has transformed new energy.
At present, all car companies have realized that when the new energy wind is booming, the "conservative" mentality has been unable to adapt to the changing automobile market, and only by moving the brakes and innovating the new can we keep the cake in our hands.
*The pictures in this article are from the Internet