Written by | Zhao Lingwei
Edit | Chen Hao
Produced | Automotive Sankei
After the first round of the new energy transformation, traditional car companies began to actively correct deviations.
In 2021, the era of Blue Gili Action 1.0 came to an end, and the results were lamentable. With the advent of the CMA and the Vast Architecture, Geely's "Geely 2025 Plan" released last year is even more convincing.
At the Changan Automobile Science and Technology Ecology Conference, Chairman Zhu Huarong gave the latest strategic planning of Changan Automobile in the field of new energy, which is also an iteration of Changan's "Shangri-La Plan" in 2017.
Great Wall Motors was still in a wait-and-see period for the new energy market when it released Euler in 2018, and last year it finally made up its mind to let new energy vehicles share 80% of the target of 4 million vehicles in 2025.
The new energy vehicle market in 2015 is only one-tenth of the current one, if the car companies at that time did not have much experience to refer to in predicting the future, then in today's 2.0 era, they have touched the route and changed the route.
These experiences stem from the difficulties they encountered during the first round of transition over the past six years.
NO.1
[Lead Hua]
A number of senior executives of the Geely department told the auto industry and economy that at the beginning, the company itself did not think about how new energy vehicles are a completely different business from fuel vehicles, and the greater significance of "Blue Geely" lies in responding to policies.
In 2017, two years after the implementation of "Blue Geely", Geely's annual sales of new energy vehicles increased from 6,100 to 82,095 units, but most of them were Zhidou and Kandy, which operated mini car brands independently. At this time, Changan Automobile also took advantage of the momentum of Benben EV to become the car company with the largest increase in new energy sales that year.
In October of the same year, Changan Automobile released the new energy strategy "Shangri-La Plan" - it is expected to completely stop selling fuel vehicles in the traditional sense by 2025, and at the same time planned a future travel profit model of "driverless + electric vehicle + time-sharing leasing".
However, before any section has taken shape, Changan New Energy Company has fallen into a loss, and the process of introducing external capital is not smooth.
In contrast, the new energy plan released by the Great Wall in 2018 is more focused on products. Its planned 12 products involve the Great Wall brand, the Beam Automobile brand and the Euler brand.
Until now, though, beam cars haven't had a product.
In those years, the new energy plans released by several head independent brands in a high-profile manner were by no means smooth sailing in the process of promotion.
Some media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that in order to quickly enter the electric vehicle market, Geely had recruited marketing talents, "including extending an olive branch to some backbones of its number one competitor BYD, but soon, some big coffee who made military orders left, because the market is really not as easy to do as imagined." ”
During the same period, new forces began to emerge. Tesla officially entered China and is firmly bound to smart electric vehicles. The head enterprises of the new forces have gradually taken shape, and Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal have completed the process from 0 to 1 with the ultimate attraction and youthful spirit. In addition, the new car has also become a star target in the capital market, standing on the outlet, taking advantage of the wait-and-see period of traditional car companies to attack the city.
Musk and Li Xiang delivered tesla's first car owners in China in 2014
For mature companies, there are fewer and fewer stories to tell. In 2018, the top executives of Changan New Energy helplessly described that "this is an asymmetric competition with capital and flow.".
Traditional car companies seem to be carrying out a stone-throwing question, and after casting several preliminary plans, they have stirred up the splash of new forces to build cars. After that, the development of things was somewhat unexpected by traditional car companies.
NO.2
[Convergence]
"The new forces have done a good job in recent years, and they have also created a demand range. (Traditional car companies) were bottomless at the beginning, did not dare to invest heavily, and now that they see the trend, they still have the ability to catch up." Li Feng, a traditional car executive who has experienced the new energy car-making movement for several years, still has confidence in the head of independent car companies.
For the "follow" argument, Great Wall Motors is much more reasonable. In the initial stage of electric vehicles, Great Wall Motors has always had reservations about its development prospects, and Chairman Wei Jianjun believes that when localism prevails, it is not a good time to get on electric vehicles, and Great Wall only does followers of the new energy industry.
In the initial sense of understanding the new energy vehicle market, the Great Wall does not have so many bells and whistles.
At noon one day in March 2018, employees at the Baoding Great Wall Motor Plant heard the radio saying that Wei Jianjun, the company's chairman, was to receive important visitors and demanded that Gaohuan and Test Mountain prohibit any vehicles from entering, and the offenders were severely fined.
In the afternoon, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu appeared in Baoding and test-drove the WEY P8 new energy SUV under the Great Wall. But to say what kind of cooperation the two sides had at that time, it was probably only later that the Great Wall bought a carbon credit from BYD.
In August of the same year, the Great Wall Euler electric vehicle brand was released, which was only a brand launched in response to the "double integral" policy, but later assumed the heavy responsibility of the Great Wall's transformation to new energy.
After four years of brewing, Geely finally saw the confidence of market feedback after the new forces were delivered. In 2019, Geely's pure electric brand Geometry Car was finally released in Singapore with great fanfare, and the momentum was comparable to the high profile of the new forces.
Soon, the following strategy also found problems.
Geely Research Institute employees said that before 2017 there are still some research results, after 2017, there are more fools, more experts and chief engineers, less employees who really work, "you pull me, everyone pulls."
In fact, 2017 was a new beginning for Geely to run to the new energy business - that year, the development resolution of the Haohan platform finally began to develop after two years of internal pulling, and it was not until 2020 that it was really launched, and the first product under the Haohan architecture, the Lynk & Co ZERO concept, which is now The Krypton 001, was officially launched last year.
He Huan, who has left the Geely system, told Auto Sankei that "when the vast architecture was launched in September 2020, Geely did not think about the play of pure trams, but after becoming independent from the Extreme Krypton brand, I feel that Geely should start to understand how pure trams should be played."
Auto Industry and Economics learned that radical reformists have been planning the vast platform since 2015, but the decision-making level is hesitant, the reason is actually the consensus of the two, "pure trams do not make money."
NO.3
[Bundle of interests]
Zhang Lin worked in a set of head independent car enterprise research institutes a few years ago, and accompanied the senior management to investigate dealer stores across the country and found that there were thousands of sales policies for dealers by OEMs, and the policies for various regions, provinces and models were different.
Executives who participated in the survey found that "dealers themselves close the door to calculate, whether to sell A cars or B cars, anyway, sales are so many people, sell what car is the most profitable to sell what car, tomorrow after the policy changes, they will face the policy change, they are looking at our policy really thoroughly."
Even during the high-level change of defense of this car company, dealers will reduce the number of cars sold at the end of the month to "force the palace", forcing new officials to introduce policies that make their earnings higher.
However, traditional car companies can't put down dealers.
He Huan told us, "Car companies can attribute the biggest capital occupation risk to others." The main engine factory is to produce the car and sell it to the dealer and then settle with the supplier, the dealer is a huge financing pool of the main engine factory, the dealer pays the main engine factory, the main engine factory will pay the supplier. In such a mode, dealers cannot be abandoned, and the traditional OEMs play like this."
The chain of interests is the thorn that binds the changes of the car company, but every move is painful.
"If you give a dealer the choice of selling trams or oil trucks, the dealer will definitely sell oil trucks because the profits are high." At the same time, for the project of trams and oil trucks for the institute, the engineers could not devote themselves wholeheartedly. I think that pure electric products must be truly successful and detached from the mother, because it is a completely new system. ”
An executive who has invested in new cars from traditional car companies said that The old king still underestimated the play of smart electric vehicles. "The direct sales model looks expensive, but in fact, from the financial report to see the end-to-end marketing expenses, the direct sales model of Tesla can do less than 10%, while the dealer model of the traditional car companies usually more than 20%."
However, whether the direct operation is really established still needs to be tested by scale, and the fact is also developing into an embarrassing situation. 2021 is undoubtedly the year of Tesla's canonization, but the news of Tesla's shrinking stores has appeared again, and the channels after that will shift from core supermarket display stores to locations far from the city to build delivery centers.
Traditional car companies also do not recognize that direct sales are omnipotent, as mentioned above, Li Feng in the traditional car enterprise system said, "Traditional car companies learn direct sales and pay a lot of tuition fees. But slowly it will change, the key is how to do the pattern between toB and toC is what everyone has to think about. When selling hundreds of thousands of cars a month, dealers still need to invest."
In addition to the sales link, smart electric vehicles also pay attention to the whole life cycle service, traditional car companies want to learn, but unfortunately there are many loopholes. Some insiders commented, "Traditional car companies want to do a good job in new energy vehicle sales services, in fact, they can't cut a short road, because the underlying logic is different."
For example, around New Year's Day in 2022, the preferential strategy of extreme krypton has caused controversy, and Yang Xueliang, CMO of extreme krypton, said that in fact, the team thought of this problem, but the idea of traditional car companies in the past was always to meet the needs of most consumers, which will cause trouble for a small number of users, and did not expect it to be so serious.
For Extreme Krypton, this is also a warning, Yang Xueliang said, "Now users may care more about the attitude of the manufacturer and your value proposition, this change, this time we deeply feel."
The change of the main engine factory from the simple relationship between A and B to the dealer to take care of the details of all users is cruel to the traditional enterprise driven by inertia, but it is imperative.
In addition, the solidification of thinking within traditional car companies is also a stubborn disease that is difficult to solve. For the management of large enterprises, not making mistakes is a kind of achievement.
For example, in the traditional car-making process, there will be a lot of time on the actual measurement of the road, so as to get the use case. Artificial intelligence technology can quickly get more use cases, which can effectively shorten the research and development time.
But the conservative and inertial thinking of traditional car companies makes the development of these technologies feel like a heavy blow to a cotton.
After Geely moved both Krypton and the Research Institute to Hangzhou Bay, their work became busier, and 996 was commonplace. But in the eyes of engineers, some of this overtime is ineffective, "a lot of data can already prove the results of the problem, but also to do testing, in order to convince the leader with new data."
At the executive meeting, a person in charge said, "We all know how important digitalization is, everyone is talking about driving digital reform in the enterprise, but the people who hinder digitalization are now in this room."
This is difficult for one or two people to push, and the obstacles in the process are also difficult for one or two people to withstand.
NO.4
[Amendment]
If a complete transformation is not possible, is it possible to transition to the next era with a gentle approach?
According to Li Feng's understanding, "the car company's planning for 2020 is more like a blind goal, or a dream, and this time 2025 is planned." Traditional car companies understand new energy into two aspects, one is pure electricity, one is integrated hybrid, they basically think (the future pure electricity and hybrid market share) is half and half. ”
When Geely's 2025 strategy was released last year, Geely Automobile CEO Gan Jiayue said frankly, "Geometry did not do well enough before." But this is not because of the strategy, the strategy is set right, the product force is no problem, but in the implementation of the resource matching is not in place." As a result, geometry is already improving through a series of optimized management of end channels.
After 2021, the traditional car companies that have calmed down will slowly turn their cautious eyes to look at themselves. Li Feng saw the market situation is that "at present, pure trams are actually not so hot, they are high-end cars and low-end cars on sale, and only if they can occupy a position in the mass market of 100,000-250,000 is the hope of new energy vehicles."
Li Feng believes that the symbol of the support of the new energy industry is that BYD Song DMi is recognized by consumers, "so between 100,000 and 250,000 will be an opportunity for hybrid vehicles to break through."
As a result, hybrid technology has become the main theme of traditional car companies in 2021. Blue Geely plans to divide into two, using Raytheon Power to smash the meaning of energy-saving cars into porcelain; BYD DMi model reputation and sales double; Great Wall's lemon hybrid platform is expected to be exported to the outside world; Changan launched iDD hybrid system to expand the production sequence for the Blue Whale Power brand...
For traditional car companies, this is undoubtedly the choice to maximize the current benefits.
On the other hand, for the attitude of capital, traditional car companies are more tolerant. After all, taking outside money to do an uncertain, high-investment thing is a reasonable bet. And the funds in the market are limited, and there is no need to use it to cultivate an opponent.
In November 2019, The first round of financing of Changan New Energy was completed. In the middle of 2021, Changan New Energy reported the news of listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. On January 24, 2022, Changan New Energy held a signing ceremony for the B round of financing, announcing the completion of 4.977 billion yuan of financing, with an excess financing amount of nearly 2 billion yuan. After completing the B round of financing, Changan New Energy plans to complete the public listing around 2025.
Extreme Kr has had plans in the capital market since its birth, so Geely Automobile even withdrew its application for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in June last year, and issued an announcement that the board of directors of Extreme Kr Intelligent Technology has decided to explore different external financing solutions for the sustainable development of Extreme Kr Intelligent Technology.
Now, Musk has announced that he will no longer attend Tesla's earnings meetings, and Li Bin, Li Xiang and He Xiaopeng are also appearing less and less in the public eye. Li Bin runs his own users on the Weilai app, Li wants to teach people to start a business on Weibo, and Xiaopeng Motors employees tell us that He Xiaopeng feels that the story is over, and now there is nothing to talk about.
In the past year, the personnel of the new and old forces seem to have begun to alternate, and the new energy brands of traditional car companies have created a frenzy, even if "black and red is red". New forces compete in the sales data issued on the 1st of each month, deal with the software and hardware problems of products, and chase the cliché of the significance of scale.
NO.5
[Written at the end]
We often use the change of mobile phone industry is also analogous to today's smart car offensive, think of Nokia, which was killed by the times, and its former CEO Orila famously said: "We didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost." ”
Compared with 6 years ago, the list of the top ten car companies in the sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 has changed greatly, and the car companies that plagiarized and cheated to make up for the mess have long been eliminated, and the newly built cars have supported half of the country.
Pressure has been given to the traditional car companies. Experience is both an advantage and a burden, but we still have reason to believe that they can find a way to reconcile with the new world, and that is no longer a matter of waiting to see.
Fight，or die。
*Li Feng, He Huan, and Zhang Lin are pseudonyms.