In recent years, the development speed of independent car companies has been very fast, geely, Changan, Great Wall, BYD and other first-line brands have not only achieved absolute originality in appearance, but also made great progress in technology. At the same time, the car companies that relied on plagiarism to build cars in that year were gradually eliminated by the market. In this situation, I thought that independent car companies began to rise, and gradually got rid of the image of plagiarism and imitation, but I could not imagine that the plagiarism hat that independent car companies had taken off was brought up by new energy car companies.
Emerging car companies like to play imitation
Recently, two new models have attracted the attention of car buyers, namely Lingbao Uni officially rolled off the production line and Dongfeng Fengguang MINIEV officially listed, two ordinary car company activities, but revealed thought-provoking information. The design of Lingbao Uni and Scenery MINIEV is similar to that of Hongguang MINIEV, and independent car companies have returned to the era of cottages.
In fact, the models that imitate the Hongguang MINIEV also have Chery ice cream that entered the market early. These models copy the design of the wind MINIEV, one can save positive research and development costs, and the other can rub the heat of hongguang MINIEV. It should be known that Hongguang MINIEV has become the world's best-selling new energy vehicle, and also the most popular pure electric vehicle in the domestic market, with cumulative sales of more than 400,000 vehicles in 2021. Lingbao Uni, Fengguang MINIEV, and Chery Ice Cream use similar designs to Hongguang MINIEV to get attention faster.
At present, Chery Ice Cream has achieved good market results, often entering the top five of the new energy car sales list, in this regard, Lingbao Automobile and Dongfeng Scenery should be red-eyed. However, plagiarism also has many drawbacks, not only infringing on the intellectual property rights of others, but also affecting their own brand image.
In fact, Lingbao's plagiarism behavior can be understood, this is a start-up enterprise, the ability of capital, research and development, manufacturing and other aspects is weak, and the early stage of development can only imitate other products. But what is puzzling is that Dongfeng Scenery and Chery Automobile are car companies that have been fighting in the automobile market for many years, and they are all backed by large groups, and still use plagiarism to build cars. It should be said that Chery Automobile's upcoming OMODA 5 model is also similar to Changan UNI-T. Is it true that the plagiarized thinking of independent car companies cannot be cured?
In fact, in addition to Lingbao, Dongfeng Fengguang, Chery Automobile, the three car companies copied SAIC-GM-Wuling's Hongguang MINIIEV, including Ideal Car, Ranger Car, Bojun Automobile and other brands are also copying other well-known models.
The recent release of the official map of the ideal L9 interior has grabbed a wave of heat. Among the new power brands, Ideal Car is indeed a relatively successful brand, and only the ideal ONE car can rush to the head position, which also proves that the product strength of Ideal ONE is more in line with the needs of domestic consumers to buy cars.
But many people may not know that the ideal ONE mimics highlander's chassis design. Earlier, someone disassembled the 2021 ideal ONE, and found that the chassis of the vehicle was similar to the structure of the 2018 Highlander chassis of GAC Toyota, and the research and development design of the front subframe, wheel bracket, hem arm, longitudinal arm and other parts was extremely similar to highlander, and even the size of most of the parts was completely consistent.
Coincidentally, Ranger Cars and Bo County Cars have copied Tesla's design, and at present, Ranger Cars and Bo County Cars have been eliminated by the market, but the story of Ranger X and Bo County iV6 plagiarizing Tesla models is still circulating.
These plagiarism incidents reflect a phenomenon that the mainland new energy vehicle industry is still in a stage of barbaric development, and the relevant regulations and industry norms are not perfect enough, so car companies dare to boldly infringe on the intellectual property rights of others.
Behind the imitation is laziness and helplessness
Now the development trend of the domestic new energy vehicle market is similar to that year's fuel vehicles, the initial stage of development ushered in an explosive period, in February this year, the wholesale sales of new energy passenger cars also reached 317,000 units, an increase of 189.1% year-on-year, while sales also increased by 180.5% year-on-year To 272,000 vehicles, this is still the initial achievement of development, and now the country is still encouraging the development of new energy vehicles, just as the mainland encouraged cars to go to the countryside, the new energy vehicle market still has a very broad space for development, which is an important reason for many car companies to quickly push new cars to seize market share.
However, unlike the early stage of the development of the mainland automobile market, in the past, consumers basically had less understanding of cars, and the pursuit of vehicles was mainly large space, high practicality, and many users paid for inferior models that relied on plagiarism. Now consumers are already in the stage of consumption upgrading, and the requirements for vehicle quality, personalization, originality and other aspects are getting higher and higher. In this regard, the sales list of new energy vehicles released by the Association of Automobile Manufacturers is also reflected.
The polarization of the new energy passenger car market is very serious, and the high sales volume is basically a brand with strong system strength, as well as its products, such as BYD Qin/Han/Dolphin, SAIC-GM-Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, Tesla Model Y, etc. The general sales performance of new energy products of other car companies is low, and the monthly sales of suvs ranked fifteenth in new energy in January this year are 2230 units, and the number one is 3585 vehicles, but the monthly sales of the first sedan and SUV are more than 20,000 units, and users are concentrated in mainstream brands and models.
It is foreseeable that car companies in the new energy vehicle outlet, even if they can obtain certain market results by plagiarism, but they may not be able to laugh to the end, if the car companies only rely on speculative methods to build cars and grab sales, the final result will be the same as Zotye and Lufeng and other car companies, eliminated by the market.
For the consequences of plagiarism, I believe many car companies are also clear, but they may be forced to help. Because new power car companies are developing new cars, the speed of elimination may be faster.
As we all know, the new force car companies in the early stage of development to rely on financing to survive, but the capital is profit-seeking, if the capital can not see the car companies have products out, delay in return, will stop investing in car companies. And the forward research and development of new cars is very complex, it takes a long time, generally speaking, a new car from the establishment of the project to the landing takes 4-5 years, even if the structural complexity of pure electric vehicles is lower than that of traditional fuel vehicles, but the required hardware is also a lot, forward research and development is very time-consuming, coupled with the weak system capabilities of new power car companies, it takes longer to start building cars from 0. Then in order to get more financing, in order to continue to survive, emerging car companies can only use faster speed to build cars, in this case, only reverse research and development can meet the needs of car companies and capitalists.
It is estimated that many new energy models on the market have traces of imitation, but they are relatively hidden. In the future, it is believed that plagiarism will remain a common phenomenon in the new energy vehicle market. For the new forces car companies with weaker capabilities, the only way to quickly push new cars is to reverse the development of mature products in the market. If the new power car companies want to maintain market competitiveness, what they need to do is to continuously accumulate experience in the reverse research and development process and form their own style.
Through imitation, car companies can effectively save the cost of car manufacturing, push new cars faster, and thus seize more market share. However, plagiarism is not a long-term solution, if you want to stand firm in the Chinese auto market, hard power is the key to win, increase the research and development of new cars, master the core car technology, is the real way out for car companies.