China's new car-making forces have left foreign luxury car brands behind| Tang Yanliu

On the track of smart electric vehicles, the opportunity for Chinese cars to overtake in curves has finally emerged.

In February, Gaohe Automobile once again overwhelmed the Porsche Taycan and Tesla Model X, winning the sales volume of more than 500,000 yuan in the luxury electric vehicle market, and the market share reached 33%. This is equivalent to every 3 cars sold in this segment, and one is Gaohe HiPhi X.

In October last year, in the fourth month of delivery of Gaohe's HiPhi X, HiPhi X surpassed porsche Taycan to win the new energy vehicle sales champion in the luxury car market of more than 500,000 yuan. Up to now, Gaohe Automobile has delivered 5142 HiPhi X to users, as a luxury car product with an average sales price of nearly 700,000 yuan, Gaohe Automobile has set the fastest delivery speed of more than 500,000 Chinese luxury pure electric brands.

In the 300,000 yuan luxury car electric vehicle market, WEILAI Automobile's insurance volume in 2021 surpassed Tesla and BMW, ranking first. Last year, Tesla had about 7,000 fewer insurances in China than Weilai, and BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi had lower insurance.

Local companies such as Xiaopeng and GAC Aean have generally defeated joint venture car companies. With the products of the two technical routes of DMI and EV, BYD has defeated Tesla in terms of sales scale. In April, BYD will release a new pure electric sedan to compete directly with the Tesla Model 3.

Volkswagen's pure electric vehicle ID series launched a counterattack last year, and the sales results so far are not ideal. The reason is that although the Volkswagen ID is a good electric vehicle, it is not a smart electric vehicle that users prefer. Due to the shortcomings of intelligent cockpits and other aspects, a subsidiary of Volkswagen in China believes that ID can only become a second-tier model in China's new energy vehicle market, and cannot replicate Volkswagen's dominance in the fuel vehicle market.

In the fuel vehicle market, these changes are almost unimaginable. Don't say that in the market price of 300,000 or more than 500,000 yuan to beat foreign opponents, 150,000 yuan market segment is still a ceiling-level existence for many independent brand fuel vehicles. From this perspective, the smart electric vehicle track not only creates opportunities for The Chinese auto industry to overtake in curves, but also creates opportunities for Chinese brands to invade the luxury car market that European companies have dominated for hundreds of years.

Awakening luxury car companies will launch a more violent attack in 2022, according to the information released by various car companies, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Volvo, etc., foreign luxury brands will launch more than 10 new cars this year. However, judging from the product information that has been released, their winning rate is generally not large.

It is easy to understand that most of the new energy vehicles of foreign companies are still stuck at the level of vehicles that have changed from oil to electricity or replaced the powertrain, and it is difficult for them to understand the chinese users' desire for intelligent equipment, and under the leadership of the Chinese market, cars are accelerating the transformation to mobile intelligent terminals.

As one of Volvo's former engineers put it: "The cars we have mass-produced are lagging behind the competition, and the products we are planning and developing will still be lagging behind when the mass production is officially produced a few years later." ”

Taking Gaohe Automobile as an example, when the company's first car, HiPhi X, was released last year, an engineer from a German automobile company commented that the car can be called a combination of Tesla and Mercedes-Benz S-class - the electronic architecture is benchmarked Tesla, and the configuration is benchmarked Mercedes-Benz S-Class. If the characteristics of HiPhi X at that time were that the "three electric" hardware was full, and the intelligent technology configuration created new functions and experiences, now HiPhi X has evolved to a user-definable interior scene, and the smart home that is still in the conceptual stage is completely transplanted into the car.

In the recently launched remodeled car, the HiPhi X will increase the endurance to 650km, the 17-speaker Meridian audio will be decentralized to all models, and the co-driver will add a 19.9-inch entertainment screen. It is difficult to see this change in traditional car companies, because the core goal of the annual remodeled car is usually to reduce costs, not increase the configuration.

"The electric vehicles that we see now in luxury car companies have not jumped out of the definition of fuel vehicles to reconstruct the concept of a new generation of automotive products. It is precisely because there is no jump out of the definition of fuel vehicles, there is no innovation from products to marketing services, so there is no selling point, no profit point, and no demand. A management official at Jaguar Land Rover China said.

This also explains why many long-established luxury car companies have lagged behind Local Chinese startups such as Gaohe and Weilai in this round of electric vehicle sales.

In February, Daniela Cavallo, president of the Volkswagen Union, said Volkswagen must take more aggressive action in China to gain more market share by understanding the needs of Chinese consumers, with a particular focus on software.

"In the era of fuel vehicles, the products and technologies of China's automobile market are mainly based on the introduction of foreign capital, and the preferences of European and American users are used to cover the needs of Chinese users. However, in the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the electronic consumer goods attributes of automobiles are getting stronger and stronger, and the market leadership and change will start from China, and the Chinese market will affect the world's market. A research and development executive of a new power car company said to Xiang.

Returning to the theme of this article, in 2022, mercedes-benz, BMW and other luxury car companies will vigorously attack the new energy vehicle market, will they change the pattern of Chinese start-ups currently at the head? I don't think so.

The competition in the era of fuel vehicles can be said to be a big fish eating a small fish, and the intelligent electric vehicle track is a fast fish eating a slow fish. Companies such as Gaohe, Weilai, and Tesla are not only one step ahead in terms of innovation in terms of user insights and business models, but also two positions ahead in product definition and the reshaping of supply chain ecology.

In this recent product cycle, traditional luxury car companies such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW are likely to face the Internet-style dimensionality reduction blow.