New Car Notes
Written by | Liu Jihao
Nowadays, the names of the car circle like to take the sword to the side, and more and more cars are named with animals, coffee, tanks, warships, etc., which seems to reflect the hobbies of today's young consumers, which is indeed a different era.
On March 17, SAIC Roewe brought an SUV called "Whale", the new car is a more fashionable COUPE cross-border style, currently only released three models, all equipped with 2.0T engines, pre-sale prices of 166,800, 175,800 and 192,800 yuan respectively. At the same time, the manufacturer issued relevant pre-sale supporting policies, including 36 periods of 0 interest, two years of 7.8% discount value preservation repurchase, lifetime original vehicle warranty, Sinan high-end intelligent driving system lifetime free upgrade, million APP points, etc.
In fact, seeing this price, the author is slightly surprised, because the current price of the same level of coupe models is generally lower than this, and they are still mainstream brands, so how strong saic and roewe whale this car is, it has become the focus of everyone's attention.
Three selling points
Bionic design, intelligence and power
Whales actually appeared a year ago, first released at last year's Shanghai Auto Show, but they have not entered the rhythm of listing for a long time, so the attention has not yet risen.
As far as the design of the model itself is concerned, the roewe whale is a reference to some elements of the marine large animal whale, especially the grille and tail wing. Moreover, its body faintly reveals the shadow of some new energy vehicles, because its front face is borderless grille style, which will give people the misunderstanding of "being closed state" - which just shows that the designer's purpose has been achieved, because although this car is a traditional fuel vehicle, it is actually no different from new energy vehicles in terms of intelligence, and even more so.
Speaking of intelligence, we have to say that the Whale car's Sinan intelligent driving system, the whole car is equipped with 29 radars (including 3 millimeter wave radars), equipped with the top Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chip, coupled with powerful algorithms, manufacturers claim that "entry is high-end". Based on this, in addition to the common L2 level intelligent assisted driving, a major feature of the whale is the NGP intelligent driving pilot, can autonomously get on and off the ramp and switch speed, at the same time, this car also provides AR real driving and visual integration automatic parking function, fully meet the high-tech needs of young people for driving.
Of course, the real level of the whale still has to wait until the new car is officially listed.
The pre-sale price is on the high side
Officially listed or left behind
The product force is in line with the appetite of young people, but is the price not? In this regard, we may wish to look at the current situation of the market.
COUPE style cross-border SUV, the real rise of the domestic is also the last two or three years of things, Changan, the Great Wall, Geely has shot, brought CS85 COUPE, Haval F7X, Xingyue and other three products, becoming the pioneer of independent brand SUVs to play cross-border, the price is basically similar, the entry-level type is about 120,000 yuan, and the high match is between 160,000 and 180,000 yuan.
Therefore, from the perspective of the existing players in the market, the pre-price of Roewe Whale is directly from 166,800 yuan, and the high match is even close to 200,000 yuan, which has exceeded the opponents by a large margin, and there are certain variables in whether it can be recognized by the market.
Of course, perhaps the manufacturer wants to benchmark the Lynk & Co 05, because the starting price of this car is 175,800 yuan, which is closer to Roewe Whale, and its price ceiling is higher, reaching more than 260,000. However, Lynk & Co has many years of brand accumulation and has established a young high-end brand image of light luxury sports among young people.
In addition, from the perspective of the size of the COUPE market, although many car companies have a layout here, but in fact, the sales of a single model are not high, taking the aforementioned Changan CS85 COUPE, Haval F7X and Geely Xingyue (including Xingyue S) as an example, in the past three years, their average monthly sales of one or two thousand units, the best selling Lynk & Co 05 month is also two or three thousand units, is really not the Red Sea market. Therefore, whether Roewe Whale can drive the outbreak of the cross-border SUV market, in terms of the current price strategy, it is still impossible to predict.
However, it is not excluded that manufacturers will sacrifice more means when they are officially listed a few months later. The first is the product strategy, which does not rule out the launch of 1.5T models by manufacturers, and further lowers the threshold to about 130,000 yuan, just like the RX5 MAX; the second is the market strategy, which does not rule out that the final pricing of the 2.0T model will be lowered by thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan, which is basically at the same level as the opponents, or the gap is not so obvious - after all, the entry price of the 2.0T models of the three opponents of Changan CS85 COUPE, Haval F7X, and Geely Xingyue S is only about 140,000 yuan.
『 Final Remarks 』
At this conference, in addition to the price that surprised the author slightly, the process of the conference also made me have more than 20 years of experience in the industry A little unexpected, because the duration is only 4 minutes - in the author's opinion, the manufacturer's move is more than two meanings, either not enough attention, or intends to leave more suspense until the official listing.
Normal to understand, it should be the latter.
After all, from another sense, as saicel Roewe's first cross-border SUV product, the arrival of whale will greatly change the brand's impression in the minds of users, because most of Roewe's previous products are more traditional, the appeal to young people is relatively limited, and the design concept and core selling point of whale completely subvert this existing cognition.
What's more, SAIC is getting smarter and smarter now, and what heat in the circle is high, we will lean on it, such as the manufacturer's practice of naming this car "Whale", and the front face called "Whale Pattern Hu Fine Grille", which rubbed a wave of heat. For example, the power brand of Chang'an over there is called Blue Whale, and the roewe whale top model is also called blue whale, not to mention the front face of the latest model of Chang'an pillar model CS75PLUS, which is also the same as the hero's vision; this side of the BYD dolphin is selling more and more hot, the same as the "marine animal", the Roewe whale is naturally placed high hopes by the manufacturer.
Therefore, manufacturers still have ideas and expectations. Now we will wait for the roewe whale's real car to arrive at the store, and then we will share it with you further.
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