Can the Roewe Whale catch up? After the pre-sale on March 17 came to an end, this became a concern for countless fans on the car.
From the naming point of view, roewe whales, like the Haval dog, the tank 300, and the BYD dolphin, are all personality-like. Therefore, when SAIC first announced the name of the new car, everyone stood up and ridiculed, "Roewe wants to succeed by borrowing the name like other predecessors." However, as the first product of Roewe's new series, Roewe Whale is not a figment: the unique bionic design, the "entry is high-end" brought by the Sinan intelligent driving system, the golden partner of SAIC's new generation of blue-core engine and Aisin 8AT, the three major selling points together are difficult to make the new car hidden in the city. Of course, at first glance, Roewe Whale does have a bit of the shadow of RX5, as for the arguments of Changan and SAIC fans who are more convincing, today we will not express it for the time being. And whether the new car can catch up later, I think it is better to ask "whether the positioning of the Roewe whale is accurate enough."
The birth of the BMW X6 opened the curtain on the coupe SUV market, but to this day this field is still niche. Even the hot Geely Xingyue and Lynk & Co 05 have monthly market sales of only 3,000 units, let alone others. And Roewe Whale, who holds the same ID card, is obviously difficult to get too impressive results under the premise of low brand recognition.
On the other hand, the high pre-sale price of Roewe whales is also controversial. Compared with CS85 COUPE, Haval F7X, Xingyue and other pioneers, the entry price of Roewe Whale is 40,000+ higher, and the top match has also come to nearly 200,000, and the book number is directly higher than that of the opponent, which will undoubtedly reduce the acceptance of the market. Even if we can think that this practice is Roewe in order to benchmark Lynk & Co 05, but at present, Lynk & Co has established a high-end brand image among young people, what does Roewe have? It's just wishful thinking.
Unless, of course, Roewe still has a backhand. For example, the follow-up launch of 1.5T models to lower the entry threshold; for example, after the official listing, the final pricing of 2.0T models was lowered... What the end will be, we can only wait for now.
Several times "rushing high" failed Torosity
A detailed history of roewe can be found. It always does not like to take the ordinary road, perhaps related to the origin, after all, in addition to being saic's "palm pearl", Roewe also has a noble "British blood". On the surface, Roewe is somewhat pretentious. Therefore, in the first 10 years of the 21st century, Roewe has become one of the few brands in the independent camp that dares to attack the high-end market, and the other is Chery.
At that time, the domestic car could sell 100,000 is already remarkable, and the W5, 750 and so on launched by Roewe directly pulled the price to the level of nearly 300,000. This kind of courage is rare even today. From the product level, roewe W5, Roewe 750 performance is not bad, the former has excellent off-road capabilities, the latter has administrative space and large displacement engine support, proper high-end models. In particular, the Roewe 750 was also named "the 10 most anticipated new cars of the year" in the year of listing. However, at that time, Roewe's brand power was difficult to support the price of 300,000 yuan, and finally the two products W5 and 750 were hastily ended due to sluggish sales. Roewe's first "rush higher" failed.
By the second 10 years of the 21st century, Roewe has completed a certain market accumulation, the representative model RX5 has also achieved good sales results, coupled with the wind of new energy, the brand has begun to have the idea of "rushing high" for the second time. This time, Roewe brought RX8 and Marvel X, the former for the fuel vehicle market, the latter for the new energy vehicle market. The result? RX8 positioning is awkward, urban commuting chicken ribs, outdoor off-road has no reputation; and the benchmark BBA Marvel X "goods are not right", pure electric endurance is only 370km, so that only more than 5,000 vehicles have been sold in 3 years on the market.
Obviously, Roewe did not learn the lesson of the failure of the first "rush high", and the second attempt still ended in failure. Unfortunately, since then, the rare domestic car market "cold winter" has arrived, in order to survive, Roewe can only take the civilian route from the descending section and benchmark the products against the third and fourth tier markets. Nowadays, although major models such as i5, i6, and RX3 can occupy a place in the low-end market, Roewe is getting farther and farther away from the original high-end dream, and it is becoming more and more difficult for consumers to draw an equal sign between Roewe and "high-end". As for the R car, it is essentially just an upgrade project of the Logo, and Roewe most likely does not want to make a new start on this.
After the fact, Roewe failed to seize the historical opportunity of the first two "rushes", and now wants to chase the high-end dream again, from the card face, it is "opportunity < challenge". Although SAIC still has money, resources and experience, but the current independent high-end market has gathered too many strong people, in addition to Geely Lynk & Co, Chery Xingtu, Great Wall WEY, Changan UNI, BYD Dynasty series and other traditional car companies, as well as Weilai, Xiaopeng and other new forces representatives, leaving SAIC and Roewe time, there is indeed not much time.
Is it really not too late for high-level changes to "make up for the dead sheep"?
At the beginning of last year, Roewe's senior management changed hands, and the market leader quietly changed from Wang Jianfeng to He Minglei, and the outside world heard the news and thought that Roewe wanted to revive sales. Looking at the overall sales of Roewe in recent years, the decline is an indisputable fact. 460,000 units in 2018, 420,000 units in 2019, 387,000 units in 2020, 350,000 units in 2021... What can fall to your head is not only funds and stocks, but also Roewe's market performance. For SAIC, if it does not "stop falling" in time, the marginalization of Roewe is afraid to become a fact. A digression, in fact, the outside world has always had doubts about Wang Jianfeng, and he has been transferred to the marketing mouth of the technical background, how to see it is not a reasonable plot. From the entry in 2019 to the departure of 2021, Wang Jianfeng has used all the tricks that can be used in the past 2 years, and the executives live broadcast all kinds of gimmicks such as cargo, talk shows, and pulling planes, but in exchange for "relying on price reductions to maintain their livelihood", coupled with the epidemic raging, it can only be said that Wang Jianfeng may not be incompetent, but not born at the right time.
He Minglei, who took over the baton, was previously from a sales background, and has rich experience such as the general manager of SAIC Volkswagen Central China, the director of East China, the director of Skoda East China, and the sales director of Roewe brand, etc. In theory, it is most appropriate to use professional talents to "make up for the lost sheep". However, He Minglei still used the same old method after taking office, such as playing a blind drive across the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge when the new i5 was listed before, which is still full of gimmicks in essence. It is no wonder that Roewe's title of "good actor in the automotive industry" has never been taken away. The old set is used a lot, whether there is an effect is not known, but more and more disgusting must be true. Not surprisingly, in the future, Roewe Whale is bound to make a big fuss about the "smartest fuel car".
Written at the back:
It is very appropriate to use "getting up early in the morning and catching up with a late set" to describe The high-end road of Roewe. After years of development, consumers have formed an inherent impression of Roewe's brand recognition, even if there has been an experience of "rushing high", but everyone only looks at the results, and now Roewe, which is in a low-end position in the fuel vehicle and new energy vehicle markets, wants to overtake in curves to achieve high-end, and the probability is indeed very small. At present, Roewe, only A few models such as RX5 and i5 can play, and the newly independent R car will become another test experience, and the development of the brand has come to a dilemma. The former Wang Jianfeng can use the "epidemic" to excuse the decline in sales, but what can any Minglei use now?