SAIC-GM | Disappeared Decade (Part II)

Synopsis

SAIC-GM seems to have found its own crux of the problem, but there is no cure.

It is inevitable that it would be unfair to blame SAIC-GM's nearly decade-long losses on GM, SAIC Group or some executives of SAIC-GM. GM's strategy, pan-Asian research and development, the differences between the three major brands and the fluctuations of the overall market have combined to create saic and GM's ten years of unarmed progress.

01

One after another, profits plummeted

Since the "green future" was proposed in 2008, especially since 2011, SAIC-GM has obviously been ahead of competitors in the planning of new energy vehicles, but in the end it has collapsed, and the dispute between China and foreign countries for the right to speak may be one of the key reasons.

Some media have quoted an industry insider close to SAIC-GM as saying, "The joint venture brand can't do a good job of pure electric luxury electric vehicles, in fact, there are many reasons." Because of the successful experience in the past, the foreign party is not willing to give up its own brand premium, and added the premium of the oil car era to the early electric vehicles, and the product strength did not meet expectations. ”

The expectation of making more money from the rapidly developing but not yet mature Chinese auto market is the general recognition of a number of international brands represented by General Motors. However, the insistence of the foreign side not only failed to make SAIC-GM make money from new energy vehicles, but also began to be eaten back in the fuel vehicle market.

In 2016 and 2017, when the sales trend of fuel vehicles was clear, SAIC Motor's financial report showed that SAIC-GM's attributable net profit was 16.948 billion yuan and 15.421 billion yuan, respectively. Yes, in 2017, when it set a record for sales, SAIC-GM's attributable net profit fell by 9.01%.

Sales growth, profits decline, sales decline, profits are even more plummeting. According to the financial report, in 2019, SAIC-GM's net profit attributable to the mother was 10.96 billion yuan, down nearly 30%. In 2020, its net profit attributable to the mother was only 4.103 billion yuan, down 62.56% year-on-year.

After several years of continuous declines, SAIC-GM has finally rekindled its emphasis on the new energy market. In April 2021, SAIC-GM released its plan that by 2025, SAIC-GM will launch more than 10 domestic new energy models based on the Ultium platform, covering the three major brands of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac.

02

The market is relentless, retreating to the four cylinders

In addition to promoting the 10 new energy models, SAIC-GM has a more troublesome historical legacy that needs to be solved.

This problem stems from the "green future".

SAIC-GM's "green future" is not a narrow reference to new energy vehicles, but a broader concept of environmental protection. As Ding Lei said before, the goal of "Green Moving Future" is to take off the hat of the "oil tiger" of American cars.

It should be known that around 2008, when Volkswagen opened the turbo era in the Chinese market with the EA888 engine, SAIC-GM's products were still equipped with 2.0L, 2.4L and even 3.0L V6 self-priming engines. Large displacement and high fuel consumption once became synonymous with SAIC-GM.

In October 2011, in the first year of the restructuring, GM announced that it would develop a new generation of Ecotec engines and plan to launch new three- and four-cylinder engines. Six years later, in 2017, SAIC-GM officially released the three-cylinder engine, achieving the coverage of the full range of powertrains from 2.0T to 1.0T, and walking ahead of all car companies in the engine downsizing strategy.

It is worth noting that Volkswagen and Toyota, which are ahead of GM in the research and development of three-cylinder engines, have never launched corresponding models in China, and the latter has not introduced three-cylinder engines to the Chinese market until the beginning of 2021.

Although the major media have different views on whether the three-cylinder engine is shaking, the almost one-sided questioning and worrying remarks on the automotive forum have made all models equipped with three-cylinder engines labeled as "original sin", and sales have been greatly affected.

At the Buick Day event at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, SAIC-GM announced that it will launch a new 1.5T engine and emphasize its "four-cylinder turbocharged engine" attributes. In the eyes of the outside world, this is undoubtedly a compromise of SAIC-GM.

SAIC-GM is not the only manufacturer to bow to the market, the other two followers of the three-cylinder engine, Dongfeng Nissan and Changan Ford, also feel the ruthlessness of the market from X-Trail and Fox, and helplessly choose to retreat to the four-cylinder engine.

03

The one who should die will eventually die

As the "auto executive with the longest battery life", Wang Yongqing is the most direct witness to the success and failure of SAIC-GM in recent years. Although some media have questioned Wang Yongqing's management ability, in fact, wang Yongqing is not seriously wrong in market planning and prejudgment.

At the time of the sharp decline in performance in 2019, Wang Yongqing had made the expectation of "outperforming the market next year and having confidence". The actual situation is that in the context of the 6% year-on-year decline in domestic passenger car sales in 2020, SAIC-GM did outperform the market, although the increase was only 0.2%, and finally held the position with difficulty.

Another prejudgment with a longer time span also demonstrates Wang Yongqing's ability. In 2015, Wang Yongqing told the outside world: "A few years ago, traditional cars accounted for 70%, and SUVs accounted for more than ten percent. And now it seems that by 2020, SUVs are likely to reach 30% share. The reality data is that in 2020, SAIC-GM sold a total of 1.467 million vehicles, of which SUV sales totaled 433,000 units, accounting for 29.5%, which is almost the same as Wang Yongqing's prediction five years ago.

If you have to pick out Wang Yongqing's mistakes, you can only turn over the old accounts and add SAIC-GM's all-out efforts to the three-cylinder engine on Wang Yongqing's head.

"In the next three to five years, mainstream OEMs will be on the three-cylinder engine." Wang Yongqing was very optimistic about the future of the three-cylinder engine. Under the guidance of such cognition, a number of major models, including Yinglang, began to be large-scale, and even the whole series was equipped with three-cylinder engines, and SAIC-GM's three-cylinder models once accounted for 70% of the total market.

There is a view in the industry that it is precisely because of the gradual replacement of three-cylinder engines in 2017-2019 that SAIC-GM has been surpassed by SAIC Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen successively. Wang Yongqing finally admitted: "In the early stage of 2019 (three-cylinder engine), there is still a big impact on market sales. ”

I don't know whether it was too much of a setback on the three-cylinder engine, or the "Green Future" five-year plan released in April 2015 became empty talk, and in 2020, in the year when the next phase of the "Green Future" five-year plan and the 2025 strategy should be released, SAIC-GM chose to lose its voice.

SAIC-GM seems to be no longer keen to hang on the "green future", enter "SAIC-GM + green future" in the search engine, select the information section, and most of the content that appears is the public welfare activities held by the "green future" environmental protection platform.

This environmental protection public welfare platform jointly initiated by the China Ecological Civilization Research and Promotion Association and SAIC-GM is still operating normally, and the official website called "Green Moving Future" can also be opened normally, and it is directly related to SAIC-GM, but only the logo at the top of the page remains.

Perhaps, this is the last remembrance of a lost era for SAIC-GM.