Text | Karakush
Buick is Chinese, Chevrolet is world.
Such a tradition seems to continue to electric vehicles.
This year, in addition to the cadillac Lyriq, which will begin delivery in the third quarter, GM will launch its second domestic car based on the Aotene platform during the year, falling under the Buick brand, a pure electric SUV code-named B233, which is expected to be priced at less than 300,000 yuan. According to Netlights, the B233 is the younger sibling of the Lyriq (codename L233), with competitors pointing to the Volkswagen ID.6.
The direction and progress are greatly split in the United States.
This year, in addition to the Lyriq will start delivering in the second quarter, GM will continue to deliver more GMC electric Hummers, and the top-equipped Edition 1 version began to be delivered at the end of last year, and a cheaper 3X version will be launched during the year. Other models that have been named, including the Chevrolet Electric Silverado, Electric Explorer and Electric Trailblazer, Cadillac Celestiq, and GMC Electric Sierra, have been/will be unveiled within the year, with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2023.
Chevrolet officially leaks a video of the electric trailblazer SS, showing what the charging interface looks like
It is normal for the pace to be inconsistent. China has a Chinese situation, naturally there are brands with Chinese characteristics, product portfolios and launch rhythms, Based on Aotene's Shangtong Chevrolet, and more Buick and Kaidi, it is always necessary to have.
GM plans to launch more than 30 electric vehicles worldwide by 2025, of which more than 20 will be imported into China. So as soon as next year and the year after that, we will always see a little change in the card.
And this time in the revolutionary ranks, there will be some different roles mixed in. In March, Bai Li, GM's global executive vice president and president of GM China, said that it is necessary to establish a new high-end imported car business.
While there is still little substantive information to illustrate the process, GM seems serious, declaring that this is the focus of this year's work, and will establish a completely independent business unit for this purpose, equivalent to an internally incubated start-up, enjoying a high degree of autonomy. Last week, they issued a recruitment post through the official public account, releasing some positions:
@ Interested friends
Specific product and channel information will not be told for the time being. According to the professional imagination of the industry trail, the electric Hummer bears the brunt of it and may try to operate it directly.
Today, a high-end imported electric vehicle from overseas, in China's new energy forest, still has the charm of making people crazy to throw coins? Also, is GM still true? After all, imports, general has done; new energy, general has also been done, separately look at are not particularly successful, can the combination be weak hedging, occupy the highlands?
As long as it's expensive enough, it doesn't seem like a big problem
At first glance, Chinese has already dropped off on imported cars.
According to the monthly report of China National Machinery Automobile, the imported passenger car sales of the mainland last year were 939,000 units, down 6.1% year-on-year. The reasons for the decline are said to be, one is the shortage of chips and insufficient supply; the other is the negative impact of the deceleration of macroeconomic growth, and the lack of high-end consumer demand.
But a closer look is not at all the case – high-end luxury consumption is still firm.
High-end luxury is the absolute main force of imported passenger cars, accounting for 89.8% of the total for the whole year. The actual proportion of high consumption is higher, because the statistical caliber is divided according to the brand, luxury brands do not include such as Toyota, like Alpha such a prince of 1.8 million will be classified as private, according to the risk data, last year Elfa imported nearly 24,000 vehicles.
In terms of statistical luxury brands and ultra-luxury brands alone, they actually achieved a year-on-year increase of 4.9% and 33.3% last year, respectively. The negative growth was mainly concentrated in that point of non-luxury brands, with a decline of 53.9%.
Among them, for example, Toyota's decline reached 62.6%, not due to insufficient demand. Its best-selling models such as prado and land patrol are mainly imported through parallel imports, but since July 2020, a large number of parallel imported cars have been blocked by the environmental information disclosure process and cannot complete customs clearance, resulting in a sharp decline in sales, until the end of May last year, when the process problem began to be solved.
Other non-luxury brands, as well as Volkswagen, Subaru, Ford, etc., fell by 33.0% for Volkswagen and 22.8% for Subaru. The demand problem in the range of less than 300,000 is not so much a decline as it is a redistribution.
On the one hand, it flows to domestic flat replacement. The choice of domestic cars at the same price point is becoming more and more optimal, and the advantages of imported cars are becoming blurred. For example, in the past, imported cars had greater and stronger power, but now they are often cut in order to reduce the displacement tax, or they cannot introduce luxurious new technologies because of double credits. The so-called more authentic quality materials can now neither open the gap between the experience and domestic production, nor can they make up for the relative configuration shortcomings.
Ordinary joint venture cars are still sandwiched between entry-level luxury cars and independent upward cars, which is difficult to get up and down; imported cars of the same grade also have to dance with taxes, which makes the cost performance that is not rich even worse.
On the other hand, it flows to consumption upgrades. The customs declaration unit price of imported cars is increasing year by year, from 252,100 yuan in 2015 to 396,600 yuan in January 2022, and now there is an increase of more than 20,000 yuan over last year's average.
The middle and upper rich peasants are opening up the consumption pattern to the right, and there is no money in the pool. And the consumption preference is obvious: SUV accounts for more than half of the market, and the proportion of medium and large levels is also more than half, and the pattern of large-scale is very stable. Expensive cars are the mainstay of imported cars, because the high premium itself can absorb the low value brought about by high miscellaneous taxes.
And GM is particularly good at such models. The past four CIIE have provided a window for its high-end import business: from Chevrolet Silverado, Suburban, Tahoe, to GMC Hummer, Yukon XL Denali, Sierra Denali, to Cadillac Cared ESV.
In fact, this is the look of the universal juice, from pickup trucks to full-size SUVs, all of which are rich and rarely domestic opponents, and can now dock with the growing consumption level and the demand for scarcity in the high-consumption market.
However, the electric properties may cause some deviations.
Who is rushing to import electric
At present, the current promising imported electric vehicles are very limitedly concentrated in more than 800,000, such as tesla model S/X, Porsche Taycan, and Mercedes-Benz EQS. The huge gap below 800,000 is occupied by independent/domestic production, according to the price segment:
The range of parity, before 2019, the main choice is Model 3, and the imported pure electric market shrinks rapidly after it is domestically produced. Compared with the domestic Model 3, the imported products at this price point no longer have any competitive advantage, it is difficult to see the new decision to enter the market, and the test water can not even touch the water; and other early products such as volkswagen e-up, with the adjustment of enterprises to stop selling, Volkswagen in the country to domestic localization ID.
It will restart in Europe this year, but will be replaced with ID.1 in 2025
In the high-end range, a large number of endurance electric vehicles come from Chinese brands. This supply pattern is completely different from that of fuel vehicles, and one difference is determined by the power technology.
As mentioned above, the mainstream import demand for medium and large vehicles, corresponding to large displacement of internal combustion engine power, in imported cars, more than 2.0L accounted for 92.7%, 3.0L or more accounted for 28.2%. Large displacement for autonomy has existed technical barriers, even if there has been a breakthrough in the past two years, there is still a gap with the old brand, the price can not be played; and for the joint venture there are market risks, emissions and profit problems, so not only is there no independent equal diversion, many joint venture brands also tend to import high-end models through imports.
There is no such difference in electric vehicles. In the short term, the traditional old electric vehicle does not have an absolute advantage, and can even be thrown a few streets.
The range of more than 800,000 is another story. There is no shortage of new challengers, such as Gaohe, but its product strength is not enough to reverse the appeal of Porsche or Mercedes-Benz – scarcity is almost studded on the brand.
Speaking of GM, take the electric Hummer, the On-Sale Edition 1 version sells for more than $110,000, and the upcoming 3X version costs nearly $100,000, higher than the starting price of the Porsche Taycan. According to the price segment, it is also considered a top player.
However, by brand, GMC is not a dominant brand in the market segment. This has nothing to do with its own strength, that is, the lack of bottom-up awareness in the Chinese market. This is a problem that plagues many new Chinese treasure brands, which hold a heavy glory and history to the face of Chinese consumers, but Chinese consumers still only see Porsche in their eyes.
GM's past efforts in China have not contributed directly to this. The general use of the United States, like a distant old watch living in the legend, has always been cloud cattle B, but it is difficult to take care of the three urban brothers in front of them. The reverse is the same, if it is characterized as a shelled Chevrolet, it is better not to pull the relationship.
Therefore, what needs to be done to import high-end business is not only to introduce models for sale, but also how to re-establish a new brand image in a foreign country. It can't just highlight the performance advantages — basically a decision that only car critics are self-congratulatory; nor can it be crazy to transplant American off-road culture — the flavor of excessive protein powder in China that only a block guy can understand.
Rather, it is to pinch one's own temperament and establish a high-class heretical identity. In the era of fuel vehicles, the brand that best balanced tone and class was once Land Rover. It is not known whether GMC can achieve the same effect.
Compared to Humvee, Cadillac's Celestiq has more qualities to enter the circle. The flagship electric vehicle, which will be released in June this year, is also based on the Aoteneng platform, but is luxuriously handcrafted and priced at $200,000.
This has nothing to do with the quality of electric power. GM is probably the hardest working cub in the world outside of Volkswagen, and they all give up hybridization, all in pure electricity. Exactly how this generation of Aotene platform is, it will take time to verify. All we can say now is that it just looks like it, and GM began accepting reservations from Lyriq in the U.S. on September 18, 2021, and sold out after only 10 minutes.
If the business is sustainable and the electric monsters continue to enter the market, the biggest benefit will not be so little sales, but perhaps to boost the brands trapped in the cracks, especially Chevrolet.