Text | Joey
Although it looks like we were all the day before yesterday, saw the official launch of the Maserati Grecale. But as early as last September, I had already seen the car in a small video interview.
During this time, I was able to see the product information that was constantly updated and upgraded, and three confidentiality agreements were signed in the process. Leaving aside my overwhelming appetite for the law and "hefty fines," this Gregale really deserves to be called out (at least a million times in my heart).
From my description above, you can get a glimpse of how much Maserati attaches to this car. This is also understandable, although sales growth in the Chinese auto market has slowed since the first two years. But if you look at the world, where can you find such a large and benign automobile consumer market at present, it may have to be China.
Of course, if you think that top supercar brands such as Maserati, Ferrari and Lamborghini have little to do with the vast majority of consumers, there is nothing wrong with it. After all, they are still the choice of a small number of car players with spare money (brands are also very willing to maintain their high-end tonality).
But, who doesn't love money? Or to put it another way, who doesn't love the feeling of being sought after by consumers?
Therefore, how to balance involves the most difficult problem for high-end brands to solve - is it to maintain the value of the body, or to embrace the market?
There are already high-scoring answers
Clear-eyed people must have noticed that in the list of brands just now, I did not talk about Porsche. Because in terms of the question I just asked how to balance, Porsche has already given its own answer, and it is a relatively high score.
In 2021, Porsche delivered more than 300,000 vehicles worldwide, compared to 95,671 in the Chinese market. In other words, the Chinese market contributes nearly 1/3 of Porsche's global sales. The question now is, is this sales figure a perfect answer? So let's take a look at how the top luxury brands are selling.
In 2021, Lamborghini delivered 8,405 vehicles worldwide, Ferrari delivered 11,155 sports cars worldwide (a record high for the brand) and Maserati delivered 24,269 models worldwide (of which 7,747 were delivered in China), the largest of the three supercar brands. But these three add up, but they are all very different from Porsche's sales. Now you know what Porsche's answer means.
I believe you and I agree that in terms of car technology, Maserati, Ferrari and Lamborghini clearly do not have any huge and difficult gaps between Porsche. The same is true in terms of brand value (and even in my opinion, it may be better). But why is the gap so big? The answer is that Porsche has identified the pulse of consumers, especially Chinese consumers, earlier than any supercar brand.
What Chinese consumers want, although it can't be broken down into everyone, is a highly condensed description: good brand, large body, SUV. Satisfying any of these three is actually enough to solve the problem of sales.
20 years ago, Porsche almost launched Cayenne, a product that meets all the needs I mentioned above, and thus opened the way for the SUV of the supercar brand. After that, Levante in Maserati and Urus in Lamborghini apparently followed this path.
But whether it is Cayenne, Levante, or Urus, although it cuts the pulse of consumer preferences, there is another problem that is difficult to solve, that is, the price. After all, even if the economy is booming, the road to common prosperity is solid, and there are still few people who can afford to buy cars that sell 1.5 million or 2 million yuan.
Therefore, to meet consumer demand, price sinking is the only way to solve this problem. Yes, I'm talking about Macan. For Porsche, the Macan is undoubtedly a running volume model, so the price from more than 500,000 (of course, the transaction price is certainly not this number), is a price that allows more people to realize their dreams.
The dream of a luxury car is always within reach, always able to quickly pluck the heartstrings of the public and inspire people to have it at all costs. As a result, we see that in 2021, Porsche will sell more than 300,000 sales worldwide, and the Macan alone will sell 88,362 vehicles, rounding up to almost equal The Porsche sales in the entire Chinese market.
If Maserati and Lamborghini are late in the wave of supercar brands making SUV models, and therefore have not done better at all the points that can promote sales, then the road of the predecessors has paved the way for you, and it is impossible to say that you can't keep up.
Therefore, this is probably an important reason why Maserati attaches so much importance to, and even nervous, Grecale.
Compromise and persistence
If Grecale and Macan will compete in the same range, there is no basis for it at this point.
Because the official, especially the official of the top sports car brands, has always cherished their own independent image, and will never (at least not on the surface) put anyone on the list of competitors. At the same time, at this stage, Grecale is only released, and does not bring out its price.
But you know, uncompromising is often difficult to match with market demand. Independence is a psychological pursuit, and the more realistic report pursuit can often effortlessly drive all automobile manufacturers to put down their bodies and present consumers with beautiful automotive industry products.
To put it simply, to make money, you have to roll in, you have to market, you have to compete.
According to the information I have exchanged with the relevant staff, Grecale's product positioning will not replace the existing Maserati product system, but hopes to develop a new subdivision based on the existing product line. Simply put, Grecale and Levante will be sold together. But obviously, it will not be in parallel intervals.
According to the comparison of the two SUV model data, the Grecale is comprehensively smaller than the Levante in terms of size, and referring to the market division of Porsche Cayenne and Macan, it is clear that Maserati wants to copy this market line layout. One possible inference is that Grecale will take on the task of running the Maserati brand.
Extrapolating based on its positioning, just its model class, does not mean that Maserati has compromised in more areas. In terms of power, for example, there are three power versions of 300 horsepower, 330 horsepower and 530 horsepower. In the future, Grecale's power form will also cover the field of pure electric. It can be said that Maserati has also made a very detailed plan for the future of this car.
Grecale is not only power, the big screen in the car, the technology of human-computer interconnection, off-road mode, GT mode, and even track mode, etc., a series of configuration and driving modes that can be called high-quality, let you know that this is still a pure Maserati, a product from the Italian supercar brand. Its full strength is not determined by the market segment it is in, the competitive environment it is in.
First of all, you have to admit that this is a good car-making concept. That is, making changes to win the market, but not completely bottomless compromise for the market. Because what can really help brands eventually win the market is always the consistent and unceasing brand spirit.
So, now you and I must have the same problem, and the emergence of Grecale and The formation of a dispute with Macan may be a natural thing. If there is to be a competition, its pricing and subsequent selection and sales policies are obviously more critical.
As long as the price is about the same, the competition will become more intense. For Maserati, since it is necessary to do this, it is obviously more open-minded (if the owner who bought the Gregare can participate more in the Maserati owner activity, it will be better), and the results can be better.
But anyway, taking this step, and stepping a little earlier than other brands, is obviously the perfectly correct decision. In the end, the entry-level SUV market competition for supercar brands triggered by this decision is likely to become more lively in the future because of the arrival of Gregare.