Home appliance giants building cars are not new.
But it is precisely under the super outlet of this crazy influx of capital hot money that the new energy vehicle market is full of rumors, and a few months ago it can still rise in the major self-media press releases, but in the blink of an eye, it is heavy and sandy, and there is no news. Especially in the face of the strong entry of technology companies such as Didi, OPPO, and Xiaomi, the home appliance giants that once dominated one side had to speed up the pace and seek new growth points in the field of new energy vehicles.
In 2022, is the car-making story of the home appliance giant okay?
Qingdao Haier or into the new energy vehicle manufacturing, rumors have the intention of investing in loose locomotives.
Since last year, Haier has been inextricably linked with a number of new energy vehicle brands, and has signed strategic cooperation agreements with SAIC, Chery Holdings and Geely Group. However, this level of cooperation does not mean that Haier will enter the whole vehicle manufacturing, but mainly based on smart home, AIoT and the interconnection of cars and home appliances.
When everyone thought that it was "impossible" to personally go down, something possible happened: Weidian obtained exclusive news from a third-party investment institution, and Haier Group's Haili Zhixing reached an investment intention with the retro new energy vehicle manufacturer "Loose Locomotive" and entered the field of vehicle manufacturing.
The first retro model, the SS DOLPHIN hard-roof plug-in hybrid sports car, launched loosely in China, has entered the 338th batch of new cars announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as well as the "New Energy Catalogue" and "Purchase Tax Exemption Catalogue" released at the same time, and will be announced for delivery during the 2022 Beijing Auto Show. Nowadays, loose retro cars have become the top net red cars of various short video platforms.
Haier introduces loose locomotives, or introduces more traffic contacts for Haier's three-winged bird car networking scene ecology, focusing on automotive service models, marketing experiences, product customization platforms, etc.
In contrast to Haier, after Midea withdrew from vehicle manufacturing, it chose to bet on the development of core automotive components and provide ToB auto parts manufacturing.
In the public perception, BYD bus should be 100% new energy. After all, BYD has successfully gone overseas with pure electric buses led by "K9", operating in more than 300 cities in more than 50 countries and regions around the world.
But in the early days, BYD also "built" pure fuel buses.
Above, an employee shuttle car photographed by Weidian at the Hexagon, model CK6128 series. "6" refers specifically to the classification of buses, "12", refers to the length of the vehicle is 12 meters, and "CK" refers to the code name "Changsha Bus Manufacturing Factory" that identifies the name of the enterprise.
The hull was left by the predecessor, and the "CK" code name is three generations of ancestors. From the initial Changsha Bus Manufacturing Plant, to the renamed Sanxiang Bus, and then to the acquisition by midea, it continued until nearly two years that BYD completely changed the bus to "BYD".
In 2006, Midea Group acquired Hunan Sanxiang Bus and renamed it "Midea Sanxiang", and Midea successfully joined the "new car-making forces" queue in the wave of car manufacturing fifteen years ago. However, after only two years, Midea Sanxiang Bus stopped production. In 2009, BYD acquired all the shares of Midea's bus in Changsha, Hunan Province, and Midea's group withdrew from the automobile industry, and Midea's first car manufacturing ended in failure.
Until May last year, the news of "Midea's car" once again made headlines in major news media, and the "Welling" brand of Midea Group's auto parts company held a product conference in Hefei to release five auto parts products. A year has passed, the current three major product lines and five products have basically been tested on the car and mass production.
However, I don't know whether it is bound by the past or the old feelings - last year's important press conference, the demonstration vehicle of the teaser video was not remodeled, and directly used the "E-SEED GT concept car" of the old buddy BYD.
Also related to BYD, I thought that Skyworth car manufacturing would become BYD's opponent, but I did not expect that it is now a friend.
For shenzhen car owners, Skyworth is always around. This does not mean that every household has bought Skyworth TV, but the roads in Shenzhen are full of Skyworth buses.
After the 2016 fraud storm, WuzhouLong Bus fell into the abyss, and the share of Shenzhen's local buses was now divided by three companies - BYD, Skyworth and ZTE. BYD is the bydier that everyone is familiar with, Skyworth is also the Skyworth that everyone is familiar with, and ZTE is still the ZTE that everyone is familiar with.
In fact, "Skyworth Car" is just a popular name, Skyworth Group and the tail label of "Skyworth Automobile" vehicle does not have an equity relationship, the biggest relationship between the two, is Huang Hongsheng himself.
To understand Skyworth's car, we must start from Kaiwo New Energy Vehicle; to understand Kaiwo Automobile, we must start from The Golden Dragon Bus - Xiamen Golden Dragon, Xiamen Golden Brigade, Suzhou Golden Dragon Haige and Nanjing Golden Dragon, named "Golden Dragon Bus", are intricate and complex, relatively independent but related to each other. In 2011, Huang Hongsheng reorganized Nanjing Golden Dragon to become the actual controller, and Nanjing Golden Dragon parted ways with another "three dragons", and later the brand was renamed "Kaiwo Automobile".
At the end of 2020, Kaiwo's first passenger car "Tianmei Automobile ET5" was officially released, Tianmei ET5 from the appearance to the interior to the performance to the configuration, there are no highlights on the whole car, the main selling point "the world's first cockpit healthy sleep system" is like a lonely drink.
In less than half a year, the passenger car business continued the fine tradition of frequent renaming of commercial buses - renamed "Skyworth Auto EV6". The car is still the same car, but the "SKYWELL" in the center of the tail through-type headlights has become "SKYWORTH", and the tail label has been updated from "Nanjing Golden Dragon" to "Skyworth". Inquiring about the "Announcement" of the new car declaration of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, this "new car" has not been re-declared, and only made some modifications in the "Change Catalog", which is still the "NJL" Nanjing Golden Dragon qualification. Skyworth has never entered the market to build cars, but has transferred the 12-class automobile trademark "Skyworth SKYWORTH" to Kaiwo.
I thought that the story of Skyworth's car manufacturing would be so flat, but I never expected that Skyworth's official website would present a king explosion on March 21 this year: Skyworth HT-i is about to pre-sell, equipped with BYD DM-i plug-in mixing system. In the past two years, Skyworth Automobile's various conferences, test drive activities, and advertising campaigns have all been added up, and may not reach the heat brought by this official website press release.
In 2022, in addition to the above-mentioned Haier, Midea and Skyworth are still continuing to mention the new story of pen car manufacturing, TCL, Hisense and other home appliance companies that wiped the edge of new energy vehicles last year have not taken more new actions so far. For many years, it has been active in front of the screen and the heat continues, perhaps only Gree Yinlong New Energy, but Dong Mingzhu recently said that there are too many companies entering the family car now, and there is no need to come here.
Gree made it clear that it does not mix with passenger cars, Midea only serves as a parts supplier after the setback in vehicle manufacturing, and Skyworth has found a new path in the passenger car for two years. At this time, Haier shot a loose locomotive, which made us full of imagination about Haier's car-making industry.