Text | Joey
BMW i7, what does it mean for BMW?
About 20 years ago, I visited the Shanghai Auto Show for the first time. At that time, the Shanghai Auto Show was basically in my impression and the opening of large shopping malls. The wuyang people surrounded the cars, with several models standing on the side of the car, offering gifts that now seemed worthless. These gifts include some storage bags (similar to those given by supermarkets) and some Catalogs for model introductions (which are easily available by going to the dealership). Of course, there are also some peripherals, such as the kind of poster with the owner's KV printed on it.
At that time, I got a poster of the BMW 7 Series and hung it on my bedside for the next fifteen years. This is not because I have the 7 Series as my Dream Car, but simply feel that BMW's car must be a good car. It didn't fit my tune, but it was right.
Sure enough, more than 20 years later, I couldn't afford the 7 Series without any surprise. But despite this, I have no regrets. Because, compared with most brands, the essence of BMW lies in sports, and the 7 Series, which is the top flagship of the executive car type, always seems to be under the impression that Mercedes-Benz cannot win the luxury, and even Audi's A8 has a slight advantage with administrative positioning and technological attributes.
After all, in the last era, people were not only familiar with the expression of "driving a BMW and sitting on a Mercedes-Benz" and "the essence of BMW is in the 3 Series, and the essence of Mercedes-Benz is in the S-Class", but also practiced when buying a car.
However, nothing is set in stone.
Drive a BMW, sit on a BMW
No one just wants to make a circled share of the money, so you'll see that even the BBA is constantly changing. For example, Mercedes-Benz's most popular products in recent years are, on the one hand, the S-Class that takes a high-end, more high-end route, and the Maybach, which has always been at the peak of the luxury car contempt chain on the Internet; on the other hand, Mercedes-Benz has vigorously launched star models such as the C-class. After all, no matter how much the 5 million car is sold, it can't stand the profit brought by the 300,000 handlebars.
Obviously, Mercedes-Benz's C-class and Audi's A4L are all such a train of thought. They deserve the wealth code and profit cows of their respective brands. This is obviously a challenge for BMW, although in the market segment, bmw 3 series still has a relative advantage. But in the face of the squeeze of a strong opponent, it is still necessary to change.
Unlike Mercedes-Benz's top-down product adjustment strategy, BMW's sportsy 3 Series from the beginning is a sales head (not that life can't go around a 3 Series), so if you want to change, you can only change from the bottom up. If in the past, "drive a BMW, sit on a Mercedes" is similar to a folk slang mantra, then almost 2 or 3 years ago, the official began to have a new positioning - to drive a BMW, sit on a BMW.
Such a change first began with the 5 Series, after all, as a medium and large sedan, while meeting the needs of business, it is also necessary to meet the needs of driving pleasure (in simple terms, the price of the 5 Series is a bit expensive, but it is not enough for the owner to hire a driver). Earlier, the 3 Series has begun to adjust, and unlike the previous hard bridge hard horse driving experience, today's generation of the 3 Series has become more comfortable.
The power is softer, the suspension is softer, and this is obviously not the 3 series that you imagine that every wind-chasing teenager is deeply obsessed with, and cannot be bypassed. But the advantages of this are also obvious, since the 5 series is already good to sit and easy to open, then the 3 series that is already very good to open will obviously allow it to expand its audience while maintaining the reputation of driving control. Simply put, it is to let more people with different needs have a reason to choose BMW.
Of course, in the process of collective changes in the products of such a brand, you can never ignore the existence of the 7 series. It also changed from a mature and stable product style. It's getting younger, sportier, and even more technological, a horse-racing product strategy. After all, even if luxury is not the strongest, adding sports and technology to it also makes it more balanced.
Fading personality to cater to the market is a mature performance for both a person and a car brand. And such a performance has also been recognized by the market. Although it still has not overtaken Mercedes-Benz in terms of profitability, BMW has already set a record high with a total revenue of 111.239 billion euros and a net profit of 12.4 billion euros.
What's more, bmw has surpassed Mercedes-Benz in terms of car sales, both in the Chinese market and in the global market (BMW delivered 2.52 million units in the global market in 2021). The good news is that at least in the competition of the BBA's Ashkenazi luxury top three, BMW, which can drive and sit, has won this round.
But this game is actually nearing the end, and the era has opened a new round.
How important is i7?
Electrification is a new situation opened by the new era. In fact, not only in the financial report, the major traditional car companies have long thought about the things in 2025 and 2030. In the end at different time nodes, how many electric vehicles to launch, how much product proportion to cover, they have already had a plan in their minds.
But more importantly, how to advance your own product line in an orderly manner. In this regard, in fact, in 2021, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have a fully systematic product promotion strategy. For example, the EQ series has now completed the product line layout of A, B, C and S.
From BMW's point of view, the launch of pure electric vehicle models with different product types and different positioning such as iX, i4 and iX3 first shows that BMW is sparing no effort to promote the launch of electric vehicle products. Compared with Mercedes-Benz in accordance with the traditional level system to layout the EQ series.
It seems that BMW's electric vehicle system looks a bit scattered. But don't forget, this is just the beginning, just a start to the 2025 plan. In the future, with these models with different positioning and functions as the starting point, BMW will likely build a variety of different pure electric vehicle product lines. Among them, the BMW i7 occupies the most important position.
According to the plan announced by BMW in the previous financial report release process, this year, that is, in 2022, the BMW Group will mass-produce 15 products to cover 90% of the market segment. This confirms my speculation that every pure electric model of BMW at present will have the potential to become the origin of a car series.
Among them, the goal of the i7 is also quite clear: it is the 7 series in the era of electric vehicles. The task of the i7 is to carry the banner of BMW luxury and sports, and more importantly, to harden the Mercedes-Benz EQS that has been listed before. Therefore, setting the tone is particularly important.
From the currently known information, the overall design of the i7 is not much different from the new 7 series model of the fuel version. To a large extent, I believe that from the size and design language, as well as a lot of comfort and technical configuration, will follow the fuel version of the 7 Series. This is obviously fundamentally different from Mercedes-Benz's EQS and S-Class models, after all, the two models have differences in appearance. For example, in pursuit of lower wind resistance, EQS gave up the wide head space of traditional energy D-class vehicles. This change makes the EQS look less in line with the impression of a D-Class luxury sedan.
Of course, such a change has advantages and disadvantages. For Mercedes-Benz, the products under the new energy system should meet the needs of this energy system, and there is no more reason to inherit many elements from traditional cars. For BMW, the fuel version of the 7 series itself has a new design and manufacturing concept change. As I said, BMW wants to strike a balance between driving control and luxury, and the changes made by the 7 Series as a result, there is no need to spend energy and cost on the i7 to develop another set.
More importantly, since its biggest competitor is basically EQS, its price should not be too different. But don't forget, in the field of pure electric vehicles, BMW has lost the differentiated playing advantage brought about by the positioning adjustment in the internal combustion locomotive series. In other words, you can no longer use the advantages of sitting and driving to avoid mercedes-benz top luxury (after all, the wind resistance coefficient of EQS 0.20Cd is not only because it looks good, but also because it is easy to open).
Short-term engagement, in fact, not only hard power, but also dexterous strategy, as well as a keen grasp of market demand. At present, BMW's previous changes in the field of fuel vehicles are worthy of recognition and have also achieved very good results. But whether this set is easy to use in the new energy track may have to be re-evaluated to see the results.
After all, you're changing, and so are your opponents. If you can get faster, if you can get better, you can win the market. At this point, not just the brand's electrified flagship i7, obviously has a greater responsibility.
Soon, the i7 should be officially available, and I really want to know the details of it and what changes this round of BMW can bring in addition to its appearance.