For every 7 electric vehicles sold in China, 1 is a Hongguang MINIEV.
This pure electric car, which is less than 3 meters long and has a starting price of less than 30,000 yuan, has been dominating the domestic pure electric vehicle market since it was listed in 2020. This big cake naturally attracted many imitators, such as chery QQ ice cream and Reading mango, which were recently listed, and some of the sales were taken away.
Changan also can't sit still, and recently exposed the official picture of its new A00-class pure electric vehicle Changan LUMIN, which contrasts with the Hongguang MINIV with its cute design.
Wuling itself is not idle, some time ago Hongguang MINIEV GAMEBOY officially opened the blind booking, if the macaron version is tailored for the cute sister, then this GAMEBOY version is the antidote to straight men.
Not only that, but recently it has been exposed that a group of spy photos of Wuling's new pure electric vehicles still have a small and cute appearance, and it is reported that the positioning will be slightly higher than that of Hongguang MINIEV. Last year, Hongguang MINIEV flourished, and this year,"MINIEV" has blossomed everywhere.
The advantages of this type of electric vehicle are obvious, that is, small, flexible, low price, in addition to not to ask for anything extravagant. Remember that at the beginning of the listing of Hongguang MINIEV in 2020, the entire series was not equipped with any airbags, until the 2021 reform to obtain the main airbag, the co-pilot airbag is still exempt from talking, not to mention the side airbag / air curtain.
But because the price is cheap enough, this series of questions can be said with the sentence "All at this price, what else do you want?" "Covered. Therefore, under the extremely limited cost constraints, the other passive safety of the whole vehicle is even more difficult to evaluate. Hongguang MINIEV has sold more than 500,000 units so far, but there is no evidence that this car has sufficient safety. Of course, this is not the only problem with it, but the whole problem of cheap electric cars.
Some time ago, China Automobile Research Institute suddenly launched the C-NCAP micro-electric vehicle special evaluation procedures (draft for comments). The micro-electric vehicle mentioned in it is a pure electric passenger car with a length of less than 4 meters, and the ones mentioned above are included, which can be said to be specially designed for "MINIEV".
Compared with normal passenger car C-NCAP crash tests, this miniature electric vehicle C-NCAP removes 50% of the frontal bias collision and side column collision in terms of passive safety, while the front 100% overlapping collision and side collision are retained. In addition, active safety projects such as automatic emergency braking have become "optional projects" in the C-NCAP of micro-electric vehicles.
Of course, at present, this micro-electric vehicle C-NCAP is still a draft for comments, and there may be some changes in the final implementation.
However, these "MINIEV" still cannot escape the 50km/h frontal 100% overlapping collision and the side 1400kg simulated vehicle collision at 50km/h, which is consistent with normal passenger cars. In this way, if the "MINIEV" want to get a good result, the difficulty is still quite large, not only is it a very test of body stiffness, but also in the case of only a single front airbag, do not expect a good result in the side crash test.
It should be known that Hongguang MINIEV added a main driving airbag that year, and in the absence of other higher-cost configuration increases, the price rose by about 4,000 yuan. This is just an airbag, if you want to achieve good results, the side airbag must not be less, so the cost will go up. This is undoubtedly a "huge amount" for the "MINIEV" who are themselves selling at low prices.
This is not the end, the body strength is the most concerned point of this type of electric car, before a car media tested its body stiffness, of which A, B, C pillar material strength grades are not very ideal. In addition, the Hongguang MINIEV car weighs less than 1 ton, coupled with the narrow wheelbase and high body, in the face of the 1.4-ton side impact, how to overcome the rolling is more difficult.
At this point, one might think of Japan's K-CARS, but you have to know that the JNCAP crash test doesn't give these K-CARS a small stove, they have to face the same crash test as normal vehicles. The reason why they can perform well in the JNCAP crash test is because they use higher strength materials and a larger number of air bags, so in terms of price, they are more expensive than Hongguang MINIEV.
Even K-CAR, which is more expensive and has more secure safety performance, cannot avoid island consumers from questioning its safety.
Indeed, even if you can pass the crash test, in complex traffic conditions, when facing larger vehicles, the small body may become their Achilles heel.
The above security issues are actually understood by consumers, but the reasons they give are:
"Thirty or forty thousand dollars, what else do you want?" It's safer than a motorcycle."
"I use it for short distances, and I can't run fast."
......
According to survey data, the number of low-speed electric vehicles in the country has exceeded 6 million, and there is a huge demand and economic benefits in China, which shows that the market for low-speed electric vehicles is far larger than we think.
So don't consumers care about security? Non also. Who doesn't want these low-speed electric vehicles to have a wealth of active and passive safety configurations, and then two more airbags can also be ah, but really give you back to buy?
Previously, the automotive research team of Nagoya University in Japan dismantled a Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, and calculated that the total parts and assembly costs were about 480,000 yen, equivalent to 27,000 yuan, plus the cost of research and development, management, manual transportation and sales, in fact, the profit of Hongguang MINIEV's bicycle was very low.
Therefore, if it is equipped with more security configurations, the price will definitely rise, and once the price rises, consumers who are already running to the low price should retreat. Car companies naturally know this, which is why Hongguang MINIEV has to cut so the configuration, in order to lower the price.
With the increasing number of "MINIEV", the problem of internal rolling will also increase, and the major models want to take advantage in this fierce competition, or have to make a fuss about endurance and safety configuration. At this time, it depends on which car company can give consumers a generous enough configuration under the premise of maximum cost control.
For car companies, this is a very contradictory option, up the configuration, the cost is high, consumers may not pay the bill; do not increase the configuration, do not have an advantage in the competition, and finally consumers still do not pay. Therefore, car companies that have launched or will launch "MINIEV" will be forced to balance the pros and cons between the extreme price and configuration.
However, I personally feel that with the birth of more and more "MINIEV", the competition has become more intense, for such a price of the model, it is almost impossible to improve the configuration, without affecting the final pricing of the profit margin can be digested, so the price increase is imperative.
As I said at the beginning, Wuling is about to launch a new pure electric car positioned higher than the Hongguang MINIEV, so the price is expected to be higher, which is not good news.
Imagine that when a micro pure electric car more than 3 meters long and has a battery life for buying vegetables, the price is generally 50,000 yuan or even higher, so how long can the hot scene of Hongguang MINIEV last in the past two years? I'm afraid I'm going to put a question mark on it.