If you don't take the initiative to recommend, you will be fined 200 yuan.
How crazy are traditional car companies in order to sell new energy vehicles?
Just stepped into a Volkswagen 4S store, Ning Rui was attracted by a conspicuous banner that read, "If the sales do not take the initiative to recommend new energy vehicles to you, you can go to the sales director's office to receive 200 yuan."
Previously, Ning Rui only saw that BYD had similar operations, and if the sales did not invite customers to test drive, consumers could receive a reward of 1,000 yuan. But the mandatory recommendation of new energy vehicles is the first time he has seen it.
Future Auto Daily visited dongfeng Honda, FAW Toyota, BMW Brilliance and FAW Audi and other joint venture car companies, and found that only SAIC Volkswagen in the joint venture field is the car companies that push new energy products so strongly.
How anxious the public is, you can imagine.
Mass sales, put down the body
"Door-to-door delivery" and "in-depth test drive", which were once the new inventions of new car-making forces such as "Wei Xiaoli", have also begun to follow suit.
"We can drive the car to the customer's downstairs to provide test drive, or provide a three-day 'deep test drive' service, and the customer can pay a deposit of 3,000 yuan." Located in a Volkswagen 4S store in the southeastern fifth ring road of Beijing, salesman Wang Zheng pointed to an ID.4X in the store and introduced to Future Auto Daily, "After the test drive was in place last year, we have been providing such services. The prospective owners of the store's fuel models do not have such "treatment."
A sales executive who worked at a Volkswagen 4S store in Shanghai for five years told Future Auto Daily that although some of Volkswagen's stores have also provided door-to-door test drive services for fuel vehicles, "it is basically only provided in the off-season from June to August, because of the backlog of inventory, test drives are too idle."
In addition to the test drive service, SAIC Volkswagen is also trying to align itself with the new forces in other aspects.
For example, march into business districts where new forces are stationed. Future Auto Daily visited SAIC Volkswagen's first new energy flagship store in Beijing's Blue Harbor, and the staff in the store said that the store only sells THE ID. series, "will not be distracted by selling oil trucks, and concentrate on selling new energy vehicles like Nezha and Weilai next to it."
The above-mentioned staff also said that the store decoration style is also trying to get rid of the shadow of traditional dealers, "the store manager has spent a lot of thought, like a new force, trying to integrate the beauty of science and technology into the storefront." According to its disclosure, soon SAIC Volkswagen will also open another flagship store of new energy vehicles in Hopson Hui.
However, the sales model of the Volkswagen ID. family has not completely replicated the new forces. SAIC Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen adopt the agency system model, that is, they need to be screened by SAIC Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen, and select suitable distributors to grant them agency rights.
Under the above model, the ID.series adopts a national unified pricing method, manufacturers and consumers can communicate directly through mobile APP, and dealers earn commissions by providing services to consumers. In essence, sales, after-sales and other service work is still the dealer in charge. Therefore, the stores that get the ID. series agency rights do not necessarily only sell electric vehicles, but also have 4S stores that sell oil trucks and electric vehicles.
Taking Wang Zheng's 4S store as an example, the store has the RIGHT to ID. series agency and has a special new energy product sales consultant, but the sales of fuel vehicles are occasionally "part-time to sell new energy vehicles".
"The commission for selling a new energy vehicle is a little higher than that of a fuel vehicle, and more importantly, the KPI of selling two oil trucks on the roof of a tram." Wang Zheng revealed.
As new energy vehicles continue to enter the store, Volkswagen's sales have also begun to "put down their bodies".
A former sales executive of SAIC Volkswagen's 4S store admitted that Volkswagen fuel vehicles are not worried about selling, and when there are more customers on weekends, there may be a situation of snubbing customers due to insufficient manpower. Salesmen also "pick guests", preferring to receive a family rather than a car alone. Because according to the sales experience, the customers who come to the "group" have a strong willingness to buy a car and are easy to deal with.
Nowadays, electric vehicles are not easy to sell, and salesmen have lowered their posture, and some even play "two-person rotation". When the Future Auto Daily visited the store, as soon as he entered the store, he was "favored" by two salesmen, and the two sang and enthusiastically introduced the ID.series of car system, control, and technology. Wang Zheng explained, "The ID. series does not sell as well as expected, and is currently a key node to occupy market share, with good manufacturer policies and more rebates, so (sales) should be recommended." ”
In fact, compared with ordinary customers who report that they have not taken the initiative to recommend new energy vehicles, salesmen are more worried about the "mysterious visitors" who secretly visit 4S stores every month, and they are sent by car companies to pretend to be customers to observe the attitude of sales and services. "When the 'mystery visitor' visits, if the sales do not recommend new energy vehicles in accordance with the process, invite customers to test drive, introduce financial policies, etc., the fine will be as little as 500 yuan, as much as 1 or 2,000, and even affect the relevant score of the store in the entire region, and the final impact is the rebate of the sales."
Volkswagen is in full swing for the sale of new energy vehicles, while Dongfeng Honda and FAW Toyota, which are also joint venture car companies, are a bit unhurried.
Both Toyota and Honda have been working in the hybrid field for many years, but some of them have not been interested in selling hybrid models. Future Auto Daily visited Dongfeng Honda and FAW Toyota 4S stores located in the fifth ring road southeast of Beijing, and the first sentence of the sales staff when introducing the hybrid model was "This car cannot hang a green card", which undoubtedly pushed the customer out of the door by hand. Although the store is placed in the Dongfeng Honda pure electric model Siming X-NV that can "hang the green card", sales rarely take the initiative to introduce this car to consumers, because "Siming's sales commission is not high."
Can the joint venture car company keep up with the team?
Volkswagen is so hard to sell electric cars, is it useful?
Yes, but not enough. Although it is close to the end of 2021, the sales volume of volkswagen ID. series in China has reached a continuous breakthrough of 10,000. But in fact, if the ID. family is split into FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen, it can only be said that it is not satisfactory.
In February 2022, faw-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen ID. series monthly sales were 3844 and 2539 units, respectively, while Wei Xiaoli delivered 6131 vehicles, 6225 vehicles and 8414 vehicles respectively in the same period, and even the slightly lesser-known Nezha and Zero Run also reached 7117 vehicles and 3435 vehicles, all better than the ID. family.
It is worth noting that in 2021, Volkswagen's new energy models will account for 25% and 7.5% of the market share in Europe and North America, respectively, and ID.4 will achieve the first single-month sales in Europe. However, the ID. family is somewhat inadequate in the domestic market, which is not unrelated to its sales model.
By the end of 2021, faw-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen's official websites show that the total number of ID. series exclusive stores opened in Beijing and Shenzhen is 3 and 10 respectively. In contrast, the new car head car companies Weilai and Xiaopeng have opened more than 20 stores in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
ID. Exclusive store network has not yet been rolled out, and by dealer agents, it is inevitable to carry the traditional 4S store thinking mode. In an analysis report, PwC Sliot pointed out that "SAIC Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen have completely lagged behind in this regard (communication and new retail) work model and organization. ”
In the view of Dong Yang, vice chairman of the Guolian Automobile Power Battery Research Institute, the main problem of the joint venture car companies is that they still produce in accordance with the traditional model.
"The product development cycle is too long, and the application of new technologies is too slow. So neither can catch up with Tesla, nor can it keep up with Wei Xiaoli."
The most dragging leg is the intelligent shortcomings of these traditional car companies, and this is not something that can be quickly made up by investing money and forming a team, which is also regarded as the most difficult gap for traditional car companies to cross.
Of course, it's not just the public who should be in a hurry.
According to public information, Dongfeng Honda, FAW Toyota, GAC Toyota and other joint venture car companies have launched hybrid and pure electric versions on the basis of hot-selling models such as CR-V, Leiling, Rongfang, Corolla, etc., but most of the monthly sales are less than 1,000 vehicles, or even less than one-tenth of the fuel version.
Even the new energy models launched by luxury brands, sales are difficult to be optimistic. The average monthly sales of BMW Brilliance iX3 in the past year are 2,000-3,000 units; the average monthly sales of the AUDI e-tron pure electric SUV of FAW-Volkswagen Audi in the past year are even less than 1,000 units.
However, in the new energy vehicle track, the joint venture car companies are not all without advantages.
The first is the production capacity advantage, SAIC Volkswagen Anting and FAW-Volkswagen Foshan two MEB plants have been officially put into operation in 2020, with a production capacity of 600,000 vehicles / year, after the Volkswagen Anhui MEB plant is put into operation, the Volkswagen Group's pure electric passenger car production capacity in China can reach 950,000 units / year. With the approval of new energy projects in Nansha, Tianjin, Changchun and other places, the production capacity of Toyota's new energy models in China will exceed 700,000 units per year in 2022.
Such abundant production capacity is enough to make Wei Xiaoli envious. At present, WEILAI has an annual production capacity of 240,000 vehicles, and ideal and Xiaopeng are both 100,000 vehicles. Among them, after Xiaopeng and Ideal achieve the expansion of the production line in 2022, the production capacity can only be increased to 200,000 vehicles per year.
Zhang Xiang, an analyst in the automotive industry, believes that there are many parts and components in the new energy vehicle that can be shared with traditional fuel models, so the joint venture car companies have a first-mover advantage in terms of parts supply chain system capabilities, anti-risk capabilities, and capital turnover. Although it is temporarily impossible to get rid of the stereotypical label of fuel vehicle companies, "brand awareness will still help the sales of new energy models of joint venture car companies to some extent."
In addition, the huge sales network is also incomparable to the new forces. Although there are currently few new energy exclusive stores, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Honda have thousands of dealers all over the country, while the number of Wei Xiaoli stores has not exceeded 400 at present.