The automotive industry is an industry with strong inertia, even in the past two decades of rapid development of China's auto market, it is still the case, and eating the old money on the two lines of brand and product has once been the only way for many brands to "lie and win".
But at the moment when the "new four modernizations" are prevalent, almost every traditional brand has written the anxiety of transformation on their faces, but not everyone can find a truly effective path. On the one hand, it is impossible to give up the market stock, on the other hand, it is difficult to bridge the gap between technology supply and demand, many brands will miss the most precious window period between gain and loss, and many seemingly tragic "backwater battles" are nothing more than the recklessness of rushing to the hospital and the sadness of nowhere to say.
Transformation requires not only determination, but also some preconditions, in this sense, we have to be realistic to say that some brands will be destined to bid farewell to this market forever. In the end, who can lead the tide of electrification again, in addition to the need to pass the test of users and time again, but also depends on whether the brand really has the ability to successfully transform and continue to survive in the next cycle of the market.
Compared with some brands that have been forced to change routes because they have exhausted the mountains, it is more important for brands that still hold the dominant power of market stock to prepare to do, and their trends not only represent the direction of the market, but also largely affect the choice of users - the real decision to determine the future of electrification will not be a few new power brands that now seem to occupy the high point of public opinion.
On March 29, GUANGC Honda held a press conference for its new electric brand with the theme of "Pole • Moving Zhenge": e:NP officially debuted.
According to the publicity practice, we have seen a number of encouraging expressions in the official materials, but what really impressed me was "breaking my own boundaries" - stepping out of the comfort zone is usually a slogan, not forced into a corner, who wants to take the initiative to turn around. But this time, the release of Guangqi Honda's new electric brand once again tells us how a mature company thinks about the future.
Let's first take a look at how good the days of Guangqi Honda are even if they are deeply trapped in the double dilemma of the epidemic and lack of cores:
In 2021, Guangqi Honda launched four new models and three brand new models, with cumulative sales of 780,266 units, and in January 2022, it achieved a good start to 78,489 units, and in February, it achieved sales of 51,177 units, a year-on-year ratio of 139.9%. Just in February 2022, Guangqi Honda also reached a high-quality production and sales of 9 million units. Such achievements and market prospects, no matter what kind of market strategy is adopted, are properly lying and winning, and Guangqi Honda, which is thinking of danger in times of peace, has chosen the most difficult - to get out of the comfort zone.
For the pure electric products before Guangqi Honda, objectively speaking, the market and users are not very satisfied, but this dissatisfaction is not for the product and brand itself, but for this kind of unashamed test, most of the users who have raised their appetite will adopt a wait-and-see attitude, because everyone wants to know what the bottom card of GAC Honda is in electrification.
Guangqi Honda answered this question with the new electric brand e:NP. In the name e:NP, "e" stands for "energize" and "electric"; "N" stands for "New" and "Next"; and "P" stands for "Prime", which means the "exhilarating (extreme) driving pleasure" that the car brings.
The same choice of electric, gagac Honda has a reason to be better than others?
Better quality technology path
It is not a lie to say that Guangqi Honda chose to step out of its comfort zone. Looking at the hybrid war that begins in 2022, domestic brands that are more familiar with the Chinese market have, without exception, chosen to play high in the field of hybridism - in the next five years or even longer, hybrid will become one of the heaviest sections in the entire market in terms of volume. And it is worth noting that if you turn these hybrid technologies all upside down, you will find that no matter how gorgeous the name, no matter how complex the product line, their underlying logic invariably follows Honda's i-MMD system - which means that in the future hybrid war, GAC Honda will become one of the leading flag bearers in the market, and the dividend of technology will be enough to support the attrition war of electrification.
The technical concept of the i-MMD system based on electric drive has proved that even in the fuel era, Honda is the brand that knows the best about "how to use electricity". In the face of the new wave of electrification, the R&D team of Guangqi Honda has played more than 20 years of localization experience, making full use of the two major technology incubation bases of Honda Technology Research and Technology (China) Co., Ltd. and Guangqi Honda Automobile Research and Development Co., Ltd., to promote research and development according to the actual situation of China's local market; at the same time, deep ploughing the battery industry and intelligent field, in-depth cooperation with the battery industry leader, alliance with domestic head intelligent enterprises, and finally develop high-end pure electric products that adapt to more than 20,000 road scenarios. This product is not only a pure electric product suitable for the Chinese market and China, but also one of Honda's global electrification engines.
Better user operations
As the differentiation determined by the modular technical characteristics of electrified products gradually decreases, and the core suppliers inevitably converge, the possibility of any electric product being able to shake off competitors at the product level alone is slowly approaching zero. As a result, "user operation" has become a winning method in the mouths of the new forces. Unfortunately, leaving the volume to talk about "service" and "experience" is a hooligan, according to the existing and upcoming user volume of the new forces, any so-called "refined service" can only be counted as a demo version that has not been stress tested, and some contrary to basic business principles, the trick of making money and making money, even capital will not have enough patience to wait for it to be transformed.
On the other hand, Guangqi Honda, whether it is a production and sales base plate of 9 million yuan or a classic case of fan culture such as "Manic Dream Festival", is definitely worthy of the ceiling of the Chinese auto market. The recognition and viscosity of GUANGQI Honda's users for the brand is not only the foundation of GUANGQI Honda's existing market stock, but also the best fire for the future development of the e:NP brand, and the loss of customers due to lack of confidence in the brand in the transition from fuel to electric will be difficult to see in Guangqi Honda.
In the e:NP brand system, Guangqi Honda will also push user service and fan operation to a new height. Users can not only realize real-time 3D interactive car viewing through the newly upgraded cloud showroom, but also order with one click through the Guangqi Honda APP. Offline, the new electrified sales service store and supermarket system created by Guangqi Honda can provide users with an experience space that combines shopping and social interaction.
With the launch of the first product in the e:NP system, e:NP1 Polar Pan 1, GUANGC Honda will provide more extreme car services through digital platforms such as the GAC Honda APP and the on-board intelligent guidance interconnection system. At the same time, Guangqi Honda can also provide users with shared travel solutions through electrified sales service stores. The GUANGQI Honda APP will become an important online platform operated by users to achieve interest-based content co-creation, while the electrified sales service store will become an aggregation node for offline fans, with the emotional resonance that GUANGQI Honda is good at as the basis for co-creation.
Polar Car says:
Although in the foreseeable future, GUANGC Honda's hybrid products will continue to be one of the dominant forces in the market, the huge potential of China's electric vehicle market is something that no one can ignore. For Guangqi Honda, an independent electric brand is a choice sooner or later, and launching e:NP at a node where the technology dividend and business model are still on the rise is undoubtedly the best decision. Perhaps, the only suspense that still exists is what kind of new height the "electrified" Honda fans and Guangqi Honda can push the broken self-boundary to a new height.