When the BBA starts to power electric vehicles, can the new forces hold on?
Eager to challenge Tesla's rivals, there was another one lately.
It's just that this opponent seems to be a little late.
On the evening of March 31, BMW, one of the "Top Three Germans", held a new car conference online, in addition to announcing the domestic listing of its medium and large SUV BMW X5, it also threw an "unexpected" big Easter egg to the world's riders: the new BMW i3, also came.
This i3 is not BMW's "epoch-making" small pure electric vehicle of the same name. According to the official introduction, this BMW i3 model is the i3 eDrive35L is an electric model specially built for the Chinese market. When the declaration chart of the new BMW i3 began to circulate on the Internet, it attracted the attention of many consumers. Coupled with the official guidance price of 349,900 yuan for the new car, it is similar to the Tesla Model 3 and Weilai ET5, and it also makes some prospective car owners who are eager to have a "Bavarian colt" excited.
The "essence of BMW is in the 3 series" is circulated on the rivers and lakes, and the shadow of the fuel version of the 3 series can be seen here. According to the data of the association, in the whole year of 2021, the BMW 3 Series won the first place in the sales of luxury models with a performance of 170,000 units.
Before this, some sharp-eyed netizens found that bmw i3 figures appeared in BMW's promotional posters. And when the new car was really officially announced, some Chinese riders gave it the first meeting gift, which seemed a bit "full of gunpowder": "BMW is not sincere, i3 or oil to electricity!" ”
Sharp-eyed netizens found blind spots in BMW posters. /Weibo @ BMW China
This is not BMW's first pure electric car. In November 2020, BMW launched the iX3, a pure electric SUV that looks basically the same as the X3, in an attempt to get a piece of China's new energy vehicle market.
Not only BMW, but also the other two giants of the "Ashkenazi Top Three", Mercedes-Benz and Audi, are also eager to show their fists in the new energy vehicle market. According to the recently released 2021 BBA financial report data, in 2021, BMW Group, Mercedes-Benz and Audi sold 103,000, 48,000 and 82,000 pure electric vehicles respectively, and the delivery volume of all three companies increased significantly compared with fiscal 2020.
At the same time, under the multiple pressures of the new crown epidemic, the shortage of parts and components, and the sharp rise in raw materials, BBA's performance indicators in 2021 invariably hit a record high, becoming a solid "troika" in the luxury car market.
Although the current luxury car market is still the world of BBA, in the new energy vehicle market, the set of figures released by BBA is not dazzling.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent
But it has become a "pure electric guinea pig" who pays for luxury.
103,000, 48,000, 82,000 — the total number of electric vehicles sold worldwide in the past year, as bmw, Mercedes-Benz and Audi have written in their earnings reports.
If you just focus on the Chinese auto market, the three German giants sold a total of 36,266 electric vehicles last year, just over half of Tesla's sales in December last year. The only thing to look forward to is the BMW iX3, which has a monthly sales of more than 1,000, but this is "difficult" at the cost of an official reduction of 70,000 yuan.
Not only BBA, in fact, luxury car brands such as Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover, although they have launched several pure electric vehicles, have no influence in the new energy market, and sales are particularly dismal.
Many years ago, there was a rumor that once the traditional luxury brand began to make electric vehicles, there was no way for the new car-making forces to live.
However, in the current car sales statistics, the electric vehicle sales of the new car-making forces are all the way high, and the production line can not meet the appetite of consumers by working overtime all night; on the contrary, the electric vehicle sales of luxury car brands are not only not a fraction of the new forces, but also planted a lot.
For example, Mercedes-Benz, the second oldest in the BBA, was exposed to a large number of motor failures in January this year. Although Beijing Benz has responded and filed a recall with the State Administration for Market Regulation on February 18, announcing the recall of 10,104 Mercedes-Benz EQCs, owners have not bought it.
Mercedes-Benz's first pure electric vehicle EQC, which makes Mercedes-Benz very upset. /Visual China
BMW Audi in the BBA camp, its first pure electric model sold in the Chinese market has also been recalled. For example, the BMW iX3, which was launched in 2020, issued four recalls in 2021, while Audi's first pure electric vehicle, the e-tron, also released a recall in September last year.
This has made many owners of BBA pure electric vehicle keys miserable, self-deprecating that they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they have become "pure electric guinea pigs who pay for luxury".
In addition to the quality problems with many problems, the intelligent experience of BBA pure electric vehicles has made many car owners, especially young owners, stay away. The BBA is equipped with the car machine screen, the new car-making forces are not only large; the BBA does not necessarily have OTAs, voice assistance systems, and the new car-making forces are not lacking, and even can be iteratively upgraded.
Even if it is discussed back to the car itself, the advantages that BBA have been proud of in the past are gradually being lost, and the mileage cannot beat others at all, leaving people with the impression that there may only be a "noble car logo" and the front of the car that can be seen at a glance as the BBA's engine grille.
Remove the logo and see this double kidney grille who knows whose car it is. /Unsplash
At the bottom of the "Do Young People Want to Buy BBA" question page, one of the high praises replied: "Now open Tesla to see BBA owners, just like holding an iPhone 12 to see them use the Nokia 8850." Although 8850 was very luxurious at that time, it was not a grade or an era of things. ”
According to a survey on the market acceptance of electric vehicles released by Tiger Sniff, Tesla, Xiaopeng and Weilai have become the brand first choice for the main group of electric vehicle consumers, accounting for 26.7%, 23.3% and 10% respectively, while none of the BBA is on the list.
It's no wonder that New Entropy asked the question at the beginning of an article: "Why can't BBA make a decent electric car?" ”
"Pure electricity for pure electricity"
In fact, the BBA is not unwilling to engage in new energy vehicles, nor is it a latecomer. In the process of transforming from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles, among the world's car companies, BMW in the BBA is even a "forerunner".
In February 2011, BMW announced the establishment of its sub-brand "BMW i" specializing in new energy vehicles at its headquarters in Bavaria, Germany, and soon after released its first two new energy vehicles - the small pure electric vehicle i3 for urban mobility and the hybrid sports car i8.
The two i-series models attracted attention as soon as they came out, especially the compact design of the i3 - the upper and lower independent development of the body, carbon fiber body, as well as the opening door and even the single pedal design, the i3 has become the critic's mouth "the car that makes the electric car moving", and incidentally won several international design awards.
In 2013 and 2014, the i3 and i8 entered the Chinese auto market. At that time, China's automobile market was still the world of fuel vehicles, and new energy vehicles were still the trendy products in the tide, so these two cars soon became "big toys" in the eyes of hipsters.
You may have seen this little car. /Courtesy of the author
But "big toys" can only be "big toys" after all. BMW leveraged the vision of the future development of the car with the "i series", but it was finally awakened by the numbers in the financial report.
Everyone understands that the logo of the BMW is basically equivalent to the "luxury car". In addition, the vehicles entering the market are imported cars, buying an i8 will cost the price of a set of rough houses in second- and third-tier cities, ordinary people can't afford it, rich people won't buy it, i8 quickly became a flashy representative.
As for the i3 positioned in the city commuting, it is because the mileage is too tight and has not produced any waves. From its launch in 2013 to October 15, 2020, BMW produced a total of 200,000 i3s; in 2018, the highest sales volume, the i3 sold only 38,000 units worldwide, and finally ended the car production by announcing the suspension of production this year.
Although it is a "forerunner", what is intriguing is that when Tesla and China's new car-making forces began to launch a "fierce attack" on the automobile market, BMW began to "half push and half", neither willing to miss this big cake, but also without the courage to try and make mistakes, so it chose a compromise plan that could not be opened - "oil to electricity".
The reason for this is that "oil to electricity" does not require the construction of a new production line. Udo Haenle, head of engineering at the BMW Group, once calculated that it would cost around €1 billion to build a new plant for electric vehicles, compared to just €3 million to retrofit an existing production facility.
Therefore, when other manufacturers announced the development of a dedicated platform for pure electric vehicles, BMW adhered to the "platform power modular compatibility" and applied it to the subsequent research and development of iX3, i4 and other models.
Then it was fiercely complained about by some consumers and car evaluators.
This also applies to some traditional luxury car companies - although they have already targeted the blue ocean market of new energy vehicles, while Tesla and Wei Xiaoli have comprehensively restructured the whole vehicle, the way of "oil to electricity" is not impossible, but it always seems strange.
To put it more sharply, in the words of some car evaluators, it is "pure electricity for pure electricity".
This is also the slot point of some pure electric vehicle owners who have bought traditional luxury car companies - the pure electric vehicles they bought back at a cost of four or five hundred thousand yuan, which are exactly the same as fuel vehicles in many ways, at most adding a charging experience - more purely, buying back a "premium version of old man music" covered with luxury car shells.
Can the elephant turn around and succeed?
However, the biggest reason why BBA cannot make waves in China's new energy vehicle market is not that the vehicle is directly "oil to electricity" when the vehicle is manufactured, nor is it that the pure electric new cars that are their main focus are difficult for consumers to understand.
An article released by CBN in December last year believed that luxury car companies with strong brand appeal, capital and technical strength like BBA were "unsatisfied" in the field of new energy, and lost to a number of new car-making forces that had not been established for a few years, for the same reason: the starting point of the product is far from the absurdity of the Chinese market demand.
A Jaguar Land Rover China executive said in an interview with CBN that although Jaguar Land Rover began planning pure electric vehicles around 2016, its first pure electric vehicle, I-PACE, is not favored by Chinese consumers. As seen here, Jaguar Land Rover's China team once fed back the needs of Chinese users and the changes that are taking place in the market to the UK headquarters, but with little success.
This is also inseparable from the BBA's car-making stance - to be precise, the BBA values its own brand more than the technological revolution of the car: the premise of BMW to build an electric car is to ensure bmw's "originality"; Audi's chief designer Marc Liche has also emphasized that the e-tron "should be an Audi car first, followed by a pure electric car."
In the eyes of BBA designers, electricity or not electric is secondary, and whether people can recognize it at a glance is their own car is the most important. /Visual China
It is precisely because of this that BBA will let their electric vehicles from the appearance of the interior to the handling texture, try to be close to the original fuel vehicles, rather than creating a new species.
BBA can gain an advantage in the era of fuel vehicles and become a classic in the minds of a generation, relying on the engine and gearbox - these two major pieces as the core technology of the car, are the "secret recipe" accumulated by these centuries-old car companies for many years, and it is not easy to show people.
However, in the era of electric vehicles, the two major pieces no longer exist, and the three-electric system is no longer a secret "competitor", and intelligence has long become the core competitiveness that automobile manufacturers try their best to compete for.
The current Chinese auto market has long changed, the car is no longer just a simple means of transportation, more scientific and technological connotation of intelligent electric vehicles have become a new species of intelligent travel for the future, which has become the consensus of China's automotive industry.
More importantly, the young people of the Z generation are replacing the post-80s and post-70s as the main force of automobile consumption, and the era of recognizing the car standard in the past has long been spurned by these young people. The BBA's methodology of conquering the new generation of car consumers by relying on brand logic and the traditional direct sales model has not worked.
How many Generation Z young people buy a car now and still go to a 4S store? /Figureworm Creative
The world's automotive market landscape is changing dramatically, and this is a fact of the eye. It's not easy for an elephant to turn around, but it's doomed if it doesn't turn around.
In the 2021 BBA's financial report, "electric vehicle" has become the most mentioned keyword, and electrification has become a key area in BBA's next planning.
In 2022, bmw group sales in the Chinese market will reach 5 pure electric models, 2023 will directly increase to 13 models, while the new electrification based on the new structure will start trial production in 2024 and unveiled in 2025; Mercedes-Benz changed the slogan of "electric first" to "full electric", planning to launch 21 new cars in China in 2022, and provide pure electric versions for each model in 2025; as for Audi, it plans to launch 20 pure electric models by 2026. It will also accelerate local production in the Chinese market, build new electric vehicle factories, and expand new energy infrastructure.
Other luxury car companies are also hesitant to lay out their own strategies, such as Jaguar announced that it will transform into a pure electric luxury brand and no longer produce fuel vehicles after 2025.
The sword refers to 2025 and attacks the market with "car-sea tactics" has become the target of the BBA, and it is also their urgent transformation strategy after facing the new forces to seize the market. The BBA, who are "rich and powerful", obviously have the confidence and financial resources to meet the challenges brought about by the market turmoil. It cannot be denied that the perfect system and superior profitability still provide a strong follow-up competitiveness and growth confidence for these luxury car companies to achieve electrification transformation.
But on the other hand, the high price position occupied by luxury car companies has also become the coveted target of new car-making forces. The WEILAI ET7, priced at 500,000 yuan, has become a hot topic of discussion in the car circle, and the pure electric SUV Gaohe HiPhi X with an average price of 700,000 yuan has been delivered in batches. On the same day that BMW released the new BMW i3 online, the first million-level pure electric hiPhi Z GT also triggered a discussion among riders.
700,000-level pure electric vehicles, the same market is broad. /Visual China
Can the BBA who seek to transform and regain the market successfully achieve the elephant turnaround and regain a place in the high-end market of new energy vehicles, or will they follow in the footsteps of Acura and become nokia in the automotive industry?
In the ever-changing new energy vehicle market, no one can accurately give the answer to this question.
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