Recently, Zhiji Automobile officially announced the first model of Zhiji L7 mass production debut model - Zhiji L7 Pro priced at 408,800 yuan, Zhiji Automobile's official website shows that the current order will be delivered from May.
According to the information of Tianyancha APP, Zhiji Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. was established on December 25, 2020, and Zhiji Automobile is a high-end electric vehicle brand jointly created by SAIC Motor, Alibaba and Zhangjiang Hi-Tech.
At the launch of Zhiji's new car, Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, made it clear that Zhiji aims at the BBA market. Not only that, Liu Tao believes, "Compared with the price of the same configuration, the price provided by the Zhiji L7 Pro is at least about 100,000 yuan lower than that of the competitors." ”
From Liu Tao's words such as "at least about 100,000 yuan less" and "competitive products", it is not difficult to find that Zhiji's ambitions do not seem to stop at targeting the BBA market, and it is likely to be aimed at competing head-on with the WEILAI ET7 that has begun to be delivered.
So in the process of fighting against the BBA and Wei Xiaoli, what kind of role will Zhiji, a fierce general, play at SAIC? Can the wisdom of confidence and ambition really help SAIC catch up with the wave of electrification? All of them are worth dissecting one or two.
"High-end + blockbuster": SAIC's electrification must go through
Regarding what kind of role Zhiji wants to assume at SAIC, let's put the conclusion first, Zhiji wants to help SAIC create a high-end model explosion, which is one of the necessary measures for SAIC to gain a firm foothold in the era of electrification.
Tan Qing said that AI believes that this conclusion is mainly based on two reasons, and we will analyze them separately.
* Hongguang MINIEV embarrassment
We all know how beautiful Hongguang MINIEV was last year, in terms of sales, according to its official data, Hongguang MINIEV's cumulative sales in 2021 exceeded 420,000 vehicles, which can be described as punching Tesla China and kicking all new forces.
Was Hongguang MINIEV successful? If you look at it from the perspective of sales volume and public opinion enthusiasm, it is undoubtedly a competitive dark horse released by SAIC in the era of electrification.
However, Tan Qing said that AI believes that today, it is quite an afterthought, and the more the micro-electric vehicles sell, the more they can actually let us understand why there are few players involved in this market in the era of fuel vehicles.
Obviously, the car companies in the era of fuel vehicles are not stupid, and the profitability of mini cars is undoubtedly the biggest embarrassment of this market. According to the relevant research report of Caitong Securities, the gross profit margin of Hongguang MINIEV may only be 2% to 3%.
However, under the carbon credit policy, the mini-car "giant pit" that fuel vehicles dare not step on has given Hongguang MINIEV a lot of confidence to a certain extent.
In fact, saic-GM-Wuling a few years ago, in the fuel consumption "negative integral ranking" has been at a high level, relying on the huge sales of Hongguang MINIIEV, on the one hand, can help SAIC-GM-Wuling not to spend money to buy points, on the other hand, such new energy vehicles positive integrals can also "curve to save the country" to help SAIC-GM-Wuling create revenue in the short term.
However, in the face of policy uncertainty, Hongguang MINIEV seems to be difficult to become a long-term solution for SAIC to bet on the era of electrification, if the future carbon integration policy is canceled, then the mini car may really become synonymous with making money or not making money.
Just like zero running, recently squeezed into the echelon of new car-making forces, it seems to be the same scenery, but the T03 mini car will account for nearly 90% of its overall sales in 2021. It seems that it is precisely with this aspect in mind that the 2.0 product strategy released from scratch to the year, there will no longer be new products for mini cars in the future.
Not only that, the profit value of high-end models is also reflected in Wei Xiaoli's 2021 financial report. Weilai's models have the highest average price, but their gross profit is also the highest, and the gross profit margin is even close to twice that of Xiaopeng, which is actually an intuitive embodiment.
Therefore, the impact on the high-end, from the perspective of profitability, Zhiji seems to have been a move that SAIC has to take, and based on this move, in the face of huge cost investment, L7 Pro also needs to work hard to become a hit, in order to help its profit form a healthy closed loop.
Of course, there is a deeper strategic factor.
*Capital Markets and Product Strategy
Tan Qing said that AI believes that in the capital market, today's electrification has actually become the most basic background of a self-motivated traditional car company, and it is difficult to set off a big wave. What can really help car companies to create dreams is actually the intelligent battle that is about to enter the white-hot state in the second half.
By comparing the market capitalization of BYD and Tesla, this problem is actually very illustrative. Electrification has long been the background of BYD, and its retail sales even surpassed Tesla China last year. However, as of press time, BYD's market value is around $100 billion, while Tesla's market value is still more than one trillion US dollars.
Some Wall Street analysts say 60 percent of Tesla's valuation comes from areas such as software revenue. Then perhaps the weakness of intelligent strength is an important factor that causes BYD's sales to be hot, but the market value is still tepid.
Therefore, SAIC wants to "create a dream", and intelligence is a battle it must experience. However, what does this have to do with high-end or not high-end?
The answer is actually very simple, after all, high-end models can minimize the cost of intelligent input under high premium. Therefore, in order to give a full display space for intelligent strength, it is not surprising that the birth of the intellectual self is not surprising.
If we continue to look at it along the intelligent thinking, Zhiji has indeed reserved enough cost coverage space for SAIC in market positioning, but more importantly, it is also a very important value to show SAIC's intelligent strength through Zhiji, that is, to be able to endorse lower-line products well through market feedback of a certain scale.
We can find such a product evolution path from Tesla Model S to Model 3, or NIO's 668 to ET5.
In general, using the sinking MINI EV volume, using high-end zhiji to show SAIC's intelligent level ceiling, and finally using feifan cars that cut into the mass market to really gain a foothold, it seems to be like SAIC betting on the "three-stage rocket" in the electrification era.
However, whether this rocket can rush into space, there is also a premise here, that is, the "second stage rocket" of Zhiji needs to have a considerable start in future sales.
After all, looking at the unsatisfactory sales of the current highest price EX6 in WM, it is not difficult to find that the high-end products that are not popular are actually difficult to act as a good secondary rocket, not only can not endorse the public products, but even may make the market question its intelligent strength.
Therefore, Tan Qing said that AI believes that through the formation of a joint force of "high-end + explosive models", the "second stage rocket" of Zhiji, which inherits the upper and lower levels, can truly maximize the value release of the overall strategy of SAIC's bet on the electrification era.
So can the out-of-the-box L7 Pro do just that?
Arm yourself with wisdom, Liu Tao still needs to learn from the BBA?
"There are still some young people who continue to be immersed in the traditional value system built by the BBA, but in my opinion, once the user drives an electric car, the old world cannot go back." This is the view expressed by Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, in recent days.
Liu Tao has some amazing "golden sentences", which allows us to see his full confidence in his own products, but this does not seem to be able to generate much positive value for zhiji.
In fact, the current intellectual self has already seen hidden worries.
* Fledgling intellectuals "into the pit"
As an electric vehicle brand positioning the high-end market, although Zhiji has not yet been officially delivered on a large scale, the two actions have already buried a lot of hidden dangers for the brand.
First, Liu Tao's "attack" on fuel vehicle users why not eat meat.
In addition to "naming" some young people immersed in the traditional value system built by the BBA, Liu Tao also said that for users who spend 400,000 yuan to buy fuel vehicles, "in fact, I think they are very helpless, or very, I think it is very tragic to say too much." ”
We all know that Li Bin said at the end of last year that he "simply didn't understand" the behavior of buying an oil truck, and then was shelled by many netizens, so the word "miserable" in Liu Tao's remarks today can be said to be more than li bin's words.
Tan Qing said that AI believes that electric vehicles want to tap new market increments, to a large extent, need to let fuel vehicle users switch camps, fundamentally still need to use products to speak, and this more or less "attack" taste of the new, it seems that can not play this effect.
So has Zhiji been honest enough in the product? Unfortunately, at this point, Zhiji's start was not as smooth as expected.
On February 28, Zhiji Automobile officially announced the configuration of zhiji L7 mass production car, but recently there was news that compared with the Zhiji L7 that was unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show last year, today's mass production car configuration has a "shrinkage" phenomenon, but Zhiji has not informed users before.
The specific "reduction" situation has been pointed out by netizens that the original configuration of 12 high-definition cameras is now reduced to 11; 5 fifth-generation millimeter-wave radars have become 4 millimeter-wave radars plus 1 4D millimeter-wave radar; military-grade ultra-high-precision inertial guidance has been directly cut; vehicle wireless charging receivers have changed from standard to optional.
In this regard, Zhiji made a partial response as shown in the following figure, but it is obvious that it is a statement of highlight last year, why has there been such a subtle change this year? The intellectual response doesn't seem to have made consumers buy it.
Regarding this incident, Tan Qing said that AI has not received relevant responses from the intellectual side for the time being, and temporarily holds a further wait-and-see attitude towards the authenticity of the incident.
However, if the event is really as some angel wheel users said, then Zhiji has undoubtedly hurt a large number of users in the earliest stage, which is compared with Weilai relying on early users to survive 2019, which can be said to be no harm without comparison.
* Zhiji still needs differentiated "real kung fu"
In order to save the start that seems to be somewhat unfavorable, Zhiji obviously needs to make some "real efforts" in the product, after all, just like Tesla can set off a wave of electrification, differentiated experience upgrades, which will always be the core of consumer support.
To this end, let's first smack Liu Tao's remarks on the BBA's "traditional value system".
What is the BBA's "traditional value system"? More really, this is an overly grand and complex product, but Tan Qing said that AI believes that the values of a car brand, or more accurately, the brand connotation, are often the cornerstone of its vitality to be recognized by the market.
Perhaps we can't say exactly what Liu Tao thinks the BBA "value system" is, but it is certain that luxury, driving control, technology, once we talked about whether a car is good or not, it seems that we often mention these three measures.
This is actually the BBA's highly credible product strength part of the judgment criteria for traditional cars under the century-old market education.
The same is true, as the head of the new force of Wei Xiaoli, such a brand connotation construction has been engraved in the genes since its inception, and such as Weilai's user first, the ideal car and home concept, Xiaopeng's continuous march to a higher dimensional intelligence, etc., they are indeed using new thinking to challenge the traditional rules formulated by the BBA.
So what does the L7 Pro, which anchors the high-end market, want to bring to users? "Executive-level coupe body", "super sense of driving control", "super sense of interaction", "net taste high-end"...
Although Liu Tao believes that after driving an electric car, "that old world can't go back at all", whether it is from the relevant highlight words of L7 Pro, or the "New World Driving Control Flagship" of Zhiji brand positioning, it seems that it has not completely left the old world that BBA has built in a hundred years, nor has it surpassed Wei Xiaoli to go to the next new world in advance.
Tan Qing said that AI believes that compared to it, the current zhiji seems to be more like a new era "stitching monster" that carries many characteristics of BBA and Wei Xiaoli. However, this seems to be an attempt to subvert the opponent's ambitions with the characteristics of the opponent, and it may be difficult to come true.
After all, if you want to subvert an era, what you really need is not inheritance, but a breakthrough.
If you carefully look for where the breakthrough of Zhiji is, it has to be mentioned that there is indeed a differentiated embodiment of the L7 Pro, that is, most of the new forces choose to use lidar to improve the roof of the automatic driving perception ability, and the L7 Pro is equipped with a triple camera that adds up to more than 100 million.
However, some netizens' sentence "buy a car and send a 4K non-line driving recorder, quite conscientious", it seems that it is difficult for us to see the potential consumer's innovative praise and depreciation of the L7 Pro.
It is difficult to say how many young people are still immersed in the traditional value system built by the BBA, but at least compared to the BBA, the zhiji who has just been born seems to need to spend a certain amount of time to build their own "value system" first.
Perhaps in the face of a new war, to be wise, we must first know ourselves.