The high-end battle of traditional car brands is becoming more and more anxious. Just recently, Avita, Changan's high-end electric vehicle brand, unveiled a limited edition coupe SUV created in collaboration with the creative director of luxury brand Givenchy. A few days ago, SAIC's high-end brand Zhiji Automobile officially announced the price of the first model Zhiji L7 Pro - 408,800 yuan.
Chinese car brands are eager to break the price ceiling of the era of fuel vehicles. In the 500 days after the independence of the brand, GAC Aean also used a pure electric supercar concept map that broke through 100 seconds to satisfy people's appetite. How familiar is this scene. If the timeline is flipped over, many new brands that focus on the high-end market, such as Weilai and Jihu, have chosen to use an electric supercar to convey the high-end brand image at the beginning of their establishment.
Unlike Avita and Zhiji's top-down play, Aeon chose a more pro-people price range at the beginning. This allows Aeon to harvest "production and marketing double prosperity" at the same time, but also fell into the sales beyond Wei Xiaoli on the hot search, a slogan of "kill Wei Xiaoli" can cause an uproar "dilemma".
Aeon is "not convinced", after all, on the track of smart electric vehicles, it also laid out a price range of more than 300,000 yuan. Seeing that BAIC's Polar Fox ARCFOX, Dongfeng's Lantu, SAIC's Zhiji, Chang'an's Avita, Geely's Extreme Kr and Wei Xiaoli, whose sales are left behind by themselves, are all lined up in the high-end electric vehicle market, and Aian is naturally not willing to let the main sales force only occupy the price band of 150,000 yuan.
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It's hard to attack upwards, and changing the "name" may work. At the recent earnings report meeting, Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, once again mentioned that the high-end SUV developed in cooperation with Huawei will be listed next year, and it is still unknown whether the brand will continue to use AEON.
In fact, in July last year, the announcement that Aeon and Huawei jointly built high-end models was released. However, the auto market is changing rapidly, and the cooperation results between the two sides have not yet landed, huawei has launched its own high-end brand AITO. The new power brands with heads in the front have already made the first opportunity in the high-end market, and then Huawei, Baidu, and Xiaomi are on the same track, how can the high-end electrification brands of traditional car companies highlight the siege?
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The "price" of the comfort zone
At the Guangzhou Auto Show in November 2020, a new electric vehicle brand "Aian" officially operated independently on behalf of GAC's entire new energy vehicle business. In that year, compared with the year-on-year decline in the domestic new energy vehicle market in 2019, there was a negative turn from positive for the first time. The industry has high hopes for 2021, believing that it will become a turning point in the new energy vehicle market and a year of opportunity for the brand to rise.
No one wants to miss the window before the turning point arrives. Therefore, in 2020, the SAIC R standard was officially independent; Lantu and Zhiji were released as brand new brands; ARCFOX officially unveiled its first mass production car. At that time, in the high-end electric vehicle market, only Tesla "rode the dust".
Gu Huinan, general manager of GAC Aean
Gu Huinan, general manager of GAC EIAN, admitted at the beginning of EIAN independence, "Without a good foundation, it is difficult for the brand to go up. You can't just sell the price high. ”
According to the financial report data, in 2021, the average price of Aean's bicycles will be 147,200 yuan, which is still a certain distance from the average price of bicycles of more than 200,000 yuan for the head of the new forces, and the average selling price of the new energy brand BYD of 167,800 yuan is also lower. Its main models Aion S and Aion Y will have cumulative sales of 71,790 and 31,327 units in 2021, accounting for 58.5% and 25.5% of total sales respectively.
The affordable Aion S is also quickly gaining popularity in the ride-hailing market, with 60-70% of Aion S operating vehicles from 2020 to July 2021. It was not until July 2021, after the sales of the newly launched Aion S PLUS increased, that the proportion of individual car owners increased significantly.
Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, has clearly stated that he does not want Weilai's car to enter the B-end market. For a brand new car brand, entering the online car market will inevitably damage the brand image. High-end brand image and production and marketing scale are often at both ends of the scale, and cannot be combined.
#中
Huawei, which is "overdrawn"
In just two years, the Eian brand has achieved the goal of production and sales in the first echelon set by Gu Huinan. Where the road to high-end is still unresolved. Time back to 2-3 years ago, this is almost all independent brands to do high-end electric vehicles problems.
As early as the beginning of 2021, there was news that Aean would jointly build high-end models with Huawei. It was not until the release of the official documents of the GAC Group that the outside world discovered that the two sides not only wanted to build a car, but a series, but also formed a strategic community in the business model. From the perspective of the developed models, medium and large, pure electric, intelligent, SUV, these words together, directly indicate the determination of GAC Aean to attack the luxury car market.
At the "Huawei Intelligent Vehicle Solution Ecosystem Forum" at the end of last year, Xu Wei, director of the Intelligent Driving Technology Department of GAC Research Institute, revealed that the new high-end model AION LX listed this year will be equipped with the L2++ NDA advanced intelligent service driving function, which will be based on Huawei's new generation of intelligent driving computing platform MDC 610. Under the joint planning of both parties, by 2024, GAC Aean's new car will be based on Huawei's next-generation MDC 810 platform and support L4 autonomous driving functions.
It is foreseeable that with the continuous improvement of the degree of intelligence, the software and hardware related to intelligence also need to be equipped with higher-priced models. However, the current price of about 300,000 yuan, the monthly sales of 100 up and down AION LX can not open the situation, not to mention the future higher price range models.
As Li Bin said, the price band that any car brand can cover is limited. The same is true for Ean. If Aeon has completed the mission of independent operation of GAC New Energy, then it is reasonable to create a new high-end brand on top of this.
#下
What is the story of high-end?
"Car companies cooperate with technology companies such as Huawei, Alibaba, and Baidu to create high-end models, in addition to technical support, there is also a point to stimulate the consumption enthusiasm of the younger generation of consumers." Brand scholar, Xinhua Premium brand official Gu Huanyu mentioned in the communication with the car market Story that the core of the high-end brand is not so much storytelling as how it is loved by the user group, Tesla and Wei Xiaoli have confirmed this.
In fact, before Tesla and Wei Xiaoli "fire", it will take at least thirty years to create a stable car brand image, not to mention high-end brands such as BBA. However, on the new track of smart electric vehicles, the new forces have gained the recognition and resonance of users in a short period of time, and have preemptively occupied the minds of young users, not only allowing the industry to distinguish between "traditional" and "new", but also forming a natural distinction in the eyes of consumers.
Theoretically, the accumulation of hardware by traditional car companies has given them an inherent advantage in electrification transformation. However, the new era of consumers, their needs and preferences are changing. Gu Huanyu believes that the gap between the old and new forces comes from the understanding of user needs. "Just like the high-end image of Weilai, in fact, users and Weilai together to create." In the process of interaction, let users accept and disseminate high-end brand positioning, rather than unilaterally output brand value. ”
Musk's real Iron Man character
Zhang Yi, CEO of Ai Media Consulting, said in his communication with the car market Monogatari, "Chinese auto brands generally start late in terms of brand and have a weak foundation. Therefore, it is more necessary to think about how to understand consumers better than the new forces. "In order to create a new brand image, create a new brand to subvert consumer cognition, is the only way to develop, which is also the original intention of all Chinese car companies to create a new high-end brand."
In the era of fuel vehicles, Toyota's Lexus, Honda's Acura, and Nissan's Infiniti have already gone down this road. In the era of electric vehicles, consumer culture and consumption habits are still early from taking shape, and the brand image is more likely to be subverted. Zhang Yi pointed out that the competition for smart electric vehicles has just begun, and traditional car companies still have great opportunities and potential to achieve high-end counterattack. "High-end brands, to put it bluntly, are buying brands to send products, in layman's terms, first of all, we must meet the needs of users' 'faces'." For car companies, it is necessary to think about what kind of performance and what kind of services to support the brand premium. ”
Gu Huanyu believes that no matter in what era, to create a high-end brand, product strength, understanding of consumer needs, long-term efforts, these three are indispensable. "Tesla's current technology label is so strong, but also the long-term creation of the company, it is the founder's background, cultural symbols, technological subversion and other long-term output of the results, not a minimalist interior or the screen enlargement so simple."
This is the best era, standing on the cusp of smart electric vehicles, everything can be changed and subverted. But no one can win the high-end battle quickly. As Gu Huanyu said, at any time, there are leaders and catch-ups in the brand image, and there is no shortage of successful cases of catch-ups and catch-ups. "Every traditional car company should ask itself what kind of product I want to build, in order to understand the needs of users, with Tesla, Wei Xiaoli to stand on the same level."
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