If a car is extremely personalized, it will definitely lose a lot. If a brand is also pure personalization, it is not far from delisting, except for MINI, of course.
Recently, a brand that has not moved for a long time and focuses on personalized mini cars has reappeared in our field of vision through a genie #1, which is smart.
Once smart with two doors, micro, good parking and other personalized positioning, has gained a lot of fans around the world. But it should be noted that I am talking about "many fans", not "countless fans", after all, it is not practical, and the price is not cheap, so it is still difficult to hide the embarrassing sales of personality, and eventually it is on the verge of discontinuation.
For the turnaround of smart, we must start from Geely. On February 24, 2018, Geely Group acquired 9.69% of the shares of Daimler Co., Ltd., and Li Shufu also became the largest single shareholder of Daimler, so he also had a high voice in its brands, and smart naturally became a brand co-led by Geely and Mercedes-Benz.
Smart Genie #1, designed by Mercedes-Benz, developed by Geely, and built on the Geely SEA haohan pure electric platform, has also become an important step in the electrification of the Smart brand.
Practical products that compromise with the market
In fact, Smart Genie #1 is not smart's first pure electric product. In 2014, Smart launched smart fortwo Electric Drive, and in the same year, many domestic new energy brands have not even started to start. But smart fortwo Electric Drive is priced at 235,000 yuan, has not been subsidized, and the endurance is only 145km, which can be imagined. After all, personality belongs to personality, and consumption still has to be rational. Even in the European and American markets, the performance of smart new energy products is also very general, not so much a product positioning problem, I think it is not timely. The first generation of Electric Drive also entered the domestic market, and the second generation did not even enter China, but even so, its sales around the world were also very dismal.
This is not, find a time, smart new energy products are coming again, and it is led by Geely research and development, so for the control of consumer psychology, this time absolutely in place.
SUV market is good, smart genie #1 has become its first SUV; the need for large space practicality, so smart genie #1 wheelbase reached 2750mm, even larger than many mainstream compact SUV; to personality to face, double color body + frameless doors are arranged, not only beautiful, but also has a certain heritage.
In terms of performance, smart genie #1 has also reached the level it deserves, 66kWh battery pack, CLTC working life of up to 560 kilometers, but also supports 150kW DC super fast charging. Not only that, but the level of 6.7 seconds to break the hundred also makes it the fastest smart.
It seems that every part and every detail of Smart Genie #1 is built for consumers, but is this still the "smart" you want?
Awkward positioning Is difficult pricing
In everyone's impression, smart is the car is less than 3 meters long, the wheelbase is less than 2 meters of double door "little cute", all parking spaces can be "one in", and even a parking space can park 2 cars, but now it has become this "big guy".
The once convenient and small is gone, and the personality has retained a little, but it is obviously not pure enough.
Not only that, its own same door EQA is also similar to the smart genie #1 positioning, smart genie #1 length 4270mm, wheelbase 2750mm; EQA length 4463mm, wheelbase 2729mm, the two cars in the body size parameters have their own advantages and disadvantages. At present, EQA only has the first special edition of a model, the guidance price of 365,800 yuan, but the dealer quotation has reached less than 300,000 yuan, if the follow-up launch of the entry version, the price will be down again.
This obviously has a big impact on the pricing of Smart Genie #1. In the past, it cost more than 100,000 and 200,000 to choose smart because of personality and convenience, and now in the case of the lack of these two advantages, if the price is close to EQA, why not choose an EQA with more advantages in brand and service? After all, the biggest feature of smart has disappeared, and after domestic production, it has also made the owner lose the talking point.
And EQA is also a MEA platform developed by Mercedes-Benz, smart genie #1 is a SEA haohan pure electric platform developed by Geely, although it can not be said that it is strong or weak, but Mercedes-Benz in the maturity of technology, the probability will be better.
The high is grabbed by the EQA, what about the low? If smart genie #1 sells to less than 200,000, it will obviously support its own sales, but it will have a great impact on Geely. At present, the Geely brand has not yet launched a pure electric vehicle model based on the SEA Haohan pure electric platform, if launched, taking the compact SUV as an example, it is also likely to be more than 150,000 yuan, which can be seen with reference to BYD, GAC Aean and other brands. If it is all about 200,000 yuan, the size difference is not much, a smart with a "German" gene endorsement is obviously easier for consumers to swipe the card.
Exploding the market is more difficult
In summary, it can be seen that the positioning of smart genie #1 is really awkward, and the pricing is also difficult. High by the EQA to rob the market of a large half, low to grab the Geely market, this Geely can agree? Smart can be said to be "belly and back enemy", which is extremely uncomfortable.
Although this smart that compromises for the market has lost many of the advantages of the smart product itself, and has a completely domestic identity, its practicality improvement cannot be ignored. And I think that the pricing of smart genie #1 may not be too low, first of all, geely's interests are unshakable, which must be the first; secondly, smart's brand tone can not be pulled down, after the tone is lowered, there are definitely many examples of brands going downhill.
Although there will be a small wave of people who resist the temptation of Mercedes-Benz and choose smart genie #1 with personality heritage, such sales obviously cannot support the profitability of a brand. In this way, the smart after becoming larger, it seems that it is not as big as the same! Maybe smart doesn't want to continue to take the personality but not practical route of the past, but now for smart, which is not so strong in personality labels, the road ahead is still extremely difficult.