Hello everyone, I am the president of the Electric Vehicle Commune.
At the end of last year, I went to Ningbo to attend the Geely Raytheon Hybrid Conference, and when I checked into the hotel, I found a book on the table: "Non-Linear Growth: The Road of Geely".
The three words "non-linear" may be more popular in high numbers, but it is used to describe the development process of a company, which I have seen for the first time.
However, if you think about it, the use of "non-linear" to describe the development process of Geely is not contrary to harmony.
In 1999, when the National Development and Reform Commission inspected geely group, Li Shufu, who had almost nothing but enthusiasm, said: "If it fails, please give me a chance to fail." ”
From the first 100 "Haoqing" were crushed by Li Shufu driving a road roller due to quality problems, to the rise of car quality and sales after the "Ningbo Declaration", to the acquisition of Volvo to stage a "snake swallowing elephant" to go international, and then to winning the top spot in the sales of independent brand passenger cars for 5 consecutive years..... From the grassroots to a towering tree, Jili has experienced countless ups and downs along the way.
Today, a new battlefield for global vehicle electrification has emerged. However, Geely's road to electrification has not gone well.
Seven years ago, Li Shufu had set a "blue Geely plan" for Geely to electrify, but it was not realized in the end. After reviewing the reasons for the defeat, Li Shufu said: "This is not the wrong direction of the strategy, nor is it the failure of the implementation of the strategy, but the historical timing is not ripe. ”
There is no doubt that the time is definitely ripe now, and Geely has also regrouped and started to exert its strength!
Smashing 20 billion into the VAST STRUCTURE of SEA, Extreme Krypton was born, which carries Geely's glorious mission of "reversing the situation" in electrification.
As the first model of THE SEA's vast architecture, under the high expectations, the Extreme Kr 001 has naturally become the focus of people's attention.
It has been 5 months since the first delivery, and the Extreme Kr 001 is one of the most controversial models in the new energy vehicle circle. The reason why it is highly controversial is because of the strong contrast between its advantages and disadvantages.
First of all, the advantages, many friends have reflected that the driving texture, comfort and performance feedback of Extreme Kr 001 is really good!
There is a UP owner on the B station who borrowed two Extreme Kr 001 to test NVH, according to the feedback in his video, the mute of the vehicle of Extreme Kr 001 is very good, especially in the low-speed working conditions of 40KM/h, it can even be comparable to the level of D-class cars.
Let's talk about the shortcomings, in the case of delivery of real cars in a very fast time, intelligence does need to be slowly upgraded, and the performance of the car machine of Extreme Kr 001 last year is indeed a major shortcoming.
Before that, there was even a netizen who joked: the extreme Kr 001 car machine is like Nokia.
To tell the truth, now the players who make electric vehicles, intelligent "inner volume" is a very common phenomenon, the higher the pixel of the car camera, the better, the higher the computing power of the automatic driving chip, the better, the more lidar the better....... Look at the people "Huawei Car" to ask the M5, the car machine large screen silky smooth as a big selling point, a good "buy flatbed to send the car".
In such an internal environment, Extreme Krypton naturally will not "lie flat" on this.
Under the huge pressure of user complaints and external doubts, Extreme Kr 001 silently pushed a major update for users: ZEEKR OS 2.0.
01. Just one OTA
Can it save the extreme krypton intelligent short board?
Generally speaking, we usually update a mobile APP, and after the update, we will give a pop-up window to detail which functions have been added, which places have been optimized, and which bugs have been fixed.
However, the pop-up window after the krypton ZEEKR OS 2.0 update is slightly low-key: "Your car is now better than before." ”
"After OTA, can the Krypton 001 car machine really get better?" How much better can it get? "That's probably the focus of most people's attention.
Just some time ago, I went to Chaoyang Hopson Hui with my friends to eat, and after eating, I went to the store to try the extreme krypton 001 after updating the 2.0 version.
Get in the car, immediately turn on the car, click on the navigation map, and then hold down a point to slide and zoom wildly. Subjectively speaking, compared with the first experience of extreme krypton 001 6 months ago, the 2.0 version of the car has indeed been greatly improved.
As for whether the fluency after the 2.0 version of optimization is enough, it does vary from person to person, or it is recommended that you try it yourself.
However, according to the store's extreme krypton sales, the 2.0 version of the update, to improve the smoothness of the car is not the focus, more important is to open the ZAD assisted driving function.
I believe that everyone is no stranger to assisted driving, as long as the name of the car company, basically there is no will not do assisted driving. But whether assisted driving can be used or not is one thing, and whether it is good or not is another.
The core of the original intention of assisted driving is to improve driving safety. For assisted driving that can be used but is not easy to use, such as not being able to detect incoming cars and pedestrians, or quitting in the cold, it will become a safety hazard, which is equivalent to violating the original intention of assisted driving.
When users use these assisted driving functions, they are often scared out of a cold sweat, and finally they begin to be afraid, and the users of the "head iron" will have accidents if they are not good. Several assisted driving accidents last year have sounded the alarm for the industry.
In the krypton 2.0 system update, the core functions of the open assisted driving include ACCQA adaptive cruise with queuing function, AEB forward collision mitigation, LDW lane departure warning and FCTA front intersection traffic warning.
Here we focus on the adaptive cruise with the queuing function of ACCQA, "ACC" is more common in the industry, meaning adaptive cruise, but after adding a "QA", that is, "with queuing function", what is the difference between it and ordinary ACC?
Generally speaking, ordinary ACC functions require vehicles to reach a certain speed or more to open, after all, they are mainly facing the scene of high-speed sections and loops, such as the early Weilai ES6 needs 30KM/h to open ACC, and the early Xiaopeng G3 needs 60KM/h to open ACC.
According to the official, The ACCQA function supports full-speed domain startup, and even at a speed of 1km/h, it can still be used normally. In other words, the adaptive cruise of The Krypton 001 can be used not only on highways and loops, but also in congested sections.
After opening the ACCQA function, in the scene of congestion or waiting for traffic lights, the ACCQA function will not automatically exit within 1 minute of standby, as long as the front car travels, Kr 001 can realize automatic follow-up and simplify user operation.
It is worth mentioning that the updated driver assistance functions of the Extreme Kr 2.0 system, including ACCQA and AEB functions, belong to the longitudinal control of the vehicle. As for the function of lane keeping, which can be used to control the vehicle laterally, this update does not cover, but only provides the LDW lane departure warning function.
In contrast, the assisted driving progress of Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng and other brands is much faster than that of Extreme Krypton. On the one hand, it is true that the brand has been precipitating for a longer time; on the other hand, at present, Extreme Krypton is not taking a radical route in assisted driving, but a stable route.
Some time ago, we arranged for the commune's friends to experience the assisted driving of Extreme Kr 001, and he gave this evaluation after he returned: "Really stable!" ”
Why should Extreme Krypton be so cautious in intelligent driving? Perhaps, we can find the answer from a sentence that An Conghui once said, "Safety is a bottom line of extreme krypton car manufacturing!" Not allowing users to take risks is an emphasis on the safety of users' lives", which is probably why Kr is one of the car companies with the most standard ADAS functions in the whole series.
02. Imperfect Krypton
Choose user co-creation and accept criticism
Perhaps many people subjectively think that behind the extreme krypton there is a giant such as Geely as an endorsement, and the growth path of extreme krypton should have been smooth.
But it turns out that it is actually more difficult for traditional forces to "make a name for themselves" in the field of electric vehicles than to start from scratch. Among such car companies as BAIC Jihu and SAIC Feifan, GAC Aeon is temporarily in a relatively leading position in sales.
Why is it so hard to make a name for yourself? Because the inherent system and thinking of traditional car companies will become the shackles of the development of the new era.
At the beginning of the establishment of Extreme Kr, the Geely team understood that in order to break through this shackle, it must make a complete separation from its past self. It can be imagined that at that time, Geely chose to strip The Krypton from Lynk & Co, and how much pain and entanglement were mixed in between.
In the pain and entanglement, Extreme Krypton chose to take the route of "user co-creation".
There are many car brands, especially larger joint venture brands, usually choose to subconsciously reduce contact with users, and eventually the tone of the entire brand marketing will become "the car is sold, it has nothing to do with my manufacturer", or "love to buy, do not buy roll".
However, Extreme Krypton chose to create more contact with users and accept users' complaints and criticisms.
It seems simple, but it actually carries a lot of pressure.
In December last year, Extreme Kr held an offline user exchange meeting in Hangzhou, in which Xu Yun, vice president of Extreme Krypton's product direction, Zhao Yuhui, vice president of user direction, and many senior executives participated.
The whole user exchange meeting can be said to be full of "gunpowder".
"We've all been waiting so long! Why can't I hand over the car? ”
"The car is so stuck! Can't change the 8155 chip? ”
"When will the air suspension arrive?"
........
Even, some car owners specially prepared more than 2,000 words of speeches for this user exchange meeting.
The owners of extreme kryptonite at the scene mercilessly intimidated the high-rise of extreme krypton, venting their dissatisfaction with extreme krypton at this stage, but these owners did not have malicious intentions, and most of them hoped that extreme krypton would get better and better. After all, they spent 300,000 yuan to choose to believe in Extreme Kr, and users should enjoy the product and service experience they deserve.
On the other hand, the high-level executives of Extreme Krypton are like the objects of "criticism", although slightly embarrassed, they are still trying to make themselves laugh, and at the same time carefully record the dissatisfaction and demands raised by the owners.
The executives' feedback on the friction and conflict that arose at the meeting was: "This is to be expected, and we will not avoid the problem." ”
Of course, this user exchange meeting in Hangzhou is only the "tip of the iceberg", and this online and offline user meeting is also held a lot.
In a recent live face-to-face event, Extreme Krypton answered key questions such as car machine chips and scheduling and delivery.
For the 8155 chip, Extreme Kr said it will be on it this year, and it is currently undergoing repeated testing and verification.
For scheduled delivery, Extreme Kr said that it has conducted several rounds of communication with air suspension supplier Wybaker, and has opened a new production line at the request of Extreme Kr to ensure the supply of air suspension.
At present, looking at the entire automotive industry, there is almost no user-oriented enterprise that can go smoothly, including Weilai, which is also questioned and tortured in the early stage of growth, and even in the early days, there are rumors of "the fastest this year, the latest next year".
A netizen proposed that the pricing of Extreme Kr is lower than that of Weilai, which makes it more difficult for Extreme Krypton to be co-created by users and implemented than Weilai.
Users' complaints are a spur. The process of accepting criticism is necessarily painful, but this is the opportunity to push the imperfect kryptonite in a better direction.
Exposing problems in advance is not necessarily a bad thing.
03. Write at the end
The epidemic, the Russo-Ukrainian war, the shortage of chips, the soaring raw materials for batteries, the plummeting price of points....... This series of events has appeared, which seems to be testing the entire Chinese new energy automobile industry, and every new energy vehicle player in it has tightened their nerves.
Under heavy pressure from other players, when "Leng Buding" released the news of the price increase, Extreme Kr also issued an announcement, "May 1 officially adjusted the price", leaving users with a one-month "buffer period".
For today's kryptonians, it is imperative to lay the infrastructure as soon as possible.
According to the statistics on the official website of Extreme Kr, at present, Extreme Krypton has only 77 stores in the country, mainly concentrated in first-tier cities and provincial capitals. The offline channels are not wide enough, there are not enough people who know Extreme Kr, and users can only rely on "blind booking" to buy cars, which is the main reason for the differences between Extreme Kr and users.
Krypton is currently working to expand its own offline channels. In March, Krypton added 3 pop-up stores and 5 krypton spaces. I believe that after more offline channels and users have more opportunities to experience Extreme Kr, the differences between Extreme Kr and users will be alleviated.
Not only that, but Extreme Kr is also trying to improve its own energy replenishment system. As of March, Extreme Krypton has built 58 self-charging stations across the country, covering 21,000 third-party charging piles, further improving the user experience.
In April 2021, the extreme krypton brand that has just been released is now just 1 year old.
From the first public appearance of the product to the delivery of the first car, Wei Xiaoli, which took only 8-12 months, has been called a miracle of speed. To do this, It took only 5 months for The Krypton 001.
From the delivery of the first car to the update of the 2.0 version of the car, Wei Xiaoli only took 8 months to 2 years, which has made many people stunned, after all, there will be no change after buying a car for more than ten years in the past. To do this, It took only 5 months for Extreme Kr 001 to do so.
I have to admit that in the current environment, it is less difficult to cultivate users' cognition of the entire new energy and their own brand than Wei Xiaoli had to establish cognition from 0. But it must also be admitted that after years of fierce elimination, the entire market environment has become more complex, and consumers have become more critical of the demand and vision of electric vehicles.
Therefore, in fact, the challenge left to Extreme Krypton is to some extent no smaller than that of Wei Xiaoli.
And Wei Xiaoli, who is often compared with 1-year-old Extreme Krypton, is actually 7 years old unconsciously.
Comparing grades between 1-year-olds and 7-year-olds is obviously not fair enough, even if they are children who have high hopes and are born under the "light" of Auspicious. But the market is often like this, there is no injustice to speak of, you need to keep moving forward.
Of course, the current krypton is imperfect, and we all need to admit it. However, Extreme Kr is also running at a faster speed, so please give it more time to grow.