You may never be able to count how many electric vehicle brands there are in China, because they are like mushrooms after the rain and mushrooms in early summer, and from time to time there are fresh faces emerging.
Last week, Avita, a brand that Changan cooperated with NINGDA times and Huawei, just released a collaboration with Givenchy designer Matthew M. A week later, at Changan Automobile's partner conference, another new brand was unveiled, Changan Deep Blue, followed by Changan's strategy to cope with the electrification transformation.
Just as the so-called "two fists are difficult to defeat four hands", I don't know when to start, the establishment of new brands has become the best play of domestic independent brands, in the face of the gradual refinement of the smart car market, they simply "refine" the brand to more accurately meet the battle.
However, every time a new brand is born, it is a product and brand from scratch, and it requires the courage to give it a go. Can Chang'an, which has made a comeback with "deep blue" this time, break through the competition?
From Avita to Deep Blue,
Is it their own narrow road to meet, or to fight separately?
Before Changan Deep Blue, another new brand in Chang'an was called Avita.
This brand equipped with the "CHN" technology platform carries the expectations of Changan, CATL and Huawei in intelligence, electrification and automobiles. As a brand facing the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market, the emergence of Avita has pulled Changan back to the main battlefield of the most competitive intelligent electric vehicles.
Because of this, when Changan once again released "Changan Deep Blue", many people's questions were: Why did it release a new brand?
Different from the high-end route created by Avita Sanfang, Changan Deep Blue is equipped with the EPA platform independently developed by Changan, which can be said to be Changan's "pro-son", integrating all the strength of Changan New Energy.
In Changan's own words, the five products currently planned by Deep Blue are mainly "for Z-era new energy users", of which C385 will be officially released in the second half of this year, and C673 will be released within the year. If Avita undertakes the task of Changan brand upwards and aims at the high-end electric vehicle market; then Deep Blue is more like Changan's fierce general in the field of new energy, undertaking the task of "shangliang" and aiming at the mid-range electric vehicle market with a larger and younger market.
At the same time as Changan Deep Blue, the independence of the UNI series was officially announced. As Changan's main brand high-end and youthful series two years ago, from this year, UNI will operate as a new independent brand, while fully electrification, aiming at the market of range extender hybrid.
Avita targets the high-end pure electric market, Changan Deep Blue targets the larger pure electric mid-range market, UNI aims at the range extender hybrid market, and Changan's brands such as Changan Passenger Vehicles, Auchan and Kaicheng will also have their own electrification transformation process. Changan has used different sub-brands to target the segment of smart cars, so that they can face the battle without baggage and lighter.
Taking the Deep Blue brand as an example, the C385, which was previously on the Internet, will be released as the first model of Deep Blue in the second half of this year. This model, which looks exactly like UNI-V, has made many netizens question "oil to electricity" because of its appearance, and this time it "debuted" as a new brand of deep blue, making the origin of the C385 pure electric platform more clear.
For a new brand, today's electric vehicle market can be said to be the best era and the worst era.
The good thing is that whether it is for traditional car companies, new forces or independent brands, intelligent electric vehicles have pulled everyone to the same starting line, the precipitation of the past few years is not insurmountable, and the maturity of the electric vehicle industry chain has provided opportunities for the establishment of new brands, and also provided a window period for building their own brand value; the bad thing is that this competition with the same running line needs the strength of the product itself to speak, and also puts forward a greater test for the product strength of the new brand.
Speed up the electrification, where is Changan's determination?
As one of the earliest domestic car companies to propose a 2025 plan, Changan Automobile released the Shangri-La plan in 2017, when the goal was to "rank among the first camp of new energy vehicles by 2020 and stop selling fuel vehicles in 2025".
Now in 2022, Chang'an's planning seems to need to be accelerated. In fact, Chang'an himself was aware of this problem. This time, Changan gave a new goal: it is expected that in 2022, sales will increase by 6.5% year-on-year, and its own brands will increase by 5.9% to 1.857 million units; the production and sales target of new energy vehicles in 2025 will be 1.05 million units, accounting for 35% of its own brands, and in 2030, it plans to produce and sell 2.7 million new energy vehicles, accounting for 60% of its own brands.
In order to achieve this goal, Changan will refine the brand on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has also accelerated the speed of landing new energy products.
This year, Changan will launch a total of 36 new products, of which 19 are self-owned brand products and 8 are new new energy products. During the year, Changan will launch a total of 5 new products C385EV, C673EV, UNI-KPHEV, UNI-V PHEV, Auchan Z6-PHEV, and the first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell car in China, of which the product starting with C is deep blue's pure electric model. In the future, Changan will also launch a small car named LUMIN. The new products cover different models such as mini cars, mainstream electric vehicles, and high-end intelligent electric vehicles.
While accelerating the landing of products, core technology reserves are also the key to electrification transformation.
At present, Changan Automobile has independently mastered more than 400 core technologies in the field of new energy, and basically mastered the three-electric technology based on "electric drive technology, battery technology and electronic control technology". For example, in 2021, Changan Automobile released a new generation of seven-in-one super-collector electric drive, which is an electric drive system with deep integration of motors, reducers and other assemblies, and at the same time, it is also the world's first high-frequency pulse heating technology for power drives.
In addition to the three-electric system, Changan has developed a "seven-in-one" intelligent vehicle domain controller - Changan Smart Core SVDC. It also has an MPA architecture compatible with ICE and its electrification products, an EPA architecture for the mainstream pure electric vehicle market, an EPA architecture for deep blue brand models, and a CHN platform jointly developed with Huawei and CATL.
At the same time, Changan's investment in core technologies such as 800V high-voltage pure electric platform, oil-cooled motor technology, integrated design of battery chassis, and mass production application (semi-) solid-state batteries continues to increase. According to the plan given by Changan Automobile, by 2025, Changan Automobile will invest more than 80 billion yuan in new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, digital transformation and other fields.
At last
In the face of the war of electrification transformation, some people choose to "break the boat", such as BYD, which announced the suspension of fuel vehicles two weeks ago; while others choose to "attack the whole army", such as Changan, through new brands to show the determination of their own brands for electrification transformation.
For independent brands such as Changan, launching a new brand is not the goal, how to draw a different picture on this "white paper" to win the market is the purpose. In today's red sea of electric vehicles, can "deep blue" help Changan beat back its own "blue ocean"?