At the 2022 Changan Automobile Global Partner Conference just held, Changan Automobile announced a new strategic plan, the new digital pure electric brand "Deep Blue" was officially launched, and the UNI series will enter the brand operation stage to realize the electrification of all products.
Zhu Huarong, secretary of the party committee and chairman of Changan Automobile, said at the meeting that the strategy and positioning of Changan Automobile's brands will be further optimized. After the meeting, Gao Quanli, public relations director of Changan Automobile, told Chinatown that in the future, Changan Automobile will focus on the new energy field and accelerate the transformation into an intelligent low-carbon travel technology company.
The electrification transformation needs to be broken
In 2021, the cumulative sales of Changan brand vehicles exceeded 1.75 million units, an increase of 16.7% year-on-year; the sales of new energy vehicles exceeded 100,000 units, accounting for less than 6%. Relying only on Changan New Energy, the electrification transformation process will be greatly reduced.
Oxcart Network learned that the Deep Blue brand will be a new digital pure electric brand under Changan Automobile, operated by Changan New Energy and other related work. It is reported that the Deep Blue brand will launch two new cars in the next time of 2022, named C385EV and C673EV.
At present, Changan new energy vehicle planning a total of 5 models, in addition to the above two models, there are UNI-KPHEV, UNI-V PHEV, Auchan Z6-PHEV, etc., positioning the crowd for Z generation new energy users. However, information about the specific LOGO of the deep blue brand has not been released synchronously.
In addition, Changan Automobile's small car LUMIN also appeared at the meeting and is scheduled to be introduced to the market in 2022. The model will be produced under Changan New Energy, and a total of four new models, including LUMIN, will be launched in the small car market in the future.
At the same time, Changan Automobile, together with Huawei and Avita built by Cataltime, will also become the first high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand equipped with Huawei HI. At present, Avita plans to have 4 vehicle products, covering the main segments of the mid-to-high-end market. The first model, the Avita 11, based on the CHN platform created by the three parties, is about to go into mass production.
Shangri-La plans to renovate it
As early as 2017, Changan Automobile released the new energy strategy "Shangri-La Plan", which is expected to fully stop selling fuel vehicles in the traditional sense and electrify full-spectrum products by 2025. Despite the early launch time, the plan is not progressing smoothly, in 2021, Changan Automobile's cumulative sales of new energy passenger cars are 76,500 units, of which the mini car Ben E-Star has become the main sales force in the market segment, whether it is product positioning or profit margins, the competitiveness is slightly weak.
In order to change the unfavorable situation, Changan Automobile announced at the press conference that it will accelerate the promotion of Shangri-La's plan, including rapidly promoting the new energy platform architecture and adhering to breakthroughs in the field of "three electricity" technological innovation.
According to the plan, Changan Automobile will launch three major architectures and one platform. Among them, the "three major structures" are also the three major new energy vehicle special architectures mentioned in the previous "Shangri-La Plan" that were originally expected to be launched in 2020. The MPA architecture will be compatible with ICE and its electrification products, UNI-V will become its first model; the EPA architecture will be for the mainstream electric vehicle market, the above C385EV, C673EV and Changan LUMIN will be built based on the platform; the SDA architecture will become the Intelligent Electric Vehicle Architecture of Changan Automobile, and the E0 trisolaran "new car" project under the architecture is accelerating. As for a platform, it is a CHN platform created by Changan Automobile in conjunction with Huawei and Ningde Times, and Avita 11 is born here.
Prior to this, Changan New Energy's models on sale were all "oil to electricity" products, in layman's terms, it was based on fuel models, replacing the engine and fuel tank with motors and battery packs, and combining them into an electric drive mode on the road.
Compared with independent research and development, it is obvious that the cost of "oil to electricity" is lower, and the speed of pushing new ones is faster. But for brand transformation, such an operation is not conducive to long-term development, and the market and consumers do not pay for it. With the launch of three major architectures and one platform, it is believed that it will bring new growth points to the transformation and upgrading of Changan Automobile.
At the technical level of "three electrics", Changan Automobile released a new generation of seven-in-one super-collector electric drive in 2021, and launched the electric drive high-frequency pulse heating technology, which significantly improved the low-temperature power and charging performance of electric vehicles; in the battery field, Changan Automobile made breakthroughs from the two dimensions of active and passive safety, and made effective progress in avoiding the thermal runaway of the battery package; in terms of electronic control technology, Changan Automobile created a "seven-in-one" intelligent vehicle domain controller Changan Smart Core SVDC, which was 70% less than the volume of the previous generation of products. 70% faster performance and 43% lower costs.
2022 will become a key breakthrough point
Compared with the previously more vague goals of the Shangri-La plan, this time, Changan Automobile has set its future development goals more concretely.
By 2025, The total sales volume of Changan Automobile will reach 4 million vehicles, of which 3 million are Changan brand vehicles and new energy sales will reach 1.05 million, accounting for 35%. By 2030, Changan Automobile will sell 5.5 million vehicles, of which 4.5 million are under the Changan brand, 2.7 million are new energy vehicles, accounting for 60%, and overseas sales are 30%.
It can be seen that the new plan has postponed the timeline of full suspension of the sale of fuel vehicles compared with before, and proposed to achieve carbon peaking by 2027 and carbon neutrality by 2045. In addition, Changan Automobile has also broken down its sales targets and made detailed task planning in different market segments.
At the product level, Changan Automobile plans to launch more than 30 products by 2025 and launch 21 new products in the mainstream passenger car market, in addition to the specific plan of the above brand renewal, Changan Automobile will also make efforts in the small car and commercial vehicle market, launching a total of 10 new products (4 small cars and 6 commercial vehicles).
At the technical level, Changan Automobile will create a new generation of deeply integrated electric drives, breakthroughs in the development and application technology of power semiconductors, and continues to strengthen the integrated design of energy consumption and breakthroughs in the integration technology of battery chassis.
In addition, in the case of repeated epidemics and shortage of chip supply, the chip research and development capabilities of independent brands are being quickly put on the agenda by various car companies. Zhu Huarong also made it clear in the previous two meetings that the core chips of automobiles are currently mainly dependent on imports, and under the influence of the general environment, there is a risk of supply interruption in losses, and it will become a phased and structural problem for a long time.
In view of this, Changan Automobile will establish Changan Technology Company, mainly focusing on the research and development of chips and core algorithms, and fundamentally solving the "card neck" problem of automotive chips.
In order to further implement the strategic goals, Wang Jun, president of Changan Automobile, also proposed specific plans for 2022, and Changan Automobile will successively launch 36 new cars, including 19 independent brands (9 new products and 10 new products), and 8 new energy products. In 2022, Changan Automobile is expected to produce and sell 2.45 million units, up 6.5% year-on-year. Among them, the production and sales of independent brands were 1.867 million units, an increase of 5.9% year-on-year, and the market share reached 11%.
By 2025, Changan Automobile expects to invest more than 80 billion yuan in key areas such as new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, and digital transformation, and increase the total number of R&D personnel to 20,000, including 6,000 intelligent and software R&D personnel, and more than 5,000 new energy R&D personnel, accounting for a quarter of the total.
epilogue:
In the critical period when the automotive industry chain is facing restructuring, Chinese brands have come to the inevitable node of transformation and upgrading. In 2021, the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars reached 41.9%, and in the first quarter of 2022, this figure increased to 45.2% for the first time. Especially in the field of new energy vehicles, the share of Chinese brand passenger cars has reached 83%, and the best era has arrived. In the face of fierce competition, how to survive and survive with quality is the top priority that Changan Automobile and many Chinese brand car companies need to think about.