What is a "blockbuster"? For different people, the answer to this definition will vary widely, especially in terms of what kind of commodity it is and what position it takes to answer it.
For consumer foods such as beverages and fast food, how many circles the packaging box has to go around the earth to talk about the explosive model; for textiles such as clothing, shoes and socks, at least it must be worn all over the street, and even counterfeit products can be counted. For our automotive products, it is still necessary to discuss the premise of what price point and what positioning, and then look at the answer position. What does price point and positioning mean? It only needs to list the four brands of Lamborghini, Audi, Volkswagen and Jetta to explain.
And what about answering positions? Quite simply, consumers look at how many people on the street open, as long as the marketing number can grow year-on-year, no matter whether your base is hundreds of units, or dozens of units dare to boast of "explosive models"; and for us auto people, it must be a comprehensive price positioning, consumer reputation, development cost input and sales horizontal comparison data, in order to look at the "explosive" or "niche".
Then someone must have asked, Chery sold 656,800 new cars a year, including the Tiggo 8 series that exceeded 160,000 units, which is not a hit? Let's start by answering this question.
"Tiggo 8" is not a single product to calculate in sales statistics, it currently includes Tiggo 8, Tiggo 8 PLUS and Tiggo 8 PLUS Kunpeng e+ three models in the market. Among them, in addition to the plug-in hybrid version of Kunpeng e+ is a new car that has only arrived this year, the other two models that have been sold for several years also have standard versions, Kunpeng versions, classic versions, and even some joint models, a total of 38 subdivided models are on sale, and each year and version are retained, that is, in this case, its average monthly sales in 2021 are only 13,300 vehicles, compared with 280,000 vehicles, 370,000 + Haval H6, Changan CS75, the gap in sales is obvious.
"Didn't the Tiggo 8 defeat the champion mid-size SUVs of different classes such as Tiguan L and Hongqi HS5 last year?"
Yes, last year, Tiggo 8 did win the championship in the mid-size SUV market with more than 160,000 vehicles, but on the one hand, its price positioning of 9.58-16.99 million yuan was almost the same as that of Changan CS75 and Haval H6 positioned in the compact SUV market, and many consumers were rushing to the low price under the comparison; on the other hand, under such price positioning, whether it was Tiggo 8 or Tiggo 8 PLUS, its actual length, width and height size (4700/1860/1746mm, Wheelbase 2710mm) has only been forced into the mid-size SUV market, and it is also a win-lose comparison with haval H6, Changan CS75 PLUS and other models.
This all proves from the side that Tiggo 8 won the championship in the medium-sized SUV market only took advantage of the "small bargain", really want to put in their own real market participation comparison, want to challenge Haval H6, it also has to go through the Geely Boyue pass, to know that last year's average monthly sales of about 10,000 units of independent car companies mainstream models there are more than 10 models, which as Chery's highest sales of Tiggo 8 want to talk about "explosive models" is really a bit embarrassing.
In fact, Chery has always been the main technical brand in China's independent automobile manufacturing industry, since Chery built China's first independent positive research and development ACTECO engine in 2005, it has always maintained a certain advantage in core technology. However, with more independent private enterprises daring to increase investment in core technology development, but also with the international mainstream parts suppliers to establish cooperative relations, Chery's advantages in engines, gearboxes continue to be eroded, and Changan, Haval, etc. are relying on blue whale power, hive power to push their mass production vehicles to a new height, which directly shakes the market foundation of Chery ryan's life, resulting in the sinking models such as Tiggo 5 series and Tiggo 7 series are difficult to form a group of forces against Haval, Changan's peer competitors.
Under the background of the loss of traditional advantages, Chery has two other reasons that have led to a sluggish sales in recent years:
First, as we discussed earlier around the "blockbuster" and the Tiggo 8 series, the seemingly higher positioning of the Tiggo 8 in the mid-sized market is actually avoiding some strong competitors. In the case of price, design and various core technologies compared to Haval H6 and other cars do not have significant advantages, Tiggo 8 is difficult to make a difference in the compact SUV market, and if you want to rush into the front line, you have to look at the color of the second echelon models such as Geely Boyue and Roewe RX5, and forced entry is likely to be forgotten in the corner like the GS4 and other models, and gradually marginalized. Therefore, this "retreat" mid-size market is more like a retreat to the second, and together with Tiggo 7x and other models, it is in the case of this misalignment of sales to avoid the sharp edge, Tiggo 8 is still Chery's only SUV that can break through 10,000 per month, which shows its difficulty of survival.
In addition, as a brand humerus, Tiggo 8 has not played a leading role in the family, whether it is the user base accumulated by the product in the market, or the penetration rate of Lion Zhiyun and Kunpeng Power launched through the Tiggo 8 shop, it cannot achieve the product cluster effect and lead the rise of the whole brand like Haval H6 and other "three years and 1 million", but there is a risk of losing everything because of the decay of the single tree of Tiggo 8.
Looking back at March this year, Tiggo 8 suffered a collective complaint from car owners because of the safety hazards caused by the blind spot of headlight lighting, which directly led to the decline in sales of Chery's fuel vehicle lineup in the first quarter, while Chery's other SUVs failed to get a positive impact from the sales of Tiggo 8, the problems exposed by the series actually dragged down the brand's sinking products, which shows that Tiggo 8's "pseudo-explosive" identity caused trouble to Chery's marketing.
Second, in addition to the product quality problems directly occurring in the Tiggo 8 series, Chery's attitude towards product after-sales service is also difficult for users to accept. In the statistics of the third-party automobile quality and complaint platform in the past, most of the complaints encountered in Chery Automobile Array are small problems, but in the feedback of many car owners' complaints, they have quite a word about the after-sales service of Chery 4S stores.
Among them, about the engine idle jitter, transmission low-speed abnormal sound, headlight lighting range is too narrow and other issues encountered by the Tiggo 8 series models of each year, many replies given by the manufacturer have made users dissatisfied, such as for the headlights lighting range is too narrow, many Chery Tiggo 8 owners have received manufacturers such as "lighting design meets the domestic lighting regulatory requirements", "LED headlights passed the European market on the lighting brightness of the relevant certification" of the "hard rigid" reply, and in the 18 models, In the case of frequent similar problems in 19 models, Tiggo 8 still attaches enough importance to 20 and 21 models of redesign, and there are still new owners who raise the same questions, which shows that Chery 4S stores and even manufacturers have some attitudes towards their own problems.
In fact, in the past, Chery's solution to the car quality problem is not difficult to see that Chery does not change anything, but always denies the problems of product technology. For the problems that occur within the three-pack regulations, the 4S store will still give positive treatment methods such as replacement; however, many car owners feedback that the original problems cannot be cured after the replacement of parts, in other words, the problems such as engine jitter injection and transmission noise problems that occur in Chery products appear in the technical or quality control links, rather than simple assembly defects.
In contrast to these frequent problems, Chery encountered complaints from its own users on the one hand, and on the other hand, it hyped up its achievements in marketing such as "J.D. Power 2021 China Automobile Sales Service Satisfaction Study (SSI) Second Place", which can achieve good results in this kind of research limited to new users and new cars (the research report focuses on evaluating the overall satisfaction of new car owners with the car purchase experience for 2 to 6 months). On the contrary, chery does not attach importance to the long-term quality control and long-term after-sales service of the product, which always gives people a feeling of "crossing the river and demolishing the bridge", and this "hard and rigid" marketing is also pushing its own users and consumer market farther and farther.
Write at the end
I have to admit that Chery and its subsidiaries have indeed invested enough in the development of core automotive technologies, and even at present, hardware assemblies such as Kunpeng Power, although they are no longer unique, can still maintain a certain advantage in the autonomous automobile manufacturing industry.
However, Chery is like an engineering scientist who asks about technology, rarely cares about things outside the window, it is indeed hard enough in the engine, gearbox and other hardware, but there is little investment in the key adaptation of hardware and automotive products, and the feedback of car owners is also deaf, which has directly led to a serious decline in chery Automobile's market reputation in recent years.
This kind of car manufacturing method that does not understand the compatibility of software and hardware, soft and hard, is obviously unconvincing for a large factory that has just unloaded its burdens and decided to start over, as for the question of "why can't it be a hit", naturally we do not need to answer it specifically.
So when chery can stand up and compete with other independent manufacturers, the key lies in whether Chery can face itself squarely, no longer blindly behind closed doors, but first put "listening to the voice of the user" in the first place, because without the support of users, there is no need to produce new cars, you say yes, Chery?