Taking the Chinese market as the starting point and the global market as the end point, Guangqi Honda will become the biggest helper in the expansion of Honda's electric business.
On March 29, guangqi Honda's new electric brand conference with the theme of "Pole And Movement" was launched, at which a new electric brand e:NP and the brand's first model e:NP1 (Chinese named Ji Pan 1) were released. e:NP adopts a series of new VI, which usher in new changes in the three logos of "H", "e:NP" and "GAC Honda", and the use of the new VI shows the new brand image and gac Honda's determination to carry out a new electric business.
For the electrification of GAC Honda, perhaps many people will feel a little slower, but this is its caution, if you look closely, you will find that although e:NP is a new brand just launched, but GAC Honda in product development, manufacturing, sales channels, service models, etc., are ready, and the annual e: NP series of EV models efficient release rhythm, indicating that the layout of GAC Honda has already begun.
A friend of Guangqi Honda also said that the Chinese story of Honda's electrification is far more exciting than the past 20 years: from this moment on, in Honda's global map, Guangqi Honda will change from a leader in the era of fuel vehicles to a leader in the era of electric vehicles.
What can we see from e: NP?
Why is Honda setting such an important first battle for electrification transformation in China? In the words of Guangqi Honda, it is because China is the world's largest electric market, and Chinese consumers are also "the most knowledgeable consumers".
According to the data, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China will exceed 3.5 million units in 2021, reaching 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units respectively, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year; by 2021, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will reach 14.8%. These data show that the mainland new energy automobile industry has entered a new stage of market-oriented development.
Based on this, at this stage, all participating car companies must submit new answer sheets to ensure their achievements, and Guangqi Honda is no exception. And in the face of this question that has no standard answer, what to do? It has become an urgent problem for car companies to solve.
The answer given by Guangqi Honda is: there is no boundary by you.
Zheng Heng, executive deputy general manager of Guangqi Honda, explained: "This means breaking the boundaries of Guangqi Honda's previous career, taking the user as the center, carrying out vertical integration of all fields, and leaping to the comprehensive layout of the electric era in the four major areas of product research and development, production intelligence, sales channels and service models." ”
In this way, e:NP is only the first step in GAC Honda's next dream, and it can also be said that it is the first product of its unbounded by you. e: What exactly does NP mean?
From the name, the "e" in e:NP is "energize" and "electric"; "N" is "New" and "Next"; "P" is Prime, which means the "exhilarating (extreme) driving pleasure" that the car brings. e:NP's Chinese name is extremely turbulent, "pole" extreme, containing the inner desire for the unknown, "surging" surging and implying the collision of inspiration and ideas.
E:NP's brand personality is summarized in four words: pioneer exploration, that is, the courage to embrace all new things, with advanced sensitivity to perceive the future, to achieve leapfrog growth; open integration, that is, the integration of their own strengths and the value of the new era, to build a new bond between the brand and customers; relaxed and smooth, that is, the pursuit of easy and smooth, agile pure electric driving fun, as well as the purchase, use, communication and other smooth experience of the whole value chain; to create the ultimate, will explore and create a unique car life culture with users, Never meet the existing standards, the pursuit of the ultimate unique.
From e:NP, we can not only see the full opening of GAC Honda's electrification business, but also the ultimate integration between the evolution of GAC Honda's full value system of "experiencing the life value of co-creation vehicles".
The change and invariance of Guangqi Honda
Guangqi Honda realized that in the new electric era, only by starting from the needs of users and creating products and values that break through boundaries and integrate the ultimate can we win the joy of more users. Therefore, the meaning of the e:NP brand declaration "UN VISION without boundaries, NEW EXPERIENCES" is that everything is decided by the user, everything comes for the user, breaking the boundary and bringing users a different new experience.
Breaking boundaries means change. Indeed, after more than 20 years of development, GUANGC Honda has undergone tremendous changes in product research and development, manufacturing, sales channels, service models, etc., but I think it has always had one thing that has not changed, that is, the innate sportsmanship of the Honda brand and the unremitting pursuit of driving fun, which is the foundation of GAC Honda's electrification and the key to the success of its electrification transformation.
First, let's talk about the changes in Guangqi Honda.
In terms of product research and development, Guangqi Honda has exerted 24 years of localization precipitation and integrated Honda's more than 70 years of car-making wisdom, and made the ultimate use of two major technology incubation bases- Honda Technology (China) Co., Ltd. and Guangqi Honda Automobile Research and Development Co., Ltd., to carry out countless grinding and debugging, while building a strong and open localized circle of friends, and finally developed high-end pure electric products that adapt to more than 20,000 road scenes, helping China's cost field global electric jump engine.
In terms of manufacturing, Guangqi Honda will build a new new new energy exclusive plant, which will be completed and put into operation in 2024. In addition to fully applying 5G technology and introducing a number of advanced intelligent equipment and systems, the new factory will also build flexible manufacturing capabilities for products through "intelligent" innovation at the production end such as parts inventory, assembly site and logistics correspondence, and realize rapid response to personalized product needs, thus creating a benchmark for Honda's "smart" and "low-carbon" factories.
In terms of sales channels, Guangqi Honda has its own unique thinking, focusing on the four major scenarios of "see-select-buy-use", e:NP brand will fully adopt the online and offline dual-channel integration model. Online channels include the newly upgraded cloud showroom and GUANGQI Honda APP; offline GAC Honda has created more than 600 new 4S stores, electrified sales service stores, and supermarket stores, of which service stores integrate product display, new car delivery, and after-sales service, and commercial supermarkets focus on using convenient geographical locations to create a faster and more intuitive offline car purchase platform.
In terms of services, Guangqi Honda has also developed a relatively new service model, relying on more than 600 special stores across the country, new electrified sales and service stores, Guangqi Honda APP, on-board intelligent guidance interconnection system and other digital platforms, through pick-up and delivery of cars, door-to-door service vehicles and other worry-free and convenient means to create the ultimate service experience for users in all scenarios.
It can be seen that in the electrification transformation, GUANGC Honda is bold and firm.
In addition to change, GAC Honda also has an unchanging side, for example, in adhering to the ultimate spirit of sports and driving and constantly seeking innovation to break the boundaries, GAC Honda is also firm and unchanged.
In terms of power, in the fuel era, GAC Honda creates surging driving fun with leading power; in the hybrid era, GAC Honda synchronously introduces the SPORT HYBRID hybrid system that inherits the F1 extreme sports gene, bringing incomparable power acceleration performance of traditional hybrid technology; in the current electric era, GAC Honda still wants to maintain the user's driving pleasure.
"Breaking boundaries" is a new term that has emerged in recent years, and if you have not deeply understood Japanese brands, you may feel that this word is very incompatible with it, because compared with other brands, Japanese brands have always been pragmatic and will not do anything hype. But in fact, Honda's boundary-breaking has never stopped. As Katsuying Moriyama, general manager of Guangqi Honda, said: "Honda will not stop at the second and fourth wheels, but as a company that provides personal mobility, it will continue to develop products in various new fields." ”
For example, when it first entered the Chinese market in 1998, Guangqi Honda was based on cars, and with the best sales of its Accord models in the Chinese market, the "Guangben" brand became a household name and became one of the brands with the highest retention rate in the Chinese auto market. In 2014, when SUV models were not yet popular, Guangqi Honda decisively broke through the boundaries to launch a small SUV Binzhi, and since then it has gradually changed from a sedan-centric to a strategic pattern that emphasizes both cars and SUVs.
In the 70 years from its birth to the present, it is precisely because of continuous boundary-breaking and continuous innovation that Honda can repeatedly set new heights in the automotive field, and GUANGQI Honda can win the love and trust of 9 million consumers in just 24 years, and has the saying of "one day Wide Book, Lifelong Wide Book".
It is worth mentioning that Guangqi Honda has one more thing that has not changed, that is, the continuous growth of sales. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, in the most difficult three years, under the background of the year-on-year decline in production and sales of China's automobile industry, GUANGQI Honda's sales increased by 5.1%, 4% and 5.7% respectively.
First model e: NP1 Polar 1
According to the previous declaration information of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the body length, width and height of the e:NP1 polar pan 1 are 4388*1790*1560mm, and the wheelbase is 2610mm. What are the advantages of the e:NP1, the first model to take the lead? Now let's talk about where it conquers consumers?
The highlights of Pole 1 can be summarized in three words: movement, wisdom and beauty.
Expanding on, the movement is because the 1 adopts a new intelligent and efficient pure electric architecture e:N Architecture F, which integrates a three-in-one high-power drive motor, a high-capacity and high-density battery, a high-rigidity pure electric vehicle exclusive frame, and a chassis platform. The new car is equipped with a front permanent magnet synchronous motor, a total of 134kw/150kw two configurations, the new car is equipped with CATL era 68.8kWh ternary lithium battery pack, the endurance is 420 km, 510km respectively. It is reported that the new car is expected to be listed in the first half of 2022.
The e:N OS full-stack intelligent control ecosystem combines Honda SENSING safe driver assistance system, Honda CONNECT 3.0 exclusive version of pure electric vehicles, and intelligent digital cockpit. In terms of configuration, the honda CONNECT 3.0 exclusive version of the pure electric vehicle has more than 20 functions such as AI voice assistant, car home interconnection, energy management, and OTA online upgrade.
The beauty is due to the exterior design of the new car and the new VI adopted. Specifically, the new car is designed from the Honda e:Prototype prototype car, which uses a lot of straight lines and has a good sense of the future visually. The more distinctive point is that the Honda LOGO of the new car will glow, and the tail tag will no longer use the "H" logo, but use the English letters of Honda. The interior of the vehicle adopts a new design concept, and the large vertical screen keeps up with the current trend.
summary:
In October 2021, Honda China released its own electrification strategy, after 2030, Honda will no longer launch new fuel vehicles in China, and all new models launched are pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles.
At that time, the shock of seeing this news is still fresh in my memory, Honda is really "no electricity, a shock", ah, now after half a year, the new car promised at the press conference will also arrive as scheduled. The prepared Polar Pan 1 also represents that Guangqi Honda has officially pressed the acceleration button on the road of transformation electrification.
Entering the new era of electric power with increasing competition, the ultimate integration of Honda's 70 years of car-making experience and GAC Honda's 24 years of self-heritage means that GUANGQI Honda has incomparable advantages in technology, capital, channels, services and user stickiness. Now standing at the inflection point of the era of change, with a forward-looking vision for layout, Guangqi Honda's e:NP brand will create a new era of electric driving fun and help Honda's global electric market achieve leapfrog advancement.