On March 29, the domestic lively electric vehicle market added a new brand - "e:NP polar turbulence".
"e:NP Polar Turbulence" is a new electric brand launched by Guangqi Honda.
Since 2010, the Chinese government has vigorously developed pure electric vehicles (BEV) for 12 years, according to the statistics of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the sales of pure electric passenger cars in the first quarter of this year have reached 985,000 units, accounting for 17.8% of the domestic passenger car market share.
The e:NP1 is the first model of the Extreme Turbulence brand.
01.
"Coming early or late is never the key"
When Haoying was listed, it also faced such doubts - as the first compact SUV of Guangqi Honda, Haoying was only listed at the end of 2019, at this time, the domestic compact SUV market competition has long been fierce, Tiguan, CR-V, RAV4, Qijun, Tucson, Yihu, Oncove... As strong as the clouds, the market prospects of Haoying do not seem to be optimistic, however, Haoying is hot on the market, with sales of more than 160,000 units in 2021, surpassing Tiguan L and Onkeway, ranking third in the sales volume of compact joint venture SUVs;
The domestic Accord Hybrid was only listed in 2016, which was 6 years higher than the domestic Camry Hybrid Night Market, but the Accord Rui Hybrid quickly came to the top, surpassing the Camry Double Engine in 2020 with the annual sales of more than 40,000 vehicles, and won the sales championship of the domestic high-end hybrid sedan;
Launched in October 2014, It was quite late compared to Nissan Qashqai, Ford Expo, Buick Oncorah, Mitsubishi Jinxuan, etc., but Binzhi quickly became the benchmark for the joint venture small SUV, with 173899 units sold last year, ranking second in the joint venture small SUV (after the sister model Honda XR-V).
Many facts seem to prove one thing – coming late doesn't seem to hinder the ultimate success.
Of course, these are all examples of fuel vehicles, will pure electric vehicles be an exception?
The first commercial pure electric passenger car in the modern sense, not Tesla, but GM's EV1 – this car was launched as early as 1996, and Tesla was not established until 7 years later;
General purpose EV1 may be too old, the last 10 years, the earliest publicity to sell pure electric vehicles is Nissan, Nissan Leaf listed in 2012, a full 5 years before the Tesla Model 3 official delivery, however, the latter last year's global sales were nearly 8 times that of the former!
In the 2021 global new energy vehicle sales list, Nissan Leaf ranked 15th, ranking ahead of it before the listing time is later than it.
In China, since 2013, the car companies that have maintained the first sales of pure electric passenger cars for seven consecutive years have a total sales volume of only 26,127 vehicles in 2021, and the cumulative sales volume in the first quarter of this year is only 9,120 vehicles, which is only 1/5 of the sales volume of Aian in the first quarter! GAC Aeon was officially established in 2017, at this time, this car company has won the championship of domestic pure electric sales for 5 years!
No more examples, right? In the automotive industry, it does not matter whether it comes early or later, the door to the market is always open for excellent technology, excellent products, and excellent brands.
02.
"The best moment is the best moment"
In fact, it is not too late to come at all.
From the perspective of the industry, including Tesla, who has built a technical threshold that is difficult for latecomers to cross in any field such as batteries, motors, and electronic controls? I didn't see it anyway.
Larger cell batteries — this is what Tesla calls the battery revolution.
From the perspective of the market, although the domestic BEV has experienced 10 years of rapid development, the BEV market is still concentrated at the "two ends" - the low-end market below 100,000 yuan, and the high-end market of more than 250,000 yuan; in the most mainstream mid-end market of 150,000-250,000 yuan, whether Tesla or Volkswagen, BYD or Ean, they have not really opened the situation.
That is to say, the most mainstream user groups are still waiting for a BEV that can truly meet their all-round needs. In this sense, domestic pure electric passenger cars are still a blue ocean market to be developed, and it is timely for the extreme to come.
In the top 20 domestic BEV sales in 2021, mini cars accounted for 7 models, and the sales of these 7 mini cars and two Teslas accounted for 2/3 of the total sales of the top 20. That is to say, the most mainstream user groups have not yet accepted pure electricity, and this market still needs more excellent products like e:NP1 to really activate.
From the manufacturer's point of view, the most prepared moment is the best moment.
It is not difficult to launch a pure electric model, but to be truly fully electrified, the launch of a new electrification brand requires a lot of full preparation. Past market practice has proved that without a new pure electric architecture like e:N, there is not much sense in rushing into the BEV, Volkswagen's e-Golf, Toyota's RAV4 electric version, Ford's Fox EV are all examples, and the contribution of GM's EV1 or Mitsubishi's i-MiEV (listed in 2006) to their respective electrification strategies seems negligible...
2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV.
Do pure electricity still need to prepare? Aren't many new forces less than 3 years after the company's establishment that the car has been sold? Yes, so the young lord has not been very optimistic about the so-called new car-making forces.
Tesla was founded in 2003, model 3 was officially released in 2016, Tesla has been preparing for the success of this car for a full 13 years;
BYD's first pure electric model e6 was put into use in Shenzhen as a taxi in 2010, but until the release of the "blade battery" in 2020 and the listing of Han EV, BYD's leadership position in the domestic BEV market was truly established, if it entered the automotive industry in 2003, BYD prepared for this moment for 17 years;
……
The mushrooming of new car-making forces, as well as the dazzling variety of BEVs on the market, have caused many people to have a misunderstanding - BEVs have no threshold.
How can it be! Pure electric vehicles are first and foremost a car, and all the thresholds for cars in handling, safety, reliability, and economy continue to exist in BEVs.
The "e:N Architecture" intelligent and efficient pure electric architecture integrates high-efficiency drive motors, high-density batteries, exclusive electric vehicle frames, and chassis platforms, and the development of this architecture cannot be achieved even for Honda.
Compared with fuel vehicles, BEV has less engines and transmissions, more than a huge battery pack - the weight accounts for almost 1/3 of the overall quality of a car, BEV is not only heavier than the same level of fuel vehicles, and the mass distribution of the whole vehicle is completely different, so the requirements for suspension, braking, steering and other systems are also completely different, in order to ensure good driving quality and driving safety, BEV needs to be completely different from the new architecture of traditional fuel vehicles. The development of a new architecture, even for Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda and other large manufacturers with strong technical strength and R & D resources, there is a threshold, but also need time.
Because the level of intelligence of BEVs is generally higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles - this is also a requirement of the market, the electronic and electrical architecture of BEVs is also more complex and more demanding, so the development of a new pure electric model architecture may take longer than traditional fuel vehicles.
Pure electric vehicles have a higher threshold in terms of handling, safety, reliability, economy and intelligence than fuel vehicles.
BEV user groups, user needs are very different from traditional fuel vehicles, the business model, value chain, operating logic of the two are also very different, the previous market practice has shown that only in the existing system to introduce a number of pure electric models, such electrification is difficult to succeed.
Therefore, Guangben is not simply introducing a new pure electric model this time, but releasing a new brand such as Jipan, which shows that Guangqi Honda has made full preparations for the comprehensive electrification transformation at the product technical level and organizational structure level.
From this point of view, the pole is not only not late, but also quite fast, at least in the domestic mainstream joint venture car brand is the fastest.
03.
"The key is what comparative advantage you have."
There are enough examples given earlier, sooner or later it is not particularly important, what matters is whether you really have some kind of comparative advantage.
Early BEV, pure electric endurance is too short, such as the Nissan Leaf listed in 2012 pure electric endurance of only 160 kilometers, which is of course not enough, so the biggest consumption pain point of early BEV users is "mileage anxiety", and longer "mileage" has become the relative competitive advantage of BEV.
But today, BEV cruising range has generally reached four or five hundred or even six or seven hundred kilometers, and then the pursuit of higher cruising range is not significant (marginal effect will drop sharply or even negative), now, what is the biggest consumption pain point of BEV users?
How much is the best mileage of a BEV, which varies from car to car and from person to person, but it is not necessary to pursue excessive mileage is the consensus of the industry.
Not long ago, a relative in her hometown was planning to buy a BEV, and the only question she called the owner of Qing and asked was "will the battery explode?"
Her concern is normal, the relevant person in charge of the National Fire and Rescue Bureau has said that in 2021, there will be more than 3,000 new energy vehicle fires in the country, and the fire risk of new energy vehicles is much higher than that of traditional cars.
This is a spontaneous combustion incident of an electric vehicle in the garage of a residential area in Kaiping, Guangdong Province, on April 8. Parked in the garage, it can be burned up without charging, and similar accidents have occurred many times.
That's right, bev's biggest consumer pain point now is safety! Safety is one of the relative advantages of polar turbulence.
Although everyone may use the same supplier's battery cell, but different battery packs, different battery management systems, especially different thermal management technologies, will lead to a huge difference in the safety performance of the battery pack, and the safety technology principle of the battery pack may not be much different from each other, the difference is that the accumulation of experience is different - many things in the project are expensive in the accumulation of experience.
Tetsuya Mitani, head of NP1 development, said that Honda's 70 years of experience in car building have been unreservedly invested in this car.
It should be emphasized that the pole pan is the new starting point for the full electrification of Guangben rather than the origin, from the hybrid Accord listing in 2016, to the listing of the concept VE-1 in 2019, and then to the listing of Haoying plug-in hybrid in 2021, Guangqi Honda has 6 years of practical experience on the road to electrification, by the end of 2021, Gagac Honda has sold more than 300,000 vehicles in hybrid models (HEVs) alone, these HEVs also use lithium batteries, the same high-power motors, and the electronic control system is more complex than pure electricity. But up to now, it seems that there has not been a case of spontaneous combustion and self-explosion of batteries.
Of course, vehicle safety is not only battery safety, as for other aspects of safety, the e:NP1, which carries Honda's 70 years of experience in car building, is even more unquestionable.
Accord, Odyssey, Civic and Insight all won iiHS TSP+ (Super Secure Choice) Awards 2022.
Another major consumer pain point of BEV is that it is not preserving value.
In the "December 2021 China Automobile Retention Rate Research Report" released by the China Automobile Dealers Association, the average 3-year retention rate of pure electric vehicles is only 42.9% (below), while fuel vehicles are basically above 63%, that is to say, the 3-year retention rate of BEV is about 20 percentage points lower than the average of fuel vehicles. For a car of 200,000 yuan, the difference in residual value in 3 years is 40,000 yuan, and the average annual difference is 13,300 yuan!
There are many factors that determine the retention rate, quality is one of the important ones, the so-called quality is not only high reliability, low failure rate, but also in the high durability, performance failure is reduced. An important reason why BEV does not maintain its value is that the quality of many pure electric vehicles is too bad, and the performance decay is serious after two or three years.
Quality is the second largest relative advantage of polar turbulence.
Good quality not only requires exquisite manufacturing technology and strict quality standards, but also requires the business philosophy and brand values that always put users first.
In the ranking of the retention rate of different versions of cars over the years, each model of GUANGQI Honda is at the forefront of the market segment. For example, in the "2021 China Automobile Retention Rate Research Report", Fit ranked first in the joint venture small car with a three-year retention rate of 78.09%, and Accord ranked second in the joint venture medium-sized car with a three-year retention rate of 77.77%; the average three-year retention rate of the entire Honda brand was as high as 78.19%, ranking second among all mainstream brands (excluding luxury brands).
Quality word of mouth has always been one of the important guarantees of wide sales, and jipan will of course continue this tradition in the field of electric vehicles.
Exquisite manufacturing process is the premise of good quality, if even the body stitching is not aligned, the quality is not much better. e: The quality of NP1 is visible to the naked eye.
Although many BEVs regard the "0-100km/h" acceleration performance as a major selling point, ordinary users not only fail to experience driving pleasure, but more and more people begin to complain that their BEVs are prone to motion sickness.
True driving pleasure should not be like this. After experiencing the Honda e:N architecture model, Qingzhuo believes that the "driving fun" that ordinary people can fully appreciate will be the most significant comparative advantage of Ji pan.
e: NP1 doesn't go for too fast acceleration because that's not what the average user really needs. Again, without more advanced braking and steering systems, more advanced body and suspension, better aerodynamic kits, more advanced tires, and so on, too fast acceleration performance will not only not bring more driving pleasure, but will become a huge safety hazard.
What ordinary users need is the driving pleasure of people and cars, the car moves at will, both to have a certain sense of pushing back, but also not to make people dizzy; both can bring the excitement of breaking the balance at any time, but also always maintain within the boundaries of safety; the response is linear and fast, the control is agile and stable, which is much more difficult than simple fast!
As the world's premier powertrain manufacturer and a winning general on the F1 track, Honda's admirable point is that it not only grasps the essence of "driving fun", but also fully demonstrates this driving pleasure in civilian models such as style and fit.
Now, Honda's engineers have shown this expertise again on the e:NP1. e:NP1 through pedal response, power output characteristics, and repeated adjustment of the seat and suspension system, so that the user's body posture and line of sight changes and vehicle attitude changes are always integrated - the so-called human-vehicle integration, truly achieve accurate silky and motion-free driving pleasure.
Katsuyo Moriyama, general manager of Guangqi Honda, repeatedly mentioned the "experience value" at the launch ceremony of the Jipan brand, there is no doubt that driving pleasure is included. Today, the significance of the existence of private cars has long gone beyond simple mobile tools, and driving pleasure is also an important part of the value of private car products. Therefore, being able to bring users a new "driving fun" has become the most significant differentiating advantage of Ji Pan.
There are many relative advantages of Ji Pan, such as ultra-low energy efficiency, cross-level internal space, such as the evolution from passive intelligence to active intelligence, such as services, such as unique fan culture, such as the trust of more than 9 million users...
Ji Pan is not a spoiler, but will be the creator of BEV in the most mainstream user group.
Anyone who has been to the scene of the Dream Festival will be infected and moved by Hiromoto's unique fan culture.
Text | Green Lord
(This article is the author's personal opinion only and does not represent the position of DearAuto.) )
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Mr. Li Guoyong of Guangdong Green Law Firm