Written by Wu Jing
Editor/ Zhang Nan
Design / Zhao Haoran
The viability of a company is more visible in the face of adversity.
In the past year, the lack of cores, rising raw material prices and the new crown epidemic have repeatedly become the main factors restricting the sales growth of China's automobile market, and various uncertainties have spread throughout the market, but in this context, Changan Automobile has handed over a bright report card.
In 2021, Changan Automobile's sales exceeded 2.3 million units, an increase of 14.8% year-on-year. Among them, the sales volume of Changan Chinese brands exceeded 1.75 million units, an increase of 16.7% year-on-year. Changan's Chinese brand passenger car sales were 1.2 million units, up 23.1% year-on-year. Overseas exports exceeded 100,000 units, a new high for three consecutive years.
In March this year, Changan Automobile surpassed the north and south Volkswagen with 132,000 units, up 20% year-on-year, and won the monthly wholesale sales championship, changing the inherent pattern of China's automobile market.
Why has Changan Automobile been able to achieve such strong growth in an era of uncertainty?
In the eyes of the outside world, this is due to the significant improvement of Changan Automobile's brand appeal and product competitiveness after the third entrepreneurship- innovation and entrepreneurship plan. However, if you go further, you will find that this is inseparable from the endorsement of Changan Automobile's strong R&D technology reserves and its core competitiveness created by its technological accumulation in the process of transformation.
Adversity is often the best touchstone to test the background of a great enterprise, and the 160-year-old Changan Automobile, thick and thin, in this era of uncertainty, has also refined the best of themselves.
The new energy campaign has been launched in an all-round way
Whether it is in the electrification and intelligent transformation, or in the exploration of emerging business models, Chinese car brands are no longer bystanders or simple followers, but have become runners and even leaders.
The data shows that in 2021, the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars reached 41.9%, exceeding 40% for the first time, while the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars in the first quarter of 2022 further increased to 45.2%. Among them, in the field of new energy, the share of Chinese brand passenger cars has reached 83%, and mainstream Chinese brands have achieved 100% networking and driving assistance.
From this point of view, the arrival of "Chang'an Deep Blue" is just in time.
On April 13, Changan Automobile released a new new energy brand "Changan Deep Blue" at the 2022 Global Partnership Conference, announcing that it will accelerate the transformation of electrification and move towards a world-class brand at full speed. This also means that the "Changan Deep Blue" brand not only undertakes the mission of reshaping the outside world's perception of Changan New Energy, but also is the vanguard of Changan Automobile's digital transformation road.
Changan Automobile's strategic layout in the field of new energy is mainly concentrated on the two brands of "Changan Deep Blue" and Avita. On the one hand, it hopes to achieve a breakthrough in the mainstream passenger car market with "Changan Deep Blue", on the other hand, Changan Automobile is also committed to achieving a breakthrough to high-end through Avita. In order to achieve its goals, Changan Automobile is competing for the right to speak in the new energy market by continuously strengthening its product offensive.
In the mainstream passenger car market, Changan Automobile will launch 21 new products in the future, including 5 models of the "Changan Deep Blue" brand, and 5 new products of C385EV, C673EV, UNI-KPHEV, UNI-V PHEV and Auchan Z6-PHEV will be launched in 2022.
The Avita brand will launch four vehicle products covering the main segments of the mid-to-high-end market. In the small car market, Changan Automobile has also laid out the LUMIN brand, and will successively launch 4 new products in the future to further cover the needs of national boutique transportation.
In addition, Changan Automobile's Changan UNI, Changan Passenger Vehicle, Auchan and Kaicheng brands will also be uniformly transformed into electrification and electrification.
Widen the technical moat
In a short period of time, so many products have been refined in various market segments, and its brands have entered the era of electrification, which is a comprehensive test of changan automobile's basic skills.
Changan Automobile entered the field of new energy in 2001 and is one of the earliest enterprises in China to enter the field of new energy vehicles, and has experienced three stages of technology research, industrialization promotion and market-oriented operation, and completed the positive development process from prototype vehicles to products. It has won more than 20 provincial and ministerial awards, mastered more than 400 key technologies, and applied for more than 800 core patents.
Under the full speed of Shangri-La's plan, Changan Automobile is continuing to rapidly promote the new energy platform architecture, and already has three new energy platforms of MPA, EPA and CHN, and will also build an intelligent electric vehicle architecture SDA in the future. Among them, MPA is compatible with traditional fuel vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles, EPA is a pure electric platform for the mainstream market, and CHN is a platform for high-end intelligent electric vehicles. In addition, Changan Automobile has also broken through more than 400 core technologies in the fields of electric drive, battery and electronic control.
In order to strengthen the deepening of technologies in the three major fields of intelligent driving, intelligent networking and intelligent interaction, Changan Automobile officially released the "Beidou Tianshu" in 2018 to build intelligent networked vehicles in stages. Today, Changan Automobile has mastered more than 200 core technologies such as visual perception and multi-mode fusion in terms of core technology mastery, including 26 technologies such as integrated adaptive cruise (IACC), remote control parking (APA5.0), and remote intelligent parking (APA6.0).
Changan Automobile insists on investing 5% of its sales revenue in research and development every year, and has invested more than 110 billion yuan so far in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan". It has 16 fields covering vibration and noise, crash safety, braking performance, chassis testing, drive systems, etc., and 194 international advanced laboratories (including the State Key Laboratory of Automotive Noise Vibration and Safety Technology, and the National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Hybrid Passenger Vehicles).
Changan Automobile's research and development in new energy vehicle-related fields continues to increase. By 2025, Changan Automobile is expected to invest more than 80 billion yuan in key areas such as new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, and digital transformation, and accelerate the construction of core capabilities in the field of transformation.
Accumulate thick and thin, victory breakout
In terms of technology brand building, Changan Automobile can be said to be the earliest and most successful enterprise among its own brands. Up to now, Changan Automobile has successfully built a core technology brand: Blue Whale Power.
In June 2019, Changan Automobile officially released a new power brand - Blue Whale Power. As an important part of Changan Automobile's "Shangri-La Plan", the Blue Whale Power brand has opened the first year of China's automotive power technology platform with a high profile, announcing that Changan Automobile has officially entered the "power 3.0 era". Since its release, the long safety model has been gradually updated to the Blue Whale engine. Among them, the cumulative sales of Changan Automobile's "Blue Whale Family" models equipped with Blue Whale NE series engines have exceeded 2 million units, becoming the market benchmark of China's automotive power technology.
Take the second-generation CS75PLUS of the "Car of Tomorrow" that was just launched in February this year. On April 20th, Changan Automobile held the #Harsh Challenge #Man-Machine Showdown - The Second Generation CS75PLUS Super Fuel Saving Challenge, which further demonstrated the performance strength of the second-generation CS75PLUS "Perfect Balance between Strong Power and Low Fuel Consumption" with a peak challenge focusing on fuel consumption.
The #Harsh Challenge #Man-Machine Showdown - The second generation CS75PLUS Super Fuel Saving Challenge event innovatively adopts the challenge form of "real-time PK between humans and robots", and is carried out through the duel of two major fuel consumption test methods of "indoor roller test" VS "outdoor road test". Under the same road conditions, Changan Automobile Robot and the contestants respectively drove the second-generation CS75PLUS, through the "real-time PK of the whole process of people and robots" and the energy consumption performance under the operation of different drivers, more comprehensively demonstrating the "super fuel saving" strength of the second-generation CS75PLUS.
In this harsh test of "man-machine showdown", the second-generation CS75PLUS once again demonstrated its "super fuel saving" strength of the "1.5T Blue Whale Engine + All Series Aisin 8AT" gold powertrain with a minimum fuel consumption of 6.8L for outdoor 100 kilometers and a minimum fuel consumption of 7.0L for 100 kilometers of automatic driving.
As a representative of independent intellectual property rights in the power system, the technological advancement and stability of Blue Whale Power have been fully tested by the market. Whether it is the UNI series, or The Changan CS75PLUS, CS55PLUS, or the national car Yidong, the models equipped with Blue Whale power have become the hits in their respective segments. The technical advantages of Blue Whale Power have also been directly transformed into the market appeal of the brand, allowing Changan Automobile to achieve a breakthrough in the fierce Red Sea competition.
In this era of uncertainty, it is precisely because Changan Automobile has spared no effort to invest in technology and consistently adhered to it that Changan Automobile has achieved the best of itself.
This article was originally produced by Automotive Business Review
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