On April 13, Changan Automobile held a global partnership conference, which not only summarized the past year, but also planned for future development. Among them, for Changan Automobile, the release of a new pure electric brand - deep blue is obviously the most important link of this conference.
Why? Just look at the data.
In 2021, Changan Automobile sold 1,204,203 autonomous passenger cars, an increase of 23.08% year-on-year, and under the influence of the epidemic and supply chain and other factors, the sales of fuel vehicles were remarkable. However, in terms of new energy, Changan New Energy has actually been its short board, and sales mainly come from the micro-electric vehicle Ben Ben E-Star, which sold 76,000 vehicles last year, accounting for more than 70% of sales. It is worth noting that Changan's self-employed passenger car sales were 363,283 units, a year-on-year decrease of 1.34%. That is to say, Changan is also facing the problem of poor performance of new energy vehicles and the decline of fuel vehicles.
In fact, BYD announced in early April that it had stopped producing fuel vehicles since March, which caused widespread concern in the industry. The penetration rate of Geely and Great Wall new energy vehicles has reached 18.3% and 13.8% respectively, while Changan was around 5% last year. Compared with the above three brands, Changan announced a new brand of pure electricity in April, and the layout in the field of new energy is obviously a beat slower.
Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said in an interview with the media: "At the moment of the new round of restructuring of the automobile industry pattern, Changan Automobile will face life and death if the transformation is not successful. In the face of the fiercely competitive new energy market environment, there is not much time left for Chang'an.
Changan layout of the new energy field is not too late, Chongqing Changan New Energy Automobile Company was established in July 2008, the business mainly involves hybrid, pure electric, fuel cell and other energy-saving and new energy vehicle core technology research and development, system integration design, related parts manufacturing and pure electric venue vehicle production, sales and other businesses. At the end of 2009, Changan Benben MINI pure electric vehicle successfully launched off the production line, opening a new era of new energy vehicles in China. In terms of hybrid vehicles, its technical level is also in the forefront of China, with a total of more than 80 hybrid technology patents, including more than 20 invention patents.
Then, in October 2017, Changan Automobile officially launched the "Shangri-La" plan. Specifically, Changan will fully stop selling traditional fuel vehicles in 2025 and invest 100 billion yuan in the entire new energy vehicle field. Among them, the investment in power batteries is 30 billion yuan, the investment in sharing and charging facilities and services is 20 billion yuan, the investment in new energy proprietary platforms is 10 billion yuan, and the investment in new energy product research and development is 40 billion yuan. Changan adheres to three comprehensive strategic goals in the field of new energy vehicles: comprehensive investment, focusing on customer pleasure experience, comprehensive acceleration, focusing on partner resources, and comprehensive upgrading, focusing on creating classic products.
However, in terms of product layout, Changan New Energy mainly includes Ben E-Star, CS 55 E-Rock, CS15 E-Pro and Yidong EV460. Since these models are basically "oil to electricity" models, the performance of the new energy market has not been ideal, so it is in a state of loss.
Until 2019, Changan Automobile spun off its new energy business, introduced four strategic investment companies such as Nanjing Runke, and increased its capital by 285 million yuan, becoming the first domestic automobile enterprise to spin off its new energy business and develop independently.
In January 2021, Changan New Energy completed a round of financing of up to 2.84 billion yuan, and in April of the same year, Changan New Energy disclosed that it had launched a B round of financing, planning to raise 3 billion yuan. On January 24 this year, Changan New Energy announced at the signing ceremony of the B round of financing that it had finally raised 4.9773 billion yuan, exceeding the planned financing of nearly 2 billion yuan. In the end, Changan New Energy raised nearly 5 billion yuan through two rounds of financing. It is worth noting that after the completion of this round of financing, Changan Automobile's shareholding ratio was diluted from 48.95% to 40.66%, but it is still the largest shareholder.
In addition, on November 15, 2021, the Avita brand was officially launched. The brand aggregates the advantages of Changan Automobile, Huawei, and CATL in the fields of vehicle R&D and manufacturing, intelligent vehicle solutions and smart energy ecology, integrates the resources of the three parties, jointly creates a smart electric vehicle technology platform (CHN), and is committed to building a global brand of high-end intelligent electric vehicles. Its first model, the Avita 11, was previously released at the Guangzhou Auto Show and has been declared by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to previous reports, the new car will achieve the first mass production delivery in the third quarter of this year.
The predecessor of Avita is actually Changan Weilai, Changan Automobile and Ningde Times hold 39.02% and 23.99% respectively, ranking first and second, and Weilai has only 1.13% shareholding, and there is no Huawei figure among investors. Huawei leverages its ICT technology to build a full-value chain link with Avita Technology in R&D, channels, services, and ecology, providing users with full-stack smart vehicle solutions and achieving an intelligent level of electric vehicles.
To some extent, Avita is a high-end brand led by Changan Automobile and co-created by other investors, and its biggest gimmick is "Huawei-made car", which is very different from Deep Blue.
Deep Blue positioning a new digital pure electric brand, containing four major brand values of innovation and reconstruction, interconnection of all things, experience and low-carbon life, symbolizes exploration, life, technology and the future, and is an important step in the strategic transformation of Chang'an New Energy.
As the first model of the Deep Blue brand, the C385 has been released, which is based on the EPA platform and positions itself as a future technology electric coupe. According to official information, the C385 has a body size of 4820/1890/1480mm and a wheelbase of 2900mm. In terms of power, the new car will provide pure electric, range extended hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell three different powertrains, of which the pure electric model is expected to adopt a single motor rear-drive layout, the maximum power can reach 190kW, the comprehensive endurance can reach more than 700km, and the comprehensive power consumption is 12.3kWh/100km.
It is worth mentioning that the C385 will be equipped with a smart vehicle domain controller Changan smart core and a smart cockpit domain controller (Qualcomm 8155 chip), which is different from Avita.
According to Wang Jun, president of Changan Automobile, Changan Deep Blue C385 will be listed in the second half of this year. In addition, the new mini car LUMIN will be officially released on April 22, the new car is based on the Changan EPA0 platform, positioning "national boutique scooter", will launch 155km and 210km two endurance versions; code C673 new models will also be released within this year.
According to the plan, the Changan brand will reach 3 million vehicles in 2025, and new energy sales will reach 1.05 million vehicles, with a penetration rate of 35%, which is 10% higher than the target value of 25% of the domestic new energy vehicle market penetration rate. By 2030, the Changan brand aims to sell 4.5 million vehicles and new energy targets 2.7 million vehicles, with a penetration rate of 60%. Judging from the current penetration rate of less than 5%, Changan has a long way to go in the new energy track.
Written in the end: from the perspective of competitors, the new car-making force pattern such as Weilai, Ideal, and Xiaopeng has emerged, and the high-end new energy brands incubated by traditional automobile companies are also developing strongly. Dongfeng Lantu, SAIC Zhiji, GAC Eian, Geely Kr, BYD's new high-end brand and Denza, etc., have taken the lead in the domestic high-end new energy vehicle track. Although after the release of the deep blue brand, the development route of Changan New Energy is clearer, compared with other brands, it is necessary to maintain a sense of urgency at all times.