To evaluate the geometric cars born in 2019 in the current market environment is somewhat out of time. A pure electric drive of a Chinese brand A-class car priced at 150,000-190,000 yuan, entering the solid position of the traditional joint venture brand A+ class and even B-class cars, which does not have a mass base and lacks sufficient product competitiveness.
Time to 2022, the increase in new energy vehicles exceeds the fuel vehicle, more and more consumers are considering buying a more economical and practical pure electric family car, and this level has also emerged BYD Qin PLUS EV, Xiaopeng P5, WM E.5 and other products. This time, Geometry A finally ushered in the opportunity, met the time and place, just completed the annual update of geometry A is it possible to turn over smoothly?
Upgrade to mainstream household use
At the beginning of April, the Geometry A launched the 2022 new car, and the model name was changed to the Geometry A Pro Green Apple/Red Apple series. Such a fresh and down-to-earth naming has made us forget that when geometry A was first introduced to the market, the model name was quite geeky cubic/power version.
Geometry A is the first product of Geely Group's Geometry Automobile, which made its brand debut in Singapore in 2019, when it seemed that "debut is the peak". Only later we all know that geometry A is struggling on the edge of the A-segment car market, with long-term monthly sales of only about 1,000 units, far inferior to its direct competitor GAC Aion S.
Compared with the 2021 model, the starting price of the low-end configuration has increased by 13,000, and the price of the top configuration is 24,000 yuan cheaper, so that the price of the 5 matching models of the Geometric A Pro is concentrated in 13.98-17.58 million yuan, which is more in line with the consumer market's expenditure expectations for a pure electric family car.
However, whether it is the Geometry A in 2019 or the Geometry A Pro in 2022, it is difficult to call it a satisfactory family car.
After several updates, the endurance of geometry A has been upgraded from the earliest 410/500km to 430/600km, the motor parameters have also been increased from 120kW/250Nm to 150kW/310Nm, and the official acceleration time of 100km/h is 6.9 seconds, far beyond the level of the same level of fuel vehicles. In contrast, the motor parameters of the bydir Qin PLUS EV main sales model are only 100kW/180Nm, and the acceleration time of 0-50km/h is 5.5 seconds, according to the power level of this motor, it takes longer to increase to 100km/h.
But power performance isn't the most important ability for A-Class users, and it doesn't make Geometry A convince wavering consumers. In the price segment of 140,000-160,000 yuan, the 2022 geometry A Pro lays out three models with a 430km endurance, mainly through intelligent technology configuration to distinguish between high and low. The 430km NEDC endurance, as a family car is obviously not competitive, which means that users need to frequently replenish energy, and the increase in cost is secondary, mainly due to the convenience of daily use.
In contrast, BYD Qin PLUS EV and GAC AION S PLUS also use only a 400km endurance model to lower the price threshold, and the main sales model still puts the endurance above 500km.
Another product weakness of Geometry A that is difficult to upgrade is size. Since the listing of Geometry A in 2019, the controversy surrounding the outside world is its origin - from Geely Emgrand's "oil to electricity".
Geely Automobile is one of the few Chinese car companies with a modular platform, thanks to the blood transfusion of the CEVT R&D center, Geely Automobile can use the CMA platform in the era of fuel vehicles, and derived BMA downwards, and then adopted the first generation of SPA on the Lynk & Co brand, and because of the electrified SEA Haohan platform, it has obtained cooperation opportunities with Baidu, Mercedes-Benz and other enterprises.
However, the geometry car, which was once considered to be equivalent to Lynk & Co, barely talked about the platform when it launched the geometry A, because its pure electric identity was not orthodox. The auto market in 2019 is not a fatal problem, anyway, everyone scored 60 points; but into 2022, after many updates, it has not been made up for by other products, and the disadvantage of geometry A will become obvious.
For example, the size, the length of the car is 4752mm, the wheelbase is 2700mm, it is difficult for consumers to perceive the space advantages brought by the pure electric structure. In fact, few electric vehicles made by traditional independent brands at this level can break through in space - Qin PLUS EV length 4765mm / wheelbase 2718mm, GAC AION S PLUS 4810mm / wheelbase 2750mm.
For comparison, the new forces' WM E.5 is 4718mm long / wheelbase is 2810mm, and the gap is obvious.
Of course, for most of the A-class pure electric cars launched by independent brands, "oil to electricity" is not the original sin, limited by the high cost of three electrics, pure electric models below 200,000 yuan are difficult to have a very good performance and functional experience. Geometry A has continuously adjusted the selling points of the product in several updates, and by the beginning of 2021, 600 km endurance has become the core competitiveness of beating competitors at the same price.
We may wish to take about 160,000 yuan of Qin PLUS 500KM Premium, Geometry A Pro 600KM Red Apple PLUS, Aion S PLUS 70 Zhiling Edition as a comparison, Geometry A is the only one with an endurance of 600km, equipped with a 70kWh ternary lithium battery, but for this reason, we need to give up the Qin PLUS EV 5 airbags /L2 level driver assistance system, or Aion S PLUS's central control screen, engine system and some scientific and technological configurations.
In fact, the endurance and configuration of these three models are only the strategies of different brands competing for users in the same consumer group, but the terminal sales reflect the dismal geometry A, and it is not a configuration table that can find out the reason.
Geometry A gives up the ego
In March this year, the new energy vehicle market ushered in 100% year-on-year sales growth, riding on the East Wind, Geometry Automobile also gained a rare sales volume of more than 10,000, and Geometry A contributed nearly 3500 units. In geometry A's entire product history, this should be the top three best-selling months.
Even in the highlight moment, the Sales of the Geometry A in March this year were far less than the BYD Qin PLUS EV and GAC Aion S. It is undeniable that the two pure electric cars of BYD and GAC Aean are also the main force of the online car market, but this identity has not affected the overall sales at present, and even topic models like Qin PLUS can smoothly enter the field of private cars.
In this way, Geometry A cannot be accepted by more consumers, and it cannot be completely blamed for its inclusion in Cao Cao's travel. When the geometric car was just born in 2019, its positioning was a high-end pure electric brand, with the concepts of environmental protection, science and technology, and minimalism to create a new direction for the development of household electric vehicles.
As one of the expressions of product differentiation, I don't think there is anything wrong with the concept of geometric cars. The problem is that the product performance cannot support the landing of the concept.
Take ,for example, "technology." I had a close encounter with geometry A when the car used the latest Super Touch panel, where the function buttons interacted in touch form and the different function buttons were displayed through the built-in light source.
This is a very technological-looking, very garbage design, not only can we not accurately determine the location of each function during driving, even if the vehicle is stationary, as long as the light changes slightly, it will affect the clarity of these functions. Moreover, the touch sensitivity of these supersensitive areas is very low, and under the trend of eliminating physical buttons and improving the intelligent interaction experience, designs such as geometric A are counterproductive.
2021 paragraph
2019 section
Another issue is "environmental protection". It is undeniable that environmental protection is a good thing, but in the car to express environmental protection, except for Volvo, there are few successful. When Geometry A went on the market in 2019, it set aside a large space in the middle of the booth at the Shanghai Auto Show to display environmentally friendly interior materials, including trim panels and fabrics. The environmental protection of these materials is that their production processes and production processes use as few environmentally polluting chemicals as possible, and the finished product will hardly release harmful, odorous chemicals.
This is certainly a good thing, but it also shows that geometry A is not born at the right time. The consumer group of mainstream family cars is accustomed to the texture of "what you see is what you get", when the geometric A series used this environmentally friendly fabric, the color tone is dirt-resistant light gray, it can be said that the texture is insufficient and cold.
Since the beginning of the 2021 model, the geometry A series has been replaced with a mixed seat material of imitation leather or leather/flip hair, and the environmental protection concept that was once high-profile has been weakened again and again.
In fact, from the brand development of Geely Group in the past two years, it can be seen that geometry is no longer developing in the direction of high-end. Since 2019, Geometry Auto has only launched two products, Geometry A and Geometry C, of which Geometry A is from Emgrand GL, Geometry C is from Emgrand GS, and EX3 is the electric version of Geely Vision X3.
After the existing models have gradually weakened their personality, the official introduction of the geometric brand has also been changed to "mid-to-high-end", entering the 150,000 yuan family car market. For example, geometry A this car, several product updates have not been significantly upgraded, the biggest change is only the configuration naming, which will make people suspect that geometry A and even geometry brand will fade out of the market after the end of this generation of products, and no longer launch successor products.
This is not surprising. At present, the price segment where geometry A is located, Geely brand has just launched Geely Emgrand L Thor Hi.X, which is a plug-and-mix model that also enjoys new energy policies, with similar size and cost performance, even in the safety level of geometric brand strengths, Emgrand L also has more active and passive safety configurations.
From this and other speculation, the SEA architecture can support the Geely brand to turn to pure electricity, continue to deepen the 100,000-200,000 yuan family car market, more than 200,000 yuan will have Lynk & Co, Extreme Kr, and the more high-end luxury car field will be handed over to PoleStar and Volvo. In this way, it is not necessary to feel that geometric cars without personality have no need to exist?
Figure | Sourced from the web
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