Text/Zhou Xiongfei
Baojun, who makes a car, collides with DJI, who is a drone, what spark can be knocked out?
For this question, there is an answer recently. According to a number of media reports such as New Intelligent Driving, as the first mass production model cooperated by Baojun and DJI, the Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint model is about to be delivered, which also means that the first model equipped with DJI's self-developed automatic driving assist software system is about to go from the booth to the market.
The Baojun kiwi EV was unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show as early as last April. According to the official introduction at that time, this model is equipped with DJI and Baojun to build an intelligent driving controller hardware platform and a closed-loop system of system data, which can realize the basic functions of L2-level automatic assisted driving such as adaptive cruise, lane keeping, pole lane change, intelligent obstacle avoidance, and intelligent parking functions such as autonomous parking.
It should be noted that throughout the current new energy vehicle track, the models that can achieve these automatic driving auxiliary functions basically belong to models of about 100,000-200,000 yuan, but the price of Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint model will not exceed 150,000 yuan.
Because of this, Baojun would have the confidence to say the slogan of "this is a smart car that everyone can afford" at the press conference at that time.
At that time, in the industry's view, Baojun would launch such a model so aggressively, but also in order to change the embarrassing situation of "the same root and different life" with Wuling.
Baojun and Wuling two major brands belong to SAIC-GM-Wuling, at first SAIC-GM-Wuling only wuling brand, with the help of Wuling Light and Wuling Hongguang two models almost dominated the domestic mini-van subdivision track, but at the same time to obtain sales, "SAIC-GM-Wuling = low-end car" Impression is also slowly taking root in the minds of consumers.
Baojun and Wuling, picture source SAIC-GM Wuling official micro
In order to break this impression, coupled with seeing that Changan Automobile and other car companies have launched high-end models, SAIC-GM-Wuling also began to upgrade its brand in 2010, and Baojun is also a major weapon to achieve brand upwards.
In order to distinguish it from Wuling, the models launched by Baojun basically exceed the positioning of mini cars and reach the positioning of small cars and compact cars. However, it turns out that although Baojun shoulders the heavy responsibility of upgrading the SAIC-GM-Wuling brand, its subsequent performance is not as good as the sales performance of the "brother" Wuling brand.
After losing in the field of fuel vehicles, in order to support its own sales, Baojun had to learn from Wuling to transform into a new energy field by launching mini-vehicles. But the result is still that Wuling is far ahead with the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, while Baojun's new energy vehicles can only follow far behind it.
Today, Baojun has to pin its hopes on changing its fate on DJI, and can it change its situation of "different lives from the same root" after launching the joint model?
1. Frequent cross-border cooperation, just to get rid of difficulties
The cooperative models of Baojun and DJI may soon move towards mass production.
According to the new intelligent driving report, the first model of Baojun and DJI cooperation, Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint edition, is about to be delivered to consumers. As the first model of the cooperation between the two parties, its intelligent performance has become a major concern in the industry, after all, it is equipped with an intelligent software system designed by DJI.
Through the media test drive, it can be seen that the car has the L2 level automatic auxiliary driving ability based on adaptive cruise, lane keeping and pole lane change, and also has the intelligent function of autonomous parking in the ground parking lot and the bottom parking lot.
In addition, according to the new intelligent driving report, at the end of June this year, DJI will update the system with OTA, push the same-level memory parking function and optimize the driving function, and by the end of October, push the cross-level parking function (including the passing bar). In addition, DJI is pre-developing parking technology related to three-dimensional parking spaces.
For the above news, because Baojun and DJI have not made any statements and responses before the press release, in the industry's view, the news that "Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint edition is about to be released" is a foregone conclusion, because this is also close to the mass production time promised by Baojun officials.
In April last year, at the Baojun booth at the Shanghai Auto Show, in addition to the newly released Baojun kiwi EV series models, a concept model marked "Power by DJI" on the body became the focus of many media and visitors.
Baojun kiwi EV EV DJI joint model, picture source Baojun Automobile official micro
According to the official introduction of Baojun at that time, it and DJI officially reached a strategic cooperation, and this concept model named "Adventure" is a demonstration of the cooperation between the two sides.
Unlike other Baojun's new energy models, the body hardware and manufacturing of this model are responsible for Baojun, while the software system is developed by DJI, and the intelligent driving controller hardware platform and system data closed-loop system are built in cooperation with Baojun.
The support of these systems, coupled with sensors around the body, gives the model an automatic driver assistance capability and automatic parking function. I have to say that the level of intelligence of this model is indeed beyond other models under Baojun.
It should be noted that in the current new energy vehicle market, there are many models that can achieve the above automatic auxiliary driving functions, such as Tesla, Xiaopeng, Weilai, BYD and Geely and other brand models, which can achieve L2-level automatic assisted driving functions.
Among them, brands such as Xiaopeng, Jihu (Hi version) and Great Wall have successively demonstrated their automatic driving assistance capabilities in their respective cities since last year. In addition, in terms of automatic parking function, the above brand models also have corresponding functions.
However, the price of these models is basically in the mass market and high-end market of more than 150,000 yuan, and in the low-end new energy vehicle market of less than 150,000 yuan, there are not many models that can achieve such an intelligent level before this.
With the emergence of baojun kiwi EV DJI joint version, people have seen the possibility of "low-cost cars with high intelligence".
At the same time as releasing the Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint version, Baojun also said that it would do "intelligent driving that everyone can have". At the same time, "completing the same function in a limited hardware situation and even making the user experience better is something that DJI wants to do more." He Peng, director of DJI's vehicle strategy, said publicly.
Therefore, although the price of this model has not yet been announced, based on the statements of both parties to the cooperation, coupled with the low pricing of Baojun's previous products, in the industry's view, the final price of the Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint version will most likely be below 150,000 yuan.
As for the release time of the joint model, according to some media reports, Baojun said that it would land mass production before the end of last year.
For Baojun, cross-border cooperation like DJI is not new.
As early as the Beijing Auto Show in September 2020, Baojun and Suning jointly launched the Baojun Small Biu Smart Car, which is based on Baojun's E300 model and cooperated with Suning.
Baojun small Biu, picture source Baojun automobile official micro
The biggest highlight of this model at that time was also the intelligent function. According to Baojun at that time, the model is equipped with Suning's self-developed intelligent driving and intelligent intensification IoT system, which can realize AI artificial intelligence voice interaction, intelligent driving synchronous text voice interaction, voice control intelligent driving and other functions.
Due to the cooperation with Suning, this model will also land on Suning's online sales network and be sold together with other intelligent technology products on the Suning platform. In addition, at that time, the two sides also announced that they would jointly build an offline i-Store smart experience store to provide users with a new one-stop car purchase experience.
In this way, Baojun first cooperated with Suning in 2020, and then cooperated with DJI a year later to jointly launch concept models, and the reason why it is so keen to carry out cross-border cooperation with brands such as Suning and DJI may be that it wants to break through the current embarrassing situation.
2, Baojun and Wuling, the same root and different lives
When it comes to SAIC-GM-Wuling, many people will think of Wuling and Wuling Hongguang, but few people know about the reality that Baojun also belongs to the brand.
In the 1960s and 1970s, due to the promotion of national policies, the mechanization transformation of national agriculture began. The newly established Liuzhou Power Machinery Factory saw this opportunity and soon began to produce tractors; the company subsequently expanded its market by producing sewing machines and cotton looms.
It was not until the beginning of 1980 that Liuzhou Power Machinery Factory found an industry for which it worked for life. At that time, it was the early stage of domestic reform and development, the state began to establish the automobile industry, liuzhou power machinery factory with a certain manufacturing capacity once again saw the opportunity, and soon became one of the four major mini car designated by the State Planning Commission and the Ministry of Machinery Industry.
After embarking on the road of car building, Liuzhou Power Machinery Factory took the lead in deciding on the brand name of the model as "Wuling", and soon the first Wuling brand mini car was officially rolled off the production line in 1987. Due to the large demand for mini cars in the market at that time, in 1995 it had achieved production and sales of 50,000 units.
Wuling Motors assembled in the factory in the early days, the source of Wuling Motors official micro
As the Wuling brand became more and more recognized in the market, in 1996 Liuzhou Power Machinery Factory was also renamed Liuzhou Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Liuzhou Wuling"). According to public data, in December 1998, the production and sales of Wuling Automobile reached 100,000 vehicles, ranking first in the domestic mini car industry.
Although it has come out on top, the mini car market has gradually become fierce.
With the emergence of the domestic taxi industry around 2000, the mini car industry has also made great progress, in addition to Wuling brand cars, mini car brands such as Fit, QQ and Alto have also appeared in the market, and have become the models chosen by some consumers.
In the face of increasingly fierce industry competition, Liuzhou Wuling began to seek opportunities for foreign investment and cooperation. In 2002, under the promotion of the Liuzhou government in Guangxi, SAIC-GM-Wuling Motors, a new company joint venture between SAIC Motor Group Co., Ltd., General Motors of the United States and Liuzhou Wuling, was established.
After the establishment of the new joint venture, with the technology and capital of SAIC and GM, the sales volume of Wuling brand vehicles continued to grow year by year. But SAIC and GM, the major shareholders in the joint venture, are not satisfied with Wuling's positioning as too cheap and low-end. Thus, in 2010, SAIC-GM-Wuling officially released the new passenger car brand "Baojun", marking the beginning of its brand upgrade and the development of "dual brand".
In order to highlight the meaning of brand upgrading, Baojun abandoned the miniature model in the positioning of the model, but chose the smaller model and compact model with a larger size, such as the first model of the brand, the Baojun 630, which adopted the compact positioning, and the subsequent Baojun 560 and 730 were compact cars.
Although the body size of these models has become larger, it still maintains a price of less than 100,000 yuan in terms of price.
Although Baojun and Wuling belong to the same brand of SAIC-GM-Wuling, their subsequent fates are not the same.
Since 2012, SAIC-GM-Wuling has achieved the goal of selling million vehicles a year for many years with the two major brands of Wuling and Baojun, and has become a star car company in the domestic joint venture car companies for a time. For example, in 2012, its sales reached 1.45 million vehicles, of which Wuling contributed about 1.3 million vehicles, while Baojun only contributed 110,000 sales.
According to the public data of Lianxing Travel, it can be seen that in the following years, the annual sales of Wuling and Baojun still maintain a relationship of 1 to 10 times, and the gap between the strength performance of the two major brands is obvious.
Because of the decline in sales of the Baojun brand, coupled with the fact that the domestic automotive industry entered the "cold winter" in 2017, the overall sales of SAIC-GM-Wuling began to decline. According to the data of the Association of Automobiles, the sales volume of Wuling Automobile in 2018 and 2019 fell by 3.65% and 19.62% respectively year-on-year.
SAIC-GM-Wuling's annual sales trend from 2012 to 2019, the data comes from public data, and the online travel mapping
In order to save the decline, SAIC-GM-Wuling not only upgraded the Baojun brand in 2019, the car logo was changed from the previous horse head logo to the diamond logo, and a "new" word was added in front of Baojun to highlight the meaning of the upgrade.
At the same time, SAIC-GM-Wuling has also transformed the two major brands of New Baojun and Wuling from the field of fuel vehicles to the field of new energy vehicles.
Perhaps seeing the advantages of the formation of Wuling brand mini-cars, the model positioning of Baojun new energy has also shifted to the field of mini-cars. In June 2020, the first pure electric vehicle model E300 after the Baojun brand upgrade was officially launched, positioning it as a mini car, priced at 64,800-84,800 yuan.
A month later, the Wuling brand also released its first new energy model, the Hongguang MINI EV, at the Chengdu Auto Show that year, which continued the previous mini car positioning, and the price was lower than that of the Baojun E300, at 288-38,800 yuan.
Facts have proved that even if you come to the new energy vehicle track, the gap between Baojun and Wuling still exists.
Taking the sales volume of Hongguang MINI EV in the first month of listing, that is, in August 2020, according to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, the sales of Hongguang MINI EV in that month were 15,000 vehicles, while the sales of Baojun E300 were only 908 vehicles.
In the whole of 2020, the sales volume of Hongguang MINI EV from August to the end of the year reached 32,097 units, while the sales of Baojun E300 in the seven months since its launch in June of that year to the end of the year reached only 9,301 units, and the former sales were almost three times that of the latter.
From June to December 2020, baojun E300 and Hongguang MINI EV sales trend of each month, the data is derived from public data, connected to the travel map
From this point of view, since the establishment of the Baojun brand in 2010, there has been a gap in sales with the "brother" Wuling brand, in other words, the Wuling brand is the "big head" that supports the overall sales performance of SAIC-GM-Wuling, and the Baojun brand does not account for a large proportion of it.
Under such a decline of "the same root and no life", Baojun may have the experience of cross-border cooperation with Suning and DJI in order to change this decline.
3. Can cooperation with DJI change the fate of Baojun?
There will be a gap in sales between Baojun and Wuling, and there are certain reasons.
As can be seen above, although Baojun and Wuling are in the low-end market of less than 150,000 yuan, since the birth of Baojun, the task given to them by SAIC-GM-Wuling is to assume the goal of brand upwards, but the subsequent results have proved that they have not completed this task well.
According to the statistics of Yiche, in the fifth year of the establishment of the Baojun brand, that is, in 2015, the proportion of Baojun and Wuling brand owners in the market segment, 25.4% of Wuling's car owners were from first- and second-tier cities, and the remaining 74.6% of the owners were from third-tier and below cities.
For Baojun, which has a higher positioning, 28.7% of the owners in the whole year came from first- and second-tier cities, and the remaining 71.3% of the owners came from third-tier and below cities.
In 2015, Baojun and Wuling accounted for the proportion of subdivided cities, and the data came from Yiche and connected travel mapping
From the above data, two conclusions can be drawn: one is that Wuling's market performance is very consistent with its low price and cost-effective positioning; the other is that Baojun wants to impact the high-end, but the market performance proves that it has not achieved this goal.
Because of this, there will be a phenomenon that consumers in the sinking market are even less sensitive to the Baojun brand.
"Consumers in third-tier and below-tier cities will be more price sensitive. Wuling's models, the price is basically maintained below 50,000 yuan, coupled with the initial model is a micro-surface such a large space model, the cost performance can be described as the right appetite. For small cars or compact cars launched by Baojun, they will be insufficient in terms of space utilization than vans, and the price of some models will exceed 100,000 yuan, and some consumers will naturally not choose. Zhang Xiang, a special expert of the China Bo Lian Think Tank, told The Link Travel.
In addition to market and consumer acceptance, in terms of quality issues, Baojun has also been complained about and complained by more consumers than Wuling.
Connecting travel landed on the car quality network, the two major brands of Wuling and Baojun were counted, and it can be seen that in the period from January 2010 to December 2016, there were 882 complaints about Baojun's models, while the number of Wuling was 332, and the former was almost 2.65 times that of the latter.
In the industry's view, there will be such a comparison result, which has the influence of consumer subjective feelings, that is, for the lower price of Wuling products, it will be easier to ignore the problems on the vehicle; and for the higher price of Baojun, even the same vehicle problem will be magnified.
Although such factors cannot be avoided, the fact that Baojun's products have more quality problems also exists, especially since it has also been named at the 3.15 evening party.
At the 2020 3.15 party, Baojun's Baojun 560 became the only auto product named in the normal party. According to the owner's report to CCTV at that time, the gearbox of Baojun 560 frequently failed, and as long as it failed, the car would directly lie down and could not move.
After the owner of the car reported this problem to Baojun officially and was repaired, the problem of the gearbox will continue to recur, so as to seriously affect the driving experience of consumers.
The fact that Baojun's products are not optimistic about consumers has continued from the era of fuel vehicles to the era of new energy vehicles.
Starting from 2020, although Baojun and Wuling have focused on the layout of the new energy field, although in terms of parameters, Baojun E300 has more advantages than Wuling Hongguang MINI EV in terms of motor parameters, mileage, or battery energy density, but it is undeniable that the impression of poor product quality has penetrated into the hearts of consumers.
"Although Wuling and Baojun are both low-cost cars and mini cars, they may have been affected by the 3.15 party, and they have always felt that the quality of Baojun's cars is not very good, so if I want to choose one of them, I will choose Wuling." Liu Chang, a new energy vehicle owner, told Wired Travel.
In addition, with the advent of the era of new energy vehicles, young people have also become the main consumer group for new energy vehicles, and because of this, the appearance of a car has also become an important indicator of purchase. "Another big reason for choosing the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV is the appearance value, because the appearance of Baojun's E300 is really unacceptable, especially the front face of the E300 is too ugly." Liu Chang said.
Baojun E300 (left) with Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, image source Baojun Automobile / Wuling Automobile Official Micro
Zhang Xiang believes that the current consumer choice of a new energy vehicle decisive factor also includes brand recognition, compared to Baojun's obscurity, the popularity of the Wuling brand has always been there, and even has the nickname of "QiumingShan Shenche", which further increases the brand power of Wuling.
In this way, in the past ten years, although the two major brands of Baojun and Wuling have developed synchronously, the differences in market acceptance, product quality and brand power have led to Baojun's market performance has been inferior to Wuling.
Due to the impact of these factors, in the industry's view, even if Baojun and DJI cooperate to launch a joint model, it is difficult to solve such a dilemma.
According to the information officially revealed by Baojun, Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint version of the power side adopts a permanent magnet synchronous motor, which can output 40kW, peak torque of 150Nm, and NEDC working range of 305 kilometers. It should be noted that this parameter is basically the same as that of Baojun E300, plus the two cars also have almost the same appearance structure.
This means that compared with the Baojun E300, the Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint edition has improved in terms of the intelligence of the whole vehicle, but it is essentially a modified version of the E300 model. For the intelligent functions that are regarded as highlights, the Baojun kiwi EV ordinary version model can also have some functions.
According to Baojun's official customer service to the connection travel, Baojun kiwi EV ordinary version has been equipped with ACC full-speed adaptive cruise, if you want to have automatic parking function, you can achieve it by installing an optional intelligent driving package. By looking at the vehicle ordering steps, Wired Travel did see the option to have the "Smart Driving Option Pack" in the optional column.
It is worth noting that the Baojun kiwi EV model has not yet been released, and the ordinary model has been officially launched in January this year.
In terms of sales, sales of the model reached 1329 units in the month of launch, and sales increased in the following two months, reaching 3262 units and 3385 units, respectively. However, this sales volume still has a large gap with the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV. From January to March this year, Hongguang MINI EV sales were 37,048 units, 22,110 units and 41,980 units, respectively, which shows the difference in sales between the two.
From January to March 2022, the sales trend of Hongguang MINI EV and Baojun Kiwi EV is derived from the Association of Passengers, and the mapping of online travel is obtained
In Zhang Xiang's view, after the Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint edition, in addition to encountering the competition of the "brother" Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, it will also encounter the siege of powerful players such as chery QQ Ice Cream, Changan Benben E-Star and Zero Run T03, which are also new energy mini cars.
At present, to determine whether the Baojun kiwi EV DJI joint model can bring more sales to Baojun and change the situation of "the same root and different life", it is necessary to wait until the performance of this model is really listed. However, in the industry's view, if Baojun wants to really change the situation, instead of doing such cross-border cooperation, it is better to control the quality of the product and focus on the study of user needs, which may be more practical.
(The head image of this article is derived from baojun automobile official micro.) ）