Written | Cold Zelin
Edit the | Wang Pan
"If it does not erupt in silence, it perishes in silence."
This is a sentence that Lu Xun woke up the Chinese people, but it may become the best footnote for some car companies in the current new energy market.
No one expected the impact of the pandemic to be so broad. After the beginning of this year, the entire automobile market, regardless of energy power, regardless of new and old levels, has suffered from a number of negative news, the rise of raw materials, subsidies countdown led to an increase in retail prices, supply chain blocked OEMs forced to stop production, stop selling.
According to the data of the Federation of Passenger Vehicles, the retail and wholesale volume of generalized passenger cars in China's automobile market in March this year fell by 10.9% and 0.8% year-on-year, and the retail and wholesale volume of narrow passenger cars fell by 10.5% and 1.6% year-on-year.
The figure will decline again in April, when the narrow passenger car retail market is expected to reach 1.1 million units in April, down 31.9% year-on-year. This is not good news for the fledgling new energy market.
Since most new energy brands do not have rich product lines and the ability to make positive profits for the time being, the long-term "shutdown" of the automobile market will have a considerable impact on the product rhythm of most enterprises. For example, ideal postponed the launch time of L9, and Weilai delayed the delivery time.
At this year's auto 100 people's meeting, even BYD, whose sales soared last year, its chairman Wang Chuanfu also suggested, "In order to stabilize industry expectations, it is recommended that the purchase tax reduction policy for new energy vehicles can continue to be extended." ”
Some insiders analyzed to photon planet that the epidemic superimposed on the price increase of upstream raw materials will further accelerate the industry reshuffle, and car companies with low sales will bear the brunt.
According to the observation of Photon Planet, many OEMs have formed a strong contrast with the hot new energy market, no matter how hard they try to create momentum, they can never get rid of the situation of gradually "losing their voice".
Obviously, in the era of direct connection between car companies and consumers, many OEMs have not yet learned how to "speak", and the price of silence may be to become a member of this industry reshuffle.
Silenced Weima
I don't know how many people know that WM has just listed a new car - E.5, which is divided into two models, namely pro version and zhikexing version, and the comprehensive subsidy price is 180,100 yuan and 190,100 yuan. At least from the paper data and publicity, we have not found any bright spots in this price range.
And what new energy vehicles can you buy in this range? Eian S, Xiaopeng P5 and BYD Qin series, if the scope is expanded to SUVs, then the competition will be more intense.
I don't know whether I know that I am "losing money", WM gave the first 10,000 car owners 10,000 deductions of 40,000 yuan of benefits, but still did not set off much waves on social media.
It is not accurate to say that the WM E.5 is a new model, the official launch time of this car was in September last year, mainly for the B-end market, and the new version recently is mainly for the C-end market sales. Regardless of whether the model itself has bright spots, just look at these two operations, in fact, it goes against the wind direction of the market.
There are not a few car companies that started in the B-end market, baic new energy, GAC new energy and Nezha automobile, but after THE BAIC economy has risen and fallen, car companies are trying to draw a clear line between themselves and the B-end market. Because the B-end market has more shipments, it has little effect on the growth of brands and profits.
For example, Nezha Automobile actively announces the proportion of C-end sales every month, and GAC and BAIC have successively established independent brands, while WM chose to invest in the B-end embrace when new energy personal consumption is exerted, and its actual effect is not satisfactory.
According to data from the Association, the cumulative sales of the WM E.5 in the six months of its listing are about 11,800 units.
Considering that the B-end market cannot form much contribution to the brand and profits, such achievements can be said to be very bleak, and the only place that can get positive feedback may only be less ugly when counting sales at the end of the year. However, since WM opened the listing counseling last year, it has always adopted the strategy of "reporting good news and not worrying" for sales figures, and has maintained a state of silence most of the time.
And this time, WM took this "online car" to the personal market for sale, which always made people feel that it was just another way to exhaust the skills of a donkey.
This is also related to the failure of WM after ex5, two consecutive models in the market.
According to the statistics of the owner's home, the sales of WM EX6 and W6 have been in a downturn, and the EX5 that has long supported WM's sales has also shown a downward trend in the emerging market of many new energy models, and the E.5 for the travel market has become the main model of WM.
It should be noted that the EX6 was launched at the end of 2019, the W6 was launched in early 2021, and the WM flagship sedan M7 was unveiled last year, and there was no mass production news. That is to say, the state of "green and yellow" in WM has lasted for nearly two years, which happens to be two years of spurt growth in the new energy market.
WM officially remained silent, but its founder and CEO Shen Hui remained active on social media, from betting with meituan and supporting Li Bin's statement that "I can't figure out why anyone still buys fuel cars" to participating in the lidar dispute between He Xiaopeng, Xia Yiping and Li Xiang, Shen Hui worked hard to join every "group chat", but unfortunately the response was flat.
Weima seems to be learning from Tesla, which was once the most "unlovable", the founder stood on the front desk and waved the flag, and the main engine factory gave up marketing. However, Shen Hui does not have the personal charm brought by Musk's grand vision, and WM does not have Tesla's continuous pursuit of innovative products.
Regardless of the emergence of E.5 or not, WM's voice is gradually being covered up in the new energy market. The reason is that in the crowded market and the empty venue to make a sound are completely two concepts, product power is the first productivity of car companies, and marketing is only the icing on the cake.
Step into the footsteps of the Polar Fox
It is not only the Weima family that has a glorious history but has fallen into "silence" in this year.
The history of BAIC BJEV is also very tortuous, first winning the domestic new energy sales champion for seven consecutive years, and then falling to the bottom due to the impact of the epidemic, at this time, the Polar Fox, which has been sealed for many years, was moved to the forefront and was given high hopes by BAIC BJEV.
Beiqi Blue Valley has two brands, ARCFOX and Beijing (BEIJING), which separate the travel market from the personal consumption market, which is clearer than WM's thinking.
However, as the main focus of the high-end personal consumption market, the Sales Volume of the Jihu brand was not high last year, and the delivery volume in 2021 was only 4993 units. Since the beginning of this year, according to the data of the Automobile Circulation Association, the pole fox has sold a total of about 3,000 vehicles in the first three months, which is a certain improvement compared with last year, but the gap between competitors is still obvious.
In the new energy market where products are rapidly iterating, sales have not improved for more than a year after delivery, which is almost equivalent to scoring Pole Fox for consumers who vote with their feet.
In fact, the volume of the polar fox is not small.
In April this year, Jihu, under the name Cui Jian, held a three-hour concert in reality in the form of live video, and more than 45 million people watched the performance online.
Turning the time back to a year ago, the Alpha S hi version jointly released by Polar Fox and Huawei at the same time has aroused widespread discussion with the world's first model equipped with Huawei's automatic driving solution system and the first model equipped with Hongmeng car system. Further ahead, the intelligent manufacturing base established by BAIC Group and Magna has also received a lot of attention.
If you look closely, the three incidents of Jihu do not seem to be the protagonists, because the direction of public opinion is always aimed at Magna, Huawei and Cui Jian.
In fact, whether this Cui Jian concert counts as a successful marketing cannot be judged immediately at the moment, but we can sort out some of the ideas of The Extreme Fox in combination with the official answer of the Extreme Fox.
On April 22, in response to the rumors circulating on the Internet that "Pole Fox and Huawei fell out", Beiqi Blue Valley finally debunked the rumors on the official interactive platform, and claimed that it would hold a HI Day event in Beijing in early May, and Beiqi Blue Valley and Huawei executives would attend together. That is to say, the Alpha S hi version, which has jumped tickets many times since the end of last year, is likely to finally reveal its true face.
And because the volume of polar fox in the past year is too low, and the heat brought by Huawei has also faded, it is likely to introduce traffic through concerts to pave the way for the launch of the hi version. In the lack of sales at the moment, the internal importance of the hi version of Jihu may be higher than that of consumers.
However, the question at the moment is whether the Alpha S hi version is still competitive?
The Hi version is priced at 38.89-42.99 million yuan, and the Alpha S is priced at 251.9-34.49 million yuan, at least the version without Huawei's blessing does not show enough potential. At the same time, the first launch of Hongmeng OS was also snatched up by Huawei's "pro-son" Q&A M5, and whether the remaining Huawei autopilot liberation plan can be killed in Tesla, Weilai NAD, Xiaopeng City NGP, and Zhiji IM AD?
I am not afraid of people being scolded, but I am afraid that no one will scold
I still remember the collision test between Han EV and Polar Fox Alpha S done by CheDi last year, Han EV sold more than 10,000 yuan in the middle of scolding and grinning, while the Pole Fox with better collision results always stood still.
Whether it is a new force or an old manufacturer, it is accompanied by countless insults on the way forward in new energy. How to accept, respond to, and correct is a lesson for all vendors. Not afraid of being scolded, but afraid of no one scolding.
BYD won the championship through the DM-i system and blade battery, and Xiaopeng set up the intelligent label by relying on real money and silver research and development investment, and in this market, it is actually impossible to find a company that has not been overwhelmed by scolding. However, scolding is a negative impact, but also to check for leaks and fill in the gaps.
Enterprises that remain "silent" are not only unwilling to respond to various news in the market, but on the contrary, they like to block the mouths of the voicers.
From November 2020, the WM lock electricity and spontaneous combustion incident began to gradually ferment, until the end of last year, WM borrowed free maintenance and 200 yuan Jingdong card in the name of the power lock operation of some vehicles, which caused a large number of complaints after being discovered by the owner. WM chose not to respond positively, but according to some car owners, WM directly disbanded several after-sales rights protection groups.
In desperation, one of the Wei carriage owners also created a rights defense song "200 pieces will deceive me", and it was also called back to Shen Hui's Rap two years ago.
Two years ago, Shen Hui said in a Rap performance that "Tesla is unreliable"
Similarly, Yu Liguo, the former president of Jihu Automobile, also gave a reply with a "intimidating" nature when the owner complained about the community operation problem of the Jihu APP. Since then, Yu Liguo has faded from the public eye, and when he reappeared, he had already topped the title of vice president of Xiaomi Automobile and political commissar of Xiaomi Automobile Beijing headquarters.
After Yu Liguo left his post, Liu Yu, the former general manager of Beiqi Blue Valley, also resigned, and the position of general manager was taken over by Dai Kangwei, who also became the third general manager of Beiqi Blue Valley in two years. In July of the same year, Yu Chen, the former general manager of Marketing of Jihu, joined Changan Mazda New Energy, and in addition, in 2021, a number of executives of Beiqi Blue Valley applied for resignation.
The biggest problem with frequent executive turnover is the lack of coherence in the company's strategy.
Daniel Zhang, ceo of Nezha Automobile, served as the general manager of BAIC BJEV Marketing Company before joining the company, leading BAIC BJEV to achieve a breakthrough of 100,000 vehicles per year through large customer sales.
As we mentioned earlier, Beiqi Blue Valley has made a distinction between its two brands, Jihu, and Jihu looks like it should be the main attacker of BAIC in the personal consumption market, but the first thing Dai Kangwei did when he took office was to regain "big customer sales".
At the end of June 2021, BAIC Blue Valley announced that it has reached a sales cooperation of 1,000 Jihu with Huaxia Travel, which is 90% controlled by BAIC Group. In March 2022, BAIC delivered another 70 Jihu models to Shouqi Group for travel services.
In the panic and change, the polar fox also seemed a little hungry.
It should be pointed out that as long as a company is in a state of rapid growth, it can cover up almost all problems, and even if there is a problem, it is a rush of omissions; but if a company is in a state of business contraction, the problems exposed are likely to be only one of many problems.
We do not deny that Pole Fox and Weima still have the possibility of erupting in silence, such as the upcoming weima M7 and polar fox alpha S hi version, but if you can't come up with powerful products to conquer the market, then extinction in silence is also a very likely ending.