"Renqi" smart long "big", light luxury brand had to choose?

Author: Song Jiating

"Never slow down, I'd rather crush my body." The classic lines of "Fast and Furious" may also be an excellent interpretation of the classic car smart.

Following its world debut in Berlin, Germany, in early April this year, Smart, which has been off the main stage for three years, officially launched geely's first electrified model after entering the stake , the new smart genie #1. The Berlin debut and the Asian listing have given the old owners and the new shareholders face.

According to official information, the two configuration models launched by smart genie #1 this time are Pro+, Premium, and the pre-sale price range is 190,000 yuan to 230,000 yuan (after the subsidy of new energy vehicles and excluding paid options). At present, the official booking channel has been officially opened, and users can log on to the "smart car APP" or "smart car mini program" to make a reservation.

It can be clearly seen that the new car inherits the iconic brand gene of the Smart brand, the hidden electric outer door handle, the frameless door, the "Ring of Inspiration" suspension roof and other design elements are simple and flexible, and the body size clearly distinguishes the products of the previous Smart brand, which also makes it the largest model in the history of smart.

Smart Genie #1 also hitchs a ride on the current "software-defined car" concept express, the new car is equipped with a highly integrated, high-performance computing power architecture, and more than 75% of the ECU electronic control units of the vehicle can be continuously upgraded remotely. The vehicle is equipped with up to 23 high-precision sensing hardware, which can realize 23 intelligent driving assistance functions including L2+ level.

At the same time, the ternary lithium battery with a capacity of 66 kWh also makes the smart genie #1 the maximum pure electric range of up to 560 km (CLTC China light vehicle driving conditions). In terms of charging and replenishing, in the DC overcharge mode (150kW charging pile), the power can be increased from 5% to 80% in less than 30 minutes.

Tong Xiangbei, CEO of Smart Brand Global Company

Tong Xiangbei, CEO of Smart Brand Global, revealed in an interview with the media that the new car will be manufactured at Geely's Xi'an plant and is expected to start delivering to users in the fourth quarter of this year.

"With the official launch of the first new mass production model, the smart brand has entered a new stage of full-speed development. In the future, we will adhere to the forward-looking development strategy of 'China-Europe dual-core, global layout' and continuously expand the global development margin of the enterprise." Smart has grown up, and tomorrow's journey is the sea of stars. Tong Xiangbei said.

At least in terms of speed, the Smart is one step ahead of its former rival, MINI. However, as the world's first brand to fully transform from a fuel vehicle to a pure electric vehicle, smart is commendable, but can it regain its glory by taking advantage of the electric vehicle track?

How can traditional light luxury brands be reborn?

"New Luxury", which is a new hashtag given to the new Smart Genie #1. In fact, this positioning is not separated from the earlier smart concept of "light luxury". Understated, refined and unpretentious is the style of this type of brand. However, the "light luxury" brand has not had a good life in the past few years.

Taking smart as an example, as a super-miniature car brand jointly created by Mercedes-Benz and Swiss watch brand Swatch, the name of smart is exquisite enough: the "S" in its name represents Swatch, "M" symbolizes Mercedes-Benz, "art" means art, and smart is naturally worthy of the name of "light luxury".

In 1998, when smart city, the first mass-produced two-door model of the smart brand, was first launched, it quickly attracted a large number of users with its bright and eye-catching body color, selling nearly 80,000 units in the first year of listing, and has since become the second and third family cars of the European middle class.

However, behind the global high visibility is always accompanied by losses. According to public reports, smart has accumulated losses of 4 billion euros over the past 20 years, with an average annual loss of about 200 million euros. In 2018, smart sales in the U.S. fell to a record low of 1,276 units. At the end of 2019, Smart had to stop selling in the U.S. and Canada.

What happened to mercedes-benz smart is not an isolated case. The classic mini, born in 1959 in Britain, has also been popular for half a century. In the 1960s, mini became a celebrity and became a "fashion decoration for everyone". But The Mini was ultimately unable to escape the fate of discontinuation and several changes of ownership. In 2000, the BMW era Mini was renamed MINI, and it also maintained rapid growth for several consecutive years, but eventually went downhill.

Also destined was Volkswagen's Beetle. It is also the best-selling model in europe and the United States, with nearly 21.53 million units produced from 1945 to 2003, and once became the world's best-selling model. But eventually, the Beetle also had to announce a production suspension in July 2019.

There is also the Fiat 500, which has sold nearly 4 million units in the 20 years since its launch, and is known as the most successful and oldest mini car, as well as the object of excellence and imitation of smart and Mini Cooper. However, also around 2020, Fiat cars also began to evacuate North America. Previously, in 2018, Fiat has withdrawn from the Chinese market.

The above brands are the classic representatives of the "light luxury" car, the common features are low-key, luxurious, all represent the young, fashionable and environmentally friendly lifestyle, have set off a boom in the world, the heyday has appeared in famous movies, animations, such as smart has appeared in "Fast and Furious", "Pink Panther" and other movies, "Transformers" In bumblebee is the classic role of the Beetle, MINI is the favorite of the big screen.

But equally, the biggest feature of these cars is that they are expensive. The high-end positioning makes it much more expensive than its class, but at the same time, the ultra-compact model is not suitable for family cars. Outside the European market, the North American market is more enthusiastic about tall, leathery, horsepower models, Chinese consumers favor large and long models, mini cars often start at 200,000 yuan at a price that can not move most of the Chinese.

Even European local brands, Audi, BMW have also launched similar small and micro models, but sales are not satisfactory. From this point of view, outside the European market, it is difficult for such models to break free from the label of "big toys", so it is difficult to escape the fate of the niche.

It is worth noting that in addition to the discontinuation of the Beetle, the "light luxury" car brands are actively saving themselves. Smart and MINI have invariably chosen joint ventures with Chinese car companies to accelerate full electrification.

In the global electrification trend, this may be a good path to save costs and overtake in curves, but there is no precedent for such cooperation.

Will Smart be the next Volvo?

As early as February 2018, Geely Group has acquired 9.69% of Daimler's shares and become Daimler's largest single shareholder, from this point of view, it is reasonable for the two to jointly promote the transformation of the Smart brand.

In addition, Geely's successful integration of experience in operating global automotive brands is also an important reason. In particular, Volvo's turnaround should be a plus for Daimler's choice of Geely. But will Smart be the next Volvo?

From the perspective of the joint venture model of the two, there are still fundamental differences.

After geely acquired Volvo, it adhered to the policy of "Geely is Geely, Volvo is Volvo", that is, "Wovo is The People Rule", giving the Volvo brand the right to operate independently.

In the operation of the smart brand, as a shareholder of the joint venture company with a share ratio of half, Geely obviously has more dominance. The first point is that the smart joint venture Smart Motor is located in Ningbo, China, and the new smart model will also be produced at the Chinese factory. The composition of the board of directors is equally matched, and the six board members of the joint venture company are composed of 3 representatives each appointed by each party.

The division of rights and responsibilities between the two sides is also clear. According to the agreement, the new generation of smart pure electric vehicles will be designed by Mercedes-Benz's global design department, Geely Holdings' global R&D center will be responsible for engineering research and development, and the product lineup will be expanded from the past mini cars to compact segments.

Geely's expression of the product lineup is "in line with market demand and enrich the product matrix". Obviously, the expansion of the smart product lineup, Geely has played an important role in promoting it.

Similarly, Geely has also fulfilled its commitment to smart on a technical level. The new smart genie #1 is based on the Geely SEA vast architecture, the whole series is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 intelligent cockpit chip, which adopts a 7-nanometer process and an 8-core CPU processor, which is a first-line level in computing power.

Not only that, but smart is also trying to make a breakthrough in the business model. In the Chinese market, Smart adopts the D2C direct sales agency business model with the core concept of "user center, digital drive", the goal is to achieve a win-win situation for brands, partners and users, and the selected partners include LSH Auto, Yongda Group, C&D Group, Jitianxia Holdings and other well-known enterprises that have been deeply involved in China's automobile circulation industry for many years.

Mingxia Zhang, Vice President of Sales, Marketing and After-Sales of Smart Brand Global Company

Mingxia Zhang, Vice President of Sales, Marketing and After-Sales of Smart Brand Global Company, revealed the latest developments. She said that after a year, Smart has completed the user digital ecosystem infrastructure. At the same time, it is expected that 150 independent sales and service outlets will be gradually rolled out in 2022, covering more than 40 first-tier, new first-tier and second-tier cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Among them, including 6 smart flagship centers with different styles and themes but with the same new luxury style, will be officially opened in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Chengdu.

At the same time, Geely Automobile has incorporated smart into its global operation map, for example, with the local advantages of Proton Motors, Smart is also expanding the new energy vehicle market in Southeast Asia.

Relatively speaking, Geely Automobile, which has more freedom in terms of dominance, is more likely to graft its global resources for smart, which is beneficial to smart. But the odds of smart still depend on the product strength after electrification.

Bigger smart, or smart?

There is design, technology, and channels, and the reborn smart can be said to be good. Now, one problem smart should probably solve is that the "biggest smart ever" may be both a selling point and a spit point.

A big question in the minds of smart car fans is, can the smart that has become bigger be called smart?

The new Smart Genie #1 is 4290mm, 1910mm, and 1698mm high, which is already the size of a compact SUV – the largest model in smart history is the 2004 early smart forfour, which is only 3752mm long.

This makes fans who like two smart cars can't stand it, after all, the earliest smart car length is only 2.5 meters, and that is the essence in the hearts of fans. In the eyes of fans, the original smart two-seater is very recognizable, and now it has completely lost its personality.

Some car fans simply complained, "This size can no longer be called smart, buy it is a figure it is small." Your audience has changed completely! ”

In fact, it's not just smart fans who have asked this day. "Large-scale, regularized, de-personalized" is the last choice of "light luxury" cars in order to make a profit for many years. And the increasing body size has also been complained about by car fans.

Taking the MINI as an example, the MINI was 3 meters long in the early days, and has been continuously lengthened since then, the COUNTRYMAN was the largest model in the MINI family, reaching 4.1 meters in length, and the body length of the subsequent generation of MINI has increased by about 10 centimeters.

The four-meter-long Beetle has also been increasing in size since it began to compete with the MINI. In 2011, the third-generation Beetle came to market, with a body size of 84 mm wider than the older model, and an increase of 152 mm in length and wheelbase by 152 mm and 18 mm, respectively.

Therefore, the paradox does exist. The smart and MINI whose body is constantly lengthening seem to no longer be suitable for being called "genie" and "mini", and whether fans will continue to recharge for feelings has become the biggest variable of the new smart genie #1.

In other words, the speed is still there, but will the passion return?