In the era of intelligent driving, Volvo's "safety man-made" is afraid of falling

Text: Zheng Driving @ Tan Qing said AI editor-in-chief

For such achievements, Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan used the word "stable" as a self-evaluation. After all, after being in Geely and listing in Sweden, Volvo has already survived the most difficult period of "survival".

I still remember that in May 2018, the car industry leaders gathered at the "China Auto Blue Book Forum", and when discussing the topic of "dreams and anxieties" of car companies, Yuan Xiaolin, president and CEO of Volvo Asia Pacific, calmly said: "We have no anxiety."

However, when the entire industry is on the track of electrification and intelligent transformation, no traditional car company will not feel the pressure of new forces to grab its market.

So, in the face of this era to all car companies out of the must-answer questions, can Volvo really sit back and relax?

Volvo's rules of survival

In the market's perception, Volvo has always been just a second-tier luxury brand. The reason why it has not been able to reach the market size of the BBA is that fundamentally, Volvo is indeed weaker than the BBA in terms of core technology.

In the field of traditional three-electric technology, Volvo only has some skills in engine research and development, and in 2017, it also won the ranking of "Ward Top Ten Engines".

However, volvo currently sells no more than 2.0 displacement, and even the most expensive sports car, the Polestar 1, is equipped with only a high-power 2.0T engine. If you put together with the BBA's flagship model for a professional comparison of comprehensive mechanical quality, Volvo feels that it is indeed a lower gear.

Under the weakness of the core technology, Volvo can survive because it has long adhered to the brand concept of safety, health and environmental protection and the label of user identification, which is volvo's survival law.

Although it can't be popular, it is still barely enough to be "small and beautiful". Therefore, in history, the market size of Volvo Cars has always been relatively limited.

According to statistics, Volvo's global sales reached a historic peak in 2021, with domestic sales of 171,600 vehicles, but if compared with BMW's 846,200 vehicles, Mercedes-Benz's 739,400 vehicles, and Audi's 691,000 vehicles, there is still an insurmountable gap.

From the perspective of the needs of the entire luxury car user group, if according to the division of the KANO model, BBA can meet the desired demand, and the user's satisfaction is directly proportional to the satisfaction of the demand, so it is also the demand that reflects the competitiveness of the car company.

Volvo Cars, which is characterized by safety, health and environmental protection, is more in meeting the attractive needs of users, which is characterized by the fact that users have this demand, but they will not expect too much, and it is enough. In other words, it is not excluded that a small number of luxury car users care about Volvo's safety, but at the same time, there will be many luxury car users who always feel that they cannot meet psychological expectations in terms of handling and luxury after a comparison.

But in fact, safety is the basic need of all car users, many luxury car audiences will not have too extreme pursuit of safety, and luxury car brands as long as they are willing to pay the cost, safety and security can do well. Therefore, Volvo, which takes safety as the differentiated selling point, can only attract a small group.

Therefore, Volvo adheres to the product positioning of "safety is luxury", the advantage is to avoid the sharp edge of first-line luxury brands, and more in the in-depth research and development of some safety and security technologies, and the financial pressure will not be very large. However, because it is obviously inferior to BBA in the core technologies of engine, gearbox and chassis, it can only be relegated to the second-tier luxury queue.

In the long run, the safety positioning of Volvo products has long become the consensus of the market, and the market size limits the overall profitability of the enterprise, and does not support the increase in more research and development costs in the core three-power technology.

Moreover, in order to maintain the brand characteristics, the limited funds need to continue to be used for the research and development of safety and health-related technologies, so the technical shortcomings are always short boards, and the advantages of the long board are not dazzling enough, so Volvo has always been difficult to break through the technical barriers built by the BBA.

In the long era of fuel vehicles, whether a car company can achieve first-line luxury lies in whether there is a core technology to build a bottom. Volvo's main positioning of safety as a product actually determines the upper limit of the height that the brand can reach.

The "safe man"'s side is the real anxiety

Then, under the development trend of electric intelligence, the core technology of the car has become the new three electric. For Volvo, is there an opportunity to counterattack? Can Volvo impress users in the mainstream luxury car market?

Judging from the marketing action, Volvo is indeed actively trying.

For example, at the 2020 Guangzhou Auto Show, luxury car brands are promoting new cars, Audi has come up with a domestic A3/A3L, Mercedes-Benz has come up with a GLS jointly named with Maybach, BMW has taken out a 2 Series Gran Coupe, Volvo has taken out a killer but "musical ghost" Brilliance, and of course, there is "oil to electricity" XC40 RECHARGE.

For this unexpected move of the BBA, Yuan Xiaolin gave the answer:

"Volvo wants to be a luxury car brand with connotations, and Brilliance Is a very powerful singer-songwriter in China, and the warm, talented, thoughtful and responsible character traits he presents are very in line with Volvo's brand image."

I wonder if Volvo's die-hard fans will be surprised to hear this official explanation. Why does the brand image take a sharp turn, why must it come so suddenly? And blunt.

Of course, after all, this is the era of the eyeball economy, if you look at it from the perspective of obtaining traffic, you can fully understand Volvo's anxiety of being left in the corner because of the backwardness of products.

And this sense of anxiety is coming from the intelligent transformation of car companies. In tanqing ai view, this is a difficulty for all traditional car companies, and for Volvo, it is even more difficult.

First of all, in the era of new energy, abundant R&D funds are still the key to building a technological moat for car companies.

Judging from the current layout of the head players of the new forces, integrated electronic and electrical architecture, electronic control, battery, fast charging, chip, intelligent driving, digital cockpit, etc., are all key technologies worth laying out. Obviously, when the electrification and intelligent transformation is carried out, no matter which oem wants to build a moat, it is impossible to be proficient in all technologies.

Large-scale and high-frequency financing is the norm for players on the track of new energy vehicles. And if there are not enough capital reserves, it is easy to fall behind in the fierce competition in the future. According to the first quarter financial report, although Volvo increased its income by 8%, its profit did not increase.

Under the realistic conditions of limited funds, Volvo is taking a gradual transformation route of "small steps and slow walking". For example, the XC40 has launched a fuel version and an electric version, and it is a fuel-to-electricity model without much technical content.

As we all know, because oil to electricity means small space, low endurance, and fast depreciation, in the eyes of people who understand, it can only be counted as "new energy semi-finished products". As a result, the price of XC40 has dropped again and again, and the official has also given a discount of "oil and electricity twins, wisdom to enjoy the same price".

However, the price concession did not translate into an increase in sales. In terms of horizontal comparison, according to the statistics of the Economic Observer, among the 9 multinational listed car companies with declining sales, Volvo's sales fell by 20.1%, ranking second from the bottom only in terms of decline.

The shortage of R&D funds is just a common problem faced by traditional car companies, after all, Volvo still has Geely covered. However, for Volvo, the security attributes that businesses rely on to survive are becoming increasingly difficult to do, which may be the most deadly.

On the one hand, intelligence has given more dimensions to the field of automotive safety technology, including collision safety, battery safety, software security, and network security, which will become new challenges. In these respects, Volvo has been a bit passive.

On November 30 last year, a Volvo XC90 in the underground garage of a residential area in Nanjing had a combustion accident, and the cause of the fire has not been officially determined so far, but for how to reduce the spontaneous combustion rate of electric vehicles, it is obviously beyond the scope of Volvo's original technical capabilities.

Soon after, on December 10, Volvo's security was once again challenged. Some of the company's servers were compromised by unknown attackers, resulting in the theft of some R&D information. Many people can't help but ask, will it really not affect the data security of their cars or users?

Volvo's response at the time was to work with third-party experts to investigate. This may mean that Volvo's shortcomings in data security are already very obvious.

On the other hand, the new energy revolution is an opportunity for car companies to overtake in curves, new forces are crowded into the car-making track, everyone is looking for a clear label that can make the market remember their brand, and car companies that want to take safety as a selling point will not be the only Volvo.

According to the Tianyancha search, after the establishment of Xiaomi Automotive Technology Company, the first patent exposed is a technology that "improves motor safety" in the case of phase-deficient faults in multiphase motors.

In addition, what is more fatal is that as autonomous driving technology matures, technologies that can significantly improve car safety may be in the hands of smart driving technology providers.

Baidu founder Robin Li said in a recent interview, "According to statistics, 94% of the current traffic accidents are caused by man, and the popularity of automatic driving will gradually reduce human reasons, and the road will be safer." ”

The safety attribute of the fuel vehicle era is passive defense, that is, in the event of an accident, whose car is more resistant to impact, Volvo's survival point is that it is more resistant to impact. In the era of intelligence, the active aggression of security attributes is to make the probability of accidents lower, and even the future may be infinitely close to 0 accidents. Therefore, the vehicle safety inspection point is placed in front of the accident to avoid accidents, and volvo's core is that the accident occurs and the injury to the personnel is reduced to a minimum. In the era of intelligence, volvo's safety personnel have set up a dimensionality reduction blow.

From this point of view, due to the shortcomings in the field of intelligent driving technology, Volvo, which has always specialized in collision safety, may be worth drawing a question mark on whether it can still hold the champion of the safety market segment in the future.

In general, because the market size is not large enough, the funds for research and development are not sufficient, and in the face of complex safety issues, Volvo faces the challenge of its safety characteristics by various experts. Under the blow of dimensionality reduction by autonomous driving giants and new forces, a sense of powerlessness has been revealed.

Can Polestar carry Volvo's hopes?

For traditional car companies, the most common way to enhance the imagination of brand valuation is to establish a new electric brand.

In the past six months, many car companies have completed or are planning to split their businesses. For example, Ford Motor recently announced that it will independently operate electric vehicles (Model E) and internal combustion engine business (Model Blue), and domestic GAC Aeon and Dongfeng Lantu have released the news of independent listing.

Volvo is certainly no exception. On September 27 last year, Polestar, a Brand of Volvo's electric vehicles, announced that it "intends to merge with Gores Guggenheim, a U.S.-based special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), with a combined valuation of approximately $20 billion, a deal expected to close in the first half of 2022." ”

However, the first half of the year is nearing the end, regardless of whether Polestar can be successfully listed as scheduled, as volvo's electric vehicle brand, as of now, Polestar's first two cars have not stirred up too much splash in the domestic market.

Since the launch of the Polestar 1 in April 2018, Polestar has released two cars, according to official data, global sales in 2021 is 29,000 units, according to historical sales and the official year-on-year growth rate (471%) estimates, the Chinese market has only sold about 2,000 vehicles.

It is worth mentioning that as an electric brand, Polestar 1 is still a fuel version, and it is extremely similar to the interior of volvo S90. However, despite this, from the perspective of sales targets and product planning, Polestar is still full of confidence in the future.

In the announcement, Polarstar said, "In terms of product planning, Polarstar will launch three new models by 2024, of which the first SUV model Polestar 3 will be launched next year, which is expected to be put into production in China and the United States." The sales target, Polestar will expand to 30 global markets in 2023, and sales will reach 290,000 units in 2025. ”

However, compared with Polestar's optimism, some people in the industry have doubts about its current valuation and whether its future goals can be achieved.

According to the company profile displayed by Tianyancha, Polar star's positioning in China is an automobile and spare parts wholesaler, which belongs to the wholesale industry, and does not include new energy, intelligent driving and other related technologies in the business category, and the valuation imagination of intelligence does not seem to be high.

Some insiders told Tan Qing that AI said, "Although Polarstar will launch a number of models in the next three years, it is quite difficult to increase annual sales to 290,000 vehicles in three years." If Polestar 3 continues to grow as it is, it will be difficult to attract more capital attention even if it is successfully listed. ”

It is worth noting that Polestar officially announced that Polestar 3 will be listed in North America in the first quarter of 2023. The reason why it is not listed in the domestic market for the time being, the official did not explain the reason, but perhaps it is not difficult for us to guess that under the competition of new domestic forces, it is really difficult for polar stars to go out of the circle, it is better to go to the US market first to "gild".

However, the domestic new energy market is already in saturated competition, new and old forces are aiming at the luxury car market, waiting for the pole star to return to China, is there still room? Whether users can still favor the nascent foreign brand may be unknown.