By Harry Zhang
As a high-end electric vehicle brand under Changan, Avita has carried the heavy responsibility of Changan's new round of brand upwards. In today's fiercely competitive domestic smart electric vehicle market, does the Avita model have a good chance of winning?
On April 28, Avita announced that its new round of valuation reached 6.26 billion yuan, compared with the valuation of 788.2 million yuan when it launched its first capital increase and share expansion in November last year, achieving a rapid growth rate of nearly seven times. The sharp increase in valuation in this round is not only due to the inclusion of the capital of 2.42 billion yuan in the first round of strategic financing, but also from the good news that Avita's first new car, 11, has been rolled off the production line and is about to be listed and delivered.
Such achievements are gratifying. But what will happen to the sales of Avita 11 after it goes on sale? How did Avita develop in its later period? It remains to be tested by the market.
From the network
Stop loss Changan Weilai in time, the last straw for Avita to enter the high-end market
For a long time, independent brands have always won through cost performance. Stack more configurations, but the price doesn't increase with it. The lower gross profit margin of products has become a roadblock to the continuous growth of independent brands.
Therefore, the brand upward is the long-term desire of Changan Automobile and other independent brands, and this wish has seen the possibility of realization in the era of intelligent electric vehicles. In addition to Changan Avita, Geely Extreme Kr, SAIC Zhiji, Great Wall Salon and BYD's high-end off-road vehicle brands that have not yet appeared, traditional car companies have also set off a new round of brand upward waves in the past one or two years.
But in fact, whether it is Changan's own brand or Changan's single new energy brand - Chang'an Deep Blue, there is no way to help Changan go further and achieve brand upwards.
At the level of technical reserves, Changan is far from reaching the point where it can reach the leading level of the market; in terms of brand appeal, Changan's own brand itself does not have the experience and ability to rank among the high-end markets, and it is difficult to get the recognition of the market in a short period of time by simply launching a new brand; the most critical thing is that at the capital level, Changan is difficult to afford the development and operation of a high-end electric vehicle brand with the profits of existing vehicle sales.
At the earliest, Changan once joined hands with Niolai, hoping to use the power of Nio to achieve the layout of high-end electric vehicle brands. However, at that time, Weilai had just grown up, its own capital chain was insufficient and various resource reserves were not deep, and even once on the verge of bankruptcy. In this case, the joint venture company of Changan Weilai eventually ended in vain.
In May 2011, Changan Automobile decided to make adjustments: it renamed the company Avita Technology and introduced CHN, an intelligent electric vehicle platform under the Avita brand, jointly built by Huawei and CATL.
Huawei and CATL are well-known companies in the industry with deep achievements in intelligent networking/autonomous driving and batteries respectively. From Changan's point of view, although it has transferred a part of its equity, it can help Changan bring significant benefits, and Huawei and Ningde Times are also interested in cutting into the vehicle manufacturing link and gaining a greater right to speak in the industry. Therefore, Chang'an joined hands with Huawei and the Ningde era, which is a natural thing.
From the network
The advantages of the product strength level are likely to become a burden
In terms of product strength, Avita 11 aims at the leading level of the industry:
It will be the industry's first high-end SEV brand with Huawei's HI (Huawei Inside) full-stack intelligent car solution standard, and will deploy a new generation of CTP ternary lithium battery pack in the CATL era, with a maximum cruising range of more than 700km. In terms of energy replenishment, Avita 11 will also introduce a 750V high-voltage charging system; in terms of automatic driving, it will also be equipped with 3 lidars, 6 millimeter wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars, 13 cameras, and 400Tops high-computing hardware platform, aiming directly at high-end intelligent driving facing the complex road conditions in urban areas.
From the network
In the early days of Avita's listing, it was natural to use Huawei and the Ningde era to shout for its own platform. Without these two domestically recognized technology masters as Avita platforms, changan's own appeal alone, in fact, it is difficult to open the situation in the domestic intelligent electric vehicle market with many masters.
The input of these two companies in autonomous driving and battery packs is even more crucial for the young brand Avita. But we have to say that if Avita only relies on the input of these two suppliers and ignores the continuous optimization and update of the later stage, then these early advantages are likely to become the burden of the later stage. Because Avita is likely to be unable to get the essentials of the underlying technology, it is difficult to upgrade the relevant technology by its own ability.
From the network
First of all, Huawei's ambition to build cars has long been known. Although Huawei claims not to build cars, if you talk about the current AITO M5, everyone knows that this is a Huawei car. Outside of Avita and Q&C, BAIC Polar Fox, GAC AE AND, and other brands are likely to choose Huawei's HI system. Previously, it was rumored that Volkswagen wanted to acquire Huawei's autonomous driving division or establish a joint venture with Huawei's autonomous driving division. In this case, Avita 11's autonomous driving is scarce.
As for catheter era, as a battery company with a market share of more than 50% in China, Avita's investment is only one of its many investment options. CATL not only supplies most of the domestic car companies, but also has invested in a number of car companies, including Byton, Nezha and Avita.
That is to say, unlike Chang'an's full commitment to Avita, Huawei and the Ningde era still have many options.
From the network
Self-developed core technology is an indispensable and important part of the brand's upward mobility
Tesla and BYD, which currently lead in market value and sales, have their own core intellectual property rights in the underlying core technology. Tesla needless to say, from batteries to automatic driving, from chips to supercomputers, Tesla has a lot of gains. BYD has strong self-research capabilities in batteries and chips, and is not constrained by suppliers. Even Wei Xiaoli has a lot of competitiveness in driving assistance/autonomous driving.
Traditional vehicle companies have not made much achievements in the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market, in fact, in the end, they still use the previous vehicle integration thinking to build cars. Although they want to, it is difficult to achieve many breakthroughs in the underlying technology in a short period of time. So we see many traditional car companies' electric vehicles, the first impression is that there are not too many highlights, and the homogenization of products is very serious.
That is to say, although the technology of ningde era and Huawei integrated by Changan or Avita may have a certain first-mover advantage, as other vehicle companies are about to adopt the same technology, it will mean that Avita's first-mover advantage no longer exists. At that time, Avita will need to put a big question mark on what is the basis of what is in the domestic smart electric vehicle market.
From the network
If Avita wants to succeed, it also needs to take advantage of the advantages of shareholders, stand on the shoulders of shareholders, and accelerate the pace of self-research. Huawei's HI system and the CTP ternary lithium battery pack in the Ningde era look very beautiful, but after all, they are all other people's products to help Avita shorten the gap with market-leading technology.
Therefore, how Avita can create a technology with stronger product strength based on these advanced technologies through secondary development is a relatively big challenge for Avita and even the whole of Chang'an. For the breakthrough of the underlying core technology, it is necessary to establish a large and experienced R & D team, and at the same time be able to continuously invest a lot of money in innovative research and development.
For Avita and Chang'an, this challenge is not small. Nowadays, Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford and other global car giants, often invest tens of billions of dollars in huge investment, to achieve the full control of core underlying technologies such as batteries, automatic driving, intelligent networking.
epilogue
Brand upliftment is never a one-time thing. Only with enough product power as the basis can we support the continuous upward trend of brand power.
This applies to Avita as well as to all other self-owned brands that are seeking to become high-end. And this product power is not simply introduced from the supplier, but also needs to be obtained through their own painful process of research and development. For Avita, this is the only chance to gain a firm foothold in the highly competitive domestic high-end intelligent electric vehicle market in the future. Otherwise, any car brand that pulls a well-known supplier in the industry to set up a joint venture company can achieve brand upwards, and then the high-end brand in this market will not be able to turn Avita!