Regarding the diverse world of opening pickups, Geely has been looking for a focus on the dilapidated and new, and now, there seems to be signs of anchoring.
A few days ago, some media reported that Geely's new brand RADAR will be released in the near future, or a high-end new energy pickup brand previously planned. According to the information on the registered trademark of Qichacha, the date of the RADAR trademark application is April 20, 2022, which is classified as a means of transport and owned by Geely Holding Group.
In fact, Geely Automobile's layout for pickup truck business can be traced back to 2014, when Geely Commercial Vehicle Group was formally established, and covers heavy trucks, light trucks, small micro trucks, LCVs, buses and other model series. However, compared with the Great Wall, which already occupies half of the domestic pickup truck market, Geely's voice and attention in this market are not much.
For example, the remote FX launched by Geely Commercial Vehicles before, although the positioning is higher than that of traditional tool pickups, the body based on Boyue Lapi is more constrained in both posture and practicality. It can not compete with Jiangling, Great Wall, Zhengzhou Nissan, who have been entrenched in the commercial pickup truck market for many years, and does not have the strength to confront new cross-border pickup trucks such as Great Wall Cannon, Jiangling Yuhu 9, and Changan Kaicheng, and it is difficult to compete with domestic mainstream pickup truck products such as Great Wall Cannon in terms of product strength and brand power.
And the awkward product positioning has also led to poor market performance. According to statistics, the monthly sales of only 26 vehicles in February 2021 were not even released in the following months. If you look at the product from the market side, it is obvious that the remote FX is of greater significance, and it does not have the strength to compete with the industry hegemony.
In other words, the high-end new energy brand RADAR is Geely's shovel to dig deep into the domestic pickup truck market.
First of all, on the market demand side, with the gradual lifting of the ban on pickup trucks into the city policy across the country, the current attention and market potential of pickup truck models have shown a positive side.
According to the "Research on the Development Trend and Policy Suggestions of the Pickup Truck Industry" jointly completed by the China Automobile Association and the State Information Center, the domestic pickup truck market demand will reach more than 1 million by 2030 (the total sales of pickup trucks in 2021 will be 550,000 units), and nearly half of the market potential can be tapped.
Secondly, under the trend of pickup trucks gradually upgrading from "business to ride" and from "niche market" to "mass market", the vast majority of consumers currently regard pickup trucks as their outdoor travel and off-road life expansion space, therefore, play attributes and multi-scenario functions have become the standard product elements of today's pickup truck models, intelligent, passenger, high-end consumption trends, but also for the arrival of RADAR to lay a good market foundation and cultivation.
If you pay close attention, there are actually clues about driving to high-end.
As early as November 2021, it was reported that Geely Holdings had spun off its pickup business from the commercial vehicle group and planned to build a high-end new energy brand, and the first model was expected to be launched in 2022.
On November 3 and November 4, 2021, Geely Pickup Automobile Sales/Components (Shandong) Co., Ltd. was established successively, registered in Zichuan District Economic Development Zone, Zibo City, Shandong Province, and the shareholders of both companies are Hangzhou Geely Automobile Research and Development Co., Ltd. The former business scope includes automobile new car sales, new energy vehicle sales, etc., and the latter business scope includes auto parts and accessories manufacturing and auto parts wholesale, retail, research and development and other businesses.
Subsequently, on November 17, a "2022 Geely Pickup Truck Full Case Agency Project Bidding" was announced on the official bidding platform of Geely Automobile, which showed that at present, Geely has set up an independent pickup truck company to create high-end new energy pickup trucks, and it is necessary to introduce excellent full-case strategies, media strategies and creative advertising agencies, and this official bidding announcement also confirms the rumors of high-end new energy pickup projects.
Coincidentally, in April this year, the official Gili Pickup truck officially registered an account called "Boundless 2 Square Meters" and published its first article "Your Freedom, Taken Away by What?" on May 5. 》。 From the content of the article, it can be roughly speculated that the audience portrait of the pickup truck model pursues outdoor life more, and the sentence at the end of the article", "unload the burden and open the seal of life", also reflects the petty bourgeois mood and liberal side of the brand.
Of course, from the new account name, can we boldly guess that the Chinese name of the RADAR brand is called "Boundless"?