Text | Joey
The day before yesterday, Chery's two micro-electric vehicles, Chery QQ Ice Cream, Tao Huanxi & Little Ant Charm, two new car versions, were officially announced. The prices are 47520 yuan - 57520 yuan, and 85520 yuan - 91520 yuan.
In the afternoon before the launch of the conference, I put the information that the launch of these two cars will be held together with the launch of a music reality show in my circle of friends. In fact, this was originally a situation of commercial encouragement and casual forwarding, but it attracted a friend who did not say the car for thousands of years to leave a message: "Chery's micro-electric vehicle began to take the correct route of selling cuteness, but it is a pity that it is a little late." ”
A short sentence actually throws out two points of view. First, the cute and trendy route of mini cars has become the right way to build brand products, and the market accepts such a way; Second, many brands have long been on this path.
So, the question now is: in 2022, do you still want to buy Chery's micro-electric vehicle? What kind of task does Chery's micro-electric vehicle road shoulder?
The mini car market can not miss Chery
Probably 6 or 7 years ago, micro-electric vehicles seemed to be at the bottom of the chain of electric vehicle contempt. The reason is very simple, in that country to manufacture, produce micro-electric vehicles to encourage, support, subsidies in the period of time, the manufacture of micro, low-speed electric vehicles do not need to pay too much attention to market demand, as long as they are built, you can make money; If it cannot be sold, it can be sold to the B-end for commercial purposes and become an operating vehicle.
But today, just a few years later, that has changed. Starting from Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, the micro-electric vehicle has finally found the right posture to cut into the market and cut into people's needs for short-distance cars. Obviously, this is a good way to counteract electric anxiety in reverse operation.
After that, we have all seen, leaving aside saic-GM-Wuling and Baojun, which have already entered the game and sold well, zero running outside, and now Changan and Chery have also begun to join the competition for this market segment. But if you must pay more attention to anyone, then Chery must enter this circle.
The reason is no more, just because Chery was the first company to enter the Chinese mini car track.
19 years ago, in 2003, Chery launched what can be called a classic QQ model. To tell the truth, QQ, even in the eyes of that year, is still a relatively simple workmanship, small model space, not enough power, and simple configuration. However, it is impossible to build a hero at the right time and launch the right product at the right point in time, which can simply achieve the effect of the starting line and the finish line.
Just three years after the launch of QQ, the annual sales exceeded 150,000 vehicles, and eight years later, in 2011, the overall sales exceeded 1 million vehicles, and even a large number of exports were exported overseas. QQ's low price satisfied the desire of Chinese family users at that time to have the first car with the least cost.
If you say that today's Chery QQ ice cream and small ants, take the route of tide. Then, at that time, Chery QQ, which made ordinary people realize the dream of having a car of their own, was obviously at the forefront of the trend. This trend is not a fashion trend, but a real trend of the times.
At the same time, another trend about the times is that QQ is not only driven by its own popularity, but also a bunch of domestic car brands, in the face of the strong occupation of the market by joint venture car companies at that time, to seek a good path for themselves to survive: avoid strong products, quietly "obscene" development.
Therefore, you will find that such as Chang'an's running, Geely's panda, BYD's F0, etc., can not sell much money, but can lay the amount, can produce market impression of the product, gradually launched, and left their own name in the torrent of the times.
But now the question is, times have changed, do we still need Chery's QQ and small ants?
Make up the car scene and win more markets
The answer should be yes, since Wuling Hongguang MINIEV can sell 400,000 units a year, indicating that the demand potential of the entire market for this kind of car is huge. And such a continuous growth of the market, obviously will not be a brand, a product monopoly.
On the one hand, such a demand stems from the changes in the product structure of family cars in recent years, and the continuous pursuit of large and long Chinese car aesthetics in the past has changed with the replacement of consumers. Long and large may be the points that the first family car needs to meet, but the second car may need to have a completely contrasting point to supplement.
Good to open and stop, short endurance but fast charging, no need to run long distances, and no need for multi-person large space riding scene. Just to meet the need to go out and buy a dish, obviously there is really no need for a big car to achieve it. Such a demand has become the best stage for QQ ice cream with a battery life of only 170km and a configuration that is only enough to meet daily use.
At the same time, more products are squeezing into this market, which also makes "rolls" inevitable. More battery life is needed, and on the basis of simple to simple product features, we need to further improve the quality, so that the car use scene can be further extended to farther places, more intelligent fields, and more intelligent eras.
These needs have spawned models such as small ants, with larger screens (10.4 inches), longer endurance (about 300km), and richer configurations (such as more 360-degree panoramic images, blind spot monitoring, etc.). For Chery, such a cascade product is equipped to ensure that it has more angles to enter the market, hoping that there will always be one and become a hit.
In fact, it is not only Chery that wants to do this, including Baojun's KiWi EV, in fact, it is also taking such a differentiated route. Together, they have to challenge Euler's turf, which has begun to get better and better, and the market attention and sales continue to increase.
If from the beginning, Chery may want to play a differentiated product configuration, no matter who is fired, it is a double insurance strategy that wins the battle. Then, from the perspective of market sales, it seems that the "double insurance" is insured.
In the past May, the monthly sales of QQ Ice Cream and Little Ant reached 9,243 and 9,084 vehicles, respectively. For Chery, this is undoubtedly a more exciting news. Chery was not affected during the brief decline in car sales caused by the epidemic in May and the difficult period of stagnant supply chain. This shows that the market for QQ ice cream and small ants is not limited to large cities, more third- and fourth-tier, and even fifth-tier cities can become the main market for these two cars, which has won enough vitality for themselves.
At the same time, Chery, which has always paid attention to its own technology construction and system construction, can also be limited to a large extent by the adjustment and change of the overall market environment. After all, these relatively simple cars may use fewer spare parts and components, and thus involve fewer links in the supply chain. In the overall environment of lack of parts, it can also produce efficiently to enhance its competitiveness.
Of course, Chery's micro-electric vehicles have more brand strategic considerations.
What are the reasons for engaging in micro-electric vehicles?
To tell the truth, QQ is no longer the QQ of that year, which means that the market pattern of the entire domestic car brand has been completely different from the time when QQ was hot. The joint venture brand cars that used to squeeze the domestic car have entered the most difficult moment of survival.
The brand awareness of China's younger generation of consumers has been significantly different from the past. This is manifested in the fact that many people want to choose BBA in their first car, but they will not reject Wei Xiaoli at all; Nezha as long as the car is cheap enough, the configuration is rich enough, the same can achieve good results; BYD has the pursuit of Di fans, and can also have a market value of more than one trillion; Geely, on the other hand, is an acquisition, a cooperation, and can also send satellites. Such a change in the market pattern makes Chery, which has always believed in hard work, seem to look a little lonely.
But it seems that it is only because of the polytechnic man's low profile that you don't pay more attention to and take a closer look at his current situation. For example, the Xingtu brand that has broken through to the high-end level, the Jietu brand that has broken through to more outdoor application scenarios, and chery's own models such as Tiggo 8, which has always had a good market share, have all grown steadily. This growth is a record high of 962,000 units sold in all of 2021 (269,000 of which were exported overseas).
More importantly, Chery did not target only the order of 1 million, but hoped to set the target at the order of 2 million in 2022. In order to achieve a breakthrough through existing products, micro-electric vehicles have become an important breakthrough. After all, as long as it can be copied, even if it is just to follow the routine of Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, these two cars will not be bad in terms of sales quantity.
In fact, such a trend has been around since last year. In 2021, Chery Group's total sales of new energy vehicles were about 109,000 units, an increase of 144.6% year-on-year. After QQ ice cream began to be blindly ordered in July last year, it sold 70,000 orders in six months, which can be said to have completely exceeded the market's expectations.
Therefore, there is a new KPI declared by Chery that "in 2022, Chery QQ Ice Cream will work with Chery Ant to achieve an annual sales target of 300,000 vehicles"; Therefore, there is a QQ ice cream peach joy & small ant charm, these two new car versions appeared, hoping to add a fire to the annual sales of the desire.
To put it simply, Chery, which seems to be obscure, has been advancing their product layout step by step. The technical controller who originally developed the "three major parts" of the car in the "thatched house" is now more and more aware of good technology, which needs to match the needs of the scene and match the changes in the market.
And letting QQ ice cream and small ants embark on the road of fashion is obviously another progress of Chery. It means that after taking the two steps of doing a good job in products and studying the changes in rational market demand, they have taken a new step of research and catering to the emotional needs of the market.
Of course, we can't ask a straight man to become a fashionista when he debuts, because the change in temperament is not achieved overnight, but as long as this step is taken, perhaps such a visible change should be achieved faster.