The average monthly insurance number is less than 400 vehicles, Gaohe car to "put down the body" impulse?

Image source: Du Ge

"Brand upward" is becoming the mainstream of the development of new energy vehicle brands, but in the face of less than ideal sales, the representative of the new high-end brand "Gaohe Automobile" has the idea of exploring downward.

Data show that in 2022, the first flagship model of Gaohe Automobile, HiPhi X, priced at 570,000 yuan ~ 800,000 yuan, will have 4,349 vehicles. On average, the number of insured vehicles per month is less than 400.

Whether this performance is good or bad, we can get a glimpse of the official attitude of Gaohe Automobile. Under normal circumstances, new forces with good results will publish sales data on the first day of each month, and attract attention with high sales and high rankings. However, since July last year, when it obtained the insurance number of 526 terminal vehicles in the terminal market, saying that it "once again won the sales champion of the luxury electric vehicle market of more than 500,000 yuan", the official WeChat public account of Gaohe Auto has not mentioned sales and ranking.

It is reported that Gaohe will launch a five-seat SUV in the second quarter of this year, priced at 400,000 yuan ~ 500,000 yuan, which is the lowest price car at present. Is this ready to put down the body impulse? However, at present, the competition in the electric vehicle market of 300,000 yuan ~ 500,000 yuan is more fierce, without the determiner of "more than 500,000", how can Gaohe Auto continue to tell the story?

The pin crown under the determiner

When the new forces of car manufacturing are still fighting in the high-end market, Gaohe Auto is packaged as the "ceiling" of luxury electric vehicles, and this has a lot to do with its founder Ding Lei.

Ding Lei comes from a traditional car company and has served as vice president of SAIC Motor and general manager of Shanghai General Motors; From August 2013 to July 2015, Ding Lei also served as the deputy mayor of Shanghai Pudong New Area, leading the introduction of Tesla projects; In 2015, Lei Ding joined LeEco as Vice Chairman of LeEco Super Cars and CEO of China and Asia Pacific.

At that time, Jia Yueting posted on Weibo that Ding Lei was "a leader in the automotive industry, with rich cross-border experience in automobiles, high-tech parks and government departments, and will lead the global team of Super Auto to realize the dream of China's automobile power in the upcoming Internet electric vehicle ecological era."

Unexpectedly, later LeEco had a crisis, and Ding Lei also left Jia Yueting to "set up his own portal" and founded Huaren Express Holdings Co., Ltd. in 2017 and began his own road of car building.

Two years later, Huaren released HiPhi, a luxury smart pure electric brand. In September 2020, the first model, HiPhi X, was released, priced at 570,000 yuan ~ 800,000 yuan, and was mass-produced and delivered in May of the following year; In November 2021, the second model, HiPhi Z, was released, priced at CNY 600,000~CNY 800,000, and the first production car officially rolled off the production line on December 21 last year, and delivery is expected to be completed in January this year.

Perhaps influenced by Jia Yueting, Ding Lei's HiPhi X has many similarities with FF 91. From the exterior to the central control design, interior layout, both are very similar, and even have a "tacit understanding" in the small details of canceling the door handle sensor switch.

At the HiPhi X press conference, Ding Lei said that Gaohe is a future-oriented model and is full of confidence in market performance, "We want to create an epoch-making smart electric vehicle, Tesla Model X compared with our car, no matter from design, shape, materials, workmanship, and then configuration level, everyone can compare, not one point or two."

However, from the actual sales point of view, HiPhi X and Tesla are not one or two points behind. According to Gaohe Automobile's data, the company's cumulative sales volume in 2021 was 4,237 units. According to the above insurance statistics, Gaohe HiPhi X will sell a total of 4,349 vehicles in 2022.

As a result, the stubborn Gaohe Automobile pulled out a luxury electric vehicle sales list of more than 500,000 yuan, and has been emphasizing that it is the "sales champion of luxury brand electric vehicles above 500,000 yuan". Therefore, many netizens on the Internet ridicule Gao He as the "king of determiners", saying that as long as he adds enough qualifiers in front, he will definitely be able to rank first.

Even if it is the champion of luxury brand electric vehicle sales of more than 500,000 yuan, it still cannot support the prospects of Gaohe Automobile. Ding Lei once said, "The number of automotive products of more than 500,000 yuan in the Chinese market is about 1.2 million units, and if 30% of them are converted to electric, it will be close to 400,000 units." If 10% of users buy HiPhi X, more than 2,000 units will be sold per month. ”

At present, the average monthly sales of HiPhi X are about 362 vehicles, which is far from the figure of 2,000 vehicles.

Positioning begins to probe down

The reason why Gaohe Auto has not attracted many people to pay is mainly because its brand recognition and technical support are not enough under the high price.

In the field of new energy vehicles, it mainly competes with the comprehensive product capabilities of software and hardware technology, intelligent systems and services of car companies, and although Gaohe Auto has played a "sense of future technology", the technology displayed has always been questioned.

After the delivery of HiPhi X, some owners complained that there was no rear entertainment system, lidar could not be upgraded, computing power and chips may be outdated, B-pillar did not have a side-view camera, the car system was monotonous and stuttered, and the map display screen and voice control were not easy to use.

In July 2022, a collective rights protection incident broke out for car owners. The owners believe that the HiPhi X has false claims, claiming to use semi-aniline upholstery, but except for the semi-aniline leather for the seats, the center console and door panels are made of artificial leather; The actual battery power is 94.3 degrees, which is lower than the advertised 97 degrees; the audio advertised HiPhi X is "Meridian British Treasure brand audio", but it actually uses domestic speakers.

Later, although Gaohe Auto reconciled with the owner, its high-end brand image was also damaged. Even in the eyes of many people, Gaohe's sense of luxury is achieved by stacking materials, and there is no core competitiveness.

In addition, the market also has doubts about the capital of Gaohe Automobile, worried about whether its money bag can support the subsequent high-end road.

Ding Lei once made it clear that "Huaren has original capital from the United States, as well as government investment, and there is no plan to start social private placement for the time being, and there will be no rounds of investment A, B, C, and D." ”

Up to now, the only financing news disclosed by Gaohe Auto is that in November 2021, Huaren reached a strategic cooperation with Bank of Communications Shanghai Branch and obtained an intentional credit of RMB 5 billion, but it is still unknown whether the funds will be received.

More importantly, Gaohe Auto's sales cannot support the demand for profitability. In 2022, 4,349 units will be sold, which will only bring 3.479 billion yuan in sales at a price of 800,000 yuan per vehicle, while NIO, Xiaopeng, and Ideal have revenues of tens of billions, and have not yet got rid of the pressure of losses, and Gaohe Auto's financial situation is difficult to be optimistic.

The luxury model could not be sold, and Gaohe Auto began to plan a "downward look". According to the latest media reports, Gaohe Auto will launch a five-seat SUV in the second quarter of this year, priced at 400,000 yuan ~ 500,000 yuan. This is Gaohe's third production car, and it is also the lowest price car at present.

Obviously, Ding Lei's approach is to first establish a high-end brand image through luxury models, and then layout other markets for volume. Ding Lei once said that Gaohe will gradually penetrate the 300,000 yuan ~ 500,000 yuan market after the second flagship model HiPhi Z, and can increase sales, aiming for more than 10,000 units per month.

How fierce the market competition of 300,000 yuan ~ 500,000 yuan is, as we all know, brands such as Qianjie, Ideal, Extreme Krypton, NIO and other brands continue to launch new models to seize the market, how can Gaohe Auto achieve the goal of monthly sales of more than 10,000 vehicles on the current basis?

Author | Chen Xiangyu

Source | Car Visibility

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