The people's Wuling is being abandoned by the people

Produced 丨Tiger Sniff Car Group

Author 丨 thoughtful

Editor丨Zhang Bowen

Head picture丨Wuling Motors

Wuling, once widely supported by the people, is being abandoned by the people at an accelerated pace. The direct argument supporting this judgment is that Wuling's two divine cars have been muted this year.

In terms of fuel vehicles, the sales of Seris の National Vehicle, the "generation of divine car" Wuling Hongguang, was only 10,482 units in January this year, down 59.8% from last year, and was cut to the root of the thigh. Wuling Capgemini, which was once blown up by some self-media and disassembled the second row of independent seats into office chairs for separate sale, sold only 957 vehicles, 42 more than the Mercedes-Benz V-class.

In terms of electric vehicles, the Hongguang MINI EV fell to 16,416 units in January this year, a year-on-year decrease of 38.5%. According to the forecast of wholesale sales of new energy vehicles in February disclosed by the Passenger Association, SAIC-GM-Wuling's sales of all new energy vehicles in February may only be more than 10,000 units.

Obviously, Wuling, which has done a stormy job in marketing, has had a hard time in the past month or even nearly a year. Wuling, who "serves the people wholeheartedly," is obviously not welcomed by the people.

The people's Wuling, stalled

Since January this year coincided with the Spring Festival holiday, the Chinese people who had suffered magic for three years wanted to go home to see it, so the delivery of the car was in a "lying flat" state for two weeks. That is to say, comparing the sales volume in January this year with the same period last year is always somewhat unobjective. But if we compare Wuling's sales volume in 2022 with the previous year, we will find that compared with other independent brands, the company's performance can be described as crisis-ridden.

In terms of the overall auto market, Wuling's sales in 2022 fell by 18.7% compared with 2021, falling from nearly 1 million units in the previous year to 788267 units. In the subdivision of new energy vehicles, although Wuling still held the second position in the country, the annual growth rate was only 2.5%. Compared with BYD, Geely, Changan and Aian, which have achieved more than three-digit percentage growth at every turn, their own brands are insufficient.

What's more, Tesla, which ranks third, has reached about 439,700 vehicles in annual sales, only less than 3,000 vehicles lower than Wuling.

However, the price of a Tesla car, how many Hongguang MINI EVs can you buy?

In fact, the sales trend of the Hongguang MINI EV has been declining since it exceeded 410,000 units in October last year. One month later, its sales fell by nearly 10,000 units. After a slight climb in December, the Hongguang MINI EV hit rock bottom in January this year.

The reason is that the mini vehicle market has long passed the era when Wuling was alone. Seeing the outbreak of other independent brands in the micro electric vehicle market, mature models have entered one after another. Chang'an's Lumin waxy corn, Chery QQ ice cream, although neither monthly sales nor price is enough to stand on the same echelon as Hongguang MINI EV, but its own existence is enough to share a piece of the latter's cake.

More importantly, Wuling launched several models after the big sale of the Hongguang MINI EV, and the sales of several models have all fallen into a tepid situation. The company's KIWI EV, which is placed under the Baojun brand, is an example.

This size is even smaller than the MINI EV, which also belongs to the mini electric car, which can be described as a hardcover upgrade of the latter. The Kiwi EV has twice the cruising range compared to the MINI EV, high-power fast charging, airbags as standard for the main and co-pilots, a reversing camera, and a full range of LCD instruments.

In addition, in terms of interior texture, intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving, the KIWI EV, which was only launched in August 2021, deserves the honorific title of "dad" from MINI EV. In order to improve the former's technical capabilities, Wuling even cooperated with DJI to launch the first KIWI EV DJI version equipped with the Lingxi intelligent driving system. On this car, Huawei HI Car models have memory parking, traffic light recognition and other functions, all of which are standard. It can be said that this is already the ultimate form of domestic micro-electric vehicles, and it has properly entered the threshold of intelligent electric vehicles.

However, the car sold only 482 units in January this year, which is less than the Cadillac Ruige, which sold nearly four times its price. Obviously, for the people, this smart electric car with a minimum guidance price of 77,800 yuan and a DJI version guidance price of 102,800 yuan is not worth buying.

If I let the author make a more cruel definition, it is that the people do not feel that the brand "Wuling" is worth 100,000 yuan.

People, it's too hard to serve

In fact, the brand of Wuling has been the object of ridicule by many people in China for a long time. The reason is that the "Wuling Light" car, which has the strongest sense of existence, is in the position of "means of production" in lower-tier cities and even the vast rural areas of China.

To put it bluntly, who cares about whether the donkey pulled by their family took a bath today? Therefore, in all kinds of hell scenes, we can see the owners playing Wuling to fly.

Can go off-road, can drift, can go into Tibet... These are the labels that used to be on the "god car"

In fact, Wuling didn't care much about this car in the past. In fact, to this day, Wuling Light is a full-range manual transmission model without airbags. In addition to the ABS anti-lock braking system, the only safety configuration on this car is the seat belt. And this is also a story that is talked about by Chinese car enthusiasts.

No matter which car company, they don't want to equate their brand with their best-selling and cheapest cars. Therefore, for the matter of brand upwardness, Wuling has not worried less in the past two years. Especially from the outbreak of the global new crown epidemic in 2020, Wuling announced that it would deploy some production lines and workers to produce masks that were urgently needed at that time. At a time when people across the country are working from home, Wuling in Liuzhou also launched its own snail powder in a timely manner to help the people's home environment improve.

As a joint venture brand (yes, it is called SAIC-GM-Wuling, with a US background), Wuling has obviously fulfilled its social responsibility. And from this point on, "what the people need, Wuling will build" has become a slogan that resounded throughout the country.

Even in 2020, when the national authorities advocated the stall economy, Wuling also quickly responded to the launch of special vehicles for stalls

Around the national car of Hongguang MINI EV, Wuling has also planned a large number of brand and user activities. For this electric car, which costs only 30,000 yuan, the majority of owners have shown their powers, carried out various decorations and even modifications for it, and demonstrated the combat effectiveness far beyond its pricing.

However, although these communications and activities are out of the loop, they do not have much effect on Wuling's brand upward in essence. Because as the core carrier of its dissemination, it is still a low-priced car such as Hongguang MINI EV and Rongguang priced below 50,000 yuan. What's more, such low-cost cars are always unsatisfactory in terms of quality, especially the Hongguang MINI EV, which can be called the "skirting board" of electric vehicles.

On the product complaint page of the vehicle quality network, Hongguang MINI EV only in the first two months of 2023, there were 15 complaints, all of which were product quality rather than service problems. Among them, the steering system and suspension system are the areas with a high incidence of complaints.

In extreme conditions, the car's performance is even more unsatisfactory. After the high-speed collision test between the Hongguang MINI EV and the "Old Man Le" low-speed electric vehicle planned by Chedi in May 2021, although the former's battery pack system remained intact, the entire body was damaged as "on the verge of collapse". Among them, the A-pillar has large deformation, the longitudinal beam is dewelded, and the floor has folds. At that time, the program group came to the conclusion that although this car can pass the national standard, the national standard collides with stationary objects. In other words, there is no problem with the Hongguang MINI EV "colliding with itself", but once it encounters a larger quality car, it is dangerous.

You know, a four-wheeled vehicle on the street that is smaller than the Hongguang MINI EV may be left with the old man's pleasure.

In the final analysis, the cost control of low-cost cars, especially low-cost electric vehicles, has reached the point where the baht must be compared. After a disassembly of the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, a professor at Nagoya University in Japan, he found that the total parts + assembly cost of this car totaled 480,000 yen, about 26,900 yuan. You know, the starting price of this car is only 29,800 yuan.

In his view, in order to save costs, Wuling equipped the Hongguang MINI EV with a large number of domestic ordinary commercial-grade non-automotive-grade components, including chargers, inverters, chips, bearings, etc. It is undeniable that these parts do have a short life and high failure rate, but Wuling can quickly replace these low-cost electronic component modules. The direct consequence of this measure is that the car is really unsatisfactory at the level of failure rate.

This poor impression of the quality of the Hongguang MINI EV extends directly to other Wuling models. Although the higher-priced Xingchen, Capgemini and other models are much more reliable, their sales are still not satisfactory.

Especially on the Star listed last year, Wuling equipped it with its first mass-produced hybrid system, and the top-equipped model was only 109,800 yuan. However, except for a brief surge of more than 8,000 units in December last year, its monthly sales basically hovered below 6,000 units. In contrast, BYD Yuan PLUS, which is smaller in size and more expensive, has not sold less than 10,000 vehicles per month in the past six months.

Obviously, even if people spend a little more, they are willing to buy a car with a harder brand and a more reliable look.

The people should not be alienated

An entrepreneur who has been engaged in car sales research for many years told me that people with a car purchase budget of less than 150,000 yuan have no loyalty to the brand. "The discount of 5,000 yuan is enough for everyone to change the door." If the budget is put below 100,000 yuan, then this preferential price will be lower for the trigger point for consumers' purchase willingness to change.

More importantly, with the advent of the era of new energy vehicles, consumers pay much more attention to "safety" than fuel vehicles. After all, at a time when rumors of electric cars "burning" and "exploding" are endless, no one wants to buy a time bomb to go home. Therefore, whether a car brand is linked to safety has also become a reference for consumers to buy.

Therefore, if Wuling wants to work hard to a higher-end market segment on the basis of its own price range of 50,000 yuan, the two things of cost performance and safety are essential.

However, this is not easy. After all, to achieve both goals, more adequate cost per vehicle is required. After all, price, configuration and safety, these three things are difficult to combine in one car. Only by establishing successful products in higher-level markets can an automotive brand gain user recognition and enhance its brand value.

BYD's successful case is worth Wuling's reference. For a long time before, BYD was known for being "cheap" in the Chinese auto market. Until the birth of BYD Han, it changed the user's inherent impression. For no other reason, Chinese car brands have never been successful in the B-class market. Whether it is Geely Borui or Hongqi H9, everyone's efforts have not been recognized by the market. However, through its recreated appearance and excellent configuration, BYD Han has steadily maintained a monthly sales of more than 10,000 vehicles after its launch, and will even exceed 30,000 vehicles in some months.

Although there are some orders for ride-hailing, its ability to press the Accord and Camry from time to time has fully proved Han's strength. And it is precisely because of the big sale of this car that BYD has established its own king position in the new energy vehicle market. By the way, the lower-priced Qin, Song and Yuan series models began to top the top position in the new energy vehicle and even the overall Chinese auto market.

However, where exactly is the "Han" belonging to Wuling? In the foreseeable future, it seems that the author has not yet seen it. On the one hand, Wuling, which was "crushed" by the two major shareholders of SAIC and GM, could not cut into the prohibition of the two "parents" in terms of product level and price. On the other hand, this company, which is still intoxicated by the self-positioning of "People's Wuling", seems to limit the needs of the people to the market segment of 4-wheel electric cars.

No, Wuling's recently released new car "Binguo" is still the style of the Hongguang MINI EV plus elongated version.

It's like, "the masses of the people", only with toys.

Written at the end:

Even if the author is not optimistic about the future of Wuling, this does not mean that the Wuling brand will fall into rapid decline. For no other reason, the price range of the company's main products is in line with the annual household income of the widest range of ordinary people in China. To put it bluntly, the car dreams of many people and even many families were realized in Wuling.

However, in the era of automobile change, only sufficient R&D budget and new cars can support an automobile company to enter the next competitive threshold. Among them, only building low-priced cars cannot get a ticket to the new era.

In this regard, Wuling should establish worry and vigilance. After all, BYD has lowered the threshold of new energy vehicles to less than 100,000 yuan on Qin PLUS.