At the Shanghai Auto Show in April this year, overseas car company executives "grouped" to China to become the focus, their eyes focused on the electrification track, it seems that they intend to find the secret of running wildly on the electrification track from the "China trip", but Volvo's global executives are belated, just like the current situation of Volvo electric vehicles in China. On May 10, Volvo Cars President and CEO Luo Wenxiang took advantage of the opening of Volvo Cars' new design center to start his first "China tour" after taking office.
This move has been interpreted by the industry as a sign of Volvo's all-out efforts to accelerate the electrification transformation and the emphasis on the Chinese market. On the same day, Luo Wenyi used the Volvo EX90 to tell Volvo's confidence in electrification: on the new EX90, the combination of cloud, design, application layer, motor, inverter, battery pack, two-way charging, silicon, inductor, interconnection, software and other parts form Volvo's unique product advantages.
Unfortunately, the Volvo EX90 may not meet consumers until later. According to reports such as Easy Car, due to the still need for time to develop and test vehicle software, Volvo EX90 will be postponed to the first half of 2024, compared with the original plan for the first half of this year. Of course, we can say that "slow work produces fine work", but it is difficult to say whether the market can wait for Volvo's fine work. What's more, the new energy models currently on sale by Volvo are not only difficult to break through in sales, but even "oil-to-electric" models that the Chinese market "despise".
Mass production of new cars postponed Does Volvo's face hurt?
According to reports such as Easy Car, the mass production of the Volvo EX90 was delayed because it still needed time to develop and test the vehicle software. Interestingly, at the recent Volvo EX90 China premiere conference, Qin Peiji, president of Volvo Greater China Sales Company, also left such a sentence, "The new forces will, we will learn in three years, we will, the new forces will not learn in ten years"...
Qin Peiji even bluntly said that Volvo Cars is the only luxury brand that has achieved mass production of a centrally integrated electronic and electrical architecture, and is undoubtedly the first echelon of the industry except Tesla. Now, is this considered a slap in the face? What's more, as early as the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, the domestic car company Dongfeng Fengshen launched a mass-produced model based on the central integrated electronic and electrical architecture - "DSMA architecture" Yixuan MAX, is the so-called luxury brand Volvo not as good as Dongfeng Fengshen?
It is worth noting that Volvo's pain points in "soft power" have long been exposed. Just in April this year, Volvo filed a recall of a number of models including S60, S90, XC60, XC40, C40, etc., the reason for the recall is: the vehicle due to telematics and Internet antenna module software defects, when the vehicle emergency rescue system fails, the vehicle driver information module can not be prompted normally.
In February this year, Volvo recalled a number of models including V60, V90CC, XC90, XC90, and a total of 4,103 vehicles due to the unstable compatibility of the brake control module software and hardware, which may be mistakenly set to a fault state, resulting in the loss of braking assistance and potential safety hazards.
In addition, Volvo EX90 may not be as good as Volvo executives say, public information shows that in the electronic architecture part, Volvo EX90 adopts central control + multi-domain (power, safety, body, infotainment) control mode, and is equipped with more safety driving assistance perception capabilities such as lidar and V2X.
However, China's own brands and new forces have also begun to implement the next generation of body electronic architecture, such as electronic and electrical architecture based on central control + regional control, and lidar and large computing power platforms are not uncommon. In addition, in the collection of data models, especially in the data collection of the Chinese market, Volvo may not be excellent, and the new forces of car manufacturing that Volvo looks down on have made some achievements, taking NIO as an example, as of April 25 this year, the total mileage of NIO's assisted driving function has exceeded 820 million kilometers, the total mileage of NIO's NOP has exceeded 310 million kilometers, and the total mileage of NOP+ has exceeded 27.3 million kilometers.
Of course, for Volvo, Volvo EX90 is still "advanced", after all, it is Volvo's first new energy model based on a pure electric platform, and Volvo urgently needs such a car to change consumers' perception of Volvo and cover up its rather dismal sales figures.
"Fire captain" is late When did Volvo leave the "oil to electricity"?
According to data released by the official public account of Volvo Car Group, Volvo sold 12,485 vehicles in Chinese mainland in April this year, a year-on-year increase of 46.3%, and only a few hundred more than last month. Of course, the year-on-year high growth rate is largely "due to" the "grayness" of the automobile market in the same period last year, but what is more noteworthy is that in the poster of Volvo Car Group's sales announcement, even the sales of S90, XC60 and other models have been announced, but there is no mention of its "Recharge" model, that is, the sales of new energy models.
According to the data of the car emperor, in April this year, Volvo XC60 Recharge sales were 460 units, Volvo S90 Recharge sales were 228 units, Volvo XC40 Recharge sales were 188 units, Volvo C40 Recharge sales were 103 units, and Volvo S60 Recharge sales were 23 units. In other words, in April this year, the total sales of Volvo's five new energy vehicles can exceed 4 figures.
What such achievements mean in China's booming new energy vehicles may not need to be said. There are many sayings in the industry about the reasons why Volvo new energy vehicles have never been able to open the situation, but the most recognized of them is "oil to electricity". In the perception of consumers, the biggest feature of such products is that compared with the new models of pure electric platforms, the curb weight is large, the battery capacity is small, the cruising mileage is short, the power consumption level is high, and the space performance is poor...
In fact, the EX90 based on Volvo's native pure electric platform may largely play the role of "fire captain", allowing Volvo to rely on this model to move towards deeper electrification, but unfortunately this car may be late... As for the consequences, it is difficult to predict in the highly competitive Chinese new energy vehicle market.
According to reports, Luo Wenxi shared Volvo's view of future competition in the process of "China tour": the competition in the global automobile market is "visible electrification, invisible intelligence". However, judging from the postponement of Volvo EX90 mass production, vehicle recalls and sales of new energy vehicles, whether it is "visible electrification" or "invisible intelligence" seems to be a bit vague for Volvo.
"In 2025, 50% of the company's global annual sales will be pure electric models, and by 2030 it will become a pure electric luxury car company", Volvo's electrification goal is clear and firm, but the market will not care about a car company because of its determination. Of course, the market will not give Volvo special care because of Volvo's head "China Trip".