In 2023, after a brutal industry reshuffle, there is still a new brand that dares to join the new force camp, and this "conspicuous bag" at the Chengdu Auto Show is called Yuanhang Auto.
You may not have heard of Voyage Cars.
But most people must have heard of the two advertising slogans "The heart moves with me, Dayang motorcycle" and "Wind in the world, Universiade motorcycle".
In fact, these two motorcycles are from the same company - Dayun Group, the former is the Dayang brand, the latter is the Dayun brand.
The little-known Yuanhang Automobile is a new energy vehicle brand launched by Dayun Group.
So far, there are two interesting things about the voyage.
First, since the 2022 Chengdu Auto Show, this car company has hardly missed any large-scale A-class auto shows, and people's new brands basically bring only one car to the auto show, and Yuanhang directly lists a row of new cars, but no models have been delivered so far.
Second, as a fledgling cross-border car manufacturing new force, Yuanhang's four models are all aimed at large cars, all of which are pure electric cars with a length of more than 5 meters and a width of 2 meters, priced between 300,000 and 600,000.
In my memory, the last one with such deep pockets was Evergrande Automobile, but now it has been stormy. There has always been no shortage of newcomers in new energy vehicle manufacturing, even with the support of Dayun Group, how many opportunities does Yuanhang have?
Unlike most Internet elites who have transformed into cars, the experience of Yuanqinshan, the founder of Dayun Group, is much more "grounded".
As early as 1987, Yuanqinshan embarked on the road south with 3,000 yuan raised, when he was only 19 years old, and he earned his first pot of gold by selling motorcycles all the way from Guangzhou to Yuncheng.
In order to save on towing fees, the young man who graduated from junior high school used the hardest way - cycling, and forced to ride his motorcycle back from Guangzhou, nearly 2,000 kilometers from Yuncheng, to sell it, starting with one person and later developing into a convoy of young people from the village.
After the business model was opened, Yuanqinshan began to open a shop to sell cars, became the general agent of many motorcycle factories, and became the largest motorcycle dealer in Shanxi as the business grew bigger and bigger.
At that time, during the opportunity period of "going to the sea" to create wealth, Yuanqinshan's sensitive sense of business opportunities and the quality of being able to endure hardships quickly made it stand out.
Ordinary people, at this point, will be well received.
But the "restless" Yuanqin Shan made the first and most important decision of his life, transforming from a motorcycle middleman to a manufacturer.
In 1999, Yuanqinshan reached a cooperation with Thailand CP Group and established Guangzhou Dayang Motorcycle Co., Ltd. as a joint venture, and he spent a lot of money with great courage to invite Gong Li to be the image spokesperson of the motorcycle and advertised on CCTV.
The catchy advertising slogan "Dayang motorcycle, heart moves with me" became a household name for a while. In 2003, Dayang Motorcycle's annual sales reached 520,000 units, an increase of 60% over before, and the profit was more than 100 times that of the previous year.
At this point, Yuanqinshan has been tossing and turning in the familiar motorcycle field until 2004, when he made a major decision to build a heavy-duty truck production plant.
By 2009, despite the opposition of most of the company's elders, Yuanqinshan resolutely set up Shanxi Dayun Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. with 2.1 billion yuan.
In 2012, the truck sector faced a crisis of overcapacity, sales fell by almost half, almost all companies were losing money, and many new companies that entered the market late faced closure.
In the face of the cold winter of the industry, Yuanqinshan once again showed unprecedented tenacity, not only did not reduce project expenses, but increased investment in product innovation and sales channels. A year later, Dayun Automobile, which had survived to the death of its opponent, ushered in the dawn.
In 2017, Dayun Auto sold more than 10 billion yuan, becoming the first enterprise in Yuncheng with sales exceeding 10 billion.
In the 2020 Hurun Report, as the helm of Dayun Group, Yuanqinshan, second only to Yao Junliang of Meijin Energy among Shanxi businessmen, has a net worth of 5.5 billion.
It is true that the rise of Dayun Group has its own special background of the times, and almost every transformation has stepped on the "pulse of the times", but it is undeniable that even in such an era full of opportunities, opportunities are still reserved for those who are brave, tenacious and flexible.
The reason why I want to spend such a big chapter to introduce the entrepreneurial experience of Yuan Qinshan, the founder of Dayun Group, may have a bit of the meaning of "using history to know the new".
Anyone who succeeds in two major transformations will be confident, and Yuanqin Mountain is no exception.
In 2017, after seeing the rapid development of the domestic new energy passenger vehicle market, Yuanqinshan began to prepare for the third transformation - entering the field of new energy passenger vehicles.
In his view, although building passenger cars seems to be very different from building motorcycles and commercial vehicles, "everything is inseparable" and experience can be replicated.
In 2021, Dayun Group has successively launched models such as Dayun Yuehu and Dayun Yuanzhi M1, with models priced in the range of more than 200,000 and below.
However, since Dayun entered the passenger car market, its sales performance does not seem to be satisfactory.
Data show that in the first half of this year, the cumulative sales of Dayun Yuehu were only 3822 vehicles, and the Yuanzhi M1 was no better, with cumulative sales of only 1243 vehicles this year, and the total sales of the two models was only more than 5,000 units.
From the core point of view of the product, the comprehensive cruising range of Dayun Yuehu is only 300km, which was reasonable 5 years ago, and now even the Hongguang MINI EV can achieve a cruising range of 300km.
Secondly, in terms of design and intelligence, Dayun has not come up with convincing product power, plus brand marketing that has hardly aroused any "splash", and users' recognition of this brand and product is too low.
After several entry cars were "unfavorable", Yuanqinshan was "more and more courageous", since the low-end car is not easy to sell, it must be that the track is not chosen correctly, and it needs to be opened differently.
On August 26, 2022, at the 25th Chengdu Auto Show, Dayun Group held a brand conference of "Smart Win the Future, Yuanhang Automobile" and released its high-end new energy vehicle brand - Yuanhang Automobile.
Yuanqinshan has repositioned itself from the overall brand tonality, and interestingly, even the design of the logo is very similar to Bentley.
Since then, Yuanhang Auto has not been absent from any major auto shows.
At the 2022 Guangzhou Auto Show, Yuanhang Motor released the B.H.D high-end ultra-luxury platform strategy, and brought 4 cars in one go, namely Yuanhang Y6 and Yuanhang Y7, which are positioned as luxury D-class cars, and Yuanhang H8 and Yuanhang H9, which are positioned as luxury large SUVs.
At the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, Yuanhang Auto announced that Yuanhang Y6 and H8 will open product pre-orders. Among them, the reservation price of Yuanhang Y6 is 329,800-529,800 yuan, and the reservation price of Yuanhang H8 is 349,800-559,800 yuan.
At the recent Chengdu Auto Show, which opened on August 25, Yuanhang Auto still brought four models in one go, and the positioning of the four models is also anchored in the high-end new energy vehicle market, all of which are positioned as C+ luxury pure electric vehicles.
According to the plan of Dayun Group, the first mass-produced model of Yuanhang Auto will be the D-class flagship model Y6.
In fact, there are not a few car companies that enter the new energy market in a high-flying way, which has its realistic considerations, because low-end cars are not only low profits, but also test the ability of enterprises in cost and supplier control, otherwise they are sold at a loss, and the "stunned youth" who happen to build cross-border cars rarely have such capabilities.
But high-end cars are different, the high price of the car sells, which means that there is more room in the selection of suppliers and parts, as long as there is money, save a "full of famous brand" electric car, in today's market with an extremely perfect supply chain system, it is not difficult.
Therefore, it can be seen that Yuanhang Auto is very willing to "pile up materials", and the things that can be solved with money will never be BB.
Bosch's electronic and electrical architecture, integrated intelligent chassis integration technology, advanced driver assistance systems, BENTELER's corrosion-resistant all-aluminum alloy chassis, Huawei's vehicle domain controller, integrated thermal management technology, central gateway, intelligent steering system, and Ali Zebra's intelligent cockpit.
With the support of a number of big-name partners, Yuanhang products have 800V super fast charging, the longest endurance is more than 1000km, zero hundred acceleration is only 3.2 seconds, charging 10 minutes can replenish 300km, 8155 vehicle-level high computing power chip, to achieve 5-screen interaction and other highlights.
Regarding the question of "not self-researching", Yuanqinshan replied as follows, "If these advanced things are to be done, they may not reach the current level of Bosch for another 10 years, and they may not reach the level of Huawei after 10 years of software development." Now that we join forces with everyone, we are more advanced than others, the cost is still very low, and the product is more competitive."
Judging from the appearance of Yuanhang Automobile, it seems that the purpose of Yuanqinshan is not to sell cars, but to make products quickly put into the market through surprising and winning ways, and grab a wave of market attention with high-end positioning.
However, such a "take-it-ism" also has drawbacks, first, suppliers cannot provide exclusive customized solutions before the brand grows, which leads to the product strength of Yuanhang Auto is unlikely to have too obvious differentiation advantages, so it is unlikely to be "more advanced than others".
Secondly, before the sales volume does not rise, it is difficult for Yuanhang to get the ideal supply price, which leads to the inability to reduce the cost of car manufacturing, so "the cost is still very low" is impossible to talk about.
It is worth mentioning that after the Yuanhang Y6 opened its booking at the Shanghai Auto Show, almost no order data has been announced so far, and it is unknown whether this new car can be delivered on time.
The automotive industry is involving, and all segments are densely packed with models, and the cost performance has become the last fortress of major manufacturers.
And Yuanhang Automobile, like Yuanqinshan himself, is restless, wants to jump out, position high-end in one step, and choose a track with relatively few competitors.
But this is still a big gamble, and the low threshold does not mean that everyone can stand out.
For the cross-border car manufacturing Dayun Group, it is a long way to replicate its success in the motorcycle and heavy-duty truck markets.