Born of sorrow and dying of happiness, Wei Jianjun once wrote this sentence at the 30th anniversary celebration of the Great Wall in 2020: "What will be the future of Great Wall Motor? In my opinion, life hangs in the balance. Unexpectedly, Wei Jianjun's concern was confirmed on Wei Pai.
As soon as the National Day holiday passed, Weipai CEO Chen Siying published a 500-word essay to officially announce his departure. From joining to leaving, Chen Siying only spent 8 months in Weipai, and Chen Siying's departure time is very delicate, only 5 days left before the official launch of Weipai's first MPV Gaoshan Mountain.
Seven CEOs changed in 7 years
Chen Siying's departure is not without warning, as early as September 27, 2023, there was news on the Internet that Chen Siying, CEO of Weipai and general manager of tank brand marketing, left for personal reasons. Follow-up relevant personnel said that Chen Siying did not resign, but had taken leave from family for something, and after communicating with me, it was confirmed that the news was not true. Now, Chen Siying's official announcement has completely debunked the previous rumors, and I don't know if the so-called relevant personnel will feel a pain in their faces.
From Chen Siying's resignation essay, we can see that Chen Siying said that he left for "personal family reasons", how about this, this reason is not familiar? In addition, there is a sentence worth savoring, "I have to bid farewell to Great Wall Motor at this inappropriate time", it is not difficult to see that Chen Siying's font lines are full of unwillingness, indeed, as a major achievement in his tenure, who will not regret not being able to see the official launch of the products he has painstakingly operated?
According to insiders, Chen Siying's departure is directly related to the poor sales of Blue Mountain models. The company's resources were given, the money was invested, but the product sales were not good, and naturally someone had to come out to back the pot. Even if Chen Siying does not take the initiative to mention his resignation now, when the resumption at the end of the year, this back-pot man will still have to be taken by him. It can be said that for Chen Siying's departure, whether it is inside the company or outside the world, it is not surprising that in the 7 years since the establishment of Weipai, plus Chen Siying, the brand has changed 7 CEOs, of which Yan Si's term of office is the longest, reaching 23 months, and Yu Fei, who has been in office for the shortest, is only in office for 4 months, and Li Ruifeng, a meritorious veteran who has worked for Great Wall Motor for 20 years, has also served as Weipai CEO twice, but unfortunately has not reversed the decline of Weipai.
Obviously, Wei Pai's dilemma cannot be easily changed with a new CEO.
"Causal Loop"
Wei Pai, a brand that gambled on Wei Jianjun's surname. The brand was established in 2016, shouldering the heavy responsibility of the Great Wall Motor brand to move up and enter the high-end market, but the development process of the ambitious Weipai has not been very smooth since its establishment.
In my opinion, Wei Pai's weakness began as early as the era of fuel vehicles. Weipai and Lynk & Co were established almost at the same time, and then the VV series launched seriously overturned, and now we can still see many user complaints about the VV series on the vehicle quality network, poor driving quality, high fuel consumption, shoddy manufacturing and other problems have not been solved. Many users have complained: there is no life of luxury cars, but they have the disease of luxury cars. The sales data of VV series models has also hovered around 1,000 units for a long time, and the market performance is tepid.
Transformation failed
The era of fuel vehicles has become infamous, and in the subsequent electrification transformation, Weipai's performance is also unsatisfactory.
From the perspective of the release time of plug-in hybrid technology, the Great Wall is even earlier than BYD, but unfortunately, Great Wall, which should have seized the opportunity by time difference, is very reluctant to make huge profits in the stage of oil-electric hybrid transformation, and is hesitant in the development and promotion of plug-in hybrid technology. Among them, the Great Wall Lemon Hybrid DHT technology was released as early as 2020, and the first plug-in hybrid model was not launched until February 2022, when BYD had already completed the layout of DM-i. Great Wall Motor can be described as getting up early and catching up late.
New energy has become the general trend, even if it is a half-way transformation, Wei Pai has to bite the bullet, and Wei Pai's subsequent market performance is not surprising twists and turns.
In fact, judging from the achievements made by Chen Siying after taking the helm of Wei Pai, Lao Chen is doing quite well, according to the data. In January ~ September this year, Zhongwei brand achieved a cumulative sales data of 30,000+ with the three hybrid models of latte, Mocha and Blue Mountain, a year-on-year increase of 8.22%. However, Great Wall wants to rely on Blue Mountain to complete the battle, and Blue Mountain's sales in recent months have gradually declined, and Wei Pai has put the treasure on the new MPV model Gao Shan.
According to official data, the new model Takayama has an order volume of 5,000 units, and it looks like this is a promising model. However, when the price of Gao Shan was announced, the crowd of viewers dropped their jaws in shock, did not highlight the breaking point, and the high price of Gao Shan made everyone lose interest instantly, and the wave of unbooking followed.
In my opinion, it is difficult for the mountain that was frustrated in the first war to make a splash in the market. In the current high-end MPV market, traditional joint venture cars, such as Toyota Senna and Buick GL8 and other models firmly control their own basic plate, followed by Denza D9, Lantu Dreamer and other new energy high-end MPVs have been preconceived, the market share has long been divided, even the mouth soup has not been left for Gaoshan . In addition, the success of the Denza D9 is difficult to replicate, it can be said that the popularity of the car, even Denza including BYD did not expect, brand influence and market share of the poor Wei brand chose to blindly follow the trend, what is its chance of winning?
Uncle Che concluded
In general, Wei Pai has now missed the best opportunity to gain a foothold in the new energy market, and in the current technological explosion and price involvement, Wei Pai has to make several times or even dozens of times more effort to stand out. Judging from the performance of the new model Gao Shan, Wei Pai does not seem to have such awareness, and the brand's current problems can not be solved by replacing a Chen Siying. The road is obstructed and long, whether to make a painful decision, or continue to rot, Wei Pai is time to make a decision.