Text | Jin Wei
In November 2023, Chery and Huawei's first product, the Zhijie S7, was officially launched, and with Huawei's technology and traffic, the order volume of the Zhijie S7 soon exceeded 20,000 units.
But in the past three months, the delivery of Zhijie S7 has been delayed again and again. Recently, it was revealed on the Internet that there were many frictions in the cooperation between Chery and Huawei, and Han Biwen, deputy general manager and general manager of Chery Automobile's manufacturing division, resigned because of this incident.
On January 31, Chery spokesman Jin Yibo responded: "The rumors on the Internet are not true, the cooperation between the two sides is smooth, and the departure of senior executives is not due to cooperation projects." ”
What the hell is going on?
Who is the intellectual world?
In 2023, the Wenjie M series created by Huawei and Cialis will become popular, and Zhijie will become the second smart car brand jointly created by Huawei and car companies after AITO.
Zhijie and Wenjie are both one of the three models of Huawei's automotive business, with Huawei's leading product definition and R&D and design, and its models are sold in its terminal channels, but production is completed by partner car companies.
In November 2023, the Zhijie S7 will be officially launched, and the new car will be positioned as a medium and large pure electric coupe, with a total of 4 versions of the model, with a price range of 249,800~349,800. According to reports,ZhijieS7Equipped with HuaweiADS2.0High-end intelligent driving system、A new generation of HUAWEI DriveONE power platform、Huawei Turing intelligent chassis and other Huawei technologies or functions,ZhijieS7It is also equipped with Huawei's parking driving function for the first time,"High content"。
Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, CEO of Device BG, and Chairman of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, personally stood for the Zhijie S7, saying, "The specifications of the Zhijie S7 are higher than those of Tesla Model S and Mercedes-Benz EQE, but the price is on the same level as Tesla Model 3." ”
Yin Tongyue, Chairman of Chery Holding Group, also said that the cooperation between Chery and Huawei is not only a simple technical cooperation, but also involves product research and development, supply chain management, market expansion and other aspects, and the two sides will give full play to their respective advantages to jointly explore new business models and value-added services.
As the first sedan in Huawei's smart car business, if the sales of Zhijie S7 are good enough, it can undoubtedly make up for the shortcomings of new energy.
With the blessing of Huawei, the order volume of the Zhijie S7 exceeded 20,000 units, bringing new hope to Chery New Energy. However, the Zhijie S7 has encountered delivery problems.
Chery responds to the intellectual turmoil
Some car owners posted on social platforms that there are frequent problems in the delivery of Zhijie S7, the vehicle cannot be delivered within the commitment period, and the order delivery sequence is particularly chaotic. There are also car owners who said that the sales staff told them that the waiting time for picking up the car was 4~6 weeks, but they had waited for more than 6 weeks and still did not mention the car, and they did not get a reply from the delivery department.
According to media confirmation, Zhijie S7 does have the problem of difficult delivery. According to the first financial report, when visiting Huawei's terminal stores, a number of sales staff said that Zhijie S7 has orders but can't deliver the car, in order to avoid customer complaints, so they dare not accept new orders. Some store personnel said that the reason why the car could not be handed over was that Chery's manufacturing quality did not meet Huawei's standards.
Due to the delay in delivery, Hongmeng Zhixing also gave a compensation plan, which is about to provide a subsidy plan for users who cannot pick up the car on time, and some models can enjoy a subsidy of 200 yuan per day after waiting for more than 6 weeks, with a maximum of 10,000 yuan.
Hongmeng Zhixing said: "Thanks to the support and patience of car owners and friends, the factory is in full production to ensure high-quality delivery. ”
Why is it rumored to be difficult?
Previously, there were media reports and Internet rumors that because Chery needs to balance the competition between its new energy sequence Star Era and Huawei's Zhijie, it is not active in the production of Zhijie S7, with a daily output of only a few dozen vehicles, resulting in Zhijie S7Although it has received a lot of orders, there is no way to deliver it.
A suspected Chery insider revealed that Huawei was too strong in cooperation, "They (Huawei) are reluctant to open the most basic software flashing version, resulting in the inability to use workers on the assembly line to brush the software, resulting in a delay in delivery." It is worth mentioning that the screenshot of the chat broke the news that Han Biwen, deputy general manager of Chery Automobile and general manager of the manufacturing division, resigned because of this incident.
In other words, one side accuses Huawei of not opening up the software version, and the other side accuses Chery of not being active in production in order to balance competition.
In response to the recent remarks that there are many frictions in the cooperation between the Internet Legend and Huawei, Chery spokesman Jin Yibo responded on January 31: "The rumors on the Internet are not true, the cooperation between the two sides is smooth, and the resignation of senior executives is not because of the cooperation project." ”
Jin Yibo also said that in order to provide users with the best products and services, Chery and Huawei are making every effort to promote the production and delivery of Zhijie S7, have invested more resources, and will continue to deepen cooperation.
Chery New Energy makes great efforts
In October 2023, at the 2023 Chery Technology DAY, Yin Tongyue, a veteran of the automobile industry and CEO of Chery Automobile, sighed, "Chery got up early in the morning in new energy, but rushed to a late set, but then we want latecomers to catch up." ”
Yin Tongyue said that Chery will definitely enter the top position in the country, and will never rely on losses in exchange for sales. Chery wants to be "the latecomer" in the field of new energy vehicles.
To this end, Chery plans to invest 20 billion yuan in R&D every year, and in the next five years, Chery will invest more than 100 billion yuan in R&D to build a Yaoguang laboratory and absorb more than 25,000 R&D personnel.
According to Chery's earlier plan, with the four major brands of "Chery, Xingtu, Jietu and iCAR", multiple technical routes of hybrid, extended range, pure electric and hydrogen energy will be promoted in parallel.
From the second half of 2023, Chery New Energy will make full efforts. Chery's high-end brand Xingtu has entered the high-end new energy market with Xingtu as the pioneer, and the Xingtu Xingtu ES launched in 2023 has become the first gun, and at the end of 2023, Chery's "new force" and the first model of the first new energy electric brand, the iCAR03, will start global pre-sales.
At the beginning of January this year, Chery launched a new new energy product series - Fengyun, among which, the first mass-produced model Chery Fengyun A8 has also been officially launched on January 3.
However, in stark contrast to the Zhijie S7, there seems to be no difficulty in delivering the Xingtu Star Era ES under the same platform with similar positioning. "Epoch ES currently has a cash discount of 20,000 yuan, and you can pick up the car in three or four days. The sales staff of the Xingtu Auto store told the media.
According to media reports, the Zhijie S7 was originally planned to be produced at Chery's Intelligent Connected Super 2 Factory, but the plant is still in the commissioning stage, and it will take time to achieve mass production. In the case that Super Factory 2 could not meet the production requirements, the Zhijie S7 was arranged to be produced in the Super 1 Factory, but in addition to the production of Zhijie, the Super 1 Factory also needed to produce Chery's own brand products. "In the case of Chery's rising sales and vigorously promoting new energy, there is a contradiction between Chery's own brand and the capacity allocation of Zhijie. ”
According to outside rumors, Chery has shown a preference for one over the other in terms of cooperative car companies and independent car companies. However, Chery denied rumors of friction between the two sides, and the cooperation was progressing normally.
How to balance the production of cooperative car companies and independent car companies may be a problem faced by Yin Tongyue.
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