Looking up to U8, the monthly sales are approaching the Mercedes-Benz S-class, and domestic cars are beginning to dominate the million-level market?
On February 2, BYD announced the sales of the U8 last month. This million-level new energy off-road vehicle has overcome all the obstacles and sold 1,652 new cars, which directly shook the market.
What is the concept of monthly sales of 1,652 units? Let's put it this way, in 2023, the best-selling million-level luxury car in China, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, will sell an average of 1,892 units per month. Considering that Yangwang U8 is still in the period of production capacity climbing, January is the traditional sales off-season, and Yangwang U8 will launch a more shocking drone version in the future, and it is almost a matter of time to reach the top of the million-level luxury car list.
To be honest, Kung Fu Motors was also extremely shocked to see the news. Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Cayenne, Defender, Paramela, Range Rover, which are not well-known names for many years, and now we have our own cars to join the ranks.
How did the U8 break the game? What does its success mean? Let Kung Fu Motors take you to see it.
(1) Purely relying on strength, selling cheaply?
In April 2023, Yangwang U8 officially opened pre-sale at the Shanghai Auto Show, and also gave a pre-sale price of 1.098 million yuan for the first time, fulfilling its previous promise to build a million-level new energy off-road luxury car. After the news came out, public opinion was in an uproar, why were domestic cars still fighting against the "ceiling" of 150,000 a few years ago, and this was going to sell for millions?
But BYD is very firm, saying that it is this price, and it is definitely worth the money.
Let's talk about the design first, looking up at the U8 is not only more than 5 meters long, but also more than 2 meters wide, which is absolutely magnificent. It also adopts the exclusive family design "Gate of Time and Space" of the brand, which successfully integrates the sense of technology and futurism into the vehicle design, which not only has the luxurious shape of the traditional large SUV luxury car, but also has the exclusive strong and full volume of the off-road vehicle, achieving both avant-garde and tough.
In terms of configuration, the new car adopts the world's first new energy-exclusive intelligent body control system - Yunlin. Not only does the system support damping adjustment, but it also has an additional stiffness adjustment to improve shock absorption, which absorbs almost 100% of the bumps in the road. After the hydraulic body is adjusted to the height, soft and hard, the air suspension of the new car is adjusted very quickly, and it can be automatically leveled instantly when entering an uneven field.
As for other black technologies, that's even more. The new car's Yi Sifang platform can be powered by four motors at the same time, with a maximum power of 880kW and a maximum torque of 1280N·m. In addition, the new car also supports emergency floating, and after entering the water, it can still be powered by four motors to achieve forward, U-turn, left turn, right turn and other operations in the water.
Looking up to the U8 on the market, everyone was sighing, who will buy the domestic car sold for more than 1 million? But in just half a year, its sales have soared to the first-line level, and the same group of people began to sigh again, is it cheaper? The same off-road vehicle, what is the configuration of these cars such as Defender and Mercedes-Benz Big G, how can they touch porcelain and look up to U8? are all people who spend millions to buy cars, and I am afraid they don't mind spending another million.
But in the eyes of Kung Fu Motors, the Yangwang U8 sells neither expensive nor cheap, but "just right".
(2) The road of Chinese luxury, saturation blow?
The biggest significance of looking up to the emergence of U8 is that it points out the direction for the high-end of domestic cars, that is, saturation strikes, and high-end with technology and services.
Let's take a look at the sales list of million-level luxury cars, except for Toyota Alpha, almost all European cars. Is it because European car companies have completely crushed Japanese, American, and Korean car companies in terms of technology? Of course not. The more reason is that Europe is the birthplace of automobiles, where there are the most car stories and the strongest feelings, which gives them an innate advantage in being a high-end brand.
Toyota, GM and these bigwigs are not convinced, and they have also launched an attack on them. For example, Toyota claims to be the benchmark of the Rolls-Royce century, and GM claims to be not inferior to Ferrari's Corvette, which is no longer inferior to Europe's top luxury cars in terms of luxury construction and performance. But judging from the results, such persistence is not very effective, no matter how strong Corvette is, the positioning can only be "replaced" by Ferrari, and the premium ability of the two itself is not the same.
Japanese and American car companies can still only honestly build civilian cars, and cannot shake the dominance of the "old Europeans" in the ultra-luxury car market.
But looking up to the U8 is very different, because what it can do, the "old Europeans" will definitely not be able to do. Looking up to the U8 that can climb up to the break, the Land Rover defenders can only look at the slope and sigh. If you want to climb up, it's not impossible to find BYD to purchase a full set of technical architecture. I'm afraid that when they absorb and digest this set of technologies, BYD will not know how far to go.
This is what Western industry fears the most. Why is it not Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung that will pull down Apple, but Huawei, which has made mobile phones for less than ten years? Because the latter has a full set of R&D technology, from chips to screens, it has mastered the most core technology, and the rest is where it will not improve, and the rest is strangulation. This is also the reason why Western countries mobilized almost all their resources to "sanction" Huawei, although in the end it also failed.
Now the same thing has happened in the automotive industry, looking up to U8 at the million-level level, M9 at the 500,000-level level, and BYD Han at the 200,000-level level, these are the existence that these international giants cannot conquer, and they can only watch them become bigger and stronger, which is also the breakthrough way for domestic cars. Don't compare feelings with these century-old brands, compare with storytelling, it is to crush you comprehensively, and then iterate step by step with sales.
(3) "Go out nine times" is on fire, do you think of domestic cars like this?
Recently, there was such news that the Spring Festival was approaching, and looking up U8 suddenly became popular in various places. The reason is that someone has discovered the "wonderful use" of looking up to the U8 at the wedding, and this car can perfectly interpret the "nine turns when you go out".
As we all know, the Yangwang U8 is designed to borrow the principle of the tank, and through the torque vectoring control of the four-wheel independent motor, the differential steering of the front and rear wheels can be realized. And because the motor torque adjustment speed is 20 times faster than the engine, and the response speed is 100 times faster than the traditional mechanical structure, it is easy to look up to the U8 to achieve a "U-turn on the spot", also known as a "tank U-turn".
This feature was originally intended for some extreme road conditions, such as breaking into a narrow section of the dead-end road and withdrawing the same way. As a result, our folk wedding workers have a discerning eye and have discovered the "sense of ceremony" behind this function. After receiving the bride, the convoy will make a 180° U-turn in situ every time they drive a distance, thank them for their nurturing grace in the direction of their mother's home, and then the bride and groom get off the car and bow down to their parents' kindness to their parents' house, and then drive a distance to make a U-turn on the spot again.
It's just that those car owners who look up to U8 are suffering, and they originally wanted to have a good time buying a car, but now they are almost going to be arrested to run a wedding car during the Spring Festival. But this is also a good thing, in the past, the head car was almost not Mercedes-Benz or Porsche, but now the domestic car has become a fragrant bait, indicating that everyone's concept has changed.
(4) Kung Fu shooting
Today's Yangwang U8 is not complete, strictly speaking, it is only a luxury version, and the real off-road version (with a drone) has not yet been listed.
A while ago, BYD exposed the latest information of the off-road version, the on-board drone was installed on the roof of the device, and a telescopic drone landing platform was arranged here. The drone can realize functions such as on-board automatic charging, intelligent car following, intelligent filming, and low-battery automatic warehouse return. It can even start the drone to explore the road when the highway is jammed, and quickly find a clear road, needless to say, this is another king bomb.
If the U8 becomes the best-selling million-level luxury car in 2024 and successfully beats the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, will everyone continue to discriminate against domestic cars?