Chery endured humiliation, and Zhijie S7 made a comeback
Observation room
Author/Zhao Try
On April 11, Yin Tongyue, the head of Chery, made a rare appearance at the 2024 Huawei Spring All-Scene New Product Launch Conference
S7
platform.
Yin Tongyue praised Huawei as "a great enterprise, more extreme than German car companies", "China can't do without Huawei to build a good car"; when mentioning Zhijie S7, Yin is full of praise, the left sentence is amazing, the right sentence is shocking, and finally a sentence is amazing.
When it comes to the cooperation between Huawei and Chery, Yin made it clear that "cooperation with Huawei is Chery's first strategy, and the Zhijie project is the first priority of Chery Group". Before that, Yin barely mentioned Zhijie in public, and even in the first round of listing of Zhijie S7, the only executive present at Chery was Gao Xinhua, deputy general manager and CTO of Chery.
There is only a gap of more than 4 months, Chery's attitude has changed 180 degrees, and the reason is very simple, that is, after the suspension of production of Zhijie S7, Huawei and Chery urgently need to calm down public opinion.
Zhijie S7, twists and turns
Obviously, it is backed by two giants, why does the Zhijie S7 have twists and turns? This has to start with the cooperation between Huawei and Chery. Although Zhijie and Wenjie both belong to the smart car model, but the actual operation of the two is obviously different, there is no middleman between Huawei and Cialis to make the difference, and between Huawei and Chery there is one more middleman called China Post, the tripartite division of labor is like this, Huawei is responsible for product design, research and development, marketing, Chery is only responsible for the production process, logistics and sales are handed over to China Post. As far as channels are concerned, Huawei can solve it by itself, but Zhijie chooses to be underwritten by a third party, and China Post is still a partner found by Chery, which can only show that Huawei and Chery have their own thoughts. Just like two people who have different dreams in the same bed, Huawei wants me to produce technology and products, and marketing will naturally listen to me, while Chery thinks that cooperation is cooperation, but Chery's fate cannot be controlled by Huawei.
As a well-known veteran car company, Chery Group sold more than 1.88 million vehicles last year, ranking first in exports for 12 consecutive years. Sure enough, after the launch of Zhijie S7, there were large-scale problems such as substandard quality control and dormant delivery, and finally it reached the point of suspension of production.
The surging public opinion has brought about the loss of real money,ZhijieS7After the first listing,The actual size is at least tens of thousands,Suspension of production means that it cannot be delivered,Can not be realized;In addition,In order to appease the old car owners,Huawei has given two rounds of compensation,Including the maximum compensation1000000000Delayed delivery compensation and 13000Secondary compensation。
This is still a loss on the surface,In fact, traffic and sales will be affected,ZhijieS7Discontinued,The biggest beneficiary is definitely XiaomiSU7。 After the re-listing of ZhijieS7, the author paid attention to the traffic of the major platforms, which cannot be compared with the traffic of Xiaomi SU7 before and after the listing, and it cannot be compared with the traffic of Zhijie S7 for the first time. The messages of netizens are also divided into two factions,Old car owners are generally satisfied with the compensation plan given by Huawei,And many interested customers immediately slipped away after seeing the new price of ZhijieS7,Think that its price is falling and rising。
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Chery, endure humiliation
The new car was discontinued two months after it was launched, and this matter has long been suspended on other brands, but Huawei is Huawei after all, so there is the Zhijie S7 re-listing, the comedy is that Huawei also set a "no secondary listing" domineering clause.
To be fair, Zhijie S7 was re-released, and both Huawei and Chery showed their sincerity. Huawei gave the first visual intelligent driving solution to the Zhijie S7 Pro (which does not rely on lidar and high-precision maps, and realizes high-speed and urban express NCA intelligent driving navigation and intelligent parking assistance), and promises to "enjoy intelligent driving when you pick up the car". If there is no "moth", the first model of Huawei's visual intelligent driving should be the M5.
Chery's sincerity is obviously more sufficient, before the second round of Zhijie S7 listing, Chery set up a business department for Zhijie, and the production of Zhijie S7 was also moved to Chery Super Second Factory, and at the press conference, Yin Tongyue promised to "take a car off the assembly line in one minute to ensure the massive delivery of new cars".
On the surface, Zhijie S7 is back on track, and Huawei and Chery also seem to have entered the "honeymoon period", but in the long run, there are still many uncertainties in Zhijie, which is the flaw that comes with the "smart car" model. The advantage of the "Smart Car" model is that it can get Huawei's maximum support in technology, products, and marketing, while the disadvantage is that participating car companies can only be a "tool man" who has no soul and is only responsible for production. There are four car companies, namely Cialis, Chery, BAIC, and JAC, and each has to listen to Huawei's decision, whether it is a sedan, SUV or MPV, A-class, B-class, or C-class or D-class. Among the four car companies, according to the degree of obedience, Cialis > BAIC>JAC> Chery, from the sales point of view, the world is also a "handle", last year, the cumulative sales of more than 94,000 vehicles, this year's sales target is 600,000 vehicles, obviously, the world is Huawei's favorite. The so-called "emperor loves the eldest son", the eldest son must have the most resources. For Chery, if you don't have the right to speak, and you can't get the best resources, don't you feel embarrassed?
In fact, it can be seen from the details that Yin desperately courted Huawei at the press conference, and even mentioned that "he and Yu Chengdong guarantee offline communication at least once a month and phone calls at least once a week", which is destined to be a completely unequal cooperation. Although its annual sales approached 1.9 million units last year, it has never separately announced the sales volume of Chery New Energy, and occasionally on the list is QQ ice cream, which is an "old man's music". Not to mention compared with "Di Wang", compared with Chang'an and Geely, Chery New Energy only belongs to the level of kindergartens. Holding Huawei's thigh, Chery New Energy has the possibility of turning over.
"Final Talk"
What's embarrassing is just Chery, in Huawei's circle of friends, each has its own embarrassment, and car companies that want to keep their souls and choose the Hi model will not only face the high cost of purchasing intelligent driving products from Huawei, but also face different differential treatment from relatives and relatives. AVATR is a typical example, in all Huawei's promotion of ADS 2.0 high-end intelligent driving, AVATR will never be mentioned, dare to spend money to buy fake Huawei intelligent driving?
Whether it is embarrassing or cruel, it can't change the fact that Huawei has become an "axis country", most of the first- and second-tier car companies choose to enter the "Huawei system", among the joint venture brands, Audi has clearly cooperated with Huawei, and another Japanese car company (possibly Toyota) is also in deep contact with Huawei. For Huawei, how to balance the business conflict between the Hi mode and the smart car model, and how to resolve the distribution of benefits among Hi members, have become compulsory courses.
In addition, it is also unknown whether Huawei's internal game will be biased towards the radicals represented by Yu Chengdong or the defensive faction represented by Xu Zhijun. In my opinion, China's auto industry does not lack a car company, but a lack of a "locomotive" to lead car companies to climb Mount Everest.