A few days ago, at the launch conference of Baojun Yueye Plus, Zhou Yu, deputy general manager of SAIC-GM-Wuling Brand Division, made a different remark:
"There was no benchmarking at this press conference, and there was no stepping on it"
"If the support you give us can be exchanged for traffic, I think the purpose of this press conference has been achieved, which is also our value of the Baojun brand."
At the press conference, there was such a sentence written on the big screen behind Zhou Yu: "If there is traffic, please leave it to you!"
Easily, we can perceive the difference in Zhou's speech. "There is no benchmarking, and there is no stepping on", we don't know whether there is a sarcasm of friends and businessmen, but it is certain that consumers and netizens who keep up with current affairs will be able to think of some brands that are benchmarked and then "overturned" when they hear this sentence.
Under all kinds of contrasts, Zhou Yu and Baojun seem to have become a clear stream in the industry with a "low profile". But does a low profile necessarily mean sincerity and sincerity? Is it really just because you don't want to step on it and want the years to be quiet?
Perhaps, behind Baojun's "low profile" is the "high and crazy walk" after the annual sales fell from more than one million to 50,000 yuan per year; behind Zhou Yu's "different" marketing remarks is the dilemma of "riding a tiger is difficult".
I reflected, but I didn't fully reflect on it
According to the sales data released by a professional automotive platform, in March this year, the monthly sales of the three products on sale under the Baojun brand, Baojun Yueye, Baojun Yunduo and Baojun KiWi EV were 739 units, 328 units and 110 units, respectively.
In the first two months of this year, the monthly sales of the Baojun brand were 3,461 and 1,137 respectively. In addition, the data shows that the annual sales of the Baojun brand for the whole of last year were 51,000 units.
Whether it is from the monthly sales or the annual sales, whether it is from the whole system or from the single product, looking left and right, the sales trend of the Baojun brand can be described in three words - not enough.
It is particularly noteworthy that earlier, Zhou Yu had made it clear that "sales are the microphone". After returning to its "old club" SAIC-GM-Wuling in March 2023, under the leadership of Zhou Yu and others, the Baojun brand changed its brand again in May of the same year and embarked on the road of electrification. Subsequently, in addition to the "tepid" KiWi EV, the Baojun brand successively launched two "masterpieces" of Baojun Yue Ye and Baojun Yunduo.
For these two products, Zhou Yu has not shy away from expressing his expectations for them: Baojun Yueye, the annual small pure electric SUV sales champion, and Baojun Yunduo, the most popular comfortable large 5-seater pure electric family car of the year.
But in fact, in the past six months, that is, since September last year, Baojun Yueye's monthly sales have never exceeded 2,000 units, and this year it has fallen three times in a row. Baojun Yunduo's results are also frowned upon, with sales briefly soaring to 3,487 units in December last year, falling directly to 1,531 units in January this year, and even more triple-digit units in March this year.
Zhou Yu's expectations were all disappointed.
Unlike most brands, Baojun's market performance has not been able to "go to the next level" after the transformation to the new Baojun and the start of electrification, but the harder it works, the more regressed.
In 2017, Baojun ushered in its own "highlight moment" and became the fastest brand to break through one million annual sales. However, all the "highlights" that belong to Baojun came to an abrupt end in 2017, and the brand's annual sales fell to 979,000 units in 2018, and continued to "fall endlessly" in 2019 and 2020, and the brand's annual sales in 2021 were only 216,000 units. The annual sales volume in 2022 will be directly "cut in half", with only 52,000 units.
In 2023, after Zhou Yu's return, Baojun's sales have not improved substantially, and they are still hovering around 50,000 units. Zhou Yu knows that "sales are microphones", so Baojun without sales will have no microphone and no right to speak.
On March 19 this year, Zhou Yu expressed a "reflection" on his personal Weibo: "From the beginning of 24 years to the present, Baojun has stopped all market fees, ......why?
At the same time, Zhou Yu also said that Baojun's efforts will be mainly spent on two things: enriching the product lineage and selecting franchised Baojun stores. In other words, Zhou Yu believes that the way to improve Baojun's sales performance is to launch more products, and second, to improve channels.
It sounds like that, but this reflection does not touch the "soul" of the Baojun brand problem at all, nor can it be called a thorough reflection.
Smart driving, "take off your pants and fart"?
Yue's sales are "unfavorable", Baojun and Zhou Yu's choice is not to adjust, improve and improve product strength, but to have the meaning of "nesting doll" type car, and launched Yue Ye Plus a few days ago.
From the pricing point of view, Baojun Yue also PLUS has two models, namely the flagship version of 93,800 yuan and the Zhizun version of 103,800 yuan. As the name suggests, the main enhancements of the Zhizun Edition and the Flagship Edition are focused on the intelligent experience level, including but not limited to the 8 million pixel inertial navigation binocular camera and DJI's latest generation of Osmo Intelligent Driving.
According to Zhou Yu, Yueye PLUS is "the only model within 200,000 equipped with a mass-produced delivery of the city's memory navigation assistance system". It is reported that Zhou Yu also said that although Yueye PLUS is not outstanding in terms of technical parameters, it has successfully brought more mainstream family users an accessible smart travel experience.
There is no doubt that unlike Yueye's toy attributes, the main selling point of Yueye Plus is the cost-effective intelligent experience. It's just that "cost-effective" should be prefixed - it seems.
First of all, the intelligent driving perception hardware of Yue Ye PLUS is not "pure" enough. At present, in order to improve the intelligent driving perception ability of the whole vehicle, most brands in the industry will be equipped with lidar, and if one is not enough, two will be doubled, and two will be doubled. The inertial navigation binocular camera equipped with Yueye plus is not a mainstream lidar.
It is interesting to note that at the press conference, Baojun attached a line of small print: "Replace the 8,000 yuan lidar." "There is no substitution in this world, and there is a lot of marketing rhetoric, and there is also a "substitution".
Perceiving the gap in hardware, can it really make Yueye plus show the original and pure intelligent ability?
Secondly, the wool comes out of the sheep. This means that in order to ensure profitability, a 100,000-level car will inevitably sacrifice some levels of product experience while improving the intelligent experience.
In addition to the intelligent driving of "flower fists and embroidered legs", Yue Ye plus is even lagging behind in many core product experience levels.
For example, the official range of the flagship version and the Zhizun version is only 401km, and it is difficult to imagine whether the endurance performance of Yueye PLUS is worthy of the price of 100,000 after the actual driving "shrinkage".
Another example, SAIC-GM-Wuling's "traditional arts" should be saved. Even the Zhizun version, priced at 103,800 yuan, is not equipped with side curtains. Could it be that in Zhou Yu's view, the smart travel experience at your fingertips is more important than the basic safety experience?
What's more fatal is that the flagship version of the model priced at 93,800 yuan does not have the intelligent "fist embroidered legs" and basic product strength, and its price has nothing to do with "high cost performance", which almost completely deviates from the original intention of "making cars for the people".
Going around and around, the essence of Yue plus and Yue is the same - it is useless.
Write at the end
When I understand the "two catties" of Yueye plus, go back to the question at the beginning of the article, Zhou Yu and Baojun do not benchmark or step on it, is it really a "clear stream in the world"?
The product definition has no bright spots, the brand image is vague, and the technical strength has no obvious advantage over the competition. Yueye Plus is not the result of Zhou Yu and Baojun's painful experience, but the embodiment of the poor skills of the donkey and the weakness of the product, which can only frequently make gimmicks at the level of showmanship and marketing.
There may be only one reason for not benchmarking and not stepping on it - fear of being exposed and dwarfed.
(Reprinted from Fun Car Fang)