Recently, Zhou Hongyi, founder, chairman and CEO of 360 Company, said in a video that he recently plans to sell the Maybach S600 that has accompanied him for 9 years and replace it with a domestic intelligent new energy vehicle. This move triggered major car companies to "recommend themselves", saying that they would send the car to Zhou Hongyi for a test drive.
On April 19, ZEEKR Automobile sent a ZEEKR 009 to the 360 Company Building, and interacted with Zhou Hongyi on Weibo, inviting him to test drive the new car. After the launch conference of ZEEKR 009 Glory in the evening of the same day, the executives of ZEEKR Automobile were asked by the media how they would move Zhou Hongyi to purchase ZEEKR 009 Glory. In this regard, Guan Haitao, CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of ZEEKR Automobile, said: "There are many reasons to persuade Mr. Zhou (Zhou Hongyi) to buy ZEEKR 009 Guanghui. I think ZEEKR has done its homework in higher dimensions of security, including privacy and security, and this is enough to impress him. ”
"Zhou Hongyi originally sat on Maybach, but the experience of ZEEKR 009 Brilliance will definitely be better than Maybach, so he must be right to choose ZEEKR 009 Brilliance. An Conghui, President of Geely Holding Group and CEO of ZEEKR Automobile, added.
ZEEKR Automobile launched the MPV (Multi-Purpose Vehicles, multi-purpose vehicle) model ZEEKR 009 Glory with a price of nearly 800,000 yuan, which not only wants to impress Zhou Hongyi with the "experience is better than Maybach" ZEEKR 009 Glory, but also wants to end the price increase status quo of Japanese luxury MPVs in the Chinese market through this new car.
How to convince high-end users
The ZEEKR 009 Brilliance released by ZEEKR Automobile this time is a luxury four-seat MPV model, with an official retail price of 789,000 yuan. Compared with the ZEEKR 009 that has been listed, the starting price of ZEEKR 009 has directly increased by nearly 300,000 yuan, becoming the highest-priced model among ZEEKR automotive products.
In November 2022, the ZEEKR 009 (including two six-seater models) was launched, and deliveries of the new car began in January 2023. Official data shows that in less than 16 months, ZEEKR 009 has delivered more than 22,000 vehicles. In 2023, ZEEKR 009 will become the annual sales champion of all categories of MPVs of more than 500,000 yuan with an annual sales of 19,210 units.
As an MPV model with a price of more than 500,000 yuan, ZEEKR 009 has delivered an average of about 1,375 vehicles per month, which is a good performance in the segment. Now, with the glorious listing of ZEEKR 009, ZEEKR Automobile has officially entered the 800,000-yuan MPV market. Previously, this market segment was occupied by Japanese luxury MPVs such as Lexus LM and Toyota Alpha for a long time. As a domestic brand, ZEEKR 009 Guanghui will become the focus of attention from the outside world on how to persuade high-end people to use its products.
In answering this question, Guan Haitao mentioned safety as a product feature. It is understood that in terms of security, ZEEKR 009 Radiance adopts the method of physical isolation and intelligent linkage to create an exclusive private space, such as the "smart curtain wall" can separate the front and rear cabins, the fog window above the partition and the rear cabin camera can be intelligently lifted, and the upper and lower double-layer electronic safes can be set separately with passwords. In addition, ZEEKR 009 Brilliance can also be set to "privacy mode" and "incognito mode" to protect user privacy in all scenarios.
In addition, ZEEKR Automobile also cooperated with BOE, a semiconductor display company, to jointly develop LC privacy dimming glass, and launched it on ZEEKR 009 Brilliance. The LC privacy dimming glass can be adjusted in 10 levels of brightness and darkness, and the light transmittance can be intelligently switched, and the fastest dimming only takes 1.5 seconds. In the darkest state, the light curtain will appear pure black, with a maximum shading rate of 99.5%, which can be completely isolated from the outside world.
As the first MPV model with a price of nearly 800,000 yuan in its own brand cars, ZEEKR 009 Brilliance also has characteristics in luxury configuration and driving control, which is also the selling point that ZEEKR believes that the car can better meet the needs of high-end users.
In terms of driving control, ZEEKR 009 Brilliance is equipped with ZEEKR magic carpet dual-chamber air suspension, which adds the "intelligent magic carpet" function on the basis of CCD (Continuous Controlled Damping, continuous adjustable damping suspension system) electromagnetic damping and dual-cavity air suspension, which opens up the vehicle chassis domain and intelligent driving domain, and uses the on-board active perception system, as well as perception and decision-making algorithms, to intelligently identify obstacles and realize the millisecond adjustment of suspension soft and hard.
In terms of luxury configuration, ZEEKR 009 Radiance uses natural marble from the southern foothills of the Himalayas as the original custom interior material, which is hand-polished and inlaid into the rear cockpit; The BADGE front grille is finished by hand in 30 hours using the same process as Rolls-Royce, and each 20-inch suspended forged wheel is hand-polished for 20 hours to present a mirror effect, and then 240 light and dark patterns are carved on the surface of the wheel by laser engraving process.
Buy a high-end luxury MPV without a price increase?
As for why the four-seater version of the model with a starting price of nearly 800,000 yuan was launched, An Conghui said: "Luxury MPVs like Lexus LM and Toyota Alpha are not priced in the Chinese market. In the past, ZEEKR did not reach or surpass their products and technologies, but today it has this ability, and even completely surpassed it in the field of new energy. Therefore, ZEEKR wants to return the price to rationality, which is the original intention and goal of developing this product. ZEEKR hopes to put an end to the unreasonable price increase of other luxury MPVs in China. ”
For a long time, Japanese models such as Toyota Alpha and Lexus LM have been "dominating" the high-end MPV market in the domestic market, and have been selling at the end of the market at a higher price because of the lack of car sources. In 2023, the Toyota Alpha, priced at about 900,000 yuan (without price increase), will sell about 20,000 units in China, with a price of about 1.2 million yuan to 1.55 million yuan. The Lexus LM sold about 18,000 units in China. During the same period, there was no model layout for self-owned brand cars in this market.
For a long time in the past, the MPV products of independent brands were mainly concentrated in the low-end market, and the models of independent brands such as SAIC Maxus, Wuling, and Dongfeng Fengxing occupied the majority of the market share of low-end MPVs. In recent years, as independent brands have achieved leading advantages in new energy vehicle technology, independent brands such as Zeekr Automobile, Denza Automobile, VOYAH Automobile, Great Wall WEY and GAC Trumpchi have begun to enter the mid-to-high-end MPV market, and have launched a variety of new energy MPV models such as ZEEKR 009, DENZA D9, VOYAH Dreamer, WEY Gaoshan and Trumpchi E9.
In the mid-to-high-end market of 300,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan, there are already independent brand models such as Denza D9 and VOYAH Dreamer that have entered the top 10 ranks of annual sales. Among them, the Denza D9 will win the sales championship in the MPV market below 500,000 yuan with a sales volume of 118,600 units in 2023.
However, there are still no independent brands entering the MPV market of more than 500,000 yuan. The reason why ZEEKR entered this market has also been thought about. "The planning of 009 Guanghui is earlier than ZEEKR 009, but because the previous product research and development has not reached the expected luxury and cost-effective appearance in the plan, it took us more than a year to polish the product before it was put on the market. An Conghui said, for example, for the thickness of the wool carpet in the car, ZEEKR tried 18 mm, 12 mm and other standards, and finally chose 15 mm, "because after our test, this thickness is the most comfortable for people to wear leather shoes, slippers or socks."
In the face of Toyota Alpha, ZEEKR 009 Brilliance will also compete differently with pure electric power and intelligent configuration. In terms of power, the Zeekr 009 Radiance is equipped with a full-stack 800V high-voltage system and a 108-degree ultra-fast charging 5C Kirin battery, with a CLTC (China Light-duty Vehicle Test Cycle) range of 702 kilometers; the high-performance four-wheel drive system has a peak power of 580 kW, a maximum horsepower of 788 horsepower, and zero acceleration in only 3.9 seconds; and the Zeekr 009 Radiance SoC (battery power) is charged from 10% to 80% It only takes 11 and a half minutes and has a range of more than 500 km.
In contrast, the Toyota Alpha is currently only available in a petrol and hybrid version. "At present, the first choice for successful people to travel is still MPV, they have high requirements for products, and at the same time, they have a strong sense of social responsibility and pay great attention to environmental protection. For these requirements, ZEEKR 009 Brilliance can be met, so we are full of confidence in the future market. An Conghui said.
In terms of intelligent configuration, ZEEKR 009 Guanghui is equipped with dual 8295 intelligent cockpit computing chips, providing independent computing power support for the front and rear cabins, whether it is the response speed of the cockpit system, graphics and video processing capabilities, or AI (artificial intelligence) large model computing capabilities, which are the current industry-leading level. These product features are not available in similar models such as the Toyota Alpha.
In the face of the high-end MPV market of more than 500,000 yuan that has been "occupied" by Japanese cars for a long time, ZEEKR Automobile has achieved initial success, and now ZEEKR 009 has entered the 800,000-yuan market.