Following the new M7, Huawei wants to use the same strategy to make the new M5 a phenomenal product.
On April 23, Huawei unveiled the new Wenjie M5 in Beijing, with two power forms: extended range and pure electric, with a total of three configurations. Among them, the extended-range rear-wheel drive intelligent driving version is 249,800 yuan, the extended-range four-wheel drive intelligent driving version is 279,800 yuan, and the pure electric rear-drive intelligent driving version is 269,800 yuan.
Compared with the old model, the biggest change in the new M5 is that the whole system is equipped with a high-end intelligent driving system with lidar as standard, and the starting price of 249,800 yuan is 30,000 yuan lower than that of the old intelligent driving version, but if you only look at the starting price, the new M5 is the same as the old model, both of which are 249,800 yuan.
The starting price of 249,800 yuan is the same as that of its big brother "Wenjie M7", which undoubtedly increases the market challenge of the new M5. The main reason why the new question world M7 can become a phenomenal explosive product is that under the premise that the configuration has been greatly upgraded, it has dropped by 40,000 yuan compared with the old model. The new M5 doesn't seem to have a continuation of the pricing strategy of the new M7.
In this regard, Yu Chengdong, executive director of Huawei, CEO of Consumer BG, and chairman of Huawei Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, said that this is the first time that Huawei has made the high-end intelligent driving version at such a low price, "At present, the selling price of less than 300,000 yuan is a loss, which is still a lot worse than 300,000 yuan, and we are under great pressure," Yu Chengdong said, "We use materials too ruthlessly, the cost is very high, and it is a loss." ”
Huawei also gave the new M5 optional rights and interests worth 37,000 yuan, including 3,000 yuan cash discount, 12,000 yuan optional gold, 20,000 yuan urban intelligent driving package equivalent coupons, and 2,000 yuan front windshield heat insulation film.
"It's crazy, this industry is too rolling," Yu Chengdong sighed, "especially the last option was added before the press conference." It's really hard, it's too fierce, the industry is too rolling, and we are under a lot of pressure to reduce costs. This is the first time that Yu Chengdong has repeatedly emphasized the high cost and pressure at a new car launch event.
The configuration continues to be upgraded
If you don't consider the price factor, from the perspective of configuration upgrades, compared with the old M5, the upgrade range of the new M5 can be described as huge. In short, it looks better, the high-end intelligent driving is better driven, and the materials are more solid.
The first is good-looking. The front design of the new M5 adopts the family design language of the M9, with a closed front face and a narrower lower surround. Yu Chengdong quipped: "The big mouth has become a small mouth." ”
The new M5 emphasizes fashion elements, and the exterior color scheme has been added to two new colors, Metropolitan Red and Tahitian Gray, which is the same as the Huawei Pura 70, and the number of exterior colors has increased to seven. This makes the new M5 both youthful and stylish. Huawei hopes that the new M5 will be the first smart SUV that is more suitable for the younger group.
The second is high-end intelligent driving, which is the biggest upgrade of the new M5 this time, and it is also the key to attracting users.
The new M5 is equipped with LiDAR as standard, and is equipped with 3 millimeter-wave radars, 11 cameras and 12 ultrasonic radars, for a total of 27 hardware sensors. With the support of the HUAWEI ADS 2.0 advanced intelligent driving system, the new M5 has high-speed and high-end intelligent driving capabilities in urban areas that do not rely on high-definition maps. At the same time, the high-end intelligent driving capabilities have also been further upgraded - the MPI (manual average takeover mileage) has increased from 114 kilometers a year ago to 270 kilometers, and the success rate of urban elevated inward and outbound mergers has increased to 99.2%, compared to 98.86% a year ago.
Huawei's goal for high-end intelligent driving is to "realize that the whole country can drive, the more you drive, the better you drive, and the more you use it, the smarter it is." As of April 2024, the NCA pilot in urban areas has covered more than 40,000+ urban and rural areas, with a total mileage of more than 200 million kilometers.
The significant upgrade of high-end intelligent driving capabilities is mainly due to Huawei's continuous investment in cloud computing power. As of April 2024, Huawei's cloud computing power has reached 3.3E FLOPS, an increase of more than 80% over the same period last year.
Another important upgrade is smart parking. On the basis of visible parking, RPA and valet parking in the park are added. In the video of the press conference, Huawei showed that the new M5 can be parked in and out effortlessly in extremely narrow parking spaces and single-storey or multi-storey parking scenes. It is reported that the new M5 supports more than 160 parking scenarios, and the goal is to achieve the goal of being able to park anywhere. Smart parking features have become increasingly important for both novice and female drivers.
Finally, the new M5 has also been upgraded in terms of chassis and body materials, which are critical to safety. The chassis is 100% all-aluminum alloy chassis, and the four-ball head double wishbone and multi-link independent suspension, Yu Chengdong said, "Huawei also uses money in invisible places."
In comparison with Tesla Model Y, Mercedes-Benz GLE, and BMW X7, the new M7 is the only model with a 100% all-aluminum alloy chassis. Yu Chengdong said that the new M5 surpasses the all-aluminum chassis of a million-dollar luxury car.
The body of the new M5 is made of more than 60% high-strength steel and more than 19.5% of submarine-grade hot-stamping steel, which makes it 1.5 times torsionally stiff as the Model Y. Yu Chengdong described the safety of the new M5 as a "small tank" on land, and said that "it has never lost in actual combat".
Yu Chengdong said that "I have never lost in actual combat", and the focus is on the AEB active braking capability of the new M7. It is reported that in the past year, the M5 has actively avoided possible collisions more than 40,000 times, and has been helping users to actively avoid risks almost every day. This time, the AEB capabilities of the new M5 have been upgraded again.
In terms of forward collision escalation, in the face of stationary vehicles and pedestrians, the maximum AEB braking speed in the state of human driving and intelligent driving is increased to 120km/h, the effective range of lateral collision avoidance reaches 40-130km/h, which can actively identify obstacles such as water barriers, cones, curbs, pedestrians, and vehicles, and the effective range of backward collision avoidance reaches 1-60km/h, which can actively identify pedestrians, moving two-wheeled vehicles and crossing vehicles, etc., to improve the safety ability of reversing.
In addition, the new M5's seats, audio and other equipment have also been further upgraded. However, in today's extremely involuted market, price is the most important factor in whether the greatly upgraded configuration can impress users.
Another hit in the world?
Yu Chengdong defined the new M5 as a key product to open the next 3 years of Hongmeng Zhixing, and believed that it would become another hit of the Wenjie brand.
But if price is taken into account, the market challenges faced by the new M5 are much greater than those of the new M7. The sales miracle of the new M7 is based on the premise of a significant upgrade in product power, and the price is reduced by 4-50,000 yuan. Compared to the obvious price advantage of the new M7, the new M5 looks a little inferior in this regard.
Moreover, compared with the launch environment of the new M7 last year, the new M5 faces more fierce market competition. When the new M7 was launched, only the Ideal L7 sold out in one month among its competitors in the same class. The new M5 has to face much more core competitors, ideal L6, Tang DM-i, dark blue S7, Lynk & Co 08, BYD Song L are all opponents that should not be underestimated, and they are all strong competitors with monthly sales of more than 10,000.
It is worth noting that on April 24, automotive industry analyst Sun Shaojun issued an article saying that the new AITO M5 jointly built by Huawei and Cialis has achieved more than 4,000 cumulative lock-in orders. In an interaction with netizens, Sun Shaojun added that this data is very good and far exceeds the ideal L6 24-hour order at the same price.
However, the discussion of the new M5 on social platforms does not seem to be as good as the huge traffic set off by the new M7 since its launch. However, the new M5 will not start large-scale deliveries until May 15, and it is too early to define its market prospects, and perhaps Huawei still has a way to deal with the market competitiveness of the new M5.
In any case, Huawei's Hongmeng Zhixing (smart car business) has already passed the crisis period for most of last year, and with the explosion of the new M7, Huawei has established a set of "success learning" system for market prediction. The new M5 is just a chess piece in this system, and its trend will not affect the overall momentum of Hongmeng Zhixing, and its success will not shake the market advantage that has been established.
Since the beginning of this year, Wenjie has surpassed its ideals for three consecutive months and topped the first place among new forces. The cumulative sales volume in the first quarter was 86,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 636%, making it the fastest growing brand among all new energy brands. Counting the Zhijie S7, as of April 22, the cumulative sales of Hongmeng Zhixing in 2024 have reached 105,000 units, ranking first among the new forces.
With the launch of more new models, Hongmeng Zhixing may be able to sit in the first position of the new force. But for Huawei, which has bigger expectations, the current results are still a long way from expectations. The sales target for this year is as high as 600,000 units, but only 14.3% of the target has been achieved in the first three months. This means that in order to achieve the full-year target, it is necessary to achieve monthly sales of more than 57,000 units in the remaining nine months. Wenjie delivered 32,000 new cars last month, and there are still 25,000 vacancies to fill before 57,000.
Building a car is a long-distance marathon, and if Huawei wants to achieve the expected success in the automotive industry, it may need to be patient and develop slowly. (This article was first published in Titanium Media App, author|Wang Ruihao, editor|Zhang Min)