There is no doubt that this is the best era for Chinese cars.
With the help of intelligent electrification, China's automobiles are rising rapidly and leading the world: in 2023, the mainland will surpass Japan to become the world's largest automobile exporter; the market share of self-owned brand passenger cars will surpass joint venture brands for the first time to become the mainstream of the auto market; at the Beijing International Auto Show, which opened on April 25, the Chinese people have experienced an unprecedented sense of national pride. Dealers and media are eager to learn about our innovations in the field of smart appliances and the new definition of the future of mobility.
But it's probably also the hardest times.
2024 and 2025 are regarded by the industry as the final period of life and death, and behind the prosperous market, there is competition with an increasingly strong smell of gunpowder, and price wars that break through the bottom line again and again. At the same time, it can also be seen from the Beijing Auto Show that new players, new ways to play, new stories, new public opinion fields, and new consumption environments are emerging in an endless stream.
How to seize the opportunity in the once-in-a-century change to fight against involution and anxiety? Shuidi Auto puts this problem to different car companies, some people choose to build a long board of intelligent technology and quickly launch innovative products, some people seek change in marketing and pursue "splashing traffic", and some people lay out the vertical industrial chain and firmly control costs and profits. Let's follow the author to listen to the answer of Gao Pu, assistant general manager of China FAW and vice president of Hongqi brand operation committee.
In his opinion, Hongqi's moat, or long-term competitiveness, in addition to the brand's unique "national car" status in the hearts of the Chinese people, also has three key words - efficiency, quality and safety.
"The world's martial arts are only fast and unbreakable", and high efficiency is the basis for coping with all changes
Before the author talked to Gao Pu, I stayed at the booth of the Hongqi brand for a long time, and learned that they brought a strong lineup of 22 products, covering three sub-brands of energy-saving vehicles, new energy and Golden Sunflower, including the new Hongqi H9, the 2024 Hongqi HQ9 (PHEV version), the new pure electric car Hongqi EHS7, EH7, E009, E007, E702, and the ultra-luxury executive sedan Hongqi Guoya.
The atmosphere of the booth was hot, and the author saw that in front of the Golden Sunflower Concept Car and the ultra-luxury executive sedan "Guoya", the "long guns and short guns" were non-stop, praising the "great labor of China"; some "foreigners" held a ruler to carefully measure the design details of the new H9, and some people sat in the EH7 to carefully study the functions of the intelligent car machine; and there were also many overseas dealers who grabbed the on-site staff and asked for more product technical information and the next plan to go to sea.
When the author asked Gao Pu what was the biggest attraction of so many new cars at the Hongqi booth, he suggested that "you might as well change your perspective and see how the Hongqi brand has changed this year." "At the Shanghai Auto Show in the same period last year, the Hongqi brand was a big booth, and at this year's Beijing Auto Show, we made a certain distinction between Hongqi energy-saving vehicles, Hongqi new energy and Hongqi Golden Sunflower", similar to the form of "1+1+1".
The reason for such a change is that last year, Hongqi officially announced a new structural plan for the establishment of three sub-brands under the parent brand of Hongqi, and responded to the trend with a more accurate way of playing.
The dizzying new car fully shows that Hongqi can quickly cater to market changes and come up with products that meet the needs of users in the first time. But digging deeper into the reasoning is not simple.
First of all, R&D should be efficient, which is due to the technical strength of the enterprise. The author understands that in the past three years, FAW has broken through 870 key core technologies and applied for 14,086 invention patents, accounting for more than 75% of the inventions, and the patent quality evaluation of central enterprises has entered the ranks of A-grade.
Among them, it is particularly worth mentioning that Hongqi is guided by the "All in" new energy strategy, and has carried out advanced technology reserves in the fields of new energy, intelligent networking, and vehicle integration, and a number of achievements have reached the international advanced level. In addition, based on the "Hongqi Tiangong" pure electric platform, the "Hongqi Honghu" hybrid platform and the "Hongqi Jiuzhang" intelligent platform, the Hongqi brand can quickly transform the latest technological achievements into user value.
Gao Pu also pointed out that while Hongqi is independently developing core technologies, it also cooperates with excellent supplier partners at home and abroad to jointly accelerate the transformation and technological upgrading of products.
The second is the improvement of operational efficiency. Gao Pu said that in the face of the ever-changing automobile market, they have been carrying out drastic reforms, the most recent is the adjustment of the Hongqi marketing management system promoted from September to October last year, on the one hand, most of the business departments of the original "one hospital and two centers" are classified into the new Hongqi marketing center, which coordinates the complete business line of the Hongqi brand from front-end strategy to terminal sales.
On the other hand, the Hongqi brand operation committee was established, and the group leaders participated in the research, production and marketing management of Hongqi in a more efficient way, aiming to accelerate the development rhythm of Hongqi. The President of the Hongqi Brand Operation Committee is Liu Yigong, the current director, general manager and deputy secretary of the Party Committee of China FAW Group Co., Ltd.
Gao Pu told Shuidi Automobile that since its establishment more than half a year ago, the Hongqi Brand Operation Committee has comprehensively sorted out various internal processes and mechanisms, and has achieved more efficient and smooth operation in the planning and planning of products, as well as the project development and production of specific products. Thanks to this, the Hongqi brand achieved good business results in the first quarter of this year, with wholesale sales of more than 100,000 new vehicles, and the reform has begun to show results.
In addition, according to Gao Pu, Hongqi currently has 3 factories, both new and old, to achieve digital and intelligent upgrades and support flexible production. In particular, he mentioned: "In the past, when we upgraded the factory or introduced new products, we had to stop the production line and concentrate on adjusting for a period of time, but now we are doing everything possible to break it down and maximize the fragmented time to complete the upgrade." Because we need to use a more flexible and flexible way to quickly respond to users' requirements for delivery timeliness, and at the same time meet their individual needs. ”
Empowered by science and technology, quality and safety are not only one dimension
As for the second key word is "quality", it is easy to understand, all car brands claim that quality is paramount. To improve product quality, in addition to configuration upgrades and solid materials, greater responsibility falls on the refinement of the manufacturing process. Gao Pu took the Hongqi brand's latest prosperous factory as an example, which will be completed and put into operation in 2022, representing the most advanced manufacturing level of the Hongqi brand, which is also the leading level in the world.
He summed up the biggest feature of the prosperous factory in one sentence, "commodity vehicles are off the assembly line, and digital vehicles are on the cloud". It means that as each vehicle of the Prosperity Factory rolls off the assembly line, its digital twin is synchronously uploaded to the cloud, so that all data can be traced. "This factory accumulates more than 1,000 gigabytes of data every day, and we use AI technology to analyze it, so that we can detect changes in product quality and production line status, find and solve problems in time, and ensure that every vehicle and every part is delivered to users in the best condition. ”
Even more important is safety. In recent years, with the rapid growth of electric vehicles and the gradual maturity of consumers' perception of automobiles, the view that "safety is the greatest luxury" has been recognized by more and more people. At the 5th China FAW Science and Technology Conference held in April this year, Qiu Xiandong, Chairman and Secretary of the Party Committee of China FAW, officially released the "SIGHT (Insight) 531" development strategy of Qiqi Technology, that is, safety (Safety_security), intelligence (Intelligence), green (Green), health (Health), and wonderful (Taste), constituting the meaning of "SIGHT (insight)", and safety is put in the first place. The security advocated by Hongqi is also multi-level and multi-dimensional.
The first must be the safety of the body structure and the three electrics. Hongqi EH7, the first strategic model of Hongqi New Energy, which was launched not long ago, is the latest footnote of Hongqi brand's pursuit of ultimate safety. It is reported that the car's battery pack has withstood extreme temperature changes, long-term water immersion, fierce fire and other harsh tests, EH7 also introduced battery cloud doctor, intelligent fuse and other mechanisms to ensure the safety and reliability of the battery system. What's even more surprising is that Hongqi not only improved the EH7's vehicle impact resistance, but also conducted the industry's first triple lightning test, bringing electric vehicle safety to a new height.
The second is Hongqi's safety concept for occupant health and environmental protection. Gao Pu said that Hongqi's products are not only healthy and safe when the user picks up the car, but also harmless to people even when the production line is in the production line. Hongqi brand is also committed to achieving green and low-carbon development of the whole industry chain. At present, Hongqi's factory adopts low-carbon manufacturing technologies such as clean green electricity, low-energy consumption materials, and energy adaptive control, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 10,000 tons per year.
In addition, the Hongqi brand also attaches great importance to data security, which will be the lifeblood of smart cars in the future. Hongqi brand began to research as early as 2017, and has established a leading domestic theoretical research, security framework, standard specification, design and development, testing and evaluation, and security guarantee system in terms of functional safety, expected functional safety, data security and network security.
Write at the end
During the one-hour in-depth exchange with Gao Pu, the author felt that Hongqi valued the high-quality transformation of the brand and pursued a more hardcore and lasting competitiveness. This is not only a long-term enterprise, but also a national car that shoulders the important task of leading the healthy development of China's automobiles.