"We want to build the Xingtu brand into Chery's own 'Audi'!"
Mr. Yin Tongyue, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Chery Holding Group, once again emphasized the strategic position of the Xingtu brand as the "tip of the pyramid" for the entire Chery Group and its strategic mission of leading Chery Group to "go up" at the launch conference of Epoch ET held on May 9.
There is no doubt that independent soaring and brand improvement have always been an "obsession" in Yin Tongyue's heart, and of course, it is also the common ultimate goal that a number of Chinese brands represented by Chery have been striving for a long time.
Why is it necessary to achieve high and brand up? Because only in this way can we cover more car consumer groups; Only by achieving this goal can we have the vitality to live and live better in the present and future when competition is becoming increasingly fierce and consumption upgrading has become the general trend.
Although Chinese brands have worked hard for many years to achieve this goal, and have invested huge manpower, material, financial and energy, whether it is the new car-making forces that have stepped on the new energy dividend, or those Chinese car companies that have launched high-priced models, it is difficult to say that they have achieved high-end brand ownership.
Don't rush to deny, we admit that some car companies have narrowed the distance with those multinational auto giants, but in the horse-drawn car market or in the hearts of many consumers, there may still be something missing. This gap may come from the historical accumulation at the technical level, or it may be the century-old influence of car companies that cannot be surpassed in the short term, and even from the emotional value resonance between car companies and consumers.
In short, we are pleased with the progress and rapid development of Chinese auto brands, but unfortunately, the problem of independent self-determination is still in front of every Chinese auto brand.
New energy creates a new opportunity for the brand to go up
This time, can Chery's "Audi" break the game?
In the context of the pursuit of carbon neutrality, the development of new energy vehicles and this as a breakthrough has become the consensus of the entire automotive industry, not only the Chinese market, but also global car companies have actively or passively joined this new energy wave, which also brings a new opportunity for China's own brands to "brand upward".
This is especially evident in the Xingtu brand. From the release of the Star Era ES on December 20 last year, to the Yaoguang C-DM brought by the "Dragon Heads Up" this year, and then to the official launch of the Star Era ET this time, the Xingtu brand has brought an intensive offensive of high-end new energy products.
In less than 5 months, the Xingtu brand has completed the successive landing of three new energy blockbuster models, and the products cover a variety of power modes such as plug-in hybrid, pure electric, and extended range. The Star Era ET launched this time adopts pure electric and extended range double arrows.
Driven by the strength of good products, thanks to the assistance of multiple choices, the pre-sale of Star Era ET has also become popular: according to official data from Xingtu, as of 24 o'clock on May 9, the cumulative order volume of Star Era ET has reached 22,000 vehicles. At the same time, deliveries of the new car began on May 10.
A good start, does it mean that Xingtu can really break through the problem of "it is not easy to rush high independently"? At present, in fact, there are opportunities and challenges at the same time.
What is an opportunity? There are two major advantages for the Xingtu brand.
On the one hand, under the surging tide of new energy, independent brands have ushered in a new opportunity for brand improvement. At the same time, Xingtu entered the high-end new energy field through Epoch ET, and also accurately found its three major advantages. As Dr. Gao Xinhua said at the press conference: "Epoch focuses on the high-end new energy market, focusing on only three things, rolling up the battery life standard!" Pull up the safety standards! Knock down the threshold of smart driving! ”
In terms of battery life, although Chery entered the range extension market for the first time, it has shown commendable hard power in vehicle range. Thanks to the high-performance range extender engine with a thermal efficiency of up to 44.5%, the Epoch ET range extender model has the best WLTC fuel consumption of 5.2L/100km in its class, and a comprehensive range of 1518km when fully fueled and fully charged.
In the extreme endurance challenge of the Star Era ET extended-range model held not long ago, it ran a limit endurance of 2141.4km. The maximum range of the all-electric model is 760 km.
In terms of safety, as a global product, Epoch ET passive safety is built in accordance with domestic and international double five-star safety standards. At the same time, relying on Chery Group's safety development system, the new car is equipped with comprehensive six safety protections: active safety, passive safety, battery safety, information safety, functional safety and electromagnetic safety.
At the intelligent level, Epoch ET is based on Chery's latest generation EEA 5.0 electronic and electrical architecture, the industry's first software architecture to realize global SOA service, with high-end computing power and high bandwidth, fully supporting high-end intelligent driving and extreme intelligent cockpit 6.0. In addition, the car is also equipped with 30 high-performance sensors and an NVIDIA DRIVE ORIN chip with up to 508TOPS computing power, which can achieve safer NEP full-scene intelligent driving assistance.
The blessing of the three major product advantages has created a high-energy performance of Star Era ET's pre-sale and high energy performance. Another key factor that really brought the Xingtu brand to break the problem of "independent upward mobility" is related to the price war that started last year.
The price war in the auto market, which began at the beginning of last year and has continued to this day, has not only knocked down the product prices of many joint ventures and luxury brands, but also greatly tilted the overall share of the auto market towards independent brands. At the same time, it has also knocked out the brand premium, production capacity and channel advantages that have been the core competitiveness of the joint venture brand for a long time.
According to the observation of the horse-drawn carriage market, the current domestic car consumers, especially the younger new generation of car buyers, have undergone earth-shaking changes in their cognition and views on joint venture brands and independent brands. They are no longer so entangled in the original possible brand premium "baggage", but pay more attention to the value of the product itself when choosing a car. And this should be the biggest opportunity and opportunity for independent brands such as Xingtu to achieve high-end.
Of course, while there are also opportunities, there are challenges. While we personally felt the "you're welcome" proposed by Yin Tongyue last year, we also saw some problems that still exist in independent brands such as Xingtu, or what needs to be improved.
"Audi" was not built in a day
Chery's "Audi" needs multi-dimensional efforts!
The slogan of "independent high, brand upward" is easy to shout, but it is not so simple to realize.
Taking Chery, the protagonist of this press conference, as an example, as the earliest attempt and pioneer of Chinese brands to practice brand premiumization, how winding and rugged this road is, I am afraid that only Chery people can appreciate the taste. As early as 2009, Chery launched Riich to try to enter the high-end automotive market, but due to the influence of the overall market atmosphere, technology, brand power, car culture and other comprehensive factors at that time, Chery's high-end road came to a halt.
Subsequently, the unwilling Chery set off again, and launched Qoros through international cooperation, which made most of the industry at that time have a wait-and-see attitude towards this, despite the blessing of various international concepts of overall technology internationalization, team management internationalization, and brand concept internationalization, but the performance in the market is still difficult to be satisfactory. In the end, Chery's second high-end road became another story.
Xingtu, as Chery's third effort to pursue the high-end of the brand, is indeed significantly different from the previous two attempts. It brings together almost all the technical strength and system advantages of the "science and engineering man". In order to create its own "Audi", Chery can be said to have done everything it has.
But "Audi" was not built in a day, and "Chery's "Audi" seems to be just a beautiful vision at present.
First of all, from the perspective of sales, with the joint arrival of Yaoguang C-DM and Star Era ES, Xingtu has shown a relatively strong momentum. In the past April, Xingtu sold 8,235 vehicles, and the cumulative sales from January to April this year were as high as 31,728 units, with a year-on-year growth rate of 28%. Coupled with the listing of Star Era ET, the monthly sales of Xingtu will definitely reach a new level.
But even so, not to mention how big a gap there is with the genuine Audi, compared with the current new power leading car companies such as Ideal, there is also a lot of difference. The support of fixed and large sales scale is the key to whether Xingtu can go to the next level.
In addition to the scale of sales, Xingtu also needs to further enhance the value of its own models. We understand that the original intention of Xingtu is to allow more users to have a higher car ownership experience and obtain higher product value than the same level while paying a lower car purchase cost. But this is often a double-edged sword, if deep in the hearts of consumers, unconsciously produce a brand positioning and price awareness, then in the follow-up to further upward improvement, it may take more effort.
This is why even though Xingtu has achieved an average price of 187,000 yuan in the first quarter of this year, we still believe that this may not be enough to support it, and Xingtu has entered the high-end brand camp. In other words, Xingtu must have a more high-end product on top of the current flagship model, the Star Era ET, and it has really become a higher-end product that has become a pillar of sales.
In addition, in terms of channels, services and user experience, Xingtu still needs to go further.
Previously, in the course of many on-site visits to Horse-drawn Carriage City, we found that the high-end landing of independent brands was more reflected in the products, and ignored the channels, services and user experience that may be more important. Including the Xingtu brand, the above three aspects still need to be strengthened and further improved and updated. Whether it is high-end enough or not, consumers can feel it intuitively when they go to the sales line of the brand.
For all independent brands that practice brand upward, high-end should not be just a simple "refrigerator, color TV, big sofa", but a full-dimensional, full-cycle high-end from products, technologies, channels, services, users, etc. And this kind of high-end will have vitality and be sustainable.
If Xingtu wants to become Chery's "Audi", it still needs to work hard.
Ma said:
High-end brand is the ultimate goal and expectation that independent brands, including Chery, are eager to achieve as soon as possible, and we are pleased with the rapid development and progress of independent brands. But at the same time, countless real-life cases in the past tell us that this is also a road full of thorns and bumps. Most independent brands, including the Xingtu brand, have to make efforts and upgrades from multiple dimensions such as channels, services, and user experience in addition to products if they want to truly achieve brand improvement and high-end branding.
As mentioned above, new energy has brought new opportunities for independent brands, and factors such as price wars have led to a new pattern in the current auto market. Only by achieving more than the full-dimensional, full-cycle high-end of the product can Xingtu be said to have truly broken the game. And Yin Tongyue and the entire Chery's expectation of "building Chery's own 'Audi'" is likely to become a matter of course.