D-class pure electric only needs more than 200,000? This 2-year-old Chinese car company has gone crazy!

Electric car commune

2024-06-11 15:24Posted on the official account of Beijing Electric Vehicle Commune

Hello everyone, I am the president of the Electric Vehicle Corporation.

Some time ago, in an article talking about the collapse of luxury brand prices, a friend commented:

Over there, high-flying luxury brands are forced to squeeze out brand premiums and cut prices to survive; And it is no wonder that Chinese brands have launched hundreds of thousands or even millions of cars here.

(There are only 4 full dozens with an average price of more than 500,000 yuan, half of which are Chinese brands)

But as of last year, Chinese brands still lacked a serious D-segment sedan (with the exception of the Hongqi L5). Even NIO and Yangwang, the flagship ET9 and U7 will not be available until the second half of this year at the earliest.

At this juncture, there is actually a brand that has only been established for 2 years and has launched two pure electric D-class sedans in one go: the Y6 entry version is only sold at 269,800, and the Y7 is the first model to use four-wheel drive and have a range of more than 1000km!

The low-key and unknown marketing style also seems to be incompatible with the current environment.

So, what exactly is the origin of this voyage car? And why is it so low-key?

This matter has to start with a local richest man.

01. The king of motorcycles who came out of the countryside

In 1968, Yuan Qinshan was born in a rural family in Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province.

In that era when the one-child policy had not yet been implemented, everyone was used to "having more children to fight", and there were 7 brothers and sisters in Yuanqinshan's family. Because of the large population of the family and the economic conditions at that time, in the memory of Yuanqinshan, he always starved with his older brothers and sisters when he was a child.

"I remember one time when there was no food at home, my father went out to borrow it for a day and only borrowed 3 taels of rice. After cooking, my father and mother said that they were not hungry and that they had eaten it all for me and my brothers and sisters. ”

It was also at this time that Yuanqinshan planted a thirst for money.

After graduating from junior high school, Yuan Qinshan took up a job of collecting grain under the arrangement of his parents - collecting grain at a low price in each village, and then selling the collected grain to the grain management office to earn the difference, and living by selling his strength.

In a month, Yuanqin Mountain can earn seventeen or eighteen yuan.

When he was empty-handed, he picked up some oil, salt, sauce and vinegar to sell along the street, and once rode a bicycle to the factory 50 kilometers away to buy chicken seedlings and sell them to farmers.

In order to increase sales, he also took the initiative to take credit: wait for the farmers to sell chickens at the end of the year and make money, and then collect the accounts.

However, due to the long distance, cycling is time-consuming and physically demanding, and it is easy to be dangerous on the road. So, Yuanqinshan came up with the idea of a motorcycle: start as an apprentice in a motorcycle dealership, learn to ride a bicycle and repair a bicycle.

If this were a regular script, Yuan Qinshan would save up money to buy a motorcycle as a production tool after completing his studies, and continue to engage in the small business of selling chickens.

But unsurprisingly, there was an accident: in the Spring Festival of 1987, Yuanqinshan's cousin, who was working in Guangzhou, returned home and rode a brand-new motorcycle!

This is a rare object in an inland city like Yuncheng, and everyone is also looking left and right, and they can't put it down.

Waiting for the crowd to disperse, Yuan Qinshan quietly grabbed his cousin: "What kind of fortune have you made?" How can you afford such a magnificent car! ”

My cousin's answer was light: "Rare things are expensive, but we are more expensive than Guangzhou." ”

The speaker has no intention, but the listener has a heart. Just after the end of the year, Yuanqinshan, who smelled a business opportunity, asked relatives to borrow 3,000 yuan and went south to Guangzhou with his cousin. His purpose is to "buy" from the market 1,800 kilometers away, if nothing else.

In order to save more than 1,000 yuan in freight, he spent 6 days and 5 nights riding a motorcycle all the way home.

Although it is hard, the price difference between the two places has made Yuanqinshan earn more than 1,000 yuan at a time, and he can become a 10,000-yuan household in half a year!

Five years later, 23-year-old Yuan Qinshan opened a motorcycle shop of more than 100 square meters in Yuncheng with a net worth of 500,000 yuan.

With years of relationship, he won the sales agent of big brands such as Honda, Guangtian, Tianma, Yamaha, etc., and also attracted many car owners to patronize. At the height of the business, the turnover was more than 200,000 a day.

Yuanqinshan, who is active, still has a side business in addition to his main business.

He invented a protective case for motorcycles to avoid damage during transportation, and also loaded other goods in the gaps around the box to reduce transportation costs in a "hitchhiking" way.

In just a few years, this small shop has become the largest motorcycle dealer in Shanxi - Shanxi Tongda Group, with an annual income of 2 billion yuan, and branches are located in more than a dozen provinces across the country. The "one-stop" service of retail, wholesale, after-sales and accessories provided is also highly praised.

Riding on the east wind of motorcycles, the new richest man in Yuncheng was born.

But unfortunately, with the "ban on motorcycles" in big cities, major motorcycle companies took the lead in reducing production in order to protect themselves, and the market began to become in short supply. Tongda Group, which has no cars to sell, must change its thinking.

Fortunately, the 31-year-old Yuanqinshan seized this opportunity.

At an entrepreneur exchange seminar in Guangzhou, Yuanqinshan got acquainted with the big boss of Thailand's CP Group. At that time, Zhengda had the money and willingness to set up a motorcycle manufacturer, but it was difficult to find a market and did not dare to start.

The two sides hit it off and established a joint venture Guangzhou Dayang Motorcycle Co., Ltd. (the predecessor of Dayun Locomotive), which began to produce Dayang and Dayun motorcycles in the Guangzhou factory, and expanded its production capacity to 1.5 million units in the first year.

One thing to say, Yuanqinshan is indeed a good hand in marketing. He grasped the psychology of people chasing stars at that time, and deliberately spent a huge amount of money to invite the popular Cecilia Cheung and Gong Li to endorse, and also placed a large number of advertisements on CCTV.

(These two advertising slogans can be said to be household names at the time)

The promotion policy of 500 yuan per car price reduction has also forced the large-scale development of the production end from the sales side, so as to transfer the cost of 500 yuan, which is exactly the same as the price war in the automobile market today.

Universiade motorcycles also live up to expectations, with excellent product strength and cost performance exported overseas, and also became the exclusive supplier of motorcycles for the 2008 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games.

To this day, these two brands are still active in the top 10 of the motorcycle sales list, which also proves the success of Universiade Motorcycle in the initial stage.

But for Yuanqinshan, the tens of billions of motorcycle market is no longer enough: he is aiming at the next 100 billion or even trillion-level market - entering the field of trucks.

02. A rising star in the field of heavy trucks

At first, his idea was met with constant opposition within the Universiade group. Compared to two-wheeled motorcycles, the difficulty of manufacturing trucks is undoubtedly exponential. Throwing all the money you just earned into new and unknown territory in the blink of an eye is tantamount to sinking into the sea.

What's more, there are two almost insurmountable mountains in front of the manufacturing truck:

Compared with Changchun, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities, the automobile industry base of Yuncheng and even the whole of Shanxi is relatively weak; In the field of heavy trucks, it has also been monopolized by state-owned brands such as Jiefang, Dongfeng, and Sinotruk, and there is no precedent for private enterprises to enter the game.

Yuanqinshan, who was keenly aware of the potential of the logistics market, did not listen to everyone's advice, but invested 2.6 billion yuan in 2004 to build a factory in Yuncheng Airport New Area, personally led the technical team to tackle tough problems, and even lived in the factory all night, in order to put into production the first private heavy truck.

This is 5 years.

Unfortunately, just when the first heavy truck "Dayun No. 1" entered the final commissioning stage and there was still half a year to roll off the assembly line for mass production, Yuanqinshan ushered in the darkest moment of his life.

Due to changes in the global economic situation and serious overproduction, many truck companies are unable to make ends meet, have gone bankrupt, and the development of the industry has come to a standstill.

Withdrawing at this time means that all previous efforts have been in vain; But if you don't quit, where will the future go?

At this life-and-death moment, Yuanqinshan made an extremely bold decision and made a big gamble for the rest of his life:

When peers retreated with capital, Yuanqinshan increased investment and rushed forward.

In March 2009, Yuanqinshan wholly acquired Sichuan Yinhe Automobile, established Chengdu Dayun Automobile Group Co., Ltd. and put into production Chengdu production base, and entered the field of light trucks.

In July 2010, Hubei Dayun Automobile Co., Ltd. was established, Shiyan production base was established, and entered the field of medium trucks;

Coupled with the Dayun automobile heavy truck production base in Yuncheng, a full range of truck industry layouts with complementary advantages in the three places was finally formed, and Dayun Group Co., Ltd. was officially established.

Maybe the name of Universiade really brings good luck, maybe the external economic environment has also entered a new stage, or maybe Yuanqinshan's marketing methods have worked again...... In short, Dayun's products have really been recognized by cardholders.

In the Spring Festival of 2013, in CCTV's "Guinness China Night" program, Dayun heavy truck created the Guinness World Record for the shortest distance of heavy truck drifting with its excellent comprehensive performance, which amazed everyone.

In June, Dayun heavy truck served as the official guarantee vehicle for the Tower Rally; In October, it set a Guinness World Record for the narrowest aisle of two wheels on the side of a truck with a record of 1 meter.

With the blessing of many endorsements, Dayun Heavy Truck handed over a report card of 13,000 vehicles this year, and also achieved the first profit in the 8 years since the establishment of the factory. Subsequently, the annual performance took off directly, and for a long time, heavy trucks and medium trucks firmly occupied the top ten positions in the sales list.

As a result, Universiade Group has also become the first enterprise in Yuncheng with sales exceeding 10 billion, and its products are exported to more than 100 countries and regions.

For this very thrilling experience, Yuanqin Mountain commented like this:

"To do business, you must do it with the mentality of raising children. The child who is waiting to be fed today may become the pillar of the enterprise tomorrow. ”

But the "children" raised by Yuanqin Mountain are not only Universiade motorcycles and Universiade heavy trucks.

03. Bet on the second half of your life

We just said that Yuanqinshan bet on cards is a gamble, but in fact, because he divided all the chips in half.

On the other side of all in, there is new energy that has now competed with fuel vehicles.

In fact, as early as 2010, when the group was established, Universiade started the research and development of pure electric models, and also established the first new energy laboratory in Shanxi in 2013, ready to tackle key new energy technologies and vehicle research and development capabilities.

Friends who are more impressed, should still remember what happened this year-

Policies such as free purchase tax, no license and no restriction have brought real benefits to users, and large national and local financial subsidies have allowed car companies to enter the new energy market, which is also known as "the first year of the full launch of China's new energy industry".

It's just that the track that Dayun aimed at at the beginning was not the popular passenger cars now, but commercial vehicles, and the speed of transformation is very fast.

In June 2015, Dayun passed the new energy pure electric vehicle production qualification audit, and took the lead in launching an impact on the familiar truck field. Just one month later, it was announced that the first pure electric truck was successfully developed;

In the same year, it brought pure electric terminal tractors and 4×2 pure electric trucks to meet the needs of B-end and other fields such as special operations, sanitation, and garbage transportation.

Although the range of 130km and the charging speed of 2 hours on a full charge may not seem like much now, it was fully sufficient for the operation at the time. Not only is the cost of using a car extremely low, but there is also no need to worry about the exhaust gas and environmental problems caused by diesel vehicles.

As a result, orders for pure electric logistics vehicles poured in like snowflakes, which also made Dayun rank second in the sales volume of similar products in the industry.

Dayun, who has tasted the sweetness for the first time, has found an opportunity for new energy commercial vehicles and began to lay out new energy heavy trucks.

Studies have shown that the emissions of a heavy-duty truck can even exceed that of dozens of BMW cars. If you want to improve this situation, there are only two options: either "curve to save the country" oil to gas, focusing on energy conservation and emission reduction; Either go directly to the end and get on pure electricity.

But truck electrification is easier said than done. The reason why heavy trucks are "heavy" is to undertake heavy tasks. The battery is small and can't run far, the motor is weak and can't be moved, and charging and replenishing energy is also a big problem.

Its most suitable use scenario is a place like a mine that can use gravitational potential energy: as long as the power is enough to go up the mountain with no load, start and recover when the full load goes down the mountain, and charge it violently!

However, in 2017, when the new energy subsidy for passenger cars was reduced by 20% for the first time, the Dayun 6×4 pure electric heavy-duty tractor came out, filling the gap in the domestic pure electric heavy-duty truck market.

Not only is it only 2 years later than Germany and the United States, but it also has the ability to mass produce. Judging from the parameters, it is not outdated either:

curb weight 14000kg, quasi-trailer total mass 34505kg;

290.61kWh lithium iron phosphate battery pack, full load range of 120km;

The maximum power is 350kW, and the top speed is 90km/h;

Support 120kW DC 4 gun charging, 15 minutes to replenish 40% of energy......

In the following time, the sales volume of Dayun's pure electric light trucks ranked second in the industry for two consecutive years, and the sales volume of pure electric heavy trucks ranked first for three consecutive years. It has also invested more than 2 billion yuan to build new energy passenger vehicles with the experience of new energy commercial vehicles and dealer channels.

The small SUV Yuehu sold more than 2,000 units at its peak; Sanya, Guilin, Kunming and other tourist cities and the local operating markets of Yuncheng can also see the MPV Yuanzhi M1.

In the words of Yuanqinshan, "Since the national policy and macro environment have given fertile soil and rain and dew for the development of new energy." As the vanguard of the pioneer, Dayun Automobile should contribute to the progress of the times. ”

04. The sword takes the high-end road of the edge

However, compared with the smooth commercial vehicle sector, Dayun's new energy passenger vehicles and even higher-end Yuanhang brands have undoubtedly embarked on a much more bumpy road.

The main reason is that the car market in the past two years has really been too volatile, and it has even rolled from technology to marketing and car company bosses.

Therefore, at the Future Automobile Pioneer Conference in June, many industry bigwigs shouted in the air to shift from volume price to volume value, and also called on the whole industry to spread its influence overseas:

It's hard to say whether Universiade wants to win by surprise, or if it's the usual way of playing from a province with large resources, Yuanhang chose a route that seems to be the most difficult, but in fact it may be the easiest -

Give money! Find the most professional people and do the most professional things.

Bosch, responsible for the E/E architecture and integrated chassis integration technology; Huawei, responsible for intelligent driving & steering, thermal management, and in-vehicle gateways; Ali provides the AliOS intelligent cockpit system, which cooperates with AR-HUD to do 5-screen linkage; There are also top global suppliers such as CATL, EVE and Benteler......

It is said that the joint R&D center established by Universiade and Bosch alone has a R&D team of about 1,000 people.

The last one that could pull so many heavyweight players and carry out joint research and development was the Mercedes-Benz S-class.

And the voyage is also the same as the Mercedes-Benz S-class, as soon as it makes a move, it goes straight to the flagship-

At the Chengdu Auto Show in 2022, Yuanhang Automobile lined up 4 pure electric models (luxury sedan Y6, luxury coupe Y7, executive SUV H8, sports SUV H9), all of which are D-class cars! The configuration is also directly full:

The B.H.D platform adopts 800V architecture, which supports vehicle, intelligent driving, and intelligent cabin domain control;

The 800V silicon carbide electric drive has a maximum output of 520kW and a 000 acceleration time of 3.2 seconds.

150kWh电池包，CLTC续航1020km；

The length of the car is more than 5.2 meters, the wheelbase is more than 3.1 meters, and the wind resistance is 0.207Cd;

Bosch Intelligent Brake-by-Wire + Brembo Braking System;

前双叉臂+后多连杆，空悬+CDC；

27 speakers + Wanos panoramic sound, 4-seat heating/ventilation/massage, 145° recliner in the rear;

……

It is now a top-notch parameter, and with the price of 269,800-359,800 yuan for the D-class executive sedan and 289,800-389,800 yuan for the D-class pure electric SUV, it is indeed a real fragrance.

Of course, this kind of high configuration, large space, and low price is also the usual operation of commercial vehicles. Commercial vehicles, which are extremely cost-sensitive, know how to "spend money on the cutting edge", which is difficult for passenger car companies to do.

Judging from my actual experience some time ago, Yuanhang's products, pricing and even subsequent marketing strategies have the shadow of when they were commercial vehicles, which is completely different from the mainstream style of the current car rim.

(After the Beijing Auto Show, they held a track day event)

Let's talk about the advantages first, for example, the acceleration/brake pedal of Yuanhang is very soft and linear, even if you drive a D-class car with 000 acceleration for more than 3 seconds to rush left and right in the track, you will not be dizzy, you can see that a lot of effort has been put into tuning.

Another example is that I deliberately ate the shoulder of the road on the track (which can be understood as speeding over the washboard) and wanted to feel the combination of the air spring and the CDC shock absorber, only to find that it can achieve vertical comfort while the roll is stable.

Even the small details that do not affect the user experience, such as the steering feel, have also caught up with the first echelon of high-end brands.

These are what commercial vehicles are best at.

But at the same time, Yuanhang also has the worst thing that commercial vehicles are best at - delicate floating on the surface, and the cockpit is not comfortable enough.

For example, the Yuanhang Y6 (sedan) obviously provides the angle adjustment of the backrest of the rear seats, and the touch of NAPPA leather is also good, but it does not provide front and rear adjustment of the seat cushion and leg rest, which makes it difficult to find a lying position that suits you:

The multi-function adjustment buttons on the rear door panels of all models are touch-based, and the visual effect is indeed there, but the use experience may not be as good as the TV remote control:

The black and white interior is very classy, but the black edge of the central control screen has become a minus:

On the whole, it can be seen that Yuanhang wants to create a high-end atmosphere through design and stacking, and the cost performance is there. However, it is still in the process of changing from commercial vehicle thinking to passenger car thinking, and it is still necessary to make adjustments in details.

If we can take advantage of the opportunity of the delivery of the first batch of models to quickly get close to user needs and iterate products, it is difficult to say whether the voyage backed by Universiade will become a dark horse among high-end new energy brands.

05. Write at the end

Throughout the development history of Universiade Group, it is not difficult to find that there are accidents and inevitables.

Incidentally, Universiade has always taken the pulse of the times. The motorcycles in the 90s, the truck transportation in the 00s, and the new energy in the 10s all allowed Dayun to move forward with the spring breeze of economic development.

Inevitably, behind the success of every big gamble of Universiade, is the successful experience of "seeing the big from the small": the motorcycle originated from the rural "down-to-earth", the truck king originated from motorcycle transportation, and the voyage originated from the electrification of commercial vehicles......

Universiade has witnessed the rapid development of Yuncheng and Shanxi since the reform and opening up, and has also single-handedly promoted the transformation of the local area from resources to technology, and has become a new business card of the local manufacturing industry.

And from the Universiade, how can we not see the epitome of China's development in recent years?

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