At the beginning of 2024, Chery Xingtu took the lead in firing the first shot of price reduction, and its latest high-end pure electric car, Star Era ES, announced the addition of 20,000 yuan cash red envelopes, limited to the top 10,000 owners, and the addition of a 400V Guochao version, further reducing the starting price to 19880,000 yuan. Users who have previously made a big or blind booking or picked up the car will enjoy the latest policy.
The Star Era ES was officially released on December 20 last year, and only half a month has passed since now, and the price reduction was directly announced, which shows that Chery is extremely responsive to the market and users. According to the information obtained from the terminal, this time the Star Era ES four-wheel drive ultra performance version dropped the most, reaching 40,000 yuan, from the original 33980,000 yuan became 29980,000 yuan, a huge profit.
The new model Guochao Edition, through castration air suspension + CDC electromagnetic damping adjustment suspension and other luxury configurations with weak user perception, has been lowered to 19880,000 yuan, 2 cheaper than the original entry version70,000 yuan, which greatly lowered the threshold for users to buy a car.
In terms of core hardware materials, the Star Era ES "Guochao Edition" is almost the same as other versions, with a front double wishbone rear multi-link all-aluminum chassis, standard intelligent comfort braking system, variable steering ratio, intelligent torque control system, hydraulic shock absorption and other configurations, the body size is 4945x1978x1480mm, the wheelbase is 3000mm, and the interior adopts 25K central control large screen, intelligent cockpit ecology and so on.
So, can Star Era ES under such ** and configuration get rid of the sales "black hole" of the past ten days in one fell swoop?I feel like it still needs to be more volume.
A car of twins, but the treatment is very different
As we all know, Star Era ES also has a brother model, which is the Zhijie S7. Both are based on Chery EOX platform, in addition to the difference in styling design, Zhijie S7 is more dominated by Huawei, equipped with Huawei's intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving solutions, and Huawei is responsible for sales and service;The Star Era ES uses more self-developed technologies from Chery, such as the Lion cockpit, Galaxy ecology, and self-developed intelligent driving.
Purely from the perspective of product strength, the two cars can be said to have their own characteristics, both are positioned in the medium and large pure electric luxury sedans, the Star Era ES in addition to the "national tide version" in addition to the standard air suspension + CDC, the main super comfort positioning;The Zhijie S7 only has the top four-wheel drive to have air suspension, focusing on sports, youth and technology.
Of course, the most important thing is to be empowered by Huawei's full set of technical solutions. It is precisely for this reason that the Zhijie S7 has been extremely popular since its release, although the price range is 2498-34.980,000 yuan, but in November, it was officially announced that the number of reservations had exceeded 10,000 units. In contrast, Star Era ES has achieved both popularity and sales
With the two new cars of Geely, another independent car company, Zeekrypton 007 and Galaxy E8 have been launched with shocking ** and product power, which has also given Chery huge competitive pressure. Therefore, only 14 units of the Star Era ES were delivered after the launch, and the price reduction became inevitable.
In addition, there are also some regrets in terms of product power. First of all, among the three standard endurance versions that are partial to the entry, only a 60-degree battery pack and a 400V voltage platform are provided, which is smaller than the mainstream battery capacity of the same configuration on the market, and the actual battery life performance is worrying
In the main MAX long battery life and MAX + ultra-long battery life 800V version, the former is equipped with 799-degree battery pack, the latter is equipped with 977 degree battery pack, the longest range can be up to 905km, no accident should be the most popular kingpin version among users, but as a result, both models do not support high-end intelligent driving hardware such as lidar, of which max+ castration is more ruthless, such as three-zone intelligent air conditioning, fragrance, air purification, steering wheel electric adjustment, high-speed navigation and other functions have been canceled, although it is more expensive, but the function is not as much as the low configuration, and it has directly become the most chicken version of all models.
At present, the domestic new energy vehicle market is extremely cruel, especially in the price range of 20 300,000 yuan, which has attracted a big melee among all car companies. Although the Star Era ES has many advantages such as ultra-low energy consumption, strong platform architecture capabilities, and vehicle collision safety, this does not mean that it can really stand out from the crowd.
Because, the more problems of Star Era ES are beyond the product.
Sales and service have become the places where users complain the most
Epoch ES is the first pure electric vehicle product under the Chery Xingtu brand, which fills the brand gap in a certain significance. In addition, although Xingtu has always boasted of being Chery's highest-end positioning, whether it is Lanyue or Shaguang and other representative models, they are all within 200,000 yuan, and the image left by consumers is difficult to call luxurious.
Therefore, as the first pure electric luxury product with an impact of more than 200,000 yuan, whether the Star Era ES can break the inherent cognition of users and become the first shackle that restricts its development. From the product side, Star Era ES has such technical strength, but on the sales and service side, it is forced to pull back.
Since the car was released to the store, many users have left messages on the Internet: "The sales staff in the store have poor professionalism, and they are several grades worse than other brands such as Zeekr, AVATAR, and Ideal, which is manifested in the vague positioning of the car, the introduction is not focused, and they are not familiar with some tram functions, and even know that they are not as good as users." Some netizens said: "Xingtuyuan 4S store sales are all selling oil cars, and it is difficult to transfer to the tram for a while, so you should really train well." ”
In addition to the sales pull, the most lethal thing is that you can't see the car offline. The reason is also very simple, in the new energy era, everyone's sales channels focus on the transfer of firepower to the largest number of shopping malls and shopping centers, and Xingtu still follows the traditional 4S store model, and the intended user wants to see the car first to see the nearest 4S store nearby, which has caused a great obstacle to the test drive.
Of course, any traditional car company that tries to transform into new energy will face these pains. It's just that for Chery Xingtu, whether it is the rebuilding of brand image or offline channel services, how much time does the market and competitors have left for you?