Hello everyone, I am the president of the Electric Vehicle Corporation.
2023 is coming to an end, and the big news of new energy vehicle companies is still emerging. In addition to the news of a variety of new car launches, pre-sale and price adjustments will be closely related to everyone, there are also many recent big moves by car companies that will affect everyone's purchase and investment decisions. Of course, there are also events that friends are interested in.
Given that these events cannot be written as an in-depth analysis of these events on a daily basis, a short daily news item will not answer your questions. As a new energy person on the front line, the president decided to open a new column "Zero Distance for Car Companies".Use the form of Q&A to "interrogate" the executives of car companies, and bring the most cutting-edge exclusive reports. As long as they finish talking about the topics that everyone cares about the most-
What I want to talk to you about today is the new energy brand of the national team backed by DongfengVOYANT
For a long time, as a high-end new energy vehicle brand with high hopes from Dongfeng Motor, VOYAH's sales performance can be said to be tepid.
The applaudation is not popular, the label is not clear, and "you buy and I recommend, I buy and I don't buy" ......
The third anniversary of the establishment of the brand, but it has not been able to make a name in the domestic new energy market, and the monthly delivery volume seems to have fallen into the curse of "3,000 units".
Fortunately, after "putting down the body" and cutting the price heavily, VOYAH still ushered in a turnaround.
As of now,VOYAH has achieved six consecutive sales increases, with deliveries exceeding 7,000 units in November。According to Li Boxiao, a VOYAH executive"Since last month, for the first time in our history, VOYAH has been able to produce in two shifts. ”
It looks like everything is going in a good direction.
So - is the increase in sales really just because of the **adjustment?
Chasing light PHEV, what qualifications do you have to shout BBA?
Next, let's go through the light chasing PHEV press conference and the interview session afterwards.
1. Everyone said that the previous sales of VOYAH were not high because of "insufficient publicity", is it true?
Lantu himself graciously admittedThe previous promotional strategy was really not enough to impress users.
The main "control" and "safety", after talking for a long time, there is no "refrigerator color TV sofa" The experience is obvious, and it is difficult for users to understand and agree that "I spent more than 300,000 yuan to buy this car value".
If you look at it this way, the selling point of VOYAH is indeed very bad.
But in Lantu's eyes,The characteristics of each company are different, and VOYAH's choice is actually a typical example of adhering to long-termism and productism.
Since marketing is not what we are good at, we can only use products to make users accept and recognize VOYAH. Blindly following others is actually losing one's own soul, but VOYAH still has its own persistence in the field of car manufacturing. ”
2. Is there a **reason??Why didn't the price drop before?
Extrapolating from the results, price reductions do lead to an increase in deliveries.
The starting price of the new VOYAH FREE is 4670,000, **The starting price of the VOYAH Dreamer is 30,000 yuan lower, and the price of the VOYAH Chasing Light PHEV version is ...... 70,000 yuan lower than that of the EV version
More than 300,000 cars are only sold for more than 200,000 yuan, and the cost performance is immediately apparent, and the number of orders also proves this
But this decision is not just a matter of taking a picture of any car company, especially VOYANTA subsidiary of a state-owned enterprise
*Adjustments are possible, but will they be able to meet their performance expectations after adjustments?What kind of combination punches are needed to cooperate in the follow-up?How to adjust product planning?This is a problem in front of every car company in the highly competitive environment.
3. The price reduction is so ruthless, can VOYAH make money?
According to VOYANT's own statement, the gross profit is still there, but it is not much (the net profit is definitely still in a loss-making state).
And it's not so much that VOYAH is in the "volume**" but in the "volume value".
Because at the end of the day,Being able to improve product power by reducing prices is actually part of providing value to usersEven if you are willing to roll, you have to have cards that you can play, right?If the company loses money and goes out of business after the price reduction, then simply don't play.
So"Volume" is actually a test of an enterprise's ability to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Anyone can reduce the price alone, and how to reduce the cost of car manufacturing while maintaining the corresponding product strength is the real problem.
This year, lithium carbonate** has dropped sharply (from more than 400,000 per ton to 120,000 per ton), and there is actually some room for battery cost reduction. In addition, the development of technology and the improvement of the efficiency of the first chain brought about by the scale effect are also the factors supporting the price reduction of VOYAH.
Therefore, from the perspective of objective factors, the price reduction of VOYAH is still affordable, but it only mentions the subjective factors above"I figured it out", willing to "put down my body", and decided that it was difficult to adjust this step.
4. After the adjustment, what does VOYAH rely on to maintain the positioning of high-end brands?
For VOYAH, the bottom line of high-end new energy brands isProduct quality.
Internally, they divide quality into three levels:Basic qualityon to reach the quality level of the joint venture car,Exquisite qualityto work on the detailsBrand-specific qualityIt is necessary to highlight the two advantages of "easy opening" and "safety" of VOYAH.
At the same time, there must be a unified standard in the production and manufacturing process to ensure that the factory rolls off the assembly lineIt's a good car of high quality.
Although it seems a bit fake, in fact, there is a set of standards inside VOYAH (which is the so-called PQ perceived quality in the industry), such as the clearance of exterior and interior workmanship, ergonomics, operating comfort, etc., which are all benchmarking against luxury brands such as BBA. However, due to the limitation of trade secrets, it is not possible to disclose specific standard data.
In terms of products, VOYAH, like other Chinese brands, is confident that it will surpass foreign luxury brands.
After all, it is still Chinese brands that better understand the needs of Chinese users, and the iteration speed of intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving at this stage is far faster than that of global brands, not to mention the configuration that has been "leapfrogging" for several years.
In addition to the product itself, brand influence is also an important factor for VOYAH to consider. The specific method is simply put"Who we are with determines who we are".
Since the first car was built, VOYAH has been a sponsor on various high-end occasions. For example, the China Entrepreneur Forum, the 2023 World Champion International Championship in October, the 130th anniversary of Wuhan University's sponsored car, and the designated car for the "Sound of Life" program, etc.
Although these behaviors are not highly perceived at the user level, they are still a suitable path for VOYANT.
After all, whether it is the playing style or the product styling, the new forces give people the impression that most of them are young and sports, and they are indeed not as good as the "national team" of VOYANTOlder and more serious, it is more suitable to attend certain important occasions.
In addition, VOYAH is also actively planning to go overseas, and the selected destinations are specifically aimed at developed countries in Europe, and the markets that have entered include Finland, Denmark, Norway, etc., and the next focus is on Germany, Italy and France.
Obviously, VOYAH's plan is not only to roll up foreign cars overseas, but also to plate a layer of gold from the outside, and then make its high-end identity a little harder.
Speaking of a thousand ways and ten thousand, VOYAH really intends to face the BBA to compete, and the operation of benchmarking everywhere has also become the foundation of VOYAH's high-end life.
5. Why does the VOYAH chase light PHEV benchmark "56E"?
The new VOYAH Chasing Light PHEV is positioned as an "executive luxury sedan", and the competition is very clear, which is the "56E" (that is, BMW 5 Series, Audi A6 and Mercedes-Benz E-Class).
VOYANT's ambition to fight directly at the BBA is not "self-sufficient" at first glance?
BBA has been working in the Chinese market for many years, and the luxury label has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the peopleVOYAH, a new brand that has only been established for three years, has the courage to challenge BBA
But the impression is the impression, in fact, if you want to buy a high-end plug-in hybrid car, there is really no other choice except BBA and Volvo - (anti-bar: the price and texture of BYD Han are indeed half a position).
And VOYAH is also very confident that its products can outperform BBA.
The hybrid vehicle with a pure electric platform has a pure electric range of 262km, which is also unique in its classWhat's more, the positioning of VOYAH chasing light PHEV in the brand is not a profit cow, and the consumption tax is also lower. The price difference of more than 100,000 yuan should be enough to make up for the problem that the brand power is not as good as BBA.A higher level of intelligence can't compare with the new forces, after all, it can compare with BBA;
Close to 5With a length of 1 meter and a wheelbase of 3 meters, the space performance is good;
The one-piece hot-formed laser tailored door ring with a proportion of high-strength steel + aluminum alloy exceeding MPA and the 2000MPa aluminum-silicon coated door anti-collision beam make VOYAH chase light even safer than Volvo.
6. What are VOYAH's expectations for light-chasing PHEVs?
"With this car, we are confident that it will work successfully. ”This is what VOYAH Li Boxiao said in an exclusive interview.
As for the specific sales figures, the official mentioned a mouthful of "monthly sales of 5000 level", considering the goal of monthly sales of VOYAH to exceed 10,000, chasing light PHEV needs to achieve 3000 sales in the first month of listing, in order to complete this "small goal" that many new forces have already achieved in December.
In November, a total of 15 auto brands sold more than 10,000 new energy vehicles).
The president felt that the sales target set by VOYAH was not conservative.
On the B-side side, Hongqi H9 and BYD Han have been recognized by many users, and it is also an indisputable fact that some BBAs on the C-side are not as influential as fuel vehicles in new energy cars.
Therefore, VOYAH chasing light PHEV, to a certain extent, can be regarded as opening up a new market segment of "Chinese brand high-end plug-in hybrid sedan". The characteristics of "the roots are red" and "stable and heavy".It is indeed suitable to fill this gap in the market.
7. What are the highlights of the newly released "Tianyuan Architecture"?
At the new car launch of the Chasing Light PHEV, VOYAH also released it at the same timeSelf-developed SOA electronic and electrical architecture - Tianyuan architecture
To put it simply, this is a further integrated control architecture than the SOA architecture, which is integrated in five major areas: intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, body, power system, and vehicle controller.
And the benefits of integration,On the one hand, it can greatly reduce the cost of the vehicle wiring harness, and on the other hand, it can also reduce the threshold for adding new software functions, so that the iteration speed of OTA can be increased by 3 times, and the architecture can be self-upgraded
In order to cooperate with the Tianyuan architecture, VOYAH also launched oneDeveloper platform, open to users and ecosystem partners.
If the Tianyuan architecture is a skeleton, then this developer platform is based on the nerves that extend from the skeleton, with the skeleton can connect all parts of the body, but the flesh and blood that grows out of the nerves can make the body really move.
The official said that at present, the platform has nearly 30 modules, more than 600 vehicle interfaces, brain-computer interfaces, headphones, bracelets and other devices have been accessed. In the future, more and more devices will be added, which will eventually help the Tianyuan architecture achieve a scene experience of "thousands of people, thousands of faces, and self-renewal".
The reason why VOYAH launched the Tianyuan architecture is actually to deal with the intelligent shortcomings complained by users.
Objectively, although VOYAH's intelligence level can beat BBA, it is not as radical as "Wei Xiaoli". Only by laying the foundation of the electronic and electrical architecture first, can the subsequent intelligent process run faster.
In addition, in terms of specific functions, VOYAH insists on self-research in terms of intelligent cockpitsIn terms of intelligent driving, VOYAH chooses to walk on two legs with self-development + in-depth cooperation, and the internal goal is to launch urban NOA by the end of next year.
Write at the end
At the press conference, Hong Kong actress Charmaine Sheh appeared as the chief recommendation officer of VOYAH Chasing Light PHEV.
As the friends in the comment area said yesterday, the spokesperson represents the brand tonality. And Luo Zhenyu, Tong Dawei, and Charmaine She, the spokespersons that VOYAH has worked with, have also become the epitome of VOYAH in the past three years to a certain extent.
But in any case, in the past three months, I believe everyone can feel VOYAH's determination to change the status quo. Whether it is the first adjustment, the search for a new positioning, or the on-site meme, it is a testament to the efforts of VOYAH, a subsidiary of a state-owned enterprise, to transform.
In the end, when it comes to making a car, it is still the product that speaks. Perhaps, for the sake of the product, we can also give VOYAH, a new brand that has been established for three years, some more time to run forward.