On the day when the Volvo EM90 was unveiled and the pre-sale price was announced, netizens went crazy.
On November 12, the new product EM90, which carries Volvo's important mission, made its world debut in Shanghai, positioning a luxury pure electric medium and large MPV, equipped with a single-motor rear-wheel drive, and only one model was launched, with a pre-sale price of 8180,000 yuan.
And for this "not up or down" **, netizens had a dispute. Some people feel that it is too high compared to the price of many MPVs with a price of 500,000 yuan on the market, and some people feel that Volvo, which focuses on safety cards, is aimed at the customers of Toyota Alpha, the MPV overlord, which is actually quite low.
Indeed, judging from the distribution of the Chinese MPV market, Volvo's selling price is not low. Therefore, the parametric party and the "value for money" ists believe that the EM90 is uncompetitive.
In the face of controversy from the outside world, Volvo said bluntly: "Our most direct competitors are Toyota Alpha and Lexus LM. ”
In other words, Volvo is not going to take the cost-effective route at all this time. You know, these two Toyota cars are the exclusive favorites of the rich. Shijie once mentioned in the article "Chinese car companies, to loosen the soil for Toyota Alpha" that Alpha has dominated the MPV market for 21 years. It is a common phenomenon that a car is hard to find, even if you have money, you have to increase the price by hundreds of thousands of yuan to buy it.
Even if the owners know that Alpha's product power is seriously mismatched with **, they are still willing to pay for it.
As a century-old luxury brand, it is not difficult to tell stories to the rich. However, in the era of electrification, Volvo still has to rethink how to understand the luxury car consumer group and what to impress the high-net-worth people.
First of all, safety is the trump card of Volvo, and it is also the hole card. And Volvo's idea is to make every design in the car have a story to tell, and even help the owner socialize.
Most of the new car makers now advertise that they have carefully selected Nappa leather seats, but Volvo says that the pattern of its leather seats is inspired by the misty Nordic mountainsThe "solid wood and bamboo grain translucent trim" in the car is carefully polished by traditional craftsmen on the top quality wood carefully selected, and finally slowly created with difficult laser carving and micro carving techniques. The complexity of the process can be seen from the overall yield rate of 30%. In addition, the touch panel on the interior panel of the side sliding door is several times more difficult to make after incorporating wood.
It's like going to taste a delicacy, the acquisition of ingredients requires a long time of hard work and patience, and when diners taste it, the tip of their tongue reminds them not how expensive the ingredients are, but the heavy human atmosphere behind them. The same is true for the automotive industry, where scarce traditional craftsmanship makes products warmer than cold electronics and mechanics.
But the bosses really eat this set. Wang Lei, the owner of Alpha, who runs a real estate company in Anhui, told the city that he and many friends around him think that the EM90 is worth considering, "Regardless of whether it is Alpha or Lexus LM, those accidents and news on the Internet will have an impact to some extent." Volvo's biggest advantage is not safety, and it will definitely not smash its own signboard. ”
Volvo EM90 interior).
Although the seats of Japanese cars are softer, the texture of the leather is significantly less than that of European cars. Volvo's interior is indeed more classy, less pompous and less pompous, and there is a sense of technology in the details. Wang Lei said that in addition to sitting comfortably and large space, Alpha has nothing special, and in comparison, it does not look like a product of an era.
However, under the principle of safety, Volvo also encountered a lot of challenges when creating an MPV, a model with inherent shortcomings in the body structure. Judging from the controversy among current netizens, its hardware and configuration sacrifices for security have not been understood by the outside world.
Despite the Toyota Alpha's sales and influence codes for the super-rich, Volvo is ready to replicate it on the EM90. But for 81With a pre-sale price of 80,000 yuan, Wang Lei also felt that he had "lost his identity".
I hope that after increasing the configuration, I can look at Alpha. As he said, when the boss circle buys MPV, he does not seek the best but the most expensive. **Reaching the million level is the first condition.
Targeting the wealthy group, choosing the popular MPV track, and carrying the mission of electrification transformation, it is not difficult for the outside world to see that Volvo has high hopes for the EM90.
It can also be seen from this car that Volvo must want to grab the market quickly. Wang Lei thinks.
As the first car company to announce the cessation of R&D and manufacturing of internal combustion engines and the full transition to electrification in the future, Volvo aims to achieve full electrification by 2025, with the proportion of pure electric models reaching 50%.
According to official sales data, the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles in Volvo's global market from January to November this year were 2380,000 units, up 37% y/y. Among them, 10 pure electric models were sold10,000 units, up 94% year-on-year, and plug-in hybrid models sold 1360,000 units, up 12% y/y.
On the whole, Volvo's new energy models have blossomed in many aspects of the global market, and they have maintained a year-on-year growth trend. However, in terms of regions, the European market took the lead, with a total of 1540,000 vehicles;The U.S. and other markets also remained above 30,000 units.
However, the total sales volume in the Chinese market is too small, and the cumulative sales volume is only 140,000 units, of which 0 were pure electric models30,000 units, with an average monthly sales of less than 300 units;The plug-in hybrid model is also only slightly better, selling 110,000 units, but the average monthly sales volume is less than 1,000 units, and it has almost no presence in the market.
In comparison, from January to November this year, the cumulative sales of Volvo fuel vehicles in China were 140,000, compared with 13 in the same period last year50,000 units increased slightly. However, in the long run, the hidden danger of declining competitiveness over time is still not small. Volvo also realized that the old cost of fuel vehicles could not be eaten forever.
Old rivals Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Cadillac, etc. have successively launched pure electric models based on new platforms, Volvo in addition to S60 plug-in hybrid, S90 plug-in hybrid, XC60 plug-in hybrid, only XC40 new energy and C40 two pure electric models, even if it is a "safety card", it is becoming more and more difficult to impress Chinese consumers, these two cars are also considered to be technologically backward "oil to electric" models.
Qin Peiji, former president of Volvo Cars Greater China Sales Company, once said that the XC40 and C40 are only transitional products, and Volvo has been waiting for truly electrified products to come out.
Volvo is also in dire need of a game-changing totem model to show its strength in luxury electric vehicle technology. However, the EX90 EV SUV has been delayed due to development schedules. As a result, the EM90, a luxury pure electric MPV model led by the Asia-Pacific team, has high hopes.
Yu Kexin, vice president of Volvo Cars Greater China Sales Company, once said, "There is no shortage of MPVs in the market now, but if you classify them according to luxury and non-luxury, or use **, to the million level and above, there are actually very few products." ”
A popular luxury MPV model of more than 800,000 yuan. Photo source: Yes driver).
At present, in the MPV market of more than 800,000, BBA has not completed the preliminary preparation. Volvo grabbed the band. According to Volvo, if consumers want to buy a luxury brand MPV, there are many options in the era of fuel vehicles. But if you want to go for an electric car, it's the Volvo EM90.
Given the pressure on the sales of new energy models from within and the potential threat from external competitors, Volvo has become different from before and has become more aggressive. Who calls people's names in Hong Kong and Macao is "rich", in order to correct their names, it's time to fight.
However, it is not easy to do a good job in new energy vehicles in the Chinese market. There are too many friends, and the strength is not weak. Volvo has also started a comprehensive overhaul from top to bottom.
On December 11, Volvo Cars announced the latest personnel appointments of the "top leader" of the sales company in Greater China: Roger Yu, the current vice president of the sales company in Greater China, will be promoted to the president of the sales company in Greater China from January 1, 2024, reporting to Yuan Xiaolin, senior vice president of Volvo Car Group, president and CEO of the Asia Pacific region. Yu Kexin's boss and predecessor, Martin Persson, has been appointed head of commercial operations for Volvo Cars Asia Pacific except Greater China (APEC).
In less than five months, this is the second change of manager at the top of Volvo.
In August this year, Pan Hesong, the former general manager of Volvo Cars Japan, had just taken over from the former president Qin Peiji, and now there has been another change, which quickly attracted speculation from the outside world.
I remember that when Pan Hesong took office, Volvo highlighted his outstanding performance in Japan and hoped to use his experience to promote Volvo's electrification transformation in the Chinese market. At that time, Pan Hesong reported to An Boyan (Volvo's chief commercial officer and deputy CEO), and the two were regarded as representatives of Volvo's headquarters in Sweden.
At that time, talking about this personnel change, Yuan Xiaolin euphemistically denied the outside world's conjecture about the high-level power struggle: "Where the two sides come from, we are one side." ”
Now the commander is changed again, according to Volvo, ** President Yu Kexin has deep insight and rich experience in the Chinese market, and the personnel changes are due to the consideration that "the leadership rotation and exchange of core positions can promote cross-regional experience exchange and learning within the organization, and fully strengthen the capacity building and system capacity of the enterprise".
It is worth noting that Yu Kexin, the new president of the Greater China sales company**, and his reporting object Yuan Xiaolin are both Chinese. In this regard, industry insiders expressed their understanding, after all, the best understanding of Chinese consumers must be the Chinese themselves.
Earlier, Qin Peiji has repeatedly publicly stated that China and Europe have completely different understandings of electric vehicles. "The domestic market believes that electric vehicles must be intelligent, but there is no such concept abroad. Europe's demand for electric vehicles is environmental protection, and they (consumers) don't even care about whether it is the so-called oil to electricity. ”
In September this year, Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan led a team to China to hold a global board meeting in China. According to Yang Xueliang, senior vice president of Geely Holding Group, Luo Wenxiang also visited Geely Automobile Research Institute, ZEEKR Smart Factory, and test-drove a series of models at the Ningbo Circuit. Once again, the signal for the transition to electrification has been released.
In addition, just one day before the announcement of this personnel adjustment, Volvo's three directly-operated brand experience stores in Xidan Joy City in Beijing, Lujiazui in Shanghai, and Bonjour Center in Shenzhen opened simultaneously, and EM90 was also displayed in the store.
In the era of electrification, OEMs are gradually transforming from the traditional 4S store dealer model to the direct sales model, and Volvo is also the first luxury brand car company to test the direct sales model, adopting the dual model of "direct store + dealer" to expand its influence in the high-end core business districts of first-tier cities.
At present, Volvo has nearly 300 dealer 4S stores, 40 city center stores and 5 brand experience stores across the country. Among them, the city center store is operated by dealers, and the brand experience center is directly operated by Volvo.
From the recent release of EM90, the opening of additional brand experience stores, and the change of senior management, it is not difficult to see that Volvo realizes that at the critical juncture of electrification transformation, the three key factors of products, channels and services are indispensable in the ultra-high-intensity competitive environment of the Chinese market.
Author |Huang Shuo.
Edit |Tian Yanlin.
Operations |Jia Tianyu.