The pricing of new energy models is no longer "unattainable", and decision-making has begun to focus on "market-oriented".
Today, Chen Hong has been at the helm of SAIC for more than nine years, and is one of the oldest leaders of the state-owned automobile group after the replacement of the heads of other state-owned automobile groups. 2024 is officially coming, and the 63-year-old Chen Hong has entered the countdown to retirement.
Judging from the results, SAIC will achieve annual sales of 5.02 million units in 2023, which is still the highest domestic auto group, but it is not as good as the past, and the sales data decreased slightly by 5 year-on-year61%。Zhiji and Feifan, which belong to SAIC's new energy brands, sold 380,000 and 20,000 units, but there is still a big gap with the first camp of new energy.
In the era of Hu Maoyuan, SAIC has launched some new energy models, on the other hand, today's descendants of the brand results, it is really "early in the morning to catch up in the evening".
In the first half of the Chen Hong era, the development of new energy in China was still unclear, and SAIC, which was good at localizing joint venture brands, did not invest much in new energy under the market-oriented mechanism.
After 2020, new energy vehicles have a significant momentum in the terminal market, and SAIC has begun to embark on the road of multi-brand melee for new energy.
At the same time, the positioning of ordinary consumers has affected the sales expansion of Zhiji and Feifan, brand awareness has not yet been established, and the price of products with a price of 300,000 yuan at every turn deviates from "market orientation".
In May last year, the SAIC Workers' Congress can be called a new energy mobilization meeting, and the group's new energy brand signed a military order, Chen Hong emphasized the three points of SAIC's future development, one of which is to adhere to the "market-oriented".
Before and after this conference, the pricing of Feifan and Zhiji's new products was "more close to the people", and the sales growth was far better than before. However, in the eyes of third-party sources, Feifan and Zhiji, which initially deviated from the mass consumer group, still have room for improvement in terms of "market orientation".
As the trend of the new energy market becomes clearer, how to further improve the "market orientation" in this field and catch up with competitors has become a major test for Chen Hong's successor.
Once led the industry
The rigidity of SOEs is pervasive, often collective decision-making, and no one is held accountable for the results. Many of the innovations of state-owned enterprises are also passive, forced by the success of others, the guidance of the first, and the pressure exerted by the first, and want to become a user-oriented enterprise does not have this possibility. A senior executive of a state-owned automobile group lamented the "Circle Chronicle".
In the era of fuel vehicles, there are not enough participants in China's auto market, and SAIC has long been the leader of China's auto market. However, in the era of new energy, SAIC rarely leads the industry's innovation, the rigidity of state-owned enterprises has gradually emerged, and its brand Feifan advocates user operation and battery replacement, which is more to imitate the new forces, and the "non-grounded" of new energy products has affected sales.
In August 2014, Chen Hong became the chairman of SAIC and appointed seven vice presidents, including Wang Xiaoqiu, the current president of SAIC, and Zhang Hailiang, who once launched the Shenche Lavida in one fell swoop.
When it comes to Wang Xiaoqiu, we have to mention the Roewe RX5, which is the first hot-selling car among SAIC's own brands. In 2014, SAIC Motor cooperated with Alibaba to build Zebra Network with a 45-share ratio of each company, and in the second half of 2016, the Roewe RX5 equipped with Zebra system was launched.
When the RX5 was born, there was no voice-controlled car system on the market, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the car is called "the first Internet car". After that, the RX5 was even more powerful, achieving monthly sales of more than 20,000 in many months in 2017.
For SAIC at that time, peers were quite recognized. The senior management of the above-mentioned state-owned automobile group bluntly said to the "Circle Chronicle": "In that era, SAIC cooperated with Internet giants to develop from the OS level, which was very innovative. What they did back then is what Huawei does today, which belongs to the operating system level, but it is much earlier than Huawei. ”
It is true that the launch of the RX5 was more under the leadership of Wang Xiaoqiu, then general manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicle, but its success is also inseparable from Chen Hong's good use of people and market foresight.
The vehicle machine is an important system of intelligence, and the emergence of the Zebra system has led the development of the domestic vehicle machine. However, in terms of electrification, SAIC is not as predictable as intelligence.
As early as the era of Hu Maoyuan, SAIC officially laid out new energy vehicles. In October 2011, the Roewe 750 hybrid sedan was officially launched. In November 2012, SAIC's first pure electric car, the Roewe E50, was officially launched.
In the early days of the sunrise industry, it was always cold and windy. SAIC, which was ahead of the industry, did not taste the sweetness at that time because of the early layout of new energy vehicles. Whether it is the Roewe 750 or the Roewe E50, the sales are quite bleak.
Wake up early in the morning and catch up in the evening
Before 2020, SAIC Motor invested very little in new energy vehicles, and did not even build a special pure electric platform, and the models sold were also converted from oil to electricity.
In 2020, China's new energy market has changed significantly, this year, Tesla sold nearly 500,000 electric vehicles in China, Xpeng, Weilai also improved sales, and won in the capital market, and the market value exceeded SAIC in many trading days.
Seeing that the future of new energy has become clear, SAIC has begun to intensively deploy new energy. In 2020, SAIC Motor absorbed Alibaba as a shareholder and established Zhiji Automobile, which was advertised as the "SAIC No. 1 Project"; After the establishment of the R brand, which specializes in new energy vehicles, it became independent from Roewe. In 2021, the R brand officially "flew solo" and changed its name to Feifan Automobile.
To be honest, SAIC will not make too much layout of new energy vehicles before 2020, which is to a certain extent "adhere to market orientation".
Today, whether it is from the traditional fuel vehicle under the new energy brand, or domestic and foreign electric vehicle brands, few can make a profit, most of them are losing money to make money, the Great Wall's Ora once a single model monthly sales exceeded 10,000, and then because of "more than a lot of sales", many models were discontinued for several months. Many brands report to "gain a firm foothold" in this market first, and leave the problem of making money later.
New energy has taken off, superimposed political pressure, SAIC's layout of new energy has begun to go the opposite, becoming the domestic automobile group, the descendants of the brand "participation" in new energy. Its brands that have launched new energy vehicles are not only Feifan and Zhiji, but even Roewe and MG have claimed that they will launch a variety of new energy models in the next three years.
The senior management of the above-mentioned state-owned automobile group told the "Circle Chronicle": "The reason why the first-class new energy brands such as Zhiji, Feifan, and Jihu were launched at the beginning was to complete the "task", not to cater to the market. ”
If you want the new energy business to blossom and bear fruit, it is the right decision to concentrate on the development of a certain brand, or even one of the popular models, which is the right decision under the market guidance. The example is: the previous low-end models of Zhiji and the high-end models of Feifan were in the same ** zone, competing with each other for users.
On the other hand, GAC is also developing new energy, but it has avoided "fighting at home". Among GAC's own brands, the development of pure electric vehicles is fully handed over to Aion, and the new energy vehicles launched by Trumpchi are all hybrid models.
In addition, the laying of SAIC Motor's channels, which has many brands, is obviously slow, not only does Feifan have the problem of insufficient number of stores, but also the wisdom of SAIC No. 1 Project is not much better.
Through Internet searches, it was found that in Tianjin, the number of stores of Feifan and Zhiji is less than 10, Aion has more than 12, and even Xiaopeng has more than 10.
GAC's new energy layout is significantly later than SAIC, the former only launched its first pure electric vehicle in 2017 - Trumpchi GE3, but in terms of showing the importance of new energy earlier, Zeng Qinghong is better than Chen Hong.
In 2017, GAC New Energy, the predecessor of Aion, became independent from Trumpchi, while Feifan did not embark on independent development until 2020. In 2017, Aion launched a pure electric platform as soon as it became independent, and SAIC Motor was still selling gasoline-to-electric models at the same time.
Judging from the actual sales performance, Aion, which mainly targets the market below 200,000, has a wider sales channel, with sales of 480,000 in 2023, and the total sales of new energy vehicles under Zhiji, Feifan, plus Roewe and MG are less than half of Aion's in the same period.
GAC has disclosed its financial report that since Trumpchi achieved profitability in 2022, its profitability has continued to expand in the first half of 2023, and GAC Aion has achieved profitability for two consecutive months in June and July 2023.
Brand misalignment to be solved
According to Spiegel Pro learned from within SAIC that in the first half of last year, relevant leaders in Shanghai criticized SAIC's recent development during their inspections recently. This has put tremendous pressure on the top management of SAIC led by Chen Hong.
At SAIC's employee congress in May last year, Jiang Jun, then CEO of Zhiji, and Wu Bing, CEO of Feifan Automobile, signed a military order on the spot, promising that by 2025, SAIC's annual sales of new energy vehicles will reach 3.5 million.
Chen Hong also determined SAIC's three points of force at the workers' congress: continue to work adhering to user thinking and forming a closed loop of business; In adhering to integrity and innovation to improve the energy level, continue to work hard; In adhering to the market orientation to stimulate vitality, continue to work hard.
In the view of third-party sources, SAIC, which chooses the mid-to-high-end route, has not done well in the market-oriented field of new energy in the past. If we consider opening up the market, the first generation of Zhiji and Feifan's products should not be in such a high ** band. It is reported that the price of the L7 low-profile version of Zhiji's first model reached 36880,000, the starting price of Feifan's first model R7 after subsidies also reached 28990,000 yuan.
Zeng Zhiling, director of automotive market research at GlobalData Asia Pacific, told Circle Chronicle: "Zhiji, Jihu and VOYAH are in a similar situation, they are all positioned in the mid-to-high-end, and the market itself is relatively narrow, and as a new brand, it does not have enough influence for consumers to pay. Although Deep Blue and Aion are also from state-owned factories, their positioning is to increase volume, and the lower ** also allows them to win more consumers. ”
Perhaps SAIC's senior management gradually realized that high-priced products are destined to have a small market and a small audience. Zhiji and Feifan's new models continue to explore, Zhiji LS6 has entered the 200,000 range, and Feifan F7 has adopted the "vehicle-electricity separation" scheme, which is as low as 14590 thousand.
At the same time, the "infighting" between Zhiji and Feifan was also stopped by the SAIC leadership, and the two brands will use 200,000 yuan as the dividing line for product pricing, and "draw a clear line" with each other.
According to a report by Yiou Automobile in October last year, Feifan will focus on the range of 10-200,000 yuan in the future, and products with more than 200,000 yuan such as Feifan R7 and Feifan F7 will no longer be sold as the main models; Zhiji Auto's products will be priced at more than 200,000 yuan, and will continue to take on the important role of SAIC's brand development.
SAIC New Energy's market orientation is not strong, and the problem of internal friction between various brands has been mediated to a certain extent during Chen Hong's tenure. In December last year, SAIC announced that Jia Jianxu, Wu Bing, and Jiang Jun were promoted to vice presidents of SAIC.
The first pressure on the new head is that SAIC New Energy's market-oriented deployment is long overdue and insufficient. BYD and Aion have gained brand recognition in the electric vehicle market below 200,000, and SAIC will attack again at this time, facing a more involuted and difficult market.
Zeng Zhiling believes that for the new leaders of SAIC, if they want to increase the market share of new energy, the decision-making will be more "market-oriented", and they still need to solve the relationship between their different brands.
The technology platforms and market overlap between the brands of Feifan and Roewe are very serious, and the brand positioning and technology platforms are somewhat misaligned. If this problem is not solved well, it will be difficult for SAIC to make one of these brands stand out in the fierce market competition. Zeng Zhiling said.