What began in 2014 as an ambitious car development plan has finally come to naught. After a decade and billions of dollars, Apple's most ambitious car-building project in history has come to an end.
Although there is no shortage of regrets in the industry, it must also be admitted that even if it is as strong as Apple, it is difficult to really "control" the automotive industry. With the shattering of the dream of the car-building plan, the rumored Apple "icar" seems to have never seen the world again.
However, the world is unpredictable, just after Apple broke the news that it would terminate its car manufacturing plan, the first model of iCar has arrived as scheduled.
In fact, when it comes to the name icar, except for the suffix spelling in all caps (icar), perhaps most people think that it is made by Apple. From iPods to iPhones to iPads, it seems that the i-series all over the world belongs to Apple, but this time the iCar is an exception.
You know, Chery registered the ICAR trademark as early as 2004, that year, three years before the advent of the iPhone, which later changed the world.
The birth experience of ICAR may be similar to that of the heroes of Steve Jobs at that time, or it may be just an accident. But for Chery, in such a "flood era" that can be called a new energy vehicle, Chery defined the category of "electric vehicle" for the trademark icar, perhaps the product series at the beginning of i really had a unique magic in that era.
In 2021, Chery used this long-hidden trademark for the first time, defined it as an "ecological brand", and subsequently upgraded it to a new energy brand, and now icar's first product has finally come to the forefront.
In fact, in addition to the relationship with Apple's car manufacturing for many years, Chery ICAR's brand positioning can also be called "caught off guard".
At the beginning of the launch of the ICAR brand last year, Chery defined it as a "new force" focusing on the mid-to-high-end new energy market, mainly for consumer groups of 15-400,000 yuan. With this information point in mind, let's take a look at the launch of the first model of icar.
On February 28, Chery iCar 03 was officially launched in Beijing, with a total of six models and a price range of 1098-16.980,000 yuan. Yes, you read that right, it's in the early 100,000s, and it's 1 cheaper than the pre-sale priceIt ranges from 60,000 to 20,000 yuan. It can be said that this kind of product pricing strategy is true, and it is not at all possible to see the "forced style" of mid-to-high-end new energy brands.
If I were Nezha Auto or Leapmotor, I believe I would say from the bottom of my heart: "Good guy!" I thought this was going for Wei Xiaoli, but I was happy before. After seeing **, it's broken! I didn't expect it to come at us! ”
As for the price of the first car, Zhang Hongyu, deputy general manager of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. and general manager of the icar brand division, said: "The icar brand focuses on young people, and today (February 28) everyone was surprised to see this, but this price is what we have been doing towards this goal." Our sales target is 'double 10,000', which is about 10,000 units per month, and the profit level is also 10,000 yuan. ”
Different from most of Chery's sub-brands, iCar has clearly played the banner of "facing young people". "Sure white, really black, a little gray, really annoying silver, I'm so blue, not banana green", these new terms about the appearance of color, are also trying to send a signal that they are closer to young people.
Recently, the design trend in the automotive circle seems to favor the hard-core square box design. The reason is that with the advent of the new energy era, the pain points of the previous square box SUV that was almost the representative of the "oil tiger" have been released, coupled with the different style differences, which can better meet the increasing personalized demands of consumers.
The original intention of designing the iCar 03 is to hope that the 'square box' is no longer exclusive to million-level electric off-road SUVs, so that young people can also reach it. The remarks of Wang Caiguo, CEO of ICAR 03 products, also seem to explain from the side why ICAR 03 is "abnormal" and firmly reinvested in the game of the low-end market.
Intuitively speaking, the iCar 03 has several outstanding product points, such as all-aluminum body technology, battery system in cooperation with CATL, i-Road electric four-wheel drive, hybrid chassis with the same origin as Land Rover Defender technology, and intelligent driving system in cooperation with DJI, all of which have good "impression points".
Specifically, the iCar 03 is available in a single and dual motor version, of which the maximum power of the single-motor version is 135 kilowatts, and the combined power of the dual-motor version is 205 kilowatts. As for the cruising range, the car is equipped with three lithium iron phosphate batteries with different capacities provided by CATL, and the CLTC range corresponds to 401 km, 472 km and 501 km respectively.
It is worth mentioning that the car adopts i-road electric four-wheel drive control, which can realize two-wheel drive four-wheel drive intelligent switching, and uses the mixed element chassis of Land Rover Defender homologous technology to bring better all-terrain capabilities. At the same time, Chery's all-aluminum body also appeared on the iCar 03, combined with its off-road model positioning, the body was further optimized into an all-aluminum multi-cavity cage design, and equipped with honeycomb embedded all-aluminum beams.
In fact, whether it is an all-aluminum body or a multi-cavity cage design, it is mainly the addition of embedded girders that changes its off-road attributes. It makes the body structure similar to a kind of "semi-load-bearing", and its strength is between the non-load-bearing and load-bearing structures, and the advantage is that it can achieve more ideal lightweight. Combined with the price, the iCar 03 does have a bit of a pure electric Jimny.
In terms of intelligent configuration, iCar 03 uses Qualcomm's third-generation 8155 chip, which is currently the mainstream level in the new energy category as a whole. The binocular bionic pure visual intelligent driving jointly developed with DJI is another major feature of the car. According to the official introduction, this system is equipped with a high-definition camera with higher specifications than Tesla and a maximum of 8 million pixels, which can realize assisted driving functions such as urban memory navigation, cross-layer memory parking and tracking and reversing.
On the whole, although icar is positioned as a high-end new energy brand by Chery, from the perspective of the price of icar 03, Chery still continues to play cost-effectively relatively conservatively. It is not easy to collect several elements of "square box", "pure electric" and "low price" at the same time.
At the press conference, the official has been emphasizing "young", the youth here, not only refers to young people, but also people with a young mentality, as the first model under the Chery ICAR brand, iCar 03 can be said to be created to cater to young consumers. So, can such an icar 03 appeal to young people?
Whoever wins the young wins the world. Zhang Hongyu said firmly at the scene that today's Chinese and even global automobile market is surging, and the development direction and competition situation are full of uncertainty. ”
Obviously, Chery is ready to take the young market as the first breakthrough to revitalize new energy.
Many years ago, an executive described Chery as having passed the savage development of adolescence and entered a mature middle age. So, can Chery, a middle-aged "science and engineering man", still be able to win the hearts of young people? Look at the white, indeed black, these body color names are not difficult to see Chery revealed a "old-fashioned", from the perspective of a post-90s generation, this kind of stalk is also very ancient, not to mention the current post-00s.
You must know that today's young consumer groups have a higher degree of acceptance of intelligent networking, and their "immunity" to various new technologies is also higher. And icar 03's "careful opportunity" in publicity and distribution, in their eyes, may be more like a middle-aged uncle who is trying to squeeze into the circle of young people, so humble that it makes people feel distressed.
In fact, from the pricing point of view, the price and positioning of the icar 03 are relatively cheap, and it is indeed more suitable for groups with low consumption power. But at the same time, we can't ignore that the group with low spending power cannot be equated with young people, and the real rejuvenation essentially lies in the core elements such as new products and new technologies.
Some industry insiders believe that the rejuvenation of Chery iCar 03 not only avoids the impact of models such as Haval Raptors and Jet Travelers, but also will not have direct competitors in a short period of time. However, whether it is the cooperation with Huawei or the development of intelligence, which is very popular among young people, Chery essentially still has to grasp the real product needs of young people "walking at the forefront of the trend" and build a more mature way of playing.
At the previous Chery 2023 Science and Technology Day, Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Automobile, had a high-profile display, from the engine to the battery and electric drive; From intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving, as well as L4 level robotaxi; There are also many new products and technologies such as the Lion AI large model on the car and the car sharing metaverse.
In Yin Tongyue's view, for Chery, a "science and engineering man", it is still necessary to eat technology, and the focus must be changed from product development in the past to technological breakthroughs and innovations.
To this end, he proposed that in the next five years, Chery will invest more than 100 billion yuan in research and development, and it is expected that the number of research and development personnel will exceed 250,000, of which more than 50% will be software research and development. While catching up with technology, Chery has also learned the lessons of excessive product concentration in the past, trying to launch as many products as possible in different market segments.
As a long-established domestic car company, Chery Automobile's sales will hit a new high in 2022, and the overall sales volume in 2023 will be frequent. However, in the new energy sector that is on fire in China, Chery's "sense of presence" is getting weaker and weaker. In this regard, Yin Tongyue also admitted frankly that Chery "got up early in the morning and rushed to a late set" in the field of new energy.
And can the new energy transformation become Chery's next growth point? This is not only related to Chery's road to electrification and intelligent transformation, but also the key to whether it can successfully sprint to IPO.
Previously, Chery officially stated that it will make full efforts in 2024, and its Chery Fengyun, Xingtu Star Era, Jietu Shanhai and ICAR brands will launch 24 super hybrid products and 15 E0X high-end electric products within two years. On the whole, Chery, which began to make efforts in the field of new energy, took a "sea of cars" route, and created "explosive products" in the market segment through a large area of "casting a net", so as to maximize the scale benefits of 39 models.
Of course, in today's domestic auto market, it is not easy to achieve this goal, and each track has its own leading products. The Fengyun series has the "containment" of brands such as Geely Galaxy and Chang'an Qiyuan, and the Star Era sequence also faces challenges from Wenjie, Weilai, and even Tesla, and it is not easy to complete the brand breakthrough.
Under the "careful selection", Chery chose a younger path for the iCar 03 in order to break the game quickly. For this reason, it even did not hesitate to break the mid-to-high-end brand image that had been in operation for almost a year.
Regarding the next product layout of the icar brand, Zhang Hongyu said bluntly: "We plan to launch 2-3 new models to the market every year, launch 2 cars in 2024, and launch a car in 2025, which are all new cars and new categories of models created by a new platform." ”
According to the information currently available to the company, at the 2024 Beijing Auto Show, Chery will unveil three new cars in the iCar series at the night; At the Guangzhou Auto Show in November, the second model of the iCar brand, the internal code VR3, opened for pre-sale, and then the second model will be officially launched in December.
As for the layout of dealers, Zhai Xiaobing, assistant general manager of the ICAR brand division and executive deputy general manager of icar automobile marketing company, said: "It is planned to start the opening of 100 cities in March, focusing on the market layout of first-tier cities, and at the same time, it will also be widely deployed for supermarkets and exhibition halls to bring users and products closer to reach." ”
The icar brand is a new brand created by Chery for young people, and it can be seen from the icar 03 that Chery has made a lot of preparations for this market segment in advance. Although in the domestic 10-200,000 level car market, the most important thing is "choice", and the people who can afford this price are also the most.
However, a pure electric square box SUV with off-road attributes and high space utilization does have the scarcity to open up market segments. Chery launched the iCar 03 at this critical juncture, at least judging from the current pricing, it does have the potential to become a "hot model".
(This article was first published in the titanium **app, the author is Chang Xiao, and the editor is Zhang Min).