Written by Nie Yiyao.
Produced by Automobile Grand View.
Only by forgetting the past can we move on. This classic line of "Forrest Gump" is used to warn us to escape from the physical and mental escape of the Spring Festival holiday and return to work as soon as possible, which is also very appropriate: Hey, forget about the holiday and go to work.
It seems more appropriate to spur the automotive industry, which is at a critical juncture of fierce competition and full of great uncertainty: forget the glory and regret of the past and move on.
On February 18, the first day of resumption of work during the Spring Festival holiday, the automotive industry revealed an embarrassing news: the internal meeting of Gaohe Automobile announced that it would suspend production for 6 months. Although this matter has not yet been officially responded to and confirmed, it has brought a lot of shock to the industry.
On the same day, at the Guangdong Provincial High-quality Development Conference held in Shenzhen, Gu Huinan, general manager of GAC Aion, took the stage to deliver a speech and introduced Aion's current strength and future plans: the three electric vehicles have all been self-developed and self-produced, and the autonomous driving has entered the L3 level, and will achieve the L4 level next year, and will be the first to be equipped with solid-state batteries in the year after tomorrow.
Taken together, these two things don't seem to be related. But when we stretch our horizons, we see the marathon of car building, the most exciting new energy vehicle track at the moment, and two different facets that are accelerating.
Starting from 2023, the word "volume" will permeate every wisp of air on the new energy vehicle track and penetrate into every pore of the contestants. This recognized car-building marathon has entered a turning point of two halves before and after in 2023, and the participants who rushed in earlier began to accelerate their differentiation at this node.
First of all, in 2023, Skyrim, Aiways, and Weimar, which are not strong enough players, have been disgraced at the end of the first half of the race. Now, at the beginning of 2024, which is the second half of this marathon, there is also regrettable news from Gaohe.
Some people fall behind, and some people leap forward, or even surpass the lead. GAC Aion is a player who has gone from being unknown to showing extraordinary strength and endurance, and is gradually impressive.
In 2023, GAC Aion will rank among the top three new energy vehicle sales manufacturers with annual sales of more than 480,000 units, second only to BYD and Tesla China, fulfilling the "BAT" statement.
This result is also quite interesting, one is the same as 27. in 2022Compared to 10,000 units, Aion achieved a year-on-year increase of 78% in 2023. Second, in 2023, when the popularity of pure electric vehicles will give way to hybrids, Aion's sales will all come from pure electric models of more than 100,000 yuan, which can be called a strong victory last time.
Of course, you can only move forward if you forget the past. Especially in the second half of the race, the ultimate test of the strength and endurance of the marathon runners really begins.
Many car company bigwigs and industry analysts believe that in the critical stage of the second half of the car-building marathon from 2024 to 2025, many runners will encounter "hitting the wall", and not many people will eventually stay on this track.
From the perspective of respecting objective laws, this is true, and the difference between the words "hitting the wall" and "hitting the line" is very different. But the biggest attraction of the marathon is the extreme challenge and suspense, and the real runner will show amazing strength, endurance, adaptability and strategic skills step by step, and it is often easier to reach the finish line ahead of the curve. Judging from these quality standards and corresponding performance, GAC Aion is becoming more and more like a professional and stable runner.
Be your own "rabbit".
Compared with the new energy brands of most new forces and traditional car companies, GAC Aion has not debuted early as a new energy vehicle manufacturer or an independent brand. In July 2017, under the leadership of General Manager Gu Huinan, GAC Aion was spun off from GAC Passenger Vehicle as GAC New Energy at that time. Therefore, GAC Aion has entered the new energy vehicle track for less than 7 years.
But in just over 6 years, GAC Aion's achievements are dazzling. From the most intuitive sales point of view, its annual sales from the first complete sales year in 2018 to 2023 have actually achieved a high-speed transcendence from 20,000 units, to 40,000 units, 60,000 units, 120,000 units, 270,000 units, and then to 480,000 units.
In a marathon, in order to run the best time, runners must not be too slow in the first half of the race, otherwise it will be difficult to increase speed in the second half. This perception is also applicable to the new energy vehicle track, so we see that GAC Aion is trying to speed up the sales in the first half of the race in a more pressing time than its competitors, with the aim of laying the foundation for the second half of the race.
Of course, the core foundation is technology and brand, and the most solid foundation for winning the competition is to be able to continue to break through and lead in technology, and to continue to gain fans in brand appeal. Therefore, many people questioned that GAC Aion did not lay a good foundation and master the rhythm, but blindly pursued sales and overdrew their own strength too early, the most typical is the online car-hailing label.
In fact, a rational analysis will find that in a marathon, the strength foundation, foresight, adaptability and pace strategy of the runners are all crucial. GAC Aion did nothing wrong, he even made the wisest choice - to be his own "rabbit" (pacemaker), not to be disturbed by external sounds.
At this point, GAC Aion is very clear about what it wants to do and how to do it. At the beginning of 2021, Gu Huinan proposed at the Electric Vehicle 100 Forum that the new energy vehicle industry will enter a new era represented by "sustainable use of energy ecology", "future intelligent travel ecology" and "business model innovation ecology", and GAC Aion will continue to contribute wisdom and strength to the construction of the "three major ecosystems".
Gu Zongdian didn't go any further, but every word of it is worth studying. Especially looking back at the present, the "future intelligent travel ecology" and "business model innovation ecology" have revealed GAC Aion's high predictability for the development of the online car-hailing market in this new energy marathon, as well as the active pace choice to increase sales with the help of online car-hailing.
Is this choice the wrong one? Of course not. Poor sales are wrong! The joint efforts of the C-end and the B-end have jointly created GAC Aion to successfully rank among the top three new energy vehicles, and stand with BYD and Tesla, and have made great achievements in sales, brand awareness and reputation.
Those who hold the stereotyped notion that "ride-hailing labels hurt brands" are quite narrow and limited in their vision and standards for experience and innovation. Gu Huinan and Xiao Yong have both firmly expressed many times: don't underestimate the B-end market, don't think that the B-end market is very low, and think about what the application scenarios will be after unmanned driving in the future.
In fact, in addition to Aion, BYD, Toyota, and Volkswagen are all preferred brands for online car-hailing.
When the good reputation of the B-end market forms a trend, it will promote the brand recognition and sales increase of the C-end. It's a positive cycle, and GAC Aion sees it smartly.
An objective reality that cannot but be acknowledged is that in 2023, the entire auto industry will push China's auto sales to a peak of 30 million units with a sacrificial collective cutting and bloodletting. Among them, the annual wholesale sales of new energy vehicles were 88640,000 units, up 363%, wholesale penetration rate reached 347%。More brutal competition is coming with the opening of 2024.
In 2024, the wholesale of new energy passenger vehicles is expected to reach 11 million, with a net increase of 2.3 million, a year-on-year increase of 22%, and a penetration rate of 40%. Compared with 2023, both the increment and the increase have slowed down.
GAC Aion has also set its sales target for 2024 at 700,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 46%. This target is a significant slowdown compared to the 78% year-on-year increase in 2023. Some people began to speculate that GAC Aekan was running out of energy, believing that the expert runner would not reduce his pace in the second half of the most critical race. A piece of evidence that is considered typical is that in January 2024, GAC Aion's sales volume will only be 250,000 units, not only a significant month-on-month decline, but also surpassed by Wuling, Wenjie and Li Auto.
Some people also question its radical goals, believing that in 2024, pure electric and hybrid vehicles will continue to grow and wane, and those with Internet genes will continue to rub traditional car companies on their heads.
There are many discussions, which shows that Aion will have a tough battle to fight in 2024. But this is not the first day Aion has faced discussion, and in the more than six years of its rapid growth, doubts and controversies have never disappeared. Aion is also in such a gaze and saliva, gradually showing the strength and determination of a professional runner.
In fact, the second half of the marathon is an extreme test of the overall quality of the runners, such as the strength base, pace strategy, and adaptability to deal with uncertainty, each of which is closely related to the outcome and fate. This is also the charm of this sport, and it is also the attraction of new energy vehicles.
No loud maximum
Before the Spring Festival, there was a popular TV series "Flowers" all over the country, which has the most classic line: not loudest. The meaning of this Shanghainese phrase is: what is silent is the most weighty.
In fact, Guangzhou people also have the characteristics of "not ringing", some wearing sweatshirts, shorts and flip-flops may be billionaires; Some of the people who guard the storefront and sell sugar water or duck rice can't figure out how many buildings they have in their hands. No one puts the arrogant label on them, and most Cantonese people are low-key and pragmatic.
The same is true of GAC Aion, Gu Huinan, who led the team, was born in technology, although he was from Heyuan, Guangdong, but he was in Guangzhou since university, and after graduation, he entered GAC to study engines.
From the oil-burning engine to the electric motor that uses electricity, Mr. Gu said that this span is very large. In fact, it is a large span, a complete subversion, and a subversion that will completely overturn the existing experience, especially GAC Aion has also determined to adhere to the mainstream technology route of EV (pure electric vehicle) + ICV (intelligent connected vehicle).
It is precisely for this reason that GAC Aion has established a technology-first strategy from the very beginning, and what is less known is that the basis for guiding the technology-first strategy is actually its high-level ecological perspective. The forward-looking perspective of this perspective can be glimpsed the open innovation quality of GAC Aion and even GAC Group.
However, before 2021, GAC Aion rarely mentioned the word ecology, although they built the first intelligent pure electric ecological factory in China at the end of 2018 and completed the capacity expansion at the end of 2022. In 2023, this eco-factory with zero carbon emissions and a leading scale of automation won the title of "Lighthouse Factory".
Focusing on the core three-electric and platform in the first half of the new energy vehicle, as well as the core intelligent architecture and system in the second half, GAC Aion's forward-looking planning and layout, as well as the continuous leading upgrade and iteration, are also very sampled.
GAC Aion's first-generation pure electric platform, GEP10, is launched simultaneously with the establishment of new energy vehicle companies. This pure electric platform with "battery" as the center layout was born in 2017, and in 2019, it was iterated to AEP2 with "battery + electric drive" as the center layout0。In November 2022, GAC Aion released AEP30, the pursuit of more extreme power performance and driving performance.
GAC Aion's battery self-research and development capabilities are even more rapid. In March 2021, GAC Aion released the magazine battery system safety technology 10, for the first time in the industry, the whole package of ternary lithium battery acupuncture test is not **. The fame of the magazine battery quickly spread in the industry, almost on par with the BYD blade battery.
By March 2023, the magazine battery 2The launch of 0 is the first time in the world that the whole battery pack has been realized. According to many Aion car owners on the Internet, the magazine battery 2After 0 mass production and installation, GAC Aion's car has never had ** spontaneous combustion. After this performance spread, the reputation of Aion on the Internet has improved a lot.
But GAC Aion's R&D of batteries did not stop at the magazine 20. The sponge silicon anode battery technology that solves the pain points of battery life, the graphene-based super fast charging battery technology that solves the pain points of charging rate, and the microcrystalline super energy lithium iron battery technology that alleviates the pain points of low temperature battery life and fast charging will be rapidly launched in 2021 and 2022.
Moreover, with the completion and commissioning of the Inpai Intelligent Ecological Battery Factory in December 2023, GAC Aion's batteries have also advanced from self-research to self-research and production. A month later, in January 2024, the Ruipai Intelligent Ecological Electric Drive Factory, which is also a subsidiary of GAC Aion, was also completed and put into operation, and GAC Aion's new breakthrough in Quark electric drive, the M25 super electric drive, also ushered in mass production at the plant. So far, GAC Aion's self-developed and self-produced ecosystem has achieved a closed loop.
At the same time, GAC Aion's intelligence is also developing rapidly, although it has not developed into a label like some new forces, but its layout and development efficiency is also in the head camp.
In the five years from 2019 to 2022, GAC Aion has successively launched the ADIGO Intelligent Driving System 20、adigo 3.0、adigo 4.0, as well as the Adigo Pilot, and the Adigo Space intelligent cabin system. As Mr. Gu said, Adigo Pilot achieves L3 autonomous driving, while Adigo Space can achieve an excellent intelligent cabin experience.
In addition, the Xingling electronic and electrical architecture launched by GAC Aion in 2021 was also upgraded and iterated to a new generation in November 2022. The new generation of high-end electronic and electrical architecture, Xingling architecture, has been comprehensively upgraded for intelligent driving safety, and provides a systematic solution to the intelligent driving safety of the new generation of intelligent pure electric vehicles.
It can be said that from electrification to intelligence, GAC Aion in the first half of the new energy vehicle, with the action and efficiency beyond most racers, quickly realized the ecological layout, brand building, and sales increase. This is the secret of GAC Aion's rapid lead.
As new energy vehicles enter the more brutal second half of this marathon, GAC Aion's two major brands, Aion and Haobo, have also entered a new stage of running and fighting.
A tougher test is coming, forget the past and move on. While continuing to expand and improve the three ecological concepts of "sustainable use of energy ecology", "future intelligent travel ecology" and "business model innovation ecology", GAC Aion has also started to make dual efforts in China + overseas, and the efficiency is consistently high.
In the domestic market, through more sinking channels and more considerate services, GAC Aion is accelerating the strengthening of the user goodwill of Aion and Haobo brands.
In terms of going overseas, GAC Aion has successfully entered Thailand and Hong Kong. After entering the Thai market, it quickly became the fourth largest market share after Toyota, Nissan and BYD.
In January 2024, GAC Aion achieved overseas sales of more than 3,000 units. It's off to a good start, and it makes the decision to invest in Thailand, which is expected to start production in June this year.
In GAC Aion's pace of going overseas, Thailand, as the first stop, will quickly radiate the entire Southeast Asian region. And next, Russia will also become an important piece of the puzzle for its plans to go to sea.
From insight into the trend layout, to the start of the track, to consolidate technical strength, to flexibly adapt to seize opportunities; From being based in China to domestic + foreign double force, almost every step of GAC Aion presents the unique courage and excitement of an excellent runner on the unpredictable journey.