List of high-quality authors 2023 is a bumper year for Chery. The group's annual revenue reached 315.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 505%；The total sales volume of its brands reached 1881316 units, a year-on-year increase of 526%；Overseas export results are even more enviable, with 9370,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 1011%, second only to SAIC's 10990,000 units, the two are also the only two independent car companies with vehicle exports of more than 500,000 units, shining brightly in the context of China's leap to become the world's largest automobile exporter.
But on the positive and negative sides of things, we can also see Chery's struggles and struggles.
In the minds of the people, the Chery brand has always been known for being close to the people, focusing on cost performance and opening up territory overseas, and has not carried out high-end independent brands like Geely and Changan, especially in the wave of domestic new energy transformation, although Chery's proud vehicle manufacturing technology in the past still keeps up with the pulse of the times, but it cannot necessarily be successful.
The intellectualization of trams has increasingly become the core of competition in the whole industry. In this regard, Chery has encountered the same problems as other traditional car companies, so when the first high-end pure electric product that has been brewing for a whole year - Xingtu Star Era ES was officially launched, it was also brutally hit by reality, and the official price dropped by 30,000 yuan in less than half a month, and the monthly sales volume was hundreds of units, which was basically unknown to everyone.
Chery, which has always convinces people with technology, has not conquered users in the high-end pure electric market and made a good start, which is obviously a sad thing.
Looking back carefully, the product power of Star Era ES is actually far more powerful than everyone imagined. B+ class large space family car positioning, with an atmosphere close to 5m long and 3m wheelbase and 2m wide; Top first-class mechanical quality, full range of front double wishbone virtual double kingpin structure, standard air suspension, all-aluminum chassis + integrated die-casting body; The industry's most advanced full-stack 800V high-voltage pure electric platform, with the world's lowest CLTC energy consumption in its class; Comfortable and luxurious cabin interior materials, microfiber headlining, three-zone intelligent air conditioning, Nebula seats, 23-speaker audio and so on.
Almost all users who have test-driven or test-driven the Epoch ES are full of praise for its driving qualities, such as its excellent NVH sound insulation performance, comfortable and smooth chassis shock absorption, excellent handling as if flying close to the ground, and so on.
But it's such a good car, but it sells very poorly, why is it?
In this regard, everyone also has different opinions, but without exception they are all concentrated in the following points: First, the Xingtu brand is difficult to bear the high-end positioning, the Xingtu brand has been born for a long time, and in the past, it undertook Chery's 10 200,000 yuan mainstream fuel + hybrid market, and this time it directly entered the 300,000-level luxury pure electric, whether it was service or channel, it was not ready.
More than one user said: "Compared with the show cars that can be seen everywhere in other brands, Xingtu Star Era is still in a 4S store on the outskirts of the city dozens of kilometers away, which makes it very difficult to test drive." Even if I went to test drive, I found that the sales were not familiar with many functions of the Star Era, and we didn't understand the intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving. Because they used to sell oil trucks before, they don't know much about pure electricity. ”
The second is that the intelligent preparation of the Star Era ES is not sufficient. For example, the Galaxy AI cockpit, which has been blowing for more than half a year, has a good experience with the voice model, but the entire Snapdragon 8155 car machine system is visible to the naked eye, and the UI design and fluency are compared with the new forces. The entry-level version and the mid-to-high-end version of the intelligent driving hardware are seriously castrated, although the top version is pre-embedded with lidar and high-computing power chips, but in cooperation with Bosch and other leading companies, there has been no push of high-speed navigation and automatic parking and other functions, and there is no corresponding display for sales during the test drive.
Third, the product version and pricing are very unreasonable. It's been almost two months since the Star Era ES was launched, and a detailed vehicle configuration table could not be found on the official website and APP. I finally saw it, but I found that the long-endurance MAX version of the main price point was fully castrated, and it was even inferior to the standard version. In addition, the top-of-the-line version with an 80-degree battery was sold for about 34w yuan at the beginning, and I really admired Chery's courage.
Chery's car-making technology is undoubtedly very good, but perhaps because of this, Chery has given Chery a huge amount of self-confidence, so that it ignores the feelings of users and the market, resulting in a good product such as Star Era ES being buried.
In other words, Chery does not lack the strength to create pure electric explosive models, but lacks a humility to the market and users.
In 2024, the sister model of the Epoch ES, the Epoch ET, will be launched in March. This car has the strength and potential to become a hit more than ES, it is the favorite large space SUV of the Chinese people, the vehicle is 4955x1975x1698mm, and the wheelbase is 3000mm; It is also based on Chery's world-class E0X high-end intelligent electric platform, with a more luxurious interior than ES, an innovative central control mobile island, a large-area atmosphere lamp, a sofa, a color TV, and a small coffee table. Excellent mechanical quality in the industry, air suspension + all-aluminum chassis, battery life performance after a rigorous examination of minus 30 degrees, etc.
According to the declaration catalog of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the pure electric version of the Star Era ET is equipped with 74The 821-degree battery pack has a CLTC range of 625 km and 540 km, respectively, and provides two powertrains, single-motor rear-wheel drive and dual-motor rear-wheel drive, with a maximum power of 230kW and 413kW respectively.
In addition, the Epoch ET extended range version has also completed the declaration, and the size configuration of the vehicle is no different from the pure electric version, equipped with a peak power of 115kW of 15L displacement range extender with 31The 7-degree battery pack has an all-electric range of 161km.
Both cars are said to be expected to be released and launched at the same time. According to the ** analysis of Star Era ES, the official price range of Star Era ET will probably be in the range of 20-350,000 yuan. The accelerated listing of the extended range version is undoubtedly Chery's desire and thirst for a good start in sales, but it has to be said that the 300,000 yuan top star era ES adopts the 80-degree battery pack, which has been complained by users, and the battery pack of the pure electric version of the ET has further shrunk, even if there is an 800V endorsement, it may be difficult to convince the majority of consumers.
Chery once shouted the slogan that Chery Group's new energy will be fully developed in 2024 and will no longer be polite. In the case of the loss of the first battle of ES, the Epoch ET wants to continue to stabilize the high-end tonality of the Xingtu brand and occupy a certain sales share in the domestic market, which can be imagined how difficult it is.
As Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Group, said, he hopes that the Epoch ET can become a disruptor in the high-end pure electric SUV market, but in the end, whether this wish can come true, we can only look forward to the official performance of the Epoch ET in the future.