On the surface, independent brands seem to have reached a dark moment, with a decline rate as high as 10% compared with the 45% market share at the peak.
But in fact, independent brands are welcoming the best times.
It must be admitted that in the past, the market share of independent brands hit record highs, relying on shanzhai, low price and low quality, and the brand image was very poor. But today, independent brands are steadily moving towards brand and quality: represented by Geely, Chang 'an and Great Wall, the market share of single brands has been continuously broken, and Geely has changed from 20191-July 6.65438. Chang 'an is a big leap, rising from 3.6% to 4.9% in one fell swoop, while the Great Wall has stabilized the market by 3.6%. Only these three head car companies account for more than 40% of the sales of the whole domestic car. What is commendable is that the average transaction price of their main models has exceeded the mark of 1 1 10,000, and they are moving towards the150,000-200,000 consumer market monopolized by joint venture brands. Those who fall down are all brands that are ashamed of their own brands and have no core competitiveness, such as Zotye and Lifan.
The weak will retreat, the strong will advance and the strong will become stronger. This is exactly what China brand wants to see. Behind the soaring sales of Chang 'an, Geely and Great Wall is actually the improvement of the overall strength of independent brands.
Modeling design is comparable to or even better than joint venture brands.
Pulling open the timeline of domestic automobile modeling design, we can find that it can be roughly divided into three stages: cottage mode, integration and self-creation, and leading the future.
The first stage is the helplessness of most car companies starting from scratch. There is no excellent designer, no market foundation, no judgment on future modeling, and no manufacturing technology to support the design. So from Hongqi to Dongfeng, Chang 'an, and then to Geely and Chery, all of them embarked on this road without exception, and products such as Hongqi Shi Ming, Chery QQ and BYD F3 were born.
However, on this road, some car companies are drawing inspiration from learning and re-creating by imitating progress, but some car companies are addicted to the bonus of the cottage and are hard to extricate themselves. In 20 16, Landwind X7 and Zotye SR9 were listed one after another. Their arrival was once regarded as the pinnacle of independent brand shanzhai, and manufacturers even "bought a car to send a bid" in order to confuse the fake with the real.
It was also during the same period that Geely and Chang 'an started their second journey. 20 15, "Damei China Car" Borui was listed. Its arrival not only symbolizes that the China brand has launched a comprehensive challenge to the joint venture in the B-class car market, but more importantly, its design is forward-looking, and the ripple logo of water droplets has opened a wave of Chinese design; 20 16, followed by job, and the shape of the center console inspired by the design of "West Lake Broken Bridge" once again made people shine.
Then there are Lectra, split headlights, Northern Lights LED daytime running lights, and integrated grille. These highly recognizable design elements are gathered in Lingke 02, 03 and 05, which are personalized, trendy and fashionable. When Nissan Sima, Bluebird and other joint venture brands were defeated on the road of personalization, only the trendy and petty bourgeoisie of Linke were deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Taking this as the dividing point, there will be the ending of Zhongtai retreating and Geely advancing.
The third stage starts with Geely ICON and Changan UNI-T cars.
Geely took the lead. Once the icon was released at the end of last year, the unprecedented "time symbol", "rounded rectangle" and "constellation diagram" surprised all consumers. It is not only 100% original, but also Geely's imagination of future car modeling; In May, UNI-T followed closely, with "borderless" front face, hidden headlights and light and shadow outline. Changan has once again set a new height for its own brand in the field of design with the attitude of subversive, which is also a new height that the joint venture brand has not reached in mass production within 200,000.
BYD, whose design has been spit out in the past, has achieved a gorgeous turn. The face language perfectly shows the texture and beauty of the flagship models of Tang and Han series; Hongqi H9 has become a veritable network celebrity by combining its national design with internationalization ... The mainstream independent brands have advanced collectively in the field of styling design, and it is no exaggeration to say that they have surpassed the level of joint venture brands in the same period.
Three breakthroughs
Li Shufu once had an intriguing famous saying: "Power reverberates in the wind". If the technical resources in the world are "wind", then Geely can make the best use of the advantages of "wind" and put it to our advantage.
The landmark event, natural Geely, is the acquisition of Volvo, the digestion and re-innovation of core technologies.
In 20 18, Geely's first new car with Volvo Drive-E series engine went on sale. Coupled with Aisin 8AT gearbox, the powerful three-piece strength enables Xingyue to accelerate in 6.8 seconds. What is this concept? It takes about 65,438+00 seconds for Japanese CR-V, Qi Jun and RAV4 with the same price, and 9 seconds for Tuyue under the combination of DSG and TSI gold power. The performance of Xingyue can completely cross-benchmark BMW X4 and Mercedes-Benz GLC? The coupe has reached the acceleration performance of 500,000 first-class luxury cars.
In 20 19, with the joint efforts of Geely and Volvo, Ke Ling team won the WTCR championship with the empowerment of core technology and CMA hyper-matrix, which was the first time that its own brand won a historic victory in an international competition. Not long ago, the Lectra 03Cyan concept car set two world records in Belin Ring Road in newberg with a time of 7 minutes and 20 seconds 143, standing on the same level as the famous Civic Type-R and Golf GTI.
In the past, most independent brands could only be upgraded through size leap and configuration, and stood on the same starting line with joint venture brands in the form of racing B-class cars against A-class cars. Xingyue, on the other hand, competes with the top three Japanese companies at the same price with similar or even smaller bodies, and even begins to suppress small steel cannons with golf, Fox and Civic at higher prices. These are all Geely's leaps in the core three blocks.
Similarly, there is Chang 'an, which is different from Geely standing on the shoulders of giants. Chang 'an was accumulated step by step overnight.
During the period of 1988, when independent brands such as faw and erqi still rely on imported engines to produce domestic models, changan has achieved self-sufficiency by self-research; In 2006, Changan took the lead in developing JL474Q2 with completely independent intellectual property rights. 1.3-liter engine, the performance and fuel economy are not inferior to the joint venture at the same level; Following 20 17, Changan Blue Whale 2.0T, 1.5T and 1.4T engines won the honor of "Top Ten Engines of China Heart" for three consecutive years.
The first OEM modular power platform in China-Blue Whale NE power platform-is the killer weapon to truly let Changan engine go global and benchmark international first-line brands in the field of powertrain.
Take the platform's first mass-produced 1.4T engine as an example. It is mounted on Yidong PLUS and accelerates for 9.2 seconds. It is rare that the comprehensive fuel consumption per 100 kilometers is only 5.9L, and the fuel economy is not lost to Sylphy and Corolla at all. Coupled with the chassis adjustment that Changan has always been good at, the popularity of Yidong PLUS made the sales volume of Yidong series exceed 654.38+0.87 million in July. After three years, it once again stood on the top of its own brand car and launched a fierce impact on the joint venture car with Emgrand.
On the other hand, the UNI-T 1.5T engine on NE has a set of data enough to let you know its strength: the maximum power 132kw( 180Ps), and the output can be as high as 300n·m at 1250rpm? (1250-3500rpm), and the maximum thermal efficiency of the engine is 40%. From the data alone, it has surpassed Honda Earth Dream 1.5T, and even directly aligned with the 2.0T engine parameters of BMW 325Li.
And China's Honda-Chery. When contemporary car companies were still in the initial stage of assembling cars, the first thing Chery did was to spend $29.8 million to introduce a Ford second-hand engine production line from Wales, England: build its own engines.
1999, Chery's first engine CAC480( 1.6L) was successfully ignited, which not only marked that an independent brand finally got rid of the fate of imported engines at that time, but also established Chery's status as a "technical man".
Time is up to 20 17, Chery's third generation ACTECO? 1.6TGDI in-cylinder direct injection engine came out, with thermal efficiency as high as 37. 1%, maximum power 197Ps and maximum torque of 290n·m, and its performance was comparable to that of Volkswagen EA8882.0T low-power engine. As soon as it came out, it was awarded the title of "the strongest engine on the ground". Even if it is installed on a medium-sized SUV like the Tiggo 8, it can easily run into the "9-second club" when accelerating.
All roads lead to Rome. Geely, Changan and Chery have different technological development paths, but all roads lead to the same goal. They have established a powerful and hard-core three-piece technology empire, which is a powerful guarantee for independent brands to fight against joint ventures and even luxury brands.
Led by automation and intelligence
Let's look at an interesting phenomenon first. In the mighty process of the fourth industrial revolution, Chinese and American enterprises left Europe, the forerunner of the first three revolutions, behind, especially autonomous driving and intelligent technology.
In 2009, with the support of technology geek Larry Page, Google took the lead in launching the research and development of autonomous driving technology. Now, Waymo unmanned vehicles owned by Google's parent company Alphabet have spread all over Silicon Valley and penetrated into all aspects of California residents' lives. Waymo's valuation also reached $654.38+075 billion, surpassing the three travel giants Uber, Airbnb and WeWork, which were born at the same time. All this is due to the contribution of autonomous driving technology.
Tesla is close behind, but its greatness lies in taking the lead in the field of mass production vehicles, so that consumers can truly enjoy the convenience and technology brought by driverless technology.
China is not to be outdone. 20 15 Baidu, the pioneer of autonomous driving technology in China, invested heavily in research and development; In the second year, he obtained California self-driving road test license; In 20 17, Baidu officially released the "Apollo" plan and began to provide a complete set of software, hardware and service solutions for auto manufacturers. Taking this as a starting point, more and more China technology giants such as Didi, Tencent, Ali, Huawei, etc. began to invest in the driverless field, and have made great achievements one after another.
On the other hand, European and Japanese enterprises, which have always been strong in the traditional technology field, started late in this field, accumulated less, and had higher application costs. Why?
In Tian Yajun's view, an important factor is the general lack of truly successful Internet technology companies in Europe and Japan. Their understanding of automation and intelligence, environment and atmosphere is inherently inadequate, just like the Qing Dynasty lying on the credit book of a big agricultural country and missing the opportunity of the first industrial revolution.
This lack of strategic opportunities is most intuitively fed back to the product level: independent brands are ahead of Volkswagen, Toyota and Honda in intelligence and automation for almost an era.
Take L2 autopilot technology as an example. In the B-class car market or even the lower A-class car market, domestic brands began to take the lead in carrying high-end intelligent configurations such as full-speed adaptive cruise, AEB active braking, automatic parking and face recognition around 20 18, bringing consumers a more scientific and safer driving experience. Nowadays, car companies in Europe and Japan are gradually popularizing autonomous driving, but it is limited to top models, which is still too far from the general public.
Most importantly, in the face of the future automobile consumption market, independent brands have found a clear and effective iterative path: FOTA upgrade. At present, products including Weilai, Tucki and even the Great Wall Lemon Platform can achieve comprehensive technical upgrades such as human-computer interaction, engine control unit and automatic driving; 5G technical support and automotive chips provide faster, more efficient and safer software applications, while Geely, Changan and Weilai also lag far behind joint venture brands.
Traditional car companies represented by Volkswagen are still struggling with how to balance the cooperation between hardware and software engineers. More and more software bugs of many products have been detected, which directly leads to a serious lag in the speed of new car listing. Volkswagen ID. Family is the most direct example.
Breakthrough of new energy sources
Although overtaking in corners on new energy has been proved to be a joke, it is undeniable that China brand does have a first-Mover advantage in new energy technology:
First of all, we have a world-class new energy automobile enterprise.
For example, the traditional car company BYD, on the one hand, is the sales volume, and BYD has ranked first in global sales for many years; On the other hand, the product strength, the new energy vehicles represented by Tang EV and Han EV, even in the face of Tesla, are not inferior in the technical and power performance of the three electric appliances.
There are also three troikas: Weilai, Ideality and Tucki. Weilai's power exchange mode, ideal extended-range power and Tucki's autonomous driving technology are all unique in the new energy market. Coupled with Tesla's sci-fi design, each has a group of fans.
Birds fly headless, and its staged success is both a demonstration and an example for major car companies. At the same time, as the downstream of the industry, their progress is also a positive incentive for the midstream supply chain and upstream raw materials of new energy.
Followed by a world-class new energy parts company.
The backwardness of China brand in the field of fuel vehicles is not only the core technology, but also the "elegy of seeking the roots" of China auto parts industry. Bosch, Denso, Continental, Delphi and other world parts giants control the world supply of key parts, and the foundation is controlled by people, so it is difficult to surpass it.
It is gratifying that the technical barriers of new energy automobile parts have not yet formed, which has left opportunities for China brands.
Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., a power battery manufacturer, is a typical example. 20 13 Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. became the battery supplier of Yutong, a leading bus company in China, and with the profits gained in the subsidy era, it invested desperately in research and development, and finally gradually entered the supply chain system of global automobile giants such as BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and Tesla. Relying on industrial protection and targeted subsidies for domestic batteries, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has developed rapidly under the siege of Samsung, LG, Panasonic and other powerful enemies, and even formed the situation that "three to three" and "PK" are the first echelon in the world.
At present, in the core three-electricity field of new energy vehicles, the batteries and motors of new energy vehicles in China have basically achieved domestic substitution, and the core components of electronic control-IGBT and BYD have also made major breakthroughs. Obviously, the strength of the new energy industry chain is the key to the joint venture of China automobile industry.
Breakthrough of Colin and Wei
In 20 16, Linke and WEY were released one after another. Three and a half years later, despite the different development of the two brands, the sales volume has not reached a state of skyrocketing. But fortunately, more and more post-90 s and post-95 s are becoming loyal fans of these two brands, especially Lectra.
For China brand, this is a gratifying achievement. Leaders broke through the ceiling of independent brands and occupied the minds of more critical young consumers. Not only LECK and WEY, but also BYD's dynasty series and Red Flag H9. They are slowly changing young people's inherent impression of China brand.
This is undoubtedly the only way for China brand to make greater breakthroughs in the future.
Collective awakening of domestic products
What is more exciting is that the strong performance of a series of domestic products such as Huawei, DJI and Hongqi aroused the collective awakening of independent brands, and the brand power gap between China brands and foreign brands was gradually broken. More and more consumers, especially the post-90s and post-00s who gradually became the main consumers, began to accept and buy domestic products, laying a solid foundation for the future of self-owned brand cars. This is also the key reason why more than 300,000 red flags H9, Weilai ES8 and BYD Han EV still have a large number of consumers paying the bill.
Although there is still a gap compared with joint venture brands, we should see that China brands are narrowing the gap in an all-round way. With more and more car-making enterprises playing with capital going out, those China brand car-making enterprises that are serious and ingenious will eventually surpass or even surpass joint venture brands and become real global brands.
There is no doubt that China brand cars are welcoming the best times.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.
The time of the speech should not be too long, and it is most appropriate to control it within seven or eight poin