Author?|?Ling Yun
Source?|?Auto View
The launch of a new round of offensive by traditional car companies in the field of intelligent high-end new energy has become a fact.
Following Dongfeng, SAIC and Changan, Great Wall Motors will also launch a new high-end new energy independent brand.
A few days ago, industry media reported that Great Wall Motors is preparing to launch a new high-end brand focusing on intelligent new energy. The project is internally code-named "SL". The new brand may launch pure electric and extended-range electric models. , the price will be higher than Great Wall Motor's existing products. In response to this, Great Wall Motors also responded with "The big tide is coming, and we will join in the game", which indirectly confirmed the authenticity of Great Wall Motors' launch of a high-end new energy vehicle brand. Moreover, according to insiders of Great Wall Motors, the high-end new energy brand of the SL project will be different from the Euler brand in terms of technology and marketing.
On December 11, industry media once again exposed the news that Great Wall Motors’ “SL” project was named “Salon Zhixing” (hereinafter referred to as the SL project), and Shanghai Salon Zhixing Industrial Co., Ltd. has been established to complete the industrial and commercial Registration, the legal representative is Li Peng, digital executive officer of Great Wall Motors.
Public information shows that the business scope of Shanghai Salon Zhixing Industrial Co., Ltd. has added new energy vehicle sales; new vehicle sales; new energy vehicle electrical accessories sales; new energy vehicle battery swapping facility sales; new energy vehicles Sales of production and testing equipment; sales of electrical equipment; sales of new energy prime mover equipment; recycling of used power batteries for new energy vehicles (excluding hazardous waste operations); sales of charging piles and other businesses.
According to information from Tianyancha, Shanghai Salon Zhixing Industrial Co., Ltd. was formerly known as Shanghai Haval Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. and was established in 2014 with a registered capital of 1.5 million yuan. On December 9 and 10, Shanghai Haval Automotive Technology Co., Ltd.’s legal representative, supervisory board members, business scope, name, residence, general business projects, etc. all changed. The former legal representative Hu Shujie withdrew and was replaced by Li Peng.
According to the equity penetration chart, the suspected actual controller of Sharon Zhixing is Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, with a shareholding ratio of 34.75%.
At the same time, judging from the information published by the National Trademark Office, Great Wall Motors has recently registered trademarks such as "Soul", "Great Wall Soul", and "Mobile Soul", and its English SOUL is also similar to SL. It is more suitable, maybe the new brand under the SL project will be named "Soul".
Follow the trend
According to industry media reports, the SL project will cover the high-end electric vehicle market in the two major fields of SUVs and sedans, and will benchmark against brands such as NIO and Lantu. In terms of production capacity, the Great Wall Motors factory may be used for OEM production, and the first model should be a high-end electric SUV that benchmarks the NIO ES8.
Why would Great Wall Motors launch the SL project when it already has high-end brand WEY, independent pure electric brand Euler and new energy brand Beam Automobile jointly with BMW?
Bai Yiyang of the Research Department of CMB International said that Great Wall Motors has accumulated sufficient technology in recent years, and its subsidiaries already have certain technical reserves in the fields of three electric vehicles, so it is a natural step to build a high-end independent electric vehicle brand. .
However, there are also voices in the industry that believe that in terms of electrification, Great Wall Motors currently only has the Euler brand and the Beam Automobile joint venture with BMW. Overall, although the Euler brand, which focuses on small electric vehicles, has performed well in sales, it cannot fully meet Great Wall Motor's demand for high-end brands. The Liangguang Automobile project has been slow to progress due to the epidemic, and the brand does not entirely belong to Great Wall. Therefore, the launch of the SL project is not only natural, but also a step that Great Wall Motors must take to further enhance its brand power and seize the market share of new energy vehicles.
In addition, traditional car companies have unanimously made efforts in the field of intelligent high-end new energy, which may be another reason why Great Wall Motors is "anxious" to launch the SL project.
Up to now, Great Wall Motors, which has been trying to move towards high-end, has been blank in the high-end electric vehicle market, and this market is precisely the next focus of independent brand competition.
Especially as new car-making forces such as Tesla, NIO, Xpeng, and Ideal continue to strengthen their "attack power" in the high-end electric vehicle market, luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi continue to accelerate electrification. Against the background of the rapid pace of electric vehicle sales, how to quickly enter the high-end electrification market and gain a place is a question that many independent brands seeking to go high-end must answer.
In this regard, BAIC launched ARCFOX. The brand’s first model, ARCFOX αT, started pre-sales at the Beijing Auto Show in September and was officially launched on October 24.
Dongfeng launched the Lantu brand. Currently, Lantu's first model FREE has rolled off the production line in pre-production. The new car is positioned as a zero-anxiety medium and large smart electric SUV. It will have its global premiere on December 18 and will be launched and delivered in the third quarter of 2021.
SAIC launched the “Zhiji Automobile”, a project jointly built by SAIC Group, Pudong New Area and Alibaba Group. It is claimed to be a tens-billion-level “Big Mac” project and was launched on November 26. Officially launched. It is reported that it will be released simultaneously in Shanghai, London and CES in North America as early as January next year, and will debut two models including a sedan and an SUV.
In addition, Changan, Geely, etc. are also actively developing high-end electric market. Among them, Changan announced in mid-November that it would join hands with Huawei and CATL to create a new high-end smart car brand. It is reported that the first product has completed the preliminary research and development work and is about to enter the mass production stage. Geely Lynk & Co also recently announced that its first pure electric production model ZERO will be launched next year, focusing on the high-end new energy market.
Under the tumult, it is reasonable for Great Wall Motors to choose to launch an independent high-end smart electric brand.
What are the odds of winning?
As another new attempt by Great Wall Motors in the high-end brand, although the strength of the SL project cannot be underestimated, it also faces many challenges.
On the one hand, there are currently a huge number of new car-making forces in the domestic market. Not only are luxury brands such as Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi constantly "conquering cities and territories," but also car-making companies represented by Weilai and others New forces have also gradually gained a foothold.
Just take the new car-making forces as an example. Statistics show that from January to November this year, Weilai sold a total of 36,721 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 111.1%, of which 11 delivered 5,219 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 109.3%, setting a new high for the brand's single-month delivery volume for four consecutive months. Xpeng Motors also handed over a report card of 4,224 vehicles in November, and sales in the first 11 months exceeded 20,000 vehicles. In this case, Great Wall's high-end electric brand will undoubtedly face a situation of "entering the game is a life and death battle".
On the other hand, compared with many traditional car companies that have already started to take action, the SL project seems to have no first-mover advantage, and compared with projects such as SAIC Zhiji, Changan + Huawei + CATL, it is only backed by Great Wall Motor's SL project, which is a big tree, also seems a bit weak.
However, the advantages of the Great Wall SL project are also quite obvious.
According to Reuters, although the Great Wall SL project has been established for only two or three months, the ideas and technical reserves have been incubated internally for several years. At the same time, it is reported that after the project is established, Great Wall Motors will not only assign technical personnel to provide support, but the first model will also apply the latest technology of Great Wall honeycomb batteries, and the cruising range may reach 800-1,000 kilometers.
In addition, in terms of brand premiumization, the launch of the WEY brand has allowed Great Wall Motors to accumulate certain experience, and the launch of the Tank 300 has also given Great Wall hope to achieve new breakthroughs in the luxury off-road SUV market. Therefore, there may be a lot of successful experience that can be learned from in the SL project.
In the field of pure electric vehicles, both the Euler brand and the independent Hive Energy have laid a solid foundation for Great Wall Motors to build high-end pure electric vehicles. In particular, the cobalt-free batteries launched by Honeycomb Energy will give the new brand models the advantages of long battery life and high safety, which will undoubtedly enhance the competitiveness of the new brand.
Intelligence may be another trump card of the SL project. Although the specific investment ratio of the SL project has not yet been revealed, judging from the participation of Xiandou Intelligence, the project may have a deeper layout in terms of intelligence. Information shows that Xiandou Intelligence is a technology company focusing on travel scenarios. Its business includes smart cockpits, smart driving, smart services, etc. The Fun-life smart network connection system it developed in cooperation with Tencent has been widely installed in Haval F5, F7, WEY? VV7 and other Great Wall models.
However, "the key to the success of Great Wall Motor's new high-end electric vehicle brand lies in whether it has a unique selling point." Bitauto Research Institute analyst Zhou Lijun said.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.