The second season of the Road to Electricity will be a conversation with executives to see how the "car guys" at the center of the storm are responding to the opportunities and challenges of this change. And where will they lead their companies?
●The advantages and disadvantages of Buick's product matrix
Although joint venture brands have long had a solid foundation in the Chinese market for fuel vehicles, the entry of joint venture brands in China's new energy market is not that early, and Buick is one of the early joint venture brands to launch new energy products in the Chinese market. In addition to the now familiar micro-blue series models, Buick in 2017 launched a programmable model - VELITE?5, and from the point of view of General Motors, Buick is also a "capture" of China's new energy market "The VELITE?5 is a programmable model that was launched by Buick. In the face of consumers waiting to buy, Buick is also in the last two years launched a new energy models with good product strength. Cleverly, Buick utilized the micro blue 6, micro blue 7 two models have covered the pure electric, plug-in hybrid and different range of products. It is likely that many consumers do not have good charging conditions, the Micro Blue 6 plug-in hybrid model is to ensure good economy on the basis of weakening the strong demand for charging conditions. However, the current Buick product sequence is not perfect, because Niu Feng also believes that, including new energy vehicles, the future incremental growth of China's auto market will also focus on the entire SUV market, and with the upgrading of consumption, the high-end pure electric vehicles are also quite popular among consumers. For consumers who have sufficient budgets and want to buy higher-positioned models, Buick really doesn't have the appropriate products for users to choose from. For example, the current domestic compact pure electric SUV market competition is relatively fierce, BYD, GAC New Energy and other traditional Chinese brands have corresponding products, Weimar Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile and other new forces brand also has the strength of the model, and FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC-Volkswagen also launched ID.4 domestic models. From this point of view, Buick still need to launch more different segments of the market to meet user demand, and still need to be launched faster, after all, China's auto market has come out completely from the trough of the early 2020's, the user consumption demand is gradually expanding. The 2020 epidemic has really affected all walks of life, and China's auto market was also at the bottom in February, but now the fuel and new energy vehicle markets have gradually returned to the right track. SAIC-GM Buick marketing minister Niu Feng also predicted that "after entering the fourth quarter of 2020, including the whole of 2021, we think that the new energy vehicle market sales will have a relatively large growth." In the face of the growth of sales in the new energy market, what does Buick rely on to attract consumers? For this question, Niu Feng is very confident.●Face the competition, Buick has the courage
China's new energy market is a big cake, this piece of cake is so delicious that the new car-making forces, China's traditional brands, joint venture brands, imported brands want to fight for "one more bite". At present, China has given a lot of support to new energy vehicles from the policy level, such as subsidies for car purchases and restrictions on fuel vehicle targets, etc. Is it feasible to rely on the policy to "eat more cake"? How can consumers recognize the Buick brand? In Niu Feng's opinion, the new energy market is driven by policy, but in the future, the new energy market will rely on strength. As a joint venture brand, Buick in the competition with new brands or traditional Chinese brands should be the biggest weapon than the brand advantage, which is not bragging, Buick nearly a hundred years ago in Shanghai, there is a sales department, and the late Junwi, Jun Yue and other products are more y rooted in people's hearts. Especially compared to the new power brands, such a history, a large number of users of the brand reputation is indeed easier to obtain the trust of consumers. At the same time it is also thanks to the deeper brand roots, Buick's offline service network in China is very developed, as Niu Feng said, the new power models in many first-tier cities can solve the after-sales problem, but to three, four or five tier cities, their service outlets are not so good to look for, and Buick can. At the same time in some brands strive to break through 10,000, 20,000, 100,000 units of sales, Buick already has about 11 million customers, in these users choose new energy products, they are not more inclined to choose Buick brand? In addition to the brand advantage, some of the new power brands in the electrification technology is also quite good, but Niu Feng also said: we backed by the parent company of the United States General Motors, General Motors also has some more forward-looking technology. For example, in the platform technology, battery technology, General Motors also released in August 2020, the much-anticipated third-generation EV platform, Ultium battery technology. Currently Buick's Micro Blue 7 model from the second generation of pure electric platform, but in the near future, Buick is expected to bring Chinese consumers from the third generation of pure electric platform products, which is backed by the U.S. General Motors parent company for Buick to bring the technical advantages. At the same time, every consumer is very concerned about the safety of pure electric vehicles, Niu Feng mentioned that the safety of Buick's power battery is also the brand's hard power. After the launch of Buick Micro Blue 7, we had the honor to visit Buick's battery production line at SAIC-GM's Jinqiao plant, and the brand still applies a lot of measures to enhance battery safety, such as the buffering effect of foam between the cells, the cells/modules/battery packs have traceability codes, and each piece of the battery cell monomer contacts a water-cooled plate, and so on; meanwhile, in the battery testing part, Buick also uses some strengths that exceed the national standard by more than ten times to conduct battery high and low temperature tests, which is the same as that for the battery. The battery is also tested at a strength that exceeds the national standard by more than ten times for high and low temperature performance, corrosion resistance, and other tests. To win in the new energy market in the future, it is not enough to rely solely on these advantages. The development of electrification is also accompanied by the development of intelligence, pure electric vehicles have now assumed the task of developing automated driving. For example, Azure, Peng car just released this year, NOP, NGP (high-speed autonomous navigation driving), may be in the view of many users, a lot of traditional brands in the auxiliary driving aspects of the more conservative, but Buick backed by the parent company of General Motors has Super?Cruise super cruise control system, which is also the future of Buick is expected to enjoy the "welfare"! "This is the first time that Buick has been in a position to do so.
In addition to the ability of intelligence, Niu Feng also shared that Buick has also done a lot of exploration of online services, such as online car selection, car purchase can be completed through the App, Buick also provides users with door-to-door delivery service. As you can see, electrification does bring a lot of new experience for new energy vehicles and users, and new power brands may be relatively active in these aspects, but don't forget that traditional joint venture brands like Buick are not lagging behind.●The revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard
After talking about so many more optimistic conditions, let's look at it from the perspective of the future. Every automobile brand has to face some challenges and pressures in its development, and Buick, which is backed by GM, is no exception. Niu Feng said the challenge, but also in our expectations, because this is the vast majority of car companies have to solve, but also are more difficult to solve. At present, Tesla has nearly 20,000 super charging piles around the world, but for most of the other car companies, self-built charging network is almost an impossible task, so the super charging network, charging capacity has become Tesla's technical barriers. In China, there are also azalea, peng car and other car enterprises to build their own charging piles, but most of the charging network construction also rely on the state to complete, improve the charging facilities is the first challenge put forward by niu feng. It is understood that the State Grid has built a total of 100,000 charging piles, 12,000 power stations, covering 171 cities in China; in 2020, the State Grid will invest 2.7 billion yuan in charging piles. The laying of charging facilities is indeed relying on car companies alone is impossible to complete, but at present, many pure electric vehicles themselves have limited charging capacity, acceptable charging power is limited, which I am afraid we have to rely on car companies to solve, breakthroughs, if the vehicle charging power can easily reach 100kW or even higher, I believe that this can also greatly enhance the user's experience of using the car. In addition, in the production of power battery roots, how to improve the vehicle range, how to reduce the cost of the battery is also the major car companies are starting to solve. As of the end of 2019, the unit price of the domestic ternary lithium battery pack is 1.05 yuan / Wh, according to the pure electric car equipped with 50kWh, the cost of its power battery is more than 50,000 yuan. But for Buick, I think their pressure may not be so great, after all, GM's Ultium battery technology is expected to control the battery cost at a lower level, which allows consumers to enjoy a lower price or even the price of the same class of fuel-efficient pure electric vehicles. Finally, Niu Feng mentioned the issue of power battery laddering utilization. Previously, some industry experts from the enterprise warranty period, battery cycle life, vehicle use conditions and other aspects of the comprehensive estimates, is expected by the end of 2020, new energy vehicle power battery will have more than 200,000 tons (24.6GWh) need to be scrapped; if the end-of-life battery can not be properly dealt with, which will not only result in waste of energy will also bring pollution to the community, the consequences of safety hazards, that the so-called pure electric car The so-called "environmental protection" of pure electric vehicles has become a laughing stock. The gradual utilization of batteries is to sort out the retired batteries, and use the batteries that still have value for more moderate working conditions, so as to achieve the full utilization of resources, like the advertisement: XX batteries, toy cars used up, the radio then used. Battery laddering is not an easy task, but many companies, including China Tower Corporation, Tianjin Lixin Battery Company Limited, SAIC-GM-Wuling, and other automotive and non-automotive companies, are actively promoting the laddering of power battery utilization, so we have reason to believe that joint venture brands like Buick, which have a strong background in strength, will also contribute to the improvement of the battery laddering of their own value. A joint-venture brand like Buick is entering the new energy market, and is more willing to think holistically, rather than marketing a single product. Buick encountered these challenges is actually the challenge of the whole industry, seemingly and consumers have nothing to do, but whether it is the charging pile, the cost of building a car, the battery ladder utilization are closely related to the price of the people to buy a car, the convenience of using the car. If these challenges are overcome one by one, then we will see cheaper, more convenient charging of new energy products on the market.Writing in the end:
In the era of full-fledged fuel vehicles, many joint venture brands and imported brands have a strong momentum to crush Chinese brands in China; while in the era of popularizing pure electric vehicles, Chinese brands have risen to dominate the domestic market. As an ordinary consumer, I hope that both Chinese brands and joint venture and imported brands can come up with decent products. Through this exclusive dialog with Niu Feng, we are very pleased to see Buick's potential in the new energy market, but as Niu Feng said, "In the future, the new energy market will also rely on the strength to speak," and we look forward to seeing Buick, and see more brands for Chinese consumers to deliver a satisfactory answer. (Article/Automotive House? You Dongqing; Interview / Li Jia? Jiang Tianshuang)