On January 26, the tank brand officially issued a clarification statement, "Recently circulated on the Internet a 'Tank 100' internal training picture, the slide shown in it is not a tank internal document, the relevant product positioning and price information is not true." This also makes it clear that this product and the small off-road vehicle with explosive cost performance will not be able to benefit from the Chinese market and riders.
According to the PPT training photos, the Tank 100 is positioned as the first (open-top) off-road vehicle for young people, and the configuration highlights include: 1.5T engine, L2 driver assistance system, non-load-bearing body, time-sharing four-wheel drive, intelligent vehicle connection, and the design and styling of the tank 300. The most conscientious is undoubtedly the price, low-end manual gear only sold for 89,800 yuan, automatic transmission two prices are sold for 99,800 yuan and 109,800 yuan respectively.
The Great Wall official revealed in the media verification that the reason why the exposure information of the tank 100 is not true is that the wheelbase range of the tank platform (non-bearing body) is 2750-3750mm, and the wheelbase of the tank 300 is 2750mm, so there will be no tank 100 models smaller than the tank 300.
Tank 100 can attract such a large degree of attention, one is because of the hot sales of tank 300, and the other is that the market demand for hard-core SUVs is expanding. In 2021, 9.221 million new SUVs were sold, accounting for 45.77% of passenger car sales (cumulative sales of 20.146 million units). SUVs are so favored by Chinese consumers, and the segment of hardcore small off-road vehicles has indeed reached the time to be concerned.
Judging from the wording of the official rumor, the new tank 100 car has not been completely denied, and the main negation is product positioning and price information. Tank brand positioning high-end off-road brand may mean that costs and profits are more concerned by manufacturers, after all, not many car manufacturers can be like SAIC-GM-Wuling, risking losses, pushing 28,800 yuan of pure electric vehicles to the pure electric vehicle market, and the current sales of 500,000+ is also the best return for its risk. So, do tanks and Great Wall Motors, which are as low as 89,800 yuan, dare to take this step?
Small buggies are still a blue ocean in the highly competitive SUV market. If this tank 100 is listed, its competitor will be the imported Suzuki Jimney, once the lowest price was only 138,800 yuan, the latest quotation of parallel imports is currently 260,000 yuan +, both sides in the price and configuration, tank 100 can completely crush the opponent. At present, the domestic small hardcore off-road vehicle market is almost blank, especially the use of non-loaded body and four-wheel drive system. BJ212 and Warrior made by BAIC? The old-school military vehicle shape and the configuration far from modern and intelligent have a small audience. The urban SUV equipped with four-wheel drive, such as Geely Xingyue, JEEP Liberty, MG Pilot, etc., are limited in sales due to price and positioning.