A few days ago, a set of pictures of the so-called tank 100 internal training was released on the Internet. The photo is very blurry, but you can faintly see the words "Tank 100", "1.5T Engine", "Young People's First Off-Road Vehicle", etc., and the key price is very exciting, set at 89,900 yuan. Fans rushed to tell each other, and the Great Wall version of Jimney finally came.
Unexpectedly, not long after the tank official issued a clarification statement, saying that the picture was not an internal tank document, and the product positioning and price information involved in it were also wrong. And emphasize that the current tank series includes tank 300, 400, 500, 700, 800 five models, in addition to the already listed tank 300 and the pre-sale tank 500, the rest of the models will also be mass-produced and put on the market within 2 years.
The meaning of the Great Wall is obvious, that is, the legendary tank 100 is out of play in a short period of time, at least not in the planning of two years, but the emotions of netizens seem to have been mobilized.
Why is this car so much attention? Let the kung fu car take everyone to see it together.
(1) The Great Wall version of Jimney is bound to sweep the light ORV off-road vehicle market
When it comes to hardcore off-road vehicles, many people first think of the Mercedes-Benz Big G, Wrangler, or Guard, Hummer, of course, including tank 300, Haval H9, these cars are all big. Because this kind of car is often "built", it is very important to be big enough to be grand. Even the 300 tank with a length of nearly 4 meters 8 is at the entry level in this market.
Is there a small hardcore buggy? In fact, there is also, that is Suzuki Jimney.
Looking at the shape first, although the length of the car is only 3 meters 6, the wheelbase is only 2.55 meters, which is smaller than the fit, but the aura is enough. Many people call it "Mercedes-Benz Little G", in fact, it also has a long history, whether it is first or big G first, and even has been debated.
It is such a little guy, but it is equipped with a non-load-bearing body, and the chassis adopts a high-rigid trapezoidal girder chassis structure. The longitudinal engine FR layout and the front and rear triple-link suspension system make its handling limits very high. The extremely hardcore time-sharing four-wheel drive system, coupled with the electronic LSD limited-slip differential, gives it a very good ability to get out of trouble.
Where the big G can go, it can go, and where the big G can't go, it can go. If there must be any disadvantages, it is that the power is too weak, the 1.5L self-priming engine is really a bit old, and the space is too small, the loading capacity is too weak. But in other ways, its strength is already quite strong.
Jimney has a very high status in the off-road enthusiast group, but because of the market positioning, it has not been domestically produced. Coupled with Suzuki's withdrawal from China, this car has been hyped up to a sky-high price, and now the new car lands at 300,000+, which is simply terrible. It should be known that when Suzuki did not withdraw from the Chinese market before, the parallel import of Jimney was not maliciously hyped, and it only sold for about 140,000. Unfortunately, at that time, the domestic consumption level was limited, and not many people bought it. It is simply unbelievable that a used car that has been driven for many years can sell for more than the price of a new car at that time.
Therefore, the Chinese people are looking forward to the tank 100, to a large extent, hoping that the Great Wall can make up for the gap in the market of this piece, and hoping that the Great Wall version of Jimney can appear. Buying a real hardcore off-road vehicle in your early 100,000s is quite good for many enthusiasts to start with. Unfortunately, as soon as the tank's statement came out, it showed that the Great Wall did not have this plan for the time being.
(2) Breaking the rumors, why doesn't the Great Wall do tank 100?
And from the so-called "exposure" of the picture, it is indeed full of doubts, even if the Great Wall does not issue a statement, everyone can know that this is not feasible.
First of all, from the blurry picture, the new car will be equipped with a 1.5T turbocharged engine, intelligent in-vehicle interconnection system, and L2 level intelligent driver assistance system, which should be more feasible. If the Great Wall really makes such a car, the probability of a 1.5T engine is very large. After all, the Great Wall now has two mainstream gasoline engines, 1.5T and 2.0T.
However, the above mentioned two configurations, manual transmission and time-sharing four-wheel drive system, this feasibility is more worrying. First of all, the time-sharing four-wheel drive system, which is a favorite of veteran off-road enthusiasts, can manually switch the drive mode, and the driver can adjust the two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive mode by himself. The advantage is that it can ensure power and passability, the mechanical four-wheel drive is more reliable, and the disadvantage is that the driver needs to judge the road conditions by himself. Not the "old bird", this system simply can't play around. And because it cannot adjust the drive mode according to the road conditions, it leads to large fuel consumption and poor economy, which is contrary to the energy saving and emission reduction required now.
In fact, there are fewer and fewer models that use time-sharing four-wheel drive systems, and the hard-core SUV under the Great Wall basically uses BorgWarner intelligent four-wheel drive systems. For an entry-level car, it is unlikely to be equipped with a time-sharing four-wheel drive system.
Speaking of the configuration of the manual transmission, the Great Wall also had many manual transmission models in the early days, such as the original H6, which was a full range of manual transmissions. But in recent years, the Great Wall has drastically reduced the proportion of manual models. In particular, the requirements of the tank series are to take into account both off-road and luxury comfort, this positioning model, not a simple mechanical beast, but also pay attention to luxury construction, basically unlikely to be equipped with manual transmission. Even if it is matched, in terms of its positioning, the number of users is unlikely.
From these two points alone, it can be basically concluded that the Great Wall is unlikely to launch such a car.
(3) Will not "develop downwards", but the Great Wall has left enough back doors?
After the success of the Tank 300, in fact, Kung Fu Auto once consulted the insiders of the Great Wall specifically whether it would come up with an entry-level model, and his answer was that the tank did not have the idea of "downward development". This answer is actually quite intriguing, on the one hand, it seems to say that there will be no models with a positioning lower than the tank 300, but on the other hand, it seems to only say that the tank will maintain its luxurious positioning.
For example, bmw MINI is a car, can it be counted as BMW's "downward development"? It doesn't seem to count either.
Personal speculation is that the Great Wall should be two steps in the short term. First of all tanks more than 300 sequences, already covers the needs of the vast majority of off-road vehicle enthusiasts. If further downward coverage is required, it can be completely expanded on the basis of the Tank 300, such as the introduction of a three-door short-axis version, or the introduction of a two-door four-seat version, which can cover part of the demand.
In this way, compared to developing a brand new tank 100 from scratch, the investment is actually smaller. In fact, from the perspective of the development of domestic cars, it is the big car that has been encroaching on the market of small cars, because the former is more profitable.
There is another idea, which is to do it by the Haval brand. Haval has a tradition of making small SUVs, and recently a new Haval Cool Dog, although there is no girder, but excellent approach angle, departure angle, and a variety of off-road configurations, to ensure that it has a good passability.
The Great Wall can be based on the Haval Cool Dog and launch an off-road version, just like the Tank 300 launched the City Edition. Enhanced off-road configuration to meet the needs of enthusiasts. If the follow-up demand is large enough, it is not impossible for the Great Wall to consider the launch of tank 100.
(4) Kung Fu shooting
Although the Tank 100 may not be seen in a short period of time, the Great Wall will definitely be deeply cultivated in the field of hardcore off-road vehicles, after all, its advantages in this market are too great. To put it bluntly, everyone votes with their feet, if the demand for small off-road vehicles is large enough, similar products will eventually appear.
Of course, our ordinary consumers are more concerned about the price, if there is really a 100,000-level small off-road vehicle, as long as the quality is reliable, it is still very potential.