Chang'an pushes deep blue, a big game of chess

The author | Mr. Dongguan Da

| Electric Guild

There is a famous saying on Wall Street that the place where capital flows is the direction of prosperity, and the direction of the policy banner will become the focus of capital. The current field of intelligent electric mobility is speeding on the road paved by the intertwining of policies, capital and markets.

In the era of great change, invariance is the greatest crisis.

Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, once said, "At the moment of the new round of automotive industry pattern reconstruction, Changan Automobile will face life and death if the transformation is not successful. ”

Today, Chang'an New Energy, which has been operating independently for four years, has finally sounded the clarion call for comprehensive transformation.

Following the unveiling of the new digital pure electric brand - "Changan Deep Blue" on April 13, Changan New Energy immediately disclosed the pure electric drive platform, highly integrated domain control architecture, super-collector electric drive system and other related technologies at the technology sharing meeting held on April 21, and brought Changan Deep Blue's first strategic model C385.

At this point, Changan Automobile has another sub-brand specializing in the new energy market. Deep Blue will also join the CHN platform alliance, Avita, which focuses on the high-end market, and the UNI brand that has transformed into an electrified company, to become the pioneer of Changan Automobile's third venture.

01 Not broken, not standing

In China, Changan is one of the earliest enterprises to do new energy vehicles, which entered the field of new energy in 2001, and has experienced three stages of technology research, industrialization promotion and market-oriented operation, and completed the positive development process from prototype vehicles to products.

Turn the hour hand back to 2017.

In order to comply with the general trend of the industry, this year, Changan Automobile officially launched the "Shangri-La Plan" to attack the new energy field in an all-round way. According to this plan, Changan will fully stop selling traditional fuel vehicles in 2025 and invest 100 billion yuan in the entire new energy vehicle field.

In order to achieve this goal, in May 2018, Changan announced the independent operation of the new energy business and established Changan New Energy Technology Company.

In the early days of independent operation, "oil to electricity" is its starting point, Changan with CS75 PHEV and Yidong EV460 has won the favor of many consumers, Yidong EV460 once received nearly 20,000 units of orders.

At the same time, the excellent performance of new energy models such as CS55 E-Rock, Ben E-Star, CS15 E-Pro has also laid a solid foundation for Changan to develop the new energy market.

Good momentum makes Changan sure that the future is the world of new energy, but with the continuous upgrading of market consumption, Changan also realized that "oil to electricity" will become the "shackles" of The development of Chang'an new energy products, while accelerating the landing of products, core technology reserves are also the key to electrification transformation, so Chang'an began to sink its heart to engage in research and development.

After several years of hard work, Changan has independently mastered more than 400 core technologies in the field of new energy, and basically mastered the three electric technologies based on "electric drive technology, battery technology and electronic control technology".

For example, in 2021, Changan Automobile released a new generation of seven-in-one super-collector electric drive, which is an electric drive system with deep integration of motors, reducers and other assemblies, and at the same time, it is also the world's first high-frequency pulse heating technology for power drives.

In addition to the three-electric system, Changan has developed a "seven-in-one" intelligent vehicle domain controller - Changan Smart Core SVDC. It also has an MPA architecture compatible with ICE and its electrification products, an EPA architecture for the mainstream pure electric vehicle market, an EPA architecture for deep blue brand models, and a CHN platform jointly developed with Huawei and CATL.

Today, Changan already has deep technical reserves in related fields, and it has reached the time of "melon ripening" - so we can see three different power forms of pure electricity, extended range and hydrogen fuel cell on the new C385 car at the same time.

According to the official introduction, the C385 hydrogen version of the comprehensive CLTC standard under the working range of up to 700 km or more, feed hydrogen consumption as low as 0.65 kg / 100 km or less, can achieve 3 minutes of ultra-fast energy replenishment.

This will be China's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell sedan.

The C385 pure electric version can also reach more than 700 kilometers in the comprehensive working conditions under CLTC conditions, the maximum power can reach more than 190 kilowatts, and the power consumption is as low as 12.3 kWh/100 kilometers or less; the extended range version of the full oil full electric comprehensive working conditions can reach more than 1200 kilometers, and the simple electrical comprehensive working conditions can reach more than 200 kilometers.

C385 is a brand new product created by Changan Automobile through years of technology accumulation, under the market changes and consumer demand upgrades.

In order to achieve strategic transformation, "technology foundation" is the foundation of the entire future building, and Chang'an has been preparing for this for many years, and now it is time to accumulate thick and thin.

The grand blueprint outlined by Changan Automobile in those years, such as the "Shangri-La Plan" with an investment of 100 billion yuan in 2017, and the "Beidou Tianshu" strategy proposed in 2018, are also being realized step by step.

02 Two-wheel drive

Yang Dayong, vice president of Changan Automobile, said: "Beauty does not just stay in the mind, facing the future, Changan Deep Blue has made sufficient technical reserves. ”

Indeed, before Changan Deep Blue, another new brand of Changan is called Avita, which is a high-end intelligent car brand jointly created by Changan Automobile and Huawei and Ningde Times in November last year, and its first model, Avita 11, is based on ChN, an intelligent electric vehicle platform independently developed by Changan.

It should be known that this brand equipped with the CHN technology platform will carry the expectations of Changan, Ningde era and Huawei in intelligence and electrification. As a brand facing the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market, the emergence of Avita will also pull Changan back to the main battlefield of the most fiercely competitive intelligent electric vehicles.

Because of this, when Changan once again released Changan Deep Blue, many people will ask, why does Changan Automobile release a new pure electric brand after having Avita?

Different from the high-end route created by Avita Tripartite, Changan Deep Blue is equipped with the EPA platform independently developed by Changan, which can be said to be Changan's "pro-son", integrating all the strength of Changan New Energy.

Although the price information of the first model C385 has not yet been announced, its product positioning has "surfaced" - it will compete in the pure electric mid-level car market and start a frontal war with brands such as Xiaopeng, WM, BYD, and Aian; while Avita is mainly focusing on the high-end pure electric vehicle market, and its competitors are targeting tesla, Weilai and other new car-making forces.

In Changan's own words, if Avita undertakes the task of Changan's brand upwards, then Deep Blue is more like Changan's fierce general in the field of new energy, undertaking the task of "shangliang" and aiming at the larger and younger mid-range electric vehicle market.

In other words, the "mainstream" market is obviously more in line with Changan's current brand positioning, and it is also more "light and familiar" in terms of channels and marketing.

The dual-brand strategy achieves a premium through high-end brands, and mainstream brands occupy the market, which is also a product strategy commonly used by car companies.

Therefore, the two are not in conflict, and they are complementary.

According to the plan, this year Changan Automobile will successively launch 8 new energy products, including Changan Deep Blue C385 and Avita 11.

Relying on its abundant new energy products, Changan Automobile has also set its annual production and sales target at 2.45 million units, which is the second time that the cumulative sales of Changan brand vehicles exceeded 1.75 million units in 2021.

In addition, Changan Automobile also announced its future development goals, by 2025, Changan Automobile's total sales reached 4 million vehicles, of which 3 million were Changan brand vehicles and new energy sales reached 1.05 million vehicles, accounting for 35%.

It can be seen that Chang'an is moving step by step towards the new energy blueprint it has built.

03 Facing the wind

The direction is right, and the confidence is enough.

For a car company with a strategic vision, while the market is getting better, it is also necessary to always consider the next step of development and innovation.

Now That Changan New Energy has been independent for 4 years and has restarted in the name of Deep Blue, its product layout has gradually improved, and as sales have begun to warm up, it may be the right time to choose an IPO at this time.

It should be known that Changan New Energy has become an important starting point for the transformation of Changan Automobile, but from product layout to research and development to personnel training, a large amount of capital investment is required.

Not only that, unlike the simple sales dispute between traditional car companies, the competition between new energy vehicle companies has risen from competition in enterprises, technologies, products and services to the integration of industrial chain integration capabilities and ecosystem construction capabilities, while the improvement of the resource integration of new energy vehicle enterprises is definitely impossible without money.

In fact, changan new energy independence was also for better financing. Zhu Huarong once said that the reason why the new energy sector is pulled out and built separately is to use foreign capital to help.

"For the capital market, Changan New Energy is an area of interest; secondly, the use of external forces can also reduce risks and ensure the adequacy of resources."

However, at present, the financing channels in the primary market have become relatively limited, and it has become inevitable for car companies to move towards the secondary market.

Regarding the listing plan, Yang Dayong also revealed to the outside world last year: "Changan New Energy will be ready to IPO on the Science and Technology Innovation Board next, and after ten years of IPO, Changan New Energy's sales will reach 1 million vehicles, becoming the first enterprise in China's independent new energy vehicles." ”

With a sales volume of 1 million yuan in ten years and becoming the first domestic new energy enterprise, such a vision is not difficult for Changan New Energy to further open up financing channels in the capital market.

For a new automobile brand, the promotion of listing is like icing on the cake, which is bound to provide new development space and opportunities, but as a new Changan deep blue, how to do a good job in products and plan product landing may be more important.

Today's automotive industry has come to the crossroads of transformation, and the entire industry is looking for innovative and imaginative new development models. The picture of tomorrow is clear, the situation of today is very certain, but from now until the dawn of the dawn, it is still not a bright color.

The blueprint for new energy outlined by Changan Deep Blue undoubtedly lays a brighter color for the future.

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