The author | Wang Yunpeng
Produced | automotive grand view
In the book "Only Paranoia Survives", Intel founder Andy Grove believes that it is precisely because of his "paranoia" that Intel has developed in the fierce competition and become the world's largest chip manufacturer.
There are not a few people in the Chinese business community who are as "persistent" as Andy Grove, such as Huang Hongsheng, the founder of Skyworth Group, who is one of them.
As the founder of Skyworth, a famous Chinese home appliance brand, Huang Hongsheng, born in 1956, can be said to be an "old man" who has spent half his life in the commercial sea. However, after leading the Skyworth brand to create countless brilliant achievements, Huang Hongsheng not only did not stop the pace of entrepreneurship, but also turned his attention to the automotive industry, and made a vision of "building Skyworth Automobile into one of the world's top ten automobile brands".
It is worth mentioning that for Huang Hongsheng or Skyworth, the desire to "create the world's top ten automobile brands" does not stop at the slogan. Especially after the release of the first model EV6 last year, the pace of Skyworth's car construction has accelerated significantly.
Time came to this year, on April 27, Skyworth Automobile held the 2022 Global Strategic Partnership Conference. At the meeting, Skyworth Auto summarized its past achievements, announced its future development plans and strategic deployments, and also released a new product Skyworth HT-i and 2022 Skyworth EV6.
"Skyworth HT-i has the characteristics of oilable and electric, ultra-low fuel consumption, smooth and silky, strong power, etc., with a pure electric endurance of 200 kilometers, a loss of power and fuel consumption of 5.3 liters per 100 kilometers, and a comprehensive cruising range of up to 1267 kilometers." In the view of Li Hu, project leader of Skyworth Automobile R&D Center, Skyworth HT-i will be a replacement for traditional fuel vehicles, and a clarion call for Skyworth Automobile to launch a charge to the position of fuel vehicles.
At the same time, Skyworth Automobile also revealed at the meeting that it has developed three new energy platforms of BE, CE and AE, and will launch more than 14 new cars in 7 model series in the next 3 years, and the new products have pure electricity and HT-i hybrid two power.
"Skyworth Auto closely follows the national trend, focuses on the proposition of the times, creates differentiated competitive advantages, and is committed to '0' carbon smart solutions in practicing the 'double carbon' strategy." When talking about the future development plan of Skyworth Automobile, Huang Hongsheng said so.
Ten years of sand panning began to see gold
When it comes to Skyworth's involvement in the new energy vehicle market, we can turn back the time to 11 years ago.
In December 2010, Huang Hongsheng, founder of Skyworth Group, funded the establishment of Kaiwo New Energy Automobile Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Kaiwo Group). After completing the independent research and development of the core technology of "three electrics" for new energy buses, Kaiwo Group turned its attention to the field of passenger cars.
In 2017, Kaiwo Group obtained the passenger car access qualification. In November 2019, Kaiwo Group officially established the Tianmei Automobile brand, and released its first model, the Tianmei ET5, in 2020.
According to the data, Tianmei ET5 is positioned as a medium-sized pure electric SUV, with a total of four models in the whole series, neDC mileage of 410km and 520km respectively, and the price range is 152,800 yuan to 198,800 yuan. It is understood that ET5 from hardware to driving system is all "Skyworth manufacturing", which can be through the mobile phone APP, to achieve people before the car air conditioning and interconnection with Skyworth smart home.
However, as one of the many new car-making forces, Tianmei Automobile has not carried out high-profile marketing since its birth. Moreover, the low brand awareness also made its first model, ET5, once mistakenly believed to be a product of Tencent's "Tianmei Studio".
Perhaps due to low brand awareness, Tianmei ET5 sales were very sluggish after its listing. According to the data, since its listing, the cumulative sales volume of Tianmei ET5 has only exceeded 10,000 vehicles.
Compared with the decline of Tianmei Automobile, brands such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal, which are also new car companies, have performed relatively well in the same period. For example, in 2020, the three new forces of head car manufacturing handed over the report card of 43,728, 27,041 and 32,624 new cars sold respectively. In 2021, the growth momentum of the three car companies will continue unabated, and more than 90,000 new cars will be delivered throughout the year.
In the face of the decline of the Tianmei brand, how should Huang Hongsheng's "car-making dream" shine into reality? The answer is obvious, that is, to change the brand identity of Skyworth to re-enter the market.
On March 26, 2021, Kaiwo Group signed a trademark transfer agreement with Skyworth Group, and "Skyworth Automobile" became a smart car brand under Kaiwo Group.
At that time, as soon as the above news came out, the industry reported that "compared with Tianmei Automobile, Skyworth has more advantages in brand awareness, and product sales will increase after the name change".
It is worth mentioning that the performance of Skyworth Automobile did not disappoint. According to Wu Longba, co-founder of Skyworth Group, since the delivery of its first model EV6 on July 27, 2021, in the past 9 months, Skyworth Automobile has completed the establishment of 218 domestic dealers and 43 overseas channels in addition to handing over the transcript of 11,105 domestic orders.
In other words, after more than ten years of hard work and technical accumulation, China's passenger car market finally has a place in Skyworth.
Skyworth Auto's strength and ambition
On the road of car building, there has always been no shortage of cross-border people, especially home appliance companies.
However, from the experience of home appliance giants such as Chunlan Group, Oaks Group, Midea Group, Gree Group, and Dyson, who sold home appliances for luxury goods, it seems that car manufacturing is not suitable for home appliance companies.
In addition, from the current domestic new energy vehicle market, the car-making track has become more and more crowded. Public information shows that if you count Skyworth, since the end of 2020, more than 10 technology or manufacturing giants have announced that they are about to or have been involved in the automotive industry.
That is to say, in the future, the domestic new energy vehicle market will form a situation in which there are new forces such as Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Weilai to attack the city, and then there are "new new forces" such as Baidu, Xiaomi, and Apple to catch up.
In this case, Skyworth Automobile, which has just gained a foothold in the market, can gradually enter a better state in the future and inject new vitality into China's new energy vehicle market?
In the author's opinion, the answer to this question can be found in the new car and future product planning released by Skyworth Automobile at the 2022 Global Strategic Partnership Conference.
Let's take Skyworth HT-i and the 2022 Skyworth EV6 released by Skyworth Auto as examples.
As the first hybrid model of Skyworth Automobile, the biggest highlight of Skyworth HT-i is equipped with a hybrid system jointly developed by Skyworth Automobile and Fordi Power. According to reports, the 1.5L high-efficiency engine dedicated to the hybrid system has a maximum power of 81kW and a maximum torque of 135N m, with a thermal efficiency of 43.04%. In terms of battery life, Skyworth HT-i has a pure electric endurance of up to 200km and a comprehensive cruising range of 1267km, and the minimum feed fuel consumption is only 5.3L/km.
The 2022 Skyworth EV6 is equipped with skyworth automobile home interconnection smart travel cabin, increases skyworth wisdom eye, and matches the game area of skyworth gamepad. At the same time, the new pure electric version adds a new color of water moon blue, giving users more choices. In terms of battery life, the 2022 Skyworth EV6 can choose from an 85.97 kWh battery, and the comprehensive cruising range can reach 620km.
It can be said that both models have strong product strength and more prominent highlights.
In fact, Skyworth HT-i and the 2022 Skyworth EV6 are only the "prelude" to Skyworth Automobile's future launch of a complete product matrix. According to Skyworth Automobile, at present, it has developed three new energy platforms of BE, CE and AE, and will launch more than 14 new models in seven model series equipped with pure electricity and HT-i hybrid in the future.
In terms of specific planning, Skyworth HT-i/new EV6 will be released in 2022; the new generation EV6 will be completed in 2023; the first product of the CE platform will be completed in 2024, the car code name is EA8, positioned as a medium and large CROSS six-seat intelligent cockpit of 200,000-300,000 yuan; in 2025, the CE platform EA-7 will be launched, positioning the medium and large"future black technology sports coupe" of 200,000-300,000 yuan, entering the medium-sized car market competition at the same time. It will also complete the launch of EA3, the first product of the AE platform.
At the same time, according to skyworth automobile's planning, skyworth intelligent health management system will also be upgraded from 2.0 to version 3.0 in the future, and create a unique technology and ecology of skyworth brand. In terms of charging, its products will be equipped with technologies such as 800V high-voltage platforms. In terms of intelligent driving, the next-generation mass production model will achieve L4 level automatic driving assistance and be combined with Skyworth EHB-by-wire chassis and intelligent driving.
At this point, the answer to the above question should not need to be said more.
It is worth mentioning that perhaps based on the above strength, Skyworth Automobile has set itself a sales target of "30,000 in 2022, including 4,000 in overseas markets; 100,000 in 2023, including 15,000 in overseas markets; 250,000 in 2025, including 80,000 in overseas markets".
Write at the end:
The era of change has spawned adventurers and ambitionists, but Skyworth Automobile, which has broken into the new track, has not only blood and ambition, but also a certain amount of technical accumulation and clear product planning behind it is where it dares to enter the game and has a clear goal. And this will also become the key to Skyworth Automobile's realization of the "World Top 10 Vision".