Among the many joint ventures, Volkswagen has always been a typical representative of the implementation of the Chinese localization strategy. Recently, this localization strategy has extended from the corporate and organizational level to the individual executive level. For example, Volkswagen China's chairman and CEO Ralf Brandstaetter is paying more attention to Weibo marketing, which is a signal.
Although the frequency of Weibo updates is not as frequent as that of Lei Jun, the "King of Volumes", it also maintains a rhythm of updating one or more articles in one to three days. His marketing strategy is similar to that of Chinese brand executives, including experiencing his own smart driving products, interacting with other executives, and promoting new technologies and products.
Clearly, the "involution" culture of Chinese car executives has affected the German. It should be known that Germany has a strict law on working hours, stipulating that the working day should not exceed 8 hours in principle, and the working hours per week should not exceed 40 hours, and it is expressly prohibited from working on Sundays and holidays. Work communication in Germany is usually carried out through work email, rather than using social software such as WeChat and Weibo.
However, Barred is completely "Chinese". He even updated his Weibo several times after work or in the early hours of the morning. This confirms the evaluation of a Chinese car company chairman, "This is a German who is more like Chinese".
Image source: Richard's personal Weibo
Recently, Chinese brand executives have been experiencing their own smart driving products, and Brad has joined them. On July 24, he shared his experience of driving the ID. test car with Yu Kai, founder and CEO of Horizon, on his personal platform to experience Horizon's latest urban NOA intelligent driving function.
They chose a challenging test environment: a rainy day, a busy downtown area in Beijing, and a Friday evening rush hour. "The whole testing process was extremely smooth, with zero takeovers. ”
Image credit: Barred
THE URBAN NOA INTELLIGENT DRIVING FUNCTION IS CREATED BY CARIZON, A JOINT VENTURE BETWEEN CARIAD CHINA AND HORIZON ROBOTICS. The joint venture was established at the end of last year and is 60% owned by CARIAD China. The company will carry out research and development based on the Horizon Journey family computing solution, and its intelligent driving solution will be applied to the Volkswagen Group's pure electric vehicles in the Chinese market.
From this point of view, the intelligent driving function product created by Core Cheng is about to be launched. Among them, the low-level solution adopts the 6V1R solution. The higher-end L2+/L2++ high-end intelligent driving products are planned to be mass-produced in 2025 and 2026. This test is a test vehicle equipped with L2+/L2++ intelligent driving system. "Road tests are being carried out on pilot roads in many cities in China," he revealed.
Richard hopes to use his personal influence to amplify the publicity. Braid's efforts are largely influenced by the Chinese auto market and the "involution" culture of executives. It hopes to improve Volkswagen's competitiveness in electrification and intelligence in China through the personal IP effect of senior executives.
Image source: Richard's personal Weibo
After all, during his tenure, Volkswagen China's performance was not satisfactory, especially in the new energy market, and it has been surpassed by Chinese brands such as BYD.
Industry insiders said, "Volkswagen's sales in China continue to decline, and the pressure on Braid is undoubtedly great." "If the Volkswagen-Xpeng partnership in the field of electrification does not effectively boost sales, and the sales of the Volkswagen Anhui ID. series do not meet expectations, then Volkswagen's senior management team in China may be to blame.
In the past six years, Volkswagen's sales in China have continued to decline
In the past six years, Volkswagen China's sales in China have shown a continuous downward trend.
2019 was the peak of the Volkswagen Group in the Chinese market, with sales reaching an all-time high of 4.23 million units. The following year, however, Volkswagen's sales in China quickly fell below 4 million units. In the four years from 2019 to 2023, Volkswagen's sales in China fell by a full million units.
In the first half of this year, Volkswagen sold only 1.345 million units in China, and it is likely to fall below 3 million units for the whole year. This means that Volkswagen China's market share in China will shrink from 16% at its peak to less than 10%.
The weak performance in China also weighed on the Volkswagen Group's global sales. With the help of the Chinese market, the Volkswagen Group's sales in 2019 hit a new high of 10.97 million units. Since then, however, the Volkswagen Group has never exceeded 10 million units. In the first half of this year, the Volkswagen Group's global sales fell slightly by 0.6% year-on-year due to the sharp decline in the Chinese market. The Chinese market is also declining in its share of the Volkswagen Group's sales, accounting for less than one-third of its sales.
Regarding the decline in sales in the Chinese market, the Volkswagen Group headquarters explained that "the Chinese market is highly competitive". Most of the lost market share of the Volkswagen Group in the Chinese market has been divided between Chinese brands.
In particular, BYD seized the opportunity of China's new energy market development and caught up with Volkswagen China in less than three years.
Before 2020, BYD's annual sales were less than 500,000 units, only about one-ninth of Volkswagen China. Since 2021, benefiting from the rapid expansion of China's new energy market, BYD's sales have been rising, reaching 2.78 million units in the domestic market last year, and overseas sales exceeded the 3 million mark, narrowing the gap with Volkswagen China.
In the first half of this year, BYD sold 1.41 million vehicles in the domestic market, 70,000 more than Volkswagen China.
Faced with this situation, the Volkswagen Group is eager to promote the electrification and intelligent transformation of the Chinese market. For this reason, it is inevitable that the headquarters will put pressure on the senior management team in China. In 2022, he came to China to take over as chairman and CEO of Volkswagen China.
Adhering to the concept of "learning from the strong" and "joining if you can't beat it", the senior management team of Volkswagen China led by Braid has comprehensively "Chineseized" from business model to marketing strategy. He himself has also embarked on the road of building personal IP and actively embraced the marketing changes in the Chinese auto market.
If in the future, it may not be surprising to see Berry follow the example of Lei Jun, Wei Jianjun and other Chinese car companies to "engage in live broadcasts" in person.