(Text/Yu Waijun, Lou Bing Editor/Lou Bing) Recently, SAIC Motor issued an announcement, the main content of the announcement is that the r brand is officially independent from the passenger car branch of SAIC Motor Group, and transferred to the upcoming Establishment of Feifan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Feifan Automobile") to carry out market-oriented operation in an asset-light manner.
From a car series of the ROE BRAND of SAIC Passenger Cars, to becoming an independent brand, to Feifan Automobile, r has undergone several identity conversions and upgrades in just a few years, and "promoted/valued" in SAIC Group to a business unit parallel to SAIC Passenger Cars.
An inevitable choice
Recently, the State Council issued the Action Plan for Carbon Peaking by 2030. The plan proposes to vigorously promote new energy vehicles, gradually reduce the proportion of traditional fuel vehicles in the production and sales of new vehicles and car ownership, and by 2030, the proportion of new energy and clean energy-powered vehicles will reach about 40%.
In 2020, China's automobile sales will be 25.311 million units, and based on this basis, the number of new new energy and clean energy-powered vehicles will reach about 40%, that is, about 10 million vehicles.
In recent years, sales of new energy vehicles in China have risen sharply. According to the data of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the wholesale of new energy passenger vehicles from January to September 2021 exceeded 2 million, an increase of 223% year-on-year. Among them, the wholesale penetration rate of new energy vehicle manufacturers in September was 20.4%, and the penetration rate of January-September was 13.7%, which was significantly higher than the penetration rate of 5.8% in 2020, and it is expected to exceed 15% throughout the year.
In view of the current growth rate, the federation will increase the sales target of new energy passenger cars this year to 3 million units, and the market penetration rate of new energy passenger cars in 2022 is expected to exceed 20%.
From the proposal of "overtaking in curves" to the end of the first three quarters of 2021, after the new energy vehicles broke through one question after another, it has proved that the industrial process is the general trend of the future. As a result, the beliefs and actions of car companies have gradually become incomparably firm and swift.
In the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list released by Fortune magazine in August this year, SAIC ranked 60th in the world's top 500 and ranked first among Chinese vehicle companies. Since entering the top 100 of the world's top 500 companies for the first time in 2014, SAIC Motor has been ranked among the world's top 100 enterprises for 8 consecutive years.
In saic's vehicle business, among the three major business segments (joint venture passenger cars, autonomous passenger cars, and commercial vehicles), although the performance of its own brands is not the top in China, it has also achieved long-term maintenance of the industry's midstream and upstream status and steadily improved. However, in recent years, its pace on this new track in the new energy vehicle market has fluctuated.
The reasons come from many sources. In fact, SAIC Has always had a high degree of enthusiasm and initiative in the new energy vehicle market. As early as 2009, it made plans and decisions to develop the new energy automobile industry. However, the development of the new energy automobile industry, while the road is bumpy, the "new and old" conflict of its traditional fuel vehicle system has turned the vision of car companies to take into account the two tracks into an internal roll. The sudden change in the automobile industry has made new energy, an emerging business unit of the automobile industry, usher in a new camp transformed from the matrix of science and technology Internet. As a result, many traditions in the automotive industry have been rewritten or even completely broken. The most direct performance is the change in the product structure of new energy vehicles, which greatly compresses the research and development cycle of new energy vehicle products, greatly shifts the design direction, and makes marketing methods more diversified.
The operation mode of "traditional fuel vehicle incubation of new energy vehicles" of traditional car companies has been unable to meet the development needs of this emerging unit. Therefore, after experiencing the adjustment of "oil to electricity" and "new energy special platform", the independence of the new energy vehicle business has almost become the common choice of traditional car companies.
Therefore, Geely has Extreme Kr, the Great Wall has Euler and Salon, Chang'an has launched Avita, GAC has launched Aian, and Dongfeng has launched Lantu. Such a synchronized operation is not only an endogenous requirement for the development of the new energy automobile industry, but also an inevitable result.
Feifan Automobile is destined to be an inevitable choice for SAIC.
Heavy responsibilities
In the middle of this year, SAIC Motor released a new vision, mission and values: a comprehensive transformation into a "user-oriented high-tech company", through the in-depth promotion of the innovation development strategy, a new generation of electric intelligent vehicles that "data determines experience and software-defined cars", and accelerates the transformation into a user-oriented high-tech enterprise with technological upgrading, business globalization, brand upgrading and experience extreme.
Based on the above background, Feifan Automobile is regarded as the key and important layout of SAIC Group, and is an important focus of SAIC Group.
First of all, in the Chinese car market under the normal state of stock competition, a considerable proportion of the traditional fuel vehicle market will be destined to be replaced by new energy vehicle products, as a new thing, the new energy vehicle sector and SAIC's new vision have a natural affinity; secondly, SAIC Motor has so far had rich technical accumulation and experience in the fields of three electric technology, l4-level automatic driving, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, network security and software. For example, SAIC Motor plans to put into production a new generation of power battery systems at the end of the year to create solid-state batteries with high safety, high energy density and commercial orientation. Moreover, this power battery system should be compatible with four chemical systems of lithium iron phosphate, ternary, high nickel, and silicon-doped lithium supplementation.
Taken together, the autonomous vehicle business is clearly the most efficient use of these "savings" segments. Therefore, saic motor's goal of establishing Feifan Automobile is obviously very clear: to explore the use of innovative company operation methods, business operation models and market-oriented incentive and constraint mechanisms, to achieve independent operation, self-financing, explore new models of data-driven and industrial co-creation, accelerate the development of the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market, and strive to become a new engine for SAIC's innovative transformation and development, help the sales growth of new energy vehicles, and promote the brand upwards.
According to the disclosure, the registered capital of Feifan Automobile is 7 billion yuan, of which SAIC Motor invests 6.65 billion yuan and the employee shareholding platform subscribes 350 million yuan, which means that Feifan Automobile will have any independent vehicle model different from that of SAIC Group in the past: on the basis of maintaining independent operation, fully integrate SAIC's superior resources and respond quickly to market changes.
The current situation of China's new energy automobile industry has fully demonstrated that on the new track, the rules and rhythms of the automobile industry have changed, and car companies not only need to adapt, but also need more flexible response and decision-making mechanisms.
From the structure to the institutional mechanism, SAIC Motor has given feifan automobile all the support within its capabilities. In the future, Feifan Automobile will be parallel to savoy group passenger car branch, and together with the group's high-end intelligent pure electric brand - Zhiji Automobile (jointly established by SAIC Group in 2020 with Alibaba and Zhangjiang Hi-Tech), to undertake the heavy responsibility of its own brand "brand upward, leapfrog and standing".
At present, r auto has a total of marvelrr and er6 two products, in the first nine months of this year, feifan automobile cumulative sales of about 13,000 vehicles, in October, feifan car sales of about 3,000 vehicles, the overall order increased by 30% month-on-month. Among them, the sedan ER6 orders in October increased by 214% year-on-year. Next, the SUV model ES33 will be the third model of Feifan Motors. The model is mainly intelligent, and is expected to be officially mass-produced in the second half of 2022.
In terms of channels, there are 148 experience centers in the country, opening 80; 10 delivery centers and opening 5; and 70 service centers and opening 50.
Feifan Automobile has a certain degree of market experience and considerable industry foundation, but along with it, these accumulations still carry the label of the past. The new script has been updated, the server that brings new experiences to the market and consumers has been launched, and how it works depends on Feifan himself. In short, SAIC's repeated promotion of R Cars is not simply to achieve Feifan.
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