AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/12 Report--

According to Weibo blogger @ Technology Saint posted on Weibo, car brand Wei Brand placed an advertisement on WeChat moments that read: "Don't buy a smart car now = mobile phone but also a mobile phone," which is suspected of borrowing from Yu Chengdong's comments.

At the 2022 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Auto Show held last month, Yu Chengdong once again made a startling remark, saying bluntly that "the era of pure fuel cars will end quickly, and now we still buy fuel cars, just like buying functional phones in the smartphone era." Yu Chengdong said that the era of pure fuel cars will certainly come to an end quickly. If people buy cars and still buy fuel cars today, just like when smart phones first came, many people who bought feature phones at that time, I think the era of function phones will come to an end quickly. Everyone will transform, so the coming of the era of smart phones, like the advent of smart electric connected cars, is the general trend and the necessity of history. This era will accelerate. We are also very happy to see the development of China's automobile industry, including a series of enterprises such as BYD.

According to public information, the WEY brand was founded in 2016, named after the company's founder Wei Jianjun, and the previous models were named "VV+ Digital", including VV5, VV6 and VV7. Data show that the VV7 and VV5 produced by WEY in 2017 both sold more than 10,000 vehicles a month this year, and the annual sales reached 86000. In August 2018, WEY VV6 was officially launched, and the WEY family product camp was further enriched, with annual sales reaching 139500 vehicles that year. Since then, WEY sales have begun to decline. Year-on-year sales fell 28.28% to 100000 in 2019 and 21.53% to 78500 in 2020, with sales of all models falling. Sales of WEY were also depressed in 2021, with cumulative sales of 58000 vehicles in 2021, down 25.65% from a year earlier, making it the only Great Wall brand to decline.

In 2021, Wei Brand adjusted its strategy and defined its brand positioning of "new generation smart car". At the same time, it introduced coffee intelligent platform and intelligent hybrid DHT scheme, and released a number of models such as Mocha, Macchiato and latte. According to the official website, there are only three Wei brand models on sale, including Mocha / Mocha DHT-PHEV, Latte DHT and Macchiato DHT/ Macchiato DHT-PHEV. Except for Mocha, all the other models are new energy vehicles (hybrid / plug-in hybrid), while the pre-listed VV series has disappeared from the official website. It is not difficult to see that Wei Brand is also gradually moving closer to new energy vehicles and smart cars. However, its current market performance is not good. In May data, for example, only the latte DHT sold more than 1,000 vehicles, 1110 vehicles, while other models all sold less than 1000 vehicles.

By contrast, as Huawei's key car brand, Cyrus is on the top 15 of the list of new energy vehicles for the first time. The data show that Cyrus sold 5651 vehicles in May, with the main models being the Cyrus SF5 and the M5, of which 5033 are retail. As a model built by Huawei, Yu Chengdong is so optimistic about the M5 that he has set a target of selling 300000 cars a year and plans to use 1, 000 stores to sell cars by the end of the year. Yu Chengdong is also frank that at present, Huawei's brand marketing ability, retail channel ability, and product competitiveness can support the sales target of 300000 units, but considering that the products have just climbed the slope, there are huge risks in the supply chain, serious shortage in the industry and other problems should not be underestimated, 300000 units still have a lot of challenges. Huawei's goal in entering the auto industry is to be first, because no one will remember the second, Wu Pei, a veteran auto blogger, said in an interview.

Smart cars subvert traditional fuel cars, just like the smartphone era subverts the functional phone era. From the publicity of major car companies, NIO, Xiaopeng and ideal all claim to be smart car brands, but there is no clear definition of what is smart car in the market. According to the industry point of view, smart cars only have capital from L3 to be called intelligent. Even L3 is only conditional self-driving. The so-called smart cars in the market may only be equipped with a few screens, intelligent assistants, or have driving aids and OTA functions, but in fact, these are only superficial, referring to the impact of smartphones on the mobile phone industry. It is not only a qualitative change in function, but also a change in life, and at present, the so-called smart car is more than that.

He Xiaopeng has said that the first inflection point for smart cars will be formed in 2023, the source of which is self-assisted driving. At that time, most people will think that if you buy a car without a high-grade self-driving car, you might as well not buy a car at all. By 2025, smart cars plus electric vehicles in China's first-tier cities will account for 60% of new cars.

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