AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/25 Report--

Today, according to people familiar with the matter, BYD will launch a new high-end brand in the fourth quarter of this year, and the price of the new car will exceed 1 million yuan. According to insiders, there has been a heated discussion within BYD about the naming of high-end brands. Some people have suggested naming high-end brands with the words "Wang", "Chuanfu" or "Fu" in the name of BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu, and after many rounds of discussion, now prefer the name "Starry Sky".

In response to the above news, in the evening, the relevant person in charge of BYD responded to the China Securities News: "the high-end brand is tentatively scheduled to be released at the end of this year, simultaneous debut of the first hard off-road model, priced at more than 1 million yuan."

Judging from the price of the new car, the starting price of BYD's high-end brand has been raised to more than 1 million. Earlier, it was reported that the price of high-end brand products will be between 500000 and 800000 yuan. In fact, as early as last August, sources revealed that BYD's high-end brand would be sold in mass production in the first quarter of 2023, and the latest news from BYD confirmed the reliability of this news. In December of the same year, a "BYD New car Plan for the next 1-3 years" was also published online, which covers three product camps currently sold by BYD, namely, the Ocean Series, the Dynasty Series and the e-Net. the most closely watched is the high-end brand that BYD will launch in 2022.

On May 10 this year, the well-known car blogger @ Wu Pei revealed that Tengli is a high-end brand of BYD, but there is a more high-end one called "Starry Sky", which means "looking up at the stars in a down-to-earth manner." At the same time, the planned product will be a non-load-bearing body SUV similar to Mercedes-Benz Big G, the vehicle uses wheel-side motor technology, and can also complete in-situ U-turn and high-performance motor loading through forward and backward rotation of tires. In addition, BYD Star will have another more mysterious model. However, the message was quickly deleted by the blogger, and BYD officials did not respond to the news at the time.

Then, on May 21, the relevant media reported that BYD's high-end brand may be released in August, the new brand may be named "StarCraft", and its first model will be a high-end off-road SUV similar to Mercedes-Benz G-Class with non-load-bearing body. The high-end brand model will use Huawei MDC computing platform and be equipped with dual lidar, while the first high-end off-road SUV will be equipped with wheel-side motors that can make a U-turn by turning the tires forward and backward, with high-performance motors and excellent acceleration. It will go on sale in the first half of 2023, and the price of the model is expected to be between 50 and 800000 yuan. Prior to this, Li Yunfei, general manager of BYD Automotive Brand and Public Relations, had posted information about BYD's high-end brands on his social platform. BYD's car business is made up of dynasty, ocean, momentum and high-end brands, with the exception of a joint venture between BYD and Mercedes-Benz, other sub-brands are wholly owned by BYD. Among them, high-end brand products will have "independent brand, independent team, independent sales network", the price of products will be 500000-800000 yuan. Li Yunfei believes that this model is "enough for people to see at first glance, the eyes do not want to leave."

Judging from the latest news from BYD, the probability of BYD's high-end brand being named "Starry Sky" is relatively high, while judging from the price of the new car, it is expected that the new car will be matched with models such as Mercedes-Benz Big G and Land Rover Guardians after its launch. As to whether this is the case in the end, it will need further official verification to know.

According to the China Automobile Association, from January to July this year, domestic sales of new energy vehicles were 3.194 million, an increase of 1.2 times over the same period last year, with a market share of 22.1%. Among the new energy manufacturers, since April 3, BYD announced that it would stop producing fuel vehicles, becoming the first traditional carmaker in the world to stop selling fuel vehicles. BYD, which has fully transformed the new energy market, has grown particularly significantly. It has become the top retail sales of new energy manufacturers for many times. According to the data, the cumulative retail sales from January to July this year were 792734, an increase of 301.3 percent over the same period last year. BYD's retail sales in July were 159000, an increase of 172.6 percent over the same period last year, surpassing FAW-Volkswagen at the top of the list. In terms of specific models, Song, Qin, Han and Dolphin are all in the top 10, of which 37784 are sold in Song (first in SUV), 33933 in Qin (third in sedan), 25270 in Han (fifth in sedan), and 20493 in dolphin (seventh in sedan). In other words, BYD's main battlefield is still a market of 10 to 300000 yuan.

At present, BYD's automobile and passenger car business is composed of dynasty net, ocean net and Tengli brand. the product price ‍‍ covers a wide range, and the price of some models is about 100000 yuan, while the price of the latest model also reaches 660000 yuan. on August 23rd, Tengli D9 officially launched, positioning medium and large MPV, and launched a total of 7 models of DM-i super hybrid version and pure electric version, of which the price range is 32.98-459800 yuan. In addition, the new car also launched a limited edition four-seater Genesis model with a price of up to 660000 yuan. With the release of the high-end brand at the end of this year, it means that this limited edition model is no longer the "most expensive" electric car in BYD's product matrix.

From the perspective of the automobile industry, at present, many automobile companies in the automobile field have made efforts to the high-end market by setting up new brands, such as BAIC-Jihu, Dongfeng-Lantu, Changan-Avita, Great Wall-Salon, SAIC-Zhiji, Geely-Polar Krypton, Gaohe-HiPhiZ and Ean-ENO.146, and so on. The prices of these brands have all reached the price range of traditional luxury brands, and BYD is one of the domestic independent brands. It is no surprise to choose to enter the high-end market. The auto industry also said earlier that the introduction of high-end brands by car companies can effectively enhance the overall image of the brand. On August 24th, Huawei and Selis officially opened the delivery of the second model under the AITO brand, the M7, with a price range of 31.98-379800 yuan. In response, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei and BU CEO of smart car solution, said at the delivery ceremony: "someone told me that our car has a big disadvantage, that is, the price is too cheap, can you sell it a little more?" Because a little more expensive can reflect his identity, he used to buy more than one or two million, and would not buy it so cheaply. " In fact, this remark can also reflect the saying that "price shows identity", and for BYD, which has gained a certain market share in the new energy track, the launch of a million-level new high-end brand may also boost its brand image. Of course, some people in the industry say that the high-end brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi are not achieved overnight, and many brands take decades or even hundreds of years to achieve high-end brand images. it will be difficult for car companies to try to build new independent high-end brands, but it will be more difficult not to take this step in the future.

As for the mass production of BYD's high-end brand models, whether it can be recognized by consumers at that time depends on the response of the new car launched at the end of the year.

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