AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)10/15 Report--

Recently, a self-driving "crash" incident in the streets of Aichi U5 has attracted everyone's attention. According to the live video exposed, an Aichi U5 is suspected to be out of control in the street. Without the driver's operation, the vehicle suddenly drove in the opposite direction at a low speed on the highway, but fortunately, the speed of the vehicle was not fast. A man who was suspected of being the owner of the car picked up the phone while trotting along with the car, while constantly signalling to pedestrians to avoid. After driving for a period of time, the car finally collided with a white car and stopped.

In response to reports of an Aiqi U5 'self-driving' crash on the evening of October 14, Aichi issued a statement saying that the incident took place at around 11:50 on October 12. the place is on the open road near Tianyi District, Gaoping City, Shanxi Province. The vehicle involved was an Aichi U5 LITE version, and there were no casualties caused by the accident. After analysis, the Aichi technical team preliminarily judged that it was caused by the error of parking gear, and the specific accident was determined by the traffic police certificate.

The Aichi U5 is the first model under Aichi Automobile, which was first launched in the world on November 29th, 2018 and officially launched in December 2019. The new car is positioned as an A+ intelligent pure electric SUV. The current vehicle price range is 17.99-199900 yuan.

Data show that Aichi Automobile was founded in 2017 and is one of the earlier new car-building brands in China. Founder Fu Qiang was the former president and CEO of Volvo Automobile China sales Co., Ltd. On July 19, the legal representative of Aichi Automobile changed. Aichi founder Fu Qiang stepped down as legal representative and chairman, and Chen Xuanlin took over the post. Since then, Aichi founder Fu Qiang officially withdrew from the post of chairman. Chen Xuanlin, an investor, served as chairman of Aichi Automobile.

Up to now, Aichi has two models: Aichi U5 and Aichi U6. Aichi U6 is a brand-new model which was launched not long ago. The new car is based on MAS pure electric platform, positioning pure electric medium-sized SUV, a total of two models, Play version and Haosheng Special Edition, are launched at a price of 219900 yuan, of which Aichi U6 good Sound Special Edition is a limited edition model, with only 2666 cars launched. In terms of power, Aichi U6 is based on self-developed pure electric MAS platform, with maximum power 160kW and mileage of 505km and 590km under peak torque 315nm.

As one of the earlier new forces to achieve mass production and delivery in China, the sales performance of Aichi U5, the first product of Aichi, is not satisfactory. Statistics show that Aichi sold 2600 cars in 2020, 3011 in 2021, and only 1426 in the first half of this year, which is a huge gap compared with the current mainstream new car-building forces in China. The automobile industry is concerned that, compared with the new domestic car-building forces, Lai Lai Automobile and Xiaopeng Automobile, the product rectangle of Aichi Automobile is very single and the degree of recognition is not high, which is also the reason why it is unable to open up the domestic market.

However, different from the mainstream new car-building forces in China, although Aichi was established very early, its main market in the past two years is not at home, but focuses on overseas markets. When browsing the Aichi official, the auto industry found that in the past two years, Aichi's development focused more on overseas markets. In March 2021, Aichi announced on its website: "the goal of exporting 10000 vehicles in 2021. Determined to promote the brand by 10 times the growth rate from China's new energy vehicle globalization pioneer to the leader status", but product sales are also mediocre. Data show that Aichi has exported a total of 5108 new cars since its official delivery, and 2403 from January to September in 2022, of which 719 were exported in September. By the end of September this year, Aichi stores covered 24 provinces, 4 municipalities directly under the Central Government, 126 cities, with a total of 160 stores in the camp.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat