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The "DENZA momentum" car brand set up by the BYD Daimler joint venture has sold only one car line for many years, and its products are close to blank, with low sales and successive losses, which can be sustained by the continuous increase of capital and blood transfusions by the parent companies BYD and Daimler. Recently, BYD said that the first mass-produced model of Tengli X is expected to be delivered in early 2020.

Tengli X will be the brand's second car line, solving the situation of a single product line for many years. The new concept car Concept X was launched at the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao International Auto Show on June 1st this year. Tengli X will be the final mass production version of the concept car. The new car is based on BYD Tang EV600 and will be sold at Mercedes-Benz dealerships in the future. Mercedes-Benz is also responsible for marketing and brand communication, customer service, network development and so on.

No matter from the appearance or interior decoration, Tengli X is full of the shadow of BYD Tang. It is said that the design of the new car, provided by the Daimler team, can see Tengli X using a closed intake grille, with narrow headlamp groups on both sides connected to through-type chrome strips, with the brand logo at the top and DENZA LOGO at the bottom.

The rear of the new car is designed with a through taillight, and below the taillight is the LOGO with the capital letter "X". It is worth noting that the logo on the lower left directly uses the "BYD" logo, which also confirms the true identity of the car.

The length, width and height of the body size of Tengli X are 4890/1950/1725mm, and the wheelbase is 2820mm. Except that the length data is slightly larger, the rest of the data are consistent with BYD.

There is no doubt that the interior of Tengli X is highly consistent with that of BYD Tang, and the most prominent is the rotatable large-size central control LCD screen.

In terms of power, the new car will launch pure electric version and plug-in hybrid version. Among them, the pure electric version NEDC has a comprehensive range of more than 500km; the plug-in hybrid version is equipped with a 2.0T engine produced by BYD, with a maximum power of 192 horsepower, and is equipped with two permanent magnet synchronous drive motors.

Manufactured by BYD and sold by Mercedes-Benz dealers, can the brand be saved by virtue of this new car?

In the initial stage of Tengli listing, the sales channel is divided into joint dealers and franchised dealers, of which the co-dealers are a total of 39 Mercedes-Benz core distribution stores and 15 franchised dealers, but because the products can not be supported, some dealers exist in name only. After negotiation, after July 1 this year, Daimler put the sales system of Tengli under its control, taking advantage of Mercedes-Benz's domestic sales channels to open up the market for Tengli. Beijing Mercedes-Benz sales and Service Co., Ltd. is officially responsible for the operation of some businesses of Tengli, including sales, marketing and brand communication, customer service, network development, and so on.

In 2010, BYD Automotive Industry Co., Ltd. and Daimler Greater China Investment Co., Ltd. each invested 300 million yuan to establish Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology Co., Ltd., the equity ratio of both sides was 50:50, and the "DENZA momentum" brand was officially launched in 2014. the first product Tengli 300 was launched in 2014, which was positioned as a high-end commercial electric vehicle, when the pre-subsidy price was as high as 369000-399000 yuan. After upgrading, it went public with 400 in 2017 and 500 in 2018, and the mileage was improved, but it could not solve the situation of low brand awareness and unrecognized products, resulting in low sales volume.

Data show that in the four years from 2015 to 2018, Tengli sold only 11774 vehicles, of which only 1974 were sold in 2018, down 58.12% from the same period last year.

Due to the single model and low sales volume, Tengli has been unable to make a profit so far. Public data show that Tengli lost 1.3 billion yuan in 2016, 477 million yuan in 2017 and 888 million yuan in 2018, and has lost more than 3.5 billion yuan in the past five years.

The momentum is sustained by the continuous increase of capital and blood transfusion by the parent company. Since 2012, BYD and Daimler have increased their capital for the momentum seven times, with a capital increase of more than 3 billion yuan. In order to support the development of the momentum, both shareholders increased their capital twice in 2019, totaling 400 million yuan in February and 300 million yuan in May. According to the BYD announcement, the capital increase will be used for daily operation and new product research and development, mainly for R & D expenses, special equipment and mold investment, new product promotion expenses, bank principal repayment and interest expenses and service network construction.

Low brand awareness is the biggest obstacle to momentum. Based on the high-end version created by BYD Tang and sold at Mercedes-Benz dealerships, it still takes time to get consumer recognition. Nowadays, the growth rate of the new energy vehicle market has slowed down, subsidies have fallen sharply, and the momentum has also missed the period of rapid growth. Only by relying on shareholders' capital increase and blood transfusion can not be maintained for a long time. The key is to sell the car and achieve self-hematopoiesis in order to survive.

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