Volkswagen Group, one of the world's largest automobile manufacturers, uses one paper to share the cooperation announcement to inject another dose of stitches into China's new energy vehicle companies.
Volkswagen Group issued a press release on Wednesday (July 26) on the official website of China, announcing that its Volkswagen and Audi brands have reached strategic cooperation with the Chinese local car manufacturer Xiaopeng Automobile and SAIC Group, and launched in the Chinese market.More new energy models.
According to the announcement, Audi will deepen existing cooperation with SAIC Group, including launching new electric models.Volkswagen and Xiaopeng have reached a technical framework agreement, which will jointly develop two Volkswagen brand electric models for the Chinese market.In addition, Volkswagen Group will also invest about $ 700 million (about S $ 930 million) to Xiaopeng Automobile, holding approximately 4.99%of Xiaopeng Automobile.
According to interface news reports, this is the first time that a multinational car company has officially invested in China start -starting company, which is of great significance to the entire industry.After this heavy news was announced, Xiaopeng Automobile had risen by 40%at the stock price of the U.S., and closed up 26.7%on the same day. It has still shocked at a high level.
After the stock market carnival, the industry began to think about. Does this "big and small cooperation" mean that China's automobile industry has got rid of the "market exchange technology" joint venture model for more than 40 years and has begun to enter the era of technology to go to the sea?
What does "big and small cooperation" mean?
Ralf Brandstaetter, chairman and CEO of Volkswagen Group (China), posted on Weibo on Wednesday night that the two cooperations reached by the group and Chinese car companies were "strong and strong" and the group "In China, another milestone promotes the electrification strategy for China.
Bearing wrote that the cooperation between the two brands will jointly develop new electric models with each partner.Among them, the Volkswagen brand will face two new electric models for the medium -sized car market. The Audi brand will open up a new high -end market segment with new electric models.
He also emphasized that the new model will not replace the existing models of the two brands.This means that at least Volkswagen Group will launch at least three new cooperative electric vehicles in the Chinese market.
He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile, also confirmed in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that cooperative models will be sold in the Chinese market with the Volkswagen brand.He revealed that in division of labor, Xiaopeng will contribute smart platforms and software, and Volkswagen provides engineering design capabilities and supply chains, and is responsible for the design of the car body and models and internal and external decorations.
This report believes that in this cooperation, Xiaopeng reversed the positioning of China's industry in the past 40 years, and began export technology and "feedback" foreign companies.Netizens who agree with this view also described that Xiaopeng has become "Dapeng" through such cooperation. In the future, China's first car company will also play a greater role in the international market.
However, there are also Chinese media articles singing and declined that the essence of this cooperation is that foreign investment in the Chinese market and use the core technology of Chinese car companies to cooperate to produce its own brand models.The article is bluntly. In the long run, Xiaopeng is equivalent to helping a competitor with stronger brands and wider sales channels to contribute to the core competitiveness of the other party.
The car Internet platform "Car House" wrote that this cooperation is required for both parties: Volkswagen needs to show an explosive Chinese market in new energy vehicles as soon as possible, and take out a suffering.The sought-after products; the sales volume has declined successively since 2022, and has been revealed that many product design and Safety Issues Xiaopeng Automobile also requires funds to return blood and endorsement.
Article list data shows that in the first half of 2023, Volkswagen's entire group sold more than 320,000 electric vehicles, but in China, the world's largest electric vehicle market, Volkswagen has only sold more than 6,200 vehicles.Xiaopengyue's delivery volume did not exceed 10,000 units, and the delivery volume in the first half of the year fell nearly 40%year -on -year.
Perhaps because of this, Both Berry and He Xiaopeng sent a photo of the two people with a smile on their Weibo.Bered wrote: "We are convinced of each other that Volkswagen Group and Xiaopeng Automobile have common values and vision for future mobile travel."
He Xiaopeng thanked Berry and the public for their trust, and said that he was looking forward to the best technology, the best products, and the best brand to the world.
Foreign cars are not fragrant in the Chinese market?
As for why Volkswagen Group creates a precedent for the start of China's new car brand, it has to be mentioned that imported car companies that once dominated the Chinese market are currently facing the predicament.
According to statistics from the China Automobile Industry Association, in the first half of this year, Chinese brands accounted for 53.1%of the total sales of automobiles, accounting for more than half of the first proportion, and the leadership market.
From the perspective of historical data, the last time the Chinese brand occupied a high position in this statistics, it was 43.9%in 2017; in the next three years, the proportion of domestic brands' sales declined all the way, to the bottom of 2020 at 38.4%.After that, as the market turned to new energy vehicles and new forces of car building, the proportion of Chinese brands rose to 44.4%in 2021, and it has continued to rise to this day.
This also means that compared to the new Chinese car manufacturing forces with "starting in spontaneous", many old -fashioned foreign car companies with absolute advantages in the era of internal combustion engine have changed the rhythm of the Chinese market.Cold, the proportion fell year by year.Among them, Volkswagen will even give BYD even to BYD in the first quarter of this year.
Facing such setbacks in the world's largest largest ride market, different brands have naturally come up with different response strategies: some choose to fight again, and some decide to temporarily retreat.
Among them, the most effort is Volkswagen Group: From April, the entire board of directors and more than a hundred employees participated in the Shanghai Auto Show.By announced that investment of 1 billion euros (about S $ 14.6) set up electric vehicle research and development and procurement centers in China, and now establishing strategic cooperation with local car companies in China, all show the group's determination to occupy a place in the Chinese electric vehicle market.
The other two German car giants Marseille -Benz and BMW also explicitly expressed their explicit statements to continue to cultivate the Chinese market.Among them, Ola Kallenius, chairman of Marseille -Benz Group's board of directors, said on Thursday (July 27) that although the progress of China's economic recovery is not as expected, the company is still confident in China's long -term growth market as an electric vehicle.BMW also announced on the same day that its Chinese R & D team has launched a higher -level localized research and development of autonomous driving functions to make full preparations for adaptation and application in China.
According to Reuters, the sales of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac, a subsidiary of GM, decreased by 9%in the first half of this year.And its main model in the Chinese electric vehicle market, Cadillac Lyriq, was also involved in the price war, which reduced the price by 14%last month.
Mary Barra, chief executive of GM, said, "We must launch suitable electric cars at a suitable price and use appropriate technology at a suitable price."
The cruel price war this year also caused some car companies including Japanese car giant Toyota to reduce production or layoffs to reduce scale and decline in profit.Toyota, who had dropped for 10 years in China last year, has declined for the first time in the past 10 years. Previously, the production line was adjusted.Contract employees ; Mitsubishi Motors announced in July that after years of sales downturn, it will suspend business in China and lay off layoffs.
Nissan cars, which are also frustrated in the Chinese market, stated that they will consider using China's cost advantage to export cars from China to other regions.
Facing the uncertainty of the Chinese market and economy, each brand has obviously made different judgments and choices for whether to stop loss in time.However, in the global market to new energy vehicles, many countries have begun to eliminate fuel vehicles to eliminate fuel vehicles, and whether they can learn from their experience in the Chinese market are also particularly important for these companies.
Chinese car companies are long
While foreign cars run into the Chinese market, the road to the international market is not easy to go.
Compared with China's fuel vehicles that have been labeled in the past and can only export low -end markets in developing countries, China's new energy vehicles can be said to have obtained the entry vouchers in the mid -to -high -end and European and American markets; and these car companies areFacing domestic saturated and competitive markets, they also focused on overseas.
However, their achievements in the European and American market so far are unsatisfactory.
Taking the European market in the second largest new energy vehicle market as an example, BYD, which sells the dust in China, sold only 822 units in the first quarter of this year, while Tesla reached more than 70,000 in the same period.However, BYD, who chose the "volume" strategy, also reached more than 38,000 overseas sales in the first quarter, and its main market was in Southeast Asia, such as Thailand.
Xiaopeng and other new forces, the transcripts in Europe are even more terrible: According to the self -media "Leifeng.com" report from the Chinese special -level field, Xiaopeng only sold one car in January this year. Weilai was 1The month and February also sold only 57 units.
The article also bluntly stated that the development of Chinese car companies must be a long and high -investment process. In the context of the Russian and Ukraine War that led to soaring in European electricity prices, there is not much room for trial error to leave new energy vehicle companies.
But despite this, China's new energy vehicle companies are still choosing to go to sea firmFactory may cooperate with local enterprises.
This article written in March also mentioned that Xiaopeng Automobile may release a big move around July this year and re -exert it to the sea and Europe. Now it seems that the cooperation with Volkswagen may be able toHelp Xiaopeng's big move to enter Europe.
The cooperation between Volkswagen and Xiaopeng undoubtedly brings the hope of being recognized by Chinese independent brands and technology, and also created a new possibility of joint venture model.However, in the environment of continuously implementing technology sanctions in China and emphasizing "risks" in Europe, whether Chinese car companies can maintain technological research and development advantages and obtain market and policy recognition overseas are still huge challenges.
