On April 13, Changan Automobile held a global partner conference, which not only summarized the past year, but also planned future development. Among them, for Changan Automobile, the launch of a new pure electric brand - Deep Blue is obviously the most important part of this conference.
Why do you say that? Just look at the data.
In 2021, Changan Automobile sold 1,204,203 independent passenger vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 23.08%. Affected by factors such as the epidemic and supply chain, the sales of fuel vehicles are remarkable. But in terms of new energy, Changan New Energy has actually always been its shortcomings. Sales mainly come from the mini electric car Benben E-Star. Last year, the sales volume was 76,000 units, accounting for more than 70% of the sales volume. It is worth noting that Changan’s independent passenger car sales reached 363,283 units, a year-on-year decrease of 1.34%. In other words, Changan is also facing the problem of poor performance of new energy vehicles and declining fuel vehicles.
In fact, BYD announced in early April that it would stop producing fuel vehicles starting in March, which caused widespread concern in the industry. The penetration rates of Geely and Great Wall new energy vehicles have reached 18.3% and 13.8% respectively, while Changan’s figures were around 5% last year. Compared with the above three brands, Changan announced a new pure electric brand in April, and its layout in the new energy field is obviously a bit slower.
Chairman of Changan Automobile Zhu Huarong once said in an interview with the media: "In the new round of restructuring of the automobile industry, Changan Automobile will face life or death if the transformation does not succeed." Facing fierce competition The new energy market environment actually leaves Changan with little time.
It is not too late for Changan to lay out the new energy field. Chongqing Changan New Energy Vehicle Company was established in July 2008. Its business mainly involves hybrid power, pure electric power, fuel cells, etc. Core technology research and development, system integration design, related parts manufacturing and pure electric track vehicle production and sales of energy-saving and new energy vehicles. At the end of 2009, Changan Benben MINI pure electric vehicle successfully rolled off the trial production line, ushering in a new era of new energy vehicles in China. In terms of hybrid vehicles, its technical level is also at the forefront of the country, and it has obtained more than 80 hybrid technology patents, including more than 20 invention patents.
Subsequently in October 2017, Changan Automobile officially launched the "Shangri-La" plan. The specific plan is that Changan will completely stop selling traditional fuel vehicles in 2025 and invest 100 billion yuan in the entire new energy vehicle field. Among them, 30 billion yuan was invested in power batteries, 20 billion yuan in sharing and charging facilities and services, 10 billion yuan in new energy proprietary platforms, and 40 billion yuan in new energy product research and development. Changan adheres to three comprehensive strategic goals in the field of new energy vehicles: comprehensive investment and focus on customer pleasant experience; comprehensive acceleration and focus on partner resources; comprehensive upgrade and focus on creating classic products.
But in terms of product layout, Changan New Energy mainlyThere must be models such as Benben E-Star, CS 55 E-Rock, CS15 E-Pro and Eado EV460. Since these models are basically "oil-to-electric" models, the performance of the new energy market has been unsatisfactory, so they are in a state of loss.
Until 2019, Changan Automobile spun off its new energy business, introduced four strategic investment companies including Nanjing Runke, and increased capital by 285 million yuan, becoming the first domestic company Spin off the new energy business to develop independent automobile companies.
In January 2021, Changan New Energy completed a Series A financing of up to 2.84 billion yuan; in April of the same year, Changan New Energy disclosed that it had opened a Series B financing and planned to raise 3 billion yuan. On January 24 this year, Changan New Energy announced at the B-round financing signing ceremony that it had finally raised 4.9773 billion yuan, exceeding planned financing by nearly 2 billion yuan. In the end, Changan New Energy raised nearly 5 billion yuan through two rounds of financing. It is worth noting that after the completion of this round of financing, Changan Automobile’s shareholding ratio was diluted from 48.95% to 40.66%, but it remains the largest shareholder.
In addition, on November 15, 2021, the Avita brand was officially released. The brand brings together the respective advantages of Changan Automobile, Huawei, and CATL in vehicle R&D and manufacturing, smart car solutions, and smart energy ecology, integrates the resources of the three parties, and jointly creates a smart electric vehicle technology platform (CHN), and is committed to building a high-end A global brand of smart electric vehicles. Its first model, the Avita 11, was previously released at the Guangzhou Auto Show and has been filed with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. According to previous reports, the first batch of mass production delivery of the new car will be achieved in the third quarter of this year.
The predecessor of Avita is actually Changan Weilai. Changan Automobile and CATL hold 39.02% and 23.99% of the shares respectively, ranking first and second. , Weilai’s shareholding ratio is only 1.13%, and Huawei is not among the investors. Huawei leverages its ICT technology to jointly build a full value chain with Avita Technology, including R&D, channels, services, and ecosystem, to provide users with full-stack smart car solutions and achieve the level of smart electric vehicles.
To a certain extent, Avita is a high-end brand created by Changan Automobile and other investors. Its biggest gimmick is that "Huawei builds cars", which is very different from Deep Blue. different.
Deep Blue is positioned as a new digital pure electric brand, containing the four brand values of innovation and reconstruction, interconnection of all things, free experience, and low-carbon life. It symbolizes exploration, life, technology, and the future, and is a step forward in the strategic transformation of Changan New Energy. important step.
As the first model of the Deep Blue brand, the C385 has been released. The car is built on the EPA platform and positioned as a future technology electric coupe. According to official information, the C385 has a body size of 4820/1890/1480mm and a wheelbase of 2900mm. In terms of power, the new car will provide three different powertrains: pure electric, extended-range hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell. Among them, the pure electric model is expected to adopt a single-motor rear-drive layout, with a maximum power of 190kW and a comprehensive range of It reaches more than 700km, and the comprehensive power consumption is 12.3kWh/100km.
It is worth mentioning that, C385 will be equipped with smart vehicle domain controller Changan Smart Chip and smart cockpit domain controller (Qualcomm 8155 chip), which is different from Avita.
According to Changan Automobile President Wang Jun, Changan Deep Blue C385 will be launched in the second half of this year. In addition, the new mini car LUMIN Will be officially released on April 22. The new car is built on the Changan EPA0 platform and is positioned as a "national quality scooter". 155 will be launched. There are two endurance versions: km and 210km; a new model code-named C673 will also be released within this year.
According to the plan, the Changan brand will target 3 million vehicles in 2025, with new energy sales reaching 1.05 million vehicles and penetration. The penetration rate is 35%, which is 10% higher than the domestic new energy vehicle market penetration rate of 25% by 2030. In 2018, the Changan brand targets sales of 4.5 million vehicles, with a new energy vehicle target of 2.7 million, and a penetration rate of 60%. Judging from the current penetration rate of less than 5%, Changan has a long way to go in the new energy market.
Written at the end: From the perspective of competitors, the power pattern of new car manufacturers such as Weilai, Ideal, and Xpeng has emerged, incubated by traditional automobile companies. High-end new energy brands are also developing rapidly. Dongfeng Lantu, SAIC Zhiji, GAC Aian, Geely Krypton, and BYD's new high-end brands are already leaders in the domestic high-end new energy vehicle track. After the release of the Deep Blue brand, Changan New Energy's development path has become clearer, but compared with other brands, it still needs to maintain a sense of urgency at all times.