Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1734
Any car company that has made a hit will face the same question: Can the new product replicate or continue the success of the previous model? Tengshi N7 is the same. People doubt whether BYD, which has fully grasped the dividends in the low-end market, can do a good job in the high-end market. One of the criteria for judging is whether Denza’s new car N7 can replicate the success of its previous car D9.
After half a year of preheating, Denza officially released the N7 on the evening of July 3rd. This is a pure electric SUV, officially positioned as a “smart luxury hunting SUV”, with a price of 301,800 to 379,800 yuan. The main differences lie in body control, braking hardware, chassis configuration and functions.
“N7 must not be able to copy D9”, an industry person who has been following BYD for a long time told “Later Auto”, because the success of D9 is essentially a well-timed surprise attack, which comes from BYD’s strong judgment on market segments and single categories force.
D9 is an MPV released by BYD in May 2022, with a price of 335,800 to 465,800 yuan. From January to June 2023, the cumulative sales volume of Denza D9 is 56,751 units. Zhao Changjiang, general manager of Tengshi, once said that 20% of them came from the conversion of ideal L9 prospective owners.
The domestic MPV market has long been regarded as a niche market, and traditional fuel vehicle brands are the main force, mainly satisfying the niche group of commercial customers. New energy car companies do not believe or are not firm that the MPV market includes household groups, leaving a “blue ocean” market. And D9 will invest decisively in 2022 based on the needs of two-child and three-child families and the aging trend. Zhao Changjiang said that 70% of D9’s customers come from families.
However, as a pure electric SUV worth more than 300,000 yuan, N7 is in the “Red Sea” where new and old forces such as Weilai, Ideal, Tesla, and Jikr have been fighting for a long time.
Therefore, the success of D9 naturally cannot be “replicated”, and more refers to the fact that the first-mover advantage of competition is no longer there.
N7 will be a more difficult battle for Tengshi, and the difficulty factor will be several times that of D9.
This battle will prove whether BYD can continue to rely on its pragmatic cost leadership strategy, superimposed insight into user needs, and direct sales channel capabilities to defeat its opponents.
The cost leadership strategy of pragmatism is the continuation of the past BYD, which has occupied the mass market; the latter two capabilities are cultivated on the D9, which is the new BYD, and the momentum is to bet that it is in fierce competition Whether the mid-to-high-end market is feasible and become BYD’s new gene.
From D9 to N7: Learning from new forces to make products, asking BYD for technology, cost control is the core
After the release of the N7, the most complained by the industry is that the single Orin chip and the double-gun charging are not as fast as the Xpeng single-gun, which is nearly 100,000 cheaper, and the level of intelligence. But these factors happen to not be what BYD cares most about.
The essence of products is the embodiment of strategic choices. For N7, the first priority of its product design is to meet the needs of users who are currently visible and most easily perceived.
The D9 has already practiced this methodology: the largest canopy in its class “allows the third-row passengers to see the sun”, 1080mm electric slide rails, a wide central aisle, and comfortable seats in all three rows help this product Attracted more home users. According to Zhao Changjiang’s words, making a product is a trade-off. He said that because he wanted the comfort and space of the third row, he gave up the air suspension that his peers thought should be standard for high-end cars.
For large five-seater SUVs worth more than 300,000 yuan, the comfort of the interior space is an important indicator. Different from some competing products, N7 chooses the “comfort” configuration as the standard configuration of the whole series, including leather seats, ventilated and heated seat configurations, ambient lights, cockpit configurations with sunshades, and car audio. In comparison, the leather seats, steering wheel heating, and ventilation of Weilai ES6 are optional, while the heating, audio, and canopy of Jikrypton 001 are optional.
In terms of charging, the N7 also adopts a more “pragmatic” dual-gun fast charging solution. The charging power of the two guns is 230KW, and the power of a single gun is 150KW. Compared with the 800V fast charging recommended by the industry, this solution does not rely on high-voltage charging piles, and can use existing charging equipment to complete energy replenishment. Zhao Changjiang said that the 800V mentioned by the industry is only the peak data, and Tengshi hopes to achieve wide-area fast charging capabilities.
New energy rivals have invested a lot in intelligent driving and competed the most vigorously. This is the shortcoming of N7. Compared with products in the same price range, N7’s configuration of smart driving functions is not attractive enough.
The N7 intelligent driving system is divided into standard version and high-end version. The standard version of the whole car is standard, providing L2 level assisted driving such as ICC intelligent cruise control and LCC lane centering control. The high-end version currently costs 23,000 yuan to purchase a smart driving all-encompassing package. It uses a single NVIDIA Orin X chip with a computing power of 254 TOPS and 2 laser radars. Launch the city NOA function.
Among domestic manufacturers, there is currently no car company that relies on a single Nvidia Orin X chip to achieve urban NOA. The ideal L7 MAX version uses a two-chip solution, while the NIO ES6 uses four chips.
For N7 car owners, even if the price is more than 300,000 yuan, users of the standard version will not be able to experience L2+ level smart driving if they do not purchase an additional high-end version. The Xpeng G6 released a week ago has already pulled the price of urban NOA to 200,000 yuan. -250,000 yuan.
But in fact, the implementation of urban NOA is much slower than what car companies advertise. Moreover, the extent to which this feature can affect consumers’ car purchase choices is uncertain.
This may once again verify the value ranking of N7: the parts with high frequency of use and the impact on comfort experience are on the front, while the functions that take a while to verify are on the back, such as urban NOA.
Continuing BYD’s genes, N7’s cost control ability is better than that of its peers.
An observer in the auto industry said that in terms of batteries, the N7 saves 20,000-25,000 yuan in BOOM costs compared to Jikrypton 001, and there is no difference in battery life and power, and it can win in terms of space. This is the value brought by CTB (Battery Body Integration) technology. A B-class pure electric (SUV) can use lithium iron phosphate with 91 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and the battery life exceeds 700 KM. He said, “Denzale N7 is not only the success of the model, but also the success of BYD’s phosphorus iron, and it is also the success of CTB. success”.
Zhao Changjiang, general manager of Tengshi, divided the competing products of N7 into two parts: fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles. Competing fuel vehicles include Mercedes-Benz GLC, BMW X3, Audi Q5L, etc. Among new energy vehicles in the same price range, Weilai ES6, Jikr 001, and Lixiang L7 are the main competitors.
Target customers determine the direction of competition. From the perspective of product strategy, N7’s approach is not to compete with new energy vehicles who are more advanced, but who can better meet the needs of BBA users.
The foundation laid by D9 is that it has become the No. 1 sales in China’s MPV market above 300,000 yuan, has accumulated brand potential, and has built more than 200 directly-operated stores for more than a year. These are achievements that new forces can only achieve in a few years.
At the same time, through this product, BYD, which used to rely on the cost leadership strategy to seize the market, began to learn a new set of product language, behind which is how to define and disassemble the user needs of a market.
If the success of D9 mainly comes from the accurate judgment and precise entry of niche market segments, it is more of a strategic success. What N7 wants to verify is whether Denza can form a set of effective methodologies in the mainstream mid-to-high-end market. It will be the guide to guide Tengza’s follow-up products.
According to the product plan announced by Zhao Changjiang in the interview before the press conference, Denza will launch a total of seven products in the next three years. In addition to the MPV D9, it includes three SUVs, the N7 positioned as a hunting SUV, the medium and large SUV N8 and the large SUV N9; three sedans, one for the Porsche Panamera (Panamera), and one for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class , and a medium to large sedan.
Based on the seven products, Denza’s goal is to achieve domestic sales of 600,000-700,000 vehicles by 2025, plus export sales, to achieve a total of about 1 million vehicles.
This will be a tough goal. BYD can do a good job in the business of the masses and the rich, but it may not be able to do a good job in the business of the middle class. This may be the most picky group of people. In the end, products that can satisfy them must have no shortcomings: they must not only be luxurious enough, but also smart enough.
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