Article by ZeLin Leng
Edited by Wang Pan
A few days ago, the CEO of Huawei Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, Chengdong Yu, got into a heated argument with the CEO of Weipai, Ruifeng Li. As a result, the “extended range” power mode was also brought to the topic peak, and the media, KOLs, car reviewers, and even experts and scholars all expressed their views.
When it comes to extended range, it is inevitable to mention Ideal Auto, who helped to establish its reputation, and Huawei’s first car SF5 created in cooperation with SLCAN, but people seem to have forgotten the “internal test” player in this race—Voyah.
Voyah is a new energy brand under Dongfeng Group. Its first model, Voyah FREE, debuted at the end of 2020, even earlier than the first car SF5 created in cooperation with Huawei and SLCAN.
Dongfeng Group had high expectations and strong confidence in Voyah, and even put up a slogan of “Expected to be” the fastest-selling electric car brand to achieve 10,000 unit sales while there were only 3689 cars on the roads.
However, as of the delivery time of the last five months of last year, the total delivery volume of Voyah FREE was only 6791 cars. Obviously, the title of “Fastest” was not that easy to obtain.
Fortunately, the delivery data for Voyah showed an overall upward trend last year, and the monthly delivery volume in December successfully exceeded 3000 cars. When the outside world thought it was just the beginning of Voyah’s journey, it turned out to be its peak.
After stepping into 2022, the sales volume of Voyah FREE has not improved, and the official public account has remained silent on the delivery volume. According to the data from the China Automobile Dealers Association, the cumulative sales volume of Voyah FREE from January to June this year is about 6000, which is basically the same as the delivery volume of the last five months of last year.
Compared with the similarly popular extended range models, Ideal ONE, Weipai M5, and the soon-to-be-delivered M7, the voice of Voyah is gradually fading. Because in the current thriving new energy vehicle market, there is no progress, which means the biggest setback.
Weijie and Voyah, Same Origin, Different Destinies
In October 1970, 21 hand-assembled cars were produced by Second Automobile Factory in Shiyan and set off to participate in the 20th anniversary parade of the founding of the country.
In 2022, the dream of the Voyah family began to be delivered, with a number of 101 styles. Dongfeng and Voyah seem to have always liked to put the word “national team” in their own publicity, which may provide powerful endorsement for them but also becomes a shackle for their further development.
The difference is that Second Automobile Factory in the past undertook the task of leading China’s automobile industry and needed to share the honors and disgrace with the country, but now it is more like voluntarily attaching a protective film to itself.
As mentioned earlier, Voyah is a product of Dongfeng Group’s new energy transformation, while Wanjie is behind the scenes of the range extender field, and also an automotive industry group established in the last century.
As comrades in the previous era, they also have many years of “friendship” between them.
In 2003, when Dongfeng’s headquarters officially moved from Shiyan to Wuhan, Dongfeng Xiaokang Motor Co., Ltd. was jointly established by Chongqing Xiaokang Industrial Group and Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., with each holding 50% stake. It wasn’t until 2020 that Xiaokang Holding acquired its 50% stake through a directed share issue of about 327 million shares to Dongfeng, making Dongfeng Xiaokang a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xiaokang Holding.
It was also in this year that Dongfeng and Xiaokang’s new energy models each made their debut.
In June 2020, at the Chongqing Shanghai Auto Show, the Sai Lisi SF5 four-wheel drive high-performance version was officially launched, and at the end of the year, the Voyah FREE was officially released. Both were priced at more than RMB 300,000, showing a posture of breaking away from the low-end market.
However, in fact, Sai Lisi, which was listed earlier, only achieved sales of less than 800 units that year, and Voyah has yet to be delivered and can only sit on the sidelines and learn for now. The reason may be that people know about Xiaokang, but know very little about its new energy brand, let alone the wide range from microvan to mid-to-high-end SUV models, which is beyond the cognitive scope of most people.
And new energy brands born out of traditional auto companies all have a similar problem: they are not good at promoting themselves.
Under Wei Xiaoli’s “sugar-coated cannonballs” and the new forces in the waist, a new energy product without many highlights can easily be drowned out in this wave.
Sai Lisi formally entered the consumer’s view, or relied on Yu Chengdong’s unremitting efforts in promotion and platform building.
Of course, the SF5 taken over by Huawei did not immediately change its fate, and both underwent team integration and adaptation last year. From the Huawei team’s takeover of R&D, procurement, production and other data at the Sai Lisi factory, to renaming, withdrawing offline channels, and ceding release rights, etc.
Xiaokang has gradually “lain flat”, and in exchange for that, the Wanjie M5 single-month sales broke 7,000. Although they are essentially the same car, it seems that the poor sales of the SF5 have nothing to do with the Wanjie M5.
What’s more interesting is that some of the technology also comes from the Voyah FREE range extender version of Jinkang Sai Lisi, whose sales have been declining all the way, while the Wanjie M7, which has many similarities with the Dongfeng Fengguang ix7 in appearance, easily surpassed 40,000 orders within four hours of opening pre-orders.
Xiaokang has truly borrowed the “Dongfeng” brand, but Dongfeng’s “blueprint” has become increasingly blurred.
The end## Small steps from the “soul,” chose the “thigh” of Huawei instead. While Voyah might be forced to ride on the heat of ideal cars due to his identity.
Although Voyah Automotive CEO Lu Fang insisted that “we are not competitors with Ideal,” its first car has a vague relationship with Ideal ONE both inside and out.
From the time Voyah FREE was first released and the modified Ideal ONE was not yet on the market, potential Ideal car owners immediately included it in their shortlist, according to Photon Technology.
The reason is that some Ideal ONE car owners do not necessarily need a 6/7 seat layout. Instead, they are more concerned about range anxiety and the availability of range-extenders, which Voyah FREE’s five-seat layout directly addresses.
From the 1.5T range extender and the adjustable triple screen to slogans like “Ideal’s future is Voyah,” “slightly better than Ideal” seems to be one of Voyah’s important competitive strengths in this market segment.
Earlier this year, an Ideal ONE vehicle on the “Become Buddha Slope” off-road track in Shimen County, Changde City, Hunan Province suffered mechanical damage due to its tire hanging in the air while climbing the slope and leaking fluid. A Voyah FREE happened to be there and pulled it off the mountain.
Soon after, Voyah Automotive released a poster titled “Become Buddha Slope, Let’s do it together,” in which the shadow of an Ideal ONE was clearly hidden behind the Voyah FREE.
The message was clearly about pulling Ideal’s legs, while also trying to create an atmosphere of unity, which felt somewhat awkward, and the post was quickly deleted by Voyah officials.
The fact is, no matter how Ideal breaks down or breaks down, its sales are always on the rise. In marketing, only Voyah, who is honest and trustworthy, can’t compare with Ideal.
Ideal Automotive CEO Li Xiang, a founder of auto-related websites, naturally knows how to spread his influence. Whether it’s cursing from time to time, or challenging traditional auto executives, or putting a 5 million price tag on his car, this strong point of view is actually an effort to create a personal IP (brand), in order to warm up Ideal.
Lu Fang, on the other hand, worked at FAW and Dongfeng, and was born and raised in “Red Flag” and “Dongfeng.” For traditional auto people like him, it is difficult to express opinions that violate basic auto market norms but attract consumers.
Voyah Automotive’s marketing strategy also tends to be more inclined to use speeches, CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and variety shows for publicity.
In fact, careful observation reveals that controversial topics in the new energy market are often brought up by “outsiders,” but these topics often bring tremendous traffic and sales to them.The “bait and switch” has become one of the traditional ways for traditional car companies to gain traffic. Li Ruifeng and Feng Sihan’s comments on extended-range vehicles in the past also implied this, but for Voyah, there were always some reservations.
Voyah Making Cars for “Leadership”
At the beginning of the project, the Ideal ONE actually predicted two versions, pure electric and extended-range. In the end, it did not choose pure electric, in addition to Li Xiang’s cost control, extended-range and pure electric compatibility issue was also one of the reasons.
The pure electric model needs to have a flat battery pack underneath to ensure its cruising range and internal space, while the extended-range system includes multiple components such as the motor and engine, which will occupy more space at the front of the car. Therefore, compared with other models launched in the same period, such as Tang EV, ID.6, Mache-E, etc., the highest cruising range of Voyah FREE pure electric version, which is 505km, can only be considered average.
Blindly following the trend of the tri-screen with lifting function seems to become a “decoration” instead. The hardware configuration of NXP i.MX8 chip cannot provide enough smoothness for the car system, and the software optimization capability cannot keep up in time, which has caused a lot of complaints from car owners.
Before 2016, the smart cockpit SoC chip market was monopolized by NXP’s i.MX series. However, with the release of the Qualcomm 820A chip, almost all car companies have switched to 820A, and subsequent flagship models have successively adopted the more advanced SA8155P.
Therefore, starting in May of this year, Voyah began to release a service package to upgrade the 8155 cockpit chip. However, the incident of “burning money” like Kuaishou several days ago did not happen to Voyah, and car owners still need to spend RMB 12,999.
Voyah’s strategy in entering the market is clear, but it seems somewhat vague in entering the group. Similarly, the brand tone is not consistent before and after.
Recently, Voyah’s Dreamer officially began delivery. As the second vehicle of the brand, Dreamer did not continue the SUV market of FREE nor enter the broader sedan market, but instead chose the MPV market.
Overall, since the MPV market hit its peak of 2.497 million vehicles in 2016, it has experienced a continuous decline for 5 years, with a downward trend in the first half of this year.
Indeed, many new energy SUV and sedan models have been launched in the market, and new energy is considered to be the most suitable power mode for MPV usage scenarios, which feature short-distance urban driving with convenient energy supplementation.However, although the MPV market may seem like a blue ocean, it is a highly uncertain market, and the competition is particularly fierce. In addition to the well-known models such as GL8, Saina, Guanqi M8, Odyssey and others, Hongqi, Weipai, BYD, and DENZA are also laying out in this market.
As a new brand with weak product line connection, the question remains on how will LanTu break into the limited market? LanTu’s answer is the B-end market.
In July, LanTu held a signing ceremony for the Dreamer B enterprise, state-owned enterprise, and major customer procurement in Wuhan. According to reports, 97 central and state-owned enterprises signed contracts for 6,000 LanTu Dreamer orders. A few days later, LanTu delivered 12 Dreamers to Mango TV as vehicles for program recording.
Obviously, compared with what consumers need, LanTu understands better what leaders need. LanTu has not been silent, only that it has misidentified the target of its voice.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.