Writing | Leng Zelin
Editing | Wang Pan
On July 25th, six days before the deadline, AITO announced early that the sales volume of Wanjie M5 this month had exceeded 10,000 units. It seemed like a student who used to fail every exam suddenly got a good grade and was eager to show off to the teacher.
Although it is not the delivery volume, as a vehicle that started delivery in March, Wanjie M5’s performance is indeed very eye-catching among the “veteran” new energy models.
In fact, due to the “lesson learned from others”, the initial expectations for Wanjie M5 by the outside world were not high. Even after the delivery volume increased rapidly, most people believed that it was necessary to wait for the launch of the pure electric version of M5 or the delivery of M7 to successfully break through the “life and death line” of ten thousand units sold per month.
In addition to the support from Huawei in terms of brand exposure, technology, and sales channels, the positioning and range-extended power of M5 itself are also its advantages.
Starting from Ideal ONE, the range-extended power mode has entered the sight of consumers, and SAIC Maxus, AITO, and Voyah have successively launched their own range-extended models.
Compared with plug-in hybrids, the range-extended mode is indeed lower in technical difficulty. However, the popularity of Ideal ONE and Wanjie M5 proves that consumers have already loved the range-extended mode. As the “pioneer”, they also successfully enjoyed the benefits of this technology route.
Recently, AITO continued to expand its product line, and Wanjie M5 EV opened for pre-orders and will be officially launched in September. As the brand’s first pure electric vehicle model, can it still continue the glory of the range-extended mode?
Range-extension is a protective color
Currently, in the transition from gasoline-powered cars to pure electric cars, many consumers choose hybrid models due to the lack of convenient energy supplementation conditions or range anxiety for pure electric cars. However, HEVs cannot obtain green license plates, so PHEVs and EREVs have become options for many people.
BYD has a more complete lineup in the plug-in hybrid market, and traditional car companies such as Great Wall Motor and Geely have not yet perfected their product lines. In the range-extended market, there are only Ideal, AITO, Voyah, and the recent addition of Shenlan and NETA that have launched range-extended models in the sedan market.
Therefore, Wanjie’s rapid rise cannot be separated from market factors. With Ideal ONE exploring the market ahead and Tang DM recalling on a large scale behind, Wanjie M5 can easily stand out in the same class.We expressed in “Voyah ‘Lost Voice'” that during the surge in sales of Li Xiang ONE, the positioning of the second-child family users was too fine-grained, resulting in a body that was too large due to the setting of 6/7 seats, which caused many consumers to hesitate. At this time, the market lacked a large five-seater extended-range SUV. Although Voyah FREE filled the gap in time, it failed to take advantage of the opportunity.
In fact, before “becoming attached” to Huawei, the Arcfox Alpha-T, SF Motors’ SF5, had appeared at the auto show just a few months later than Li Xiang ONE. Although Xiaokang had many years of experience in making cars and had a 1.5T four-cylinder turbocharger, the lack of product definition and consumer insight made traditional car companies lose the opportunity ahead of Voyah.
For example, the 2020 SF5 AWD high-performance version has 694 horsepower and 1040N·m of torque, with a zero-to-sixty acceleration time of 4.8 seconds. Although it can easily beat most models, its power parameters do not match its acceleration performance.
The main reason is that this five-seat mid-size SUV has a curb weight of nearly 2.4 tons, even higher than the 6/7-seat mid-to-large SUV Li Xiang ONE.
Blindly stacking parameters for market breakthroughs did not translate into sufficient advantages. Instead, it raised the cost, making the price of this model reach 3.39 million yuan, which is also higher than the 2020 Li Xiang ONE.
At that time, consumers’ understanding of extended-range systems was not high enough, and the difference in publicity capabilities was also one of the reasons for the gap between SF Motors and Li Xiang.
Tang Yifan, the chief scientist of Kin Cheung SF Motors at the time, described the power mode as “electric adding electricity, no electricity adding gasoline, full-time electric drive, worry-free mileage, and completely solved the user pain points of difficult charging and mileage anxiety” in an interview.
Looking back at the time when Li Xiang ONE was launched, Li Xiang, CEO of Li Xiang Automobile, had a concise and clear promotion slogan of “0 mileage anxiety.” In addition to his own influence, the promotion of the extended-range system was smoother for consumers than the BMW i3 and Buick VELITE 5.
After entering the Huawei HiCar ecosystem, the sales of SF5 have not improved. The reason is that the integration between Huawei and SF Motors is not deep enough, and Huawei’s “car strategy” is also in a state of flux.
On the one hand, the 2021 Huawei HiCar version of SF5 only added Huawei’s speakers, rear axle three-in-one electric drive system (4WD version), and HiCar system, while the design of interior and exterior decoration and intelligent cockpit still has a significant gap compared with the same models at the same time.On the other hand, SF5 entered the selection stage in the first half of 2021, while the appointment of Yu Chengdong as CEO of the car business unit occurred in the second half of the year. Insufficient authority may be the reason why Huawei and Seres cannot further integrate.
Therefore, after Yu Chengdong took over the “big power”, it is not difficult to understand why Huawei upgraded Seres to the AITO brand.
Compared with the Seres SF5, the Wanjie M5 has little difference in body size and power, but has been redesigned in terms of interior and exterior decoration to make it look more like a car priced between 200,000 and 300,000 RMB. The biggest change is the enhancement of the intelligent cockpit capability.
In the early days, the interaction system installed in SF5 was AliOS 2.0, but Huawei was determined to use Hongmeng OS in its first model regardless of the discomfort it caused to Jidu Auto, and its chip was Kirin 990A. Huawei’s hardware and software system significantly improves the smoothness of the car-machine interaction.
However, in terms of assisted driving capabilities, due to time and cost, Wanjie M5 is almost the same as SF5, only adding automatic parking function, and optimizing some L2 assisted driving logic, still far behind new forces and even some traditional car companies.
But, Huawei knows the logic of consumer products well. Under limited conditions, it is not necessarily to create a “ten-sided warrior”, but rather the company that produces the car with the smoothest energy flow cabin, the longest range among new energy cars, and the widest sales channels among new forces should be sufficient.
With a combination of favorable timing, geographical convenience and people, Wanjie M5 has become a popular car model.
At the launch event of Wanjie M7, Yu Chengdong referred to Huawei’s cooperation with Xiaokang as a “century miracle” in the automotive industry. This miracle refers to the development of two models, M7 and M5, in just a few months. If Wanjie M5 EV is added, it may even be referred to as a “thousand-year miracle”.
However, “modified” may be a more appropriate term than “developed”, as mentioned earlier in this article, the success of Wanjie M5 must depend on the “appeasement” route of range extender, but it was not Huawei who determined this route.
If you ask Li Xiang why he chose the range extender, he may talk to you about the differences in family life between China and the United States, the distribution of charging stations, the size and power differences of car models, and so on. But if you ask the same question to Yu Chengdong, he can only tell you that it is because of Xiaokang.
“SERES is supported by a global collaborative operation mode, an international R&D system, and a technology route focusing on both EV and EV-R.” Luo Guan Hong, who formerly served as Seres’ executive director, said in an event.The new energy journey of Xiaokang was first initiated by Zhang Zhengping, the son of Zhang Xinghai, the chairman of Xiaokang Automobile Holdings.
In 2016, Zhang Zhengping came to Silicon Valley with $30 million and founded SF MOTORS, starting the acquisition and development mode by acquiring American automotive solution integrator AM General’s car factory, electric vehicle battery system R&D design company InEVit, etc.
In 2018, SF MOTORS launched two pure electric SUV concept cars SF5 and SF7 in Silicon Valley, without mentioning the range extender power.
Originally, SF5 was expected to be launched in the US and China in 2019, but the former did not meet the deadline, and the latter appeared in China as a range extended version. In July of the same year, SF MOTORS announced layoffs and underwent strategic adjustments, instead undertaking research and development work for Seres in the United States.
Therefore, the quick launch of M5, M7, and M5 electric version by WM Motor was actually a seed planted by Xiaokang earlier.
However, even with the foundation, the brand positioning or characteristics of WM Motor are completely beyond people’s recall. When talking about Wei Xiaoli, people always associate it with services, battery swapping, home, and intelligence, while talking about WM Motor, most people only think of Huawei.
The reason lies in the fact that, on the one hand, Xiaokang Group has embarked on a new course after several setbacks, and on the other hand, Huawei is eager to find a foothold in the consumer business. The similarity of interests has led to their cooperation.
When asked why WM Motor launched the pure electric version, it is nothing more than chasing the trend to achieve common goals. And if asked why WM Ideal launched the pure electric model, he might tell you that it was due to the maturity of high-voltage platforms, the application of silicon carbide semiconductors, the improvement of ultra-fast charging rate, or even the company’s wealth.
From the launch of M7, the impatience of WM Motor can be seen. The promotion of being both a business and family car makes its positioning somewhat vague. The family-oriented positioning does not have sufficient entertainment devices and space (part of the luggage compartment is occupied to ensure three-row seating), and the business-oriented positioning only has a “zero-gravity power seat” which sacrifices the co-pilot and three-row space, not to mention the similar appearance to Dongfeng Fengguang IX7.
Speaking of why WM Motor’s M7 still received a lot of orders, perhaps it was due to the misplaced competition of the range extender power for WM Motor.
If it was purely electric, it might be a different story.
When WM Motor Takes off Its Protective Color
WM Motor is not the only one launching both pure electric and extended range power mode. Earlier, Voyah FREE also had the two power modes. As the demand for batteries is greater for pure electric cars, the pure electric version usually has a higher price than the extended range version.Compare the exclusive luxury packages of the Four-Wheel Drive Extended Range version and the Four-Wheel Drive Pure Electric version of the Great Wall Tank 300 FREE 2021 model, with the latter being priced 40,000 yuan higher. Although they have the same horsepower, the Pure Electric version has a higher curb weight and weaker acceleration performance compared to the Extended Range version.
According to Great Wall’s official statement, “Eight out of every ten FREE vehicles sold are Extended Range versions.”
Therefore, even if the WENJIE M5 EV uses lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, its price is likely to be higher than the Extended Range version. Currently, the prices of the WENJIE M5 Extended Range version are 259,800 and 294,800 yuan respectively. If we use the Great Wall Tank 300 as a reference, the price of the Pure Electric version could easily exceed 300,000 yuan. The first problem that arises is that new energy subsidies cannot be obtained, which either the car owner or the manufacturer will have to bear.
At the same time, with the development of the new energy market, there are already many products in the 300,000 yuan price range, giving consumers more choices, such as the Model Y, Ideal ONE, ID.4, ID.6, and certain models from BBA.
Secondly, the issue of charging for Pure Electric vehicles will also be a factor for consumers when purchasing a car.
NIO and Tesla have exclusive charging / battery swap facilities, while Ideal, XPeng, and other models above the 300,000 yuan price range are also promoting high-voltage platforms and high-voltage supercharging stations.
According to the information revealed by Yu Chengdong at the WENJIE M7 launch event, WENJIE does not have its own charging network construction plan, only mentioning support for more than 300 cities nationwide with over 180,000 public charging piles.
Clearly, in the current uncertain direction of the consumer business, Huawei is unlikely to invest heavily in infrastructure construction on its own initiative, and currently only provides home charging piles for WENJIE.
If the success of the Ideal brand is due to its clear planning of Extended Range and Pure Electric routes, then WENJIE now seems to be selling the Huawei brand image, with no visible connection or overall planning between its few products, and a lack of a main thread in brand construction. After completing its three-card trick, where will WENJIE go from here?
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.