Author: Tian Hui
Editor: Zhu Shiyun
Make Aiways become one of the top three “premium intelligent electric vehicle brands” in the world.
Feng Xingya, the general manager of GAC Group, said at the Aiways brand conference on September 15th.
In 2022, Aiways ranks third in sales volume of pure electric vehicles priced above 100,000 yuan in China.
In 2022, Aiways will also have a market value of hundreds of billions of yuan comparable to mainstream automobile groups in the A-share market.
However, when people think of “Aiways”, they rarely associate it with the third place.
Therefore, on September 15th at the Guangzhou Tower, Aiways launched the Hyper Haobo series, released the Hyper SSR Pure Electric Supercar, replaced the “AI Magic Arrow” new logo, and launched an attack on the “world-third”.
How likely is it?
Product: Hyper Haobo Series
Aiways’ new logo debuted with the Hyper SSR supercar, and from there, the Hyper Haobo series was created.
Aiways’ existing AION series products are mainly sold at a price range of 130,000 to 300,000 yuan, with an average order price of around 180,000 yuan. The premium Hyper Haobo series will have higher prices.
Using the million-dollar pure electric hypercar Hyper SSR as the beginning of the product sequence is a wise choice, which both attracts attention and enhances the positioning of the Hyper series.
Regarding the future planning of the Hyper Haobo series, Aiways Vice President Xiao Yong revealed the product planning at the communication session after the press conference.
Xiao Yong said that the AI Magic Arrow logo will be used on the new Hyper Haobo products, and existing AION products will not be immediately replaced with the new logo.
The first model of the Hyper Haobo series is the pure electric supercar Hyper SSR. The subsequent models will include the series of 300,000-yuan GT sedan Hyper GT, the large five-seat SUV Hyper SUV, and the Hyper MPV.# Hyper GT, SUV, MPV and the new supercar SSR will all be launched in 2023. In order to develop the high-end features of the Hyper Haobo car series, AIWAYS plans to build a separate production line in the factory to produce the Hyper SSR pure electric supercar.
Xiao Yong also revealed that in the future, AIWAYS intends to break through to higher price and value segments, achieving breakthroughs in both product value and price. Next, AIWAYS plans to enter the market with a price range of 250,000 to even over 300,000, creating differentiation from the existing AIWAYS product series.
Sales: Stabilizing Third Place in China
In the market for pure electric cars priced over 100,000 RMB, AIWAYS ranks third in China, and is expected to challenge Tesla for second place.
Apart from the impact of the Chinese New Year holiday in February and component shortages in April, AIWAYS’ monthly sales have been steadily increasing this year, indicating strong demand for AIWAYS’ products.
In some months, AIWAYS’ monthly sales have even surpassed Tesla, becoming the second-highest seller after BYD.
In the coming months, AIWAYS’ sales ranking is expected to rise.
AIWAYS sold 150,000 vehicles from January to August, and the order backlog is deep. Consumers who book now may have to wait two to three months for delivery.
AIWAYS currently only has one plant with a production capacity of 200,000 vehicles. According to Xiao Yong, the plant currently has a utilization rate of 160%, with production running 22 hours a day. The main bottleneck for AIWAYS’ sales growth is production capacity, not orders.
By October of this year, once the second plant is completed and put into operation, the production capacity bottleneck will be alleviated, and AIWAYS is expected to challenge monthly sales of 35,000, or even 40,000, by the end of the year.
If AIWAYS can achieve monthly sales of 35,000 vehicles this year, its quarterly sales will approach those of Tesla, and it may surpass Tesla and become the second-highest seller in China’s pure electric vehicle market next year after BYD.
However, AIWAYS still has much to improve before it can become one of the top three in the world, including improving the brand perception among consumers.
Supercars: Enhancing User Perception
Although AIWAYS has a high sales volume, compared with BYD and Tesla, AIWAYS has weaker brand perceptions.
BYD has its Blade battery, and Tesla has its autopilot, but when it comes to AIWAYS, users have a hard time remembering its magazine-changeable battery or the GEP pure electric platform.The responsibility of Hyper SSR, a brand-new electric supercar, is to reconstruct the brand perception of Aiways.
Supercars are the most topical category of automobiles, but no Chinese brand has yet ventured into the field of supercars. Every well-known supercar brand among users is a foreign brand, and they are all expensive fuel-powered supercars. As a result, Aiways has targeted Hyper SSR’s competitors at prices above RMB 5 million.
For supercars, performance is always paramount. After electric cars were proven to have better performance than fuel-powered cars, manufacturers must substantiate that electric supercars are better than fuel supercars in the field of supercars. Tesla has attempted an electric supercar, but Tesla’s second-generation electric supercar has yet to enter mass production. Therefore, Aiways launched Hyper SSR with a starting price of RMB 1.286 million and a top configuration price of RMB 1.686 million, claiming it to be China’s first supercar, and this is not an overstatement.
With a wheel torque of 12000N.m, maximum acceleration of 1.7G, and a 0-100km/h acceleration time of just 1.9s, Hyper SSR exceeds the 0-100 acceleration time of traditional fuel-powered supercars in less than 2 seconds.
To achieve the design parameters, the Hyper SSR is equipped with Aiways’ original two-gear four-in-one high-performance electric motor, which achieves instantaneous high power by shifting, solving the contradiction between volume and weight that arises purely from stacking motors.
Simultaneously, Hyper SSR goes beyond typical automobiles in material selection and adopts extensive carbon fiber overlays, aviation-grade tires, and high-speed rail 900V silicon carbide chips.# Hyper SSR by Aiways: Showcasing Technical Prowess and Enhancing Brand Perception
The creation of the Hyper SSR by Aiways demonstrates not only their technical capabilities, but also their commitment to improving their brand perception among the general public. By breaking into an area traditionally dominated by established automotive powerhouses, Aiways is clearly showing off their strength to users.
In releasing an electric supercar ahead of other competitors, Aiways has taken the lead in capturing the imagination of potential customers. As electric supercars replace traditional gasoline-powered ones, the Hyper series by Aiways is poised to take advantage of this trend due to their first-mover advantage.
New Logo: Brand Upgrade
Changing their logo is another important step in enhancing brand perception for Aiways.
The new Aiways logo, named “AI Divine Arrow,” derives its name from “A” and “I” in “AION,” symbolizing Aiways’ better takeoff. The name “AI Divine Arrow” is not merely a hollow branding concept, but an actual representation of brand value.
During the launch event, China Aerospace announced its partnership with Aiways, with Jin Xin, the chief commander of China’s Long March 3 rocket, announcing their joint venture to establish the “Haobo Research Laboratory” to contribute to Aiways’ development using aerospace technology.
The partnership between Aiways and China Aerospace aims to collaborate on joint development of new types of batteries, electric motor driving technology, aerodynamic design, new materials, AI control, high-precision positioning, satellite remote sensing technology, and other areas. Future technological achievements will be applied to both aerospace-related areas and Aiways’ products.
According to Gu Hui Nan, the General Manager of Aiways, their future collaboration with China Aerospace will begin with technological cooperation, including applications, R&D, and development, including rocket and automotive applications, as well as commercial applications such as direct-to-user satellite services.
The Hyper SSR electric supercar is the first product resulting from Aiways’ collaboration with China Aerospace. It adopts aviation-grade tires to break through grip limitations, allowing the entire car to reach an astonishing 1.9 seconds from zero to 100 km/h.What EAn Motors aims to do is to attract attention through the Hyper SSR all-electric supercar and then pass on the brand value to the Hyper car series through the AI Shenjian new logo to narrow the distance with users.
World Ranking: Time is Ticking
Updating the logo, releasing million-level supercars, and launching the Hyper Haobo car series are all part of EAn’s future plans. The ultimate goal is to become one of the world’s top three high-end intelligent EV brands.
If the intelligent EV market continues to develop at its current pace, there is hope for EAn to become the third in the world.
If EAn can become a brand that can compete with Tesla in terms of sales volume in the overhyped Chinese EV market and be compared with other top brands in the world, it will be a headliner. After all, few car companies in the world can directly compete with Tesla, and most of them are in China.
However, the high-end intelligent EV market is on the brink of a big change.
It took just 8 months for the Weltmeister brand to sell over 10,000 EVs after it was born, demonstrating Huawei’s strong operation ability in the automotive field.
Huawei, Xiaomi, and even Apple enter the automotive industry, undoubtedly aiming at the high-end intelligent EV market. As seen from Weltmeister’s sales performance, consumer electronics brands have significant disrupting power.
On the one hand, consumer electronics brands communicate seamlessly with consumers, making it easy to transfer brand values from a cellphone to a car. On the other hand, consumer electronics brands are using intelligent technologies to change the shape of cars and consumers’ attitudes toward car buying.
EAn has the capability and power to upgrade its brand through the creation of the high-end Hyper Haobo series. However, the time left for EAn in the market to strike for “world ranking” is not much.
Before Huawei, Xiaomi, and Apple start mass-producing cars, EAn still has a chance.
Time is ticking, and EAn needs to go electric.
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.