*Author: Lu Wei
Introduction
Faced with the repeated failures of Geometry and the surging new energy market, Zeekr’s launch can be seen as a forced move by Geely.
Today, with the release of Zeekr, the existence of Geometry brand has become more embarrassing, and being abandoned may be only a matter of time. The failure of Geometry is not because of the incompetence of Zheng Zhuang and Liu Zhifeng, but because the Geometry brand should not exist, and it is time for Geely New Energy to return to the Geely brand.
Recently, the biggest news of Geely New Energy is the birth of Zeekr.
Earlier, Geely Automobile Holdings Limited announced that it had reached a framework agreement with its controlling shareholder, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd. to establish a new joint venture company, Zeekr Automotive. With the launch of Zeekr, Geely has added another new energy brand outside of the Geometry brand.
As early as 2015, Geely Automobile had already launched the “Blue Geely Action” plan, but six years later, not only has the plan not been realized, but the sales of its new energy vehicles have also not been good, with most of them going to B-end markets such as Cao Cao Travel, and they have not been able to occupy a place in the real market – the private sector.
In 2018, Geely introduced the Geometry brand in Singapore, hoping to use the “old platform-new brand” routine of fuel vehicles to compete in the market, but things did not go as planned. Even after the efforts of Zheng Zhuang and Liu Zhifeng, the Geometry brand has not shown significant improvement, and now it has been completely surpassed by Guangqi Aion and Great Wall Euler in the same period.
Therefore, these six years can be described as a complete failure for Geely New Energy.
Facing the repeated failures of the Geometry brand and the surging new energy market, the launch of Zeekr can be seen as a forced move by Geely. Today, with the debut of Zeekr, the existence of Geometry brand has become more embarrassing, and being abandoned may be only a matter of time.
Zeekr debuts, Geometry is embarrassing
Compared with the past, Geely’s financial report data showed a comprehensive decline last year. Geely Automobile admitted that 2020 was the “most difficult year ever” for Geely Automobile. Both in terms of performance and stock trend, it was very difficult for Geely Automobile. Therefore, the disclosure of “Zeekr” can be interpreted as Geely’s exploration of the current pain and future development.
As for Zeekr, its English name is ZEEKR and it is positioned as a trendy technology brand. “Zeekr” means “extreme”, representing the uncompromising pursuit of product performance and user experience; “Kr” is the chemical element krypton, a rare gas that emits light when discharged, representing the technological symbol of the electric drive intelligent era.
The first mass-produced model of Zeekr is named Zeekr 001, which is also called Lynk & Co Zero, and it is built on the SEA Smart Electric Architecture. Zeekr 001 is equipped with a permanent magnet twin electric drive system, which has the ability to achieve full-scenario automatic driving assistance, and it is equipped with luxury configurations such as automatic air suspension, dynamic chassis control system, induction automatic frameless doors, and Yamaha high-fidelity audio.
In terms of brand operation, Zeekr will focus on user service and adopt innovative business models, establish a new brand direct sales terminal, and build a complete charging and energy replenishment service system to realize the integration of trend life and technology, user ecology and industrial ecology, creating greater value for users.
In addition, Zeekr has also designed a user equity plan in which users become shareholders, truly realizing co-creation and sharing with users, which is in line with NIO’s user operations. On April 15th, Zeekr brand and product launch conference will be held at the Zeekr factory in Hangzhou Bay, where we will learn more about the Zeekr brand.
Simply put, Zeekr is positioned in the high-end market, which conflicts with Geely’s high-end positioning of Geometry. According to relevant sources, Geely Holding’s other pure electric vehicle brands will not be included in the Zeekr company’s system for the time being. At the same time, Geely has no news yet about the establishment of a self-research and self-production platform for Zeekr.
It can be seen that although the technology platform comes from Geely, Zeekr will benchmark the new forces in brand operation. Moreover, except for 001 from the vast platform, other oil-to-electric products from Geely’s platform will not be included in the Zeekr system, which can ensure the purity of Zeekr brand products.
Whether it is advanced platforms and products from traditional enterprises, or brand operation methods that are fully oriented to new forces, Zeekr is enough to make people look forward to. However, with Zeekr’s arrival, whether it is brand positioning or Geely’s internal resource allocation, the most affected one is undoubtedly Geometry, a new force brand that once had high hopes from Li Shufu, who has now completely lost its meaning of existence.
In addition, after the launch of “Zeekr”, Geely’s new energy vehicle brands have reached 7, covering the three levels of low-end, mid-end, and high-end. Such frequent launch of new brands has made the industry doubt whether Geely has a “panic” in new energy.
In fact, as a traditional independent car company with a global dream and the pursuit of progress, Geely knows the importance of transformation to new energy. As early as 2005, when Toyota introduced the first generation of Prius to China, Geely had already begun research and development of hybrid technology, which has now been going on for 16 years.
After mastering certain technologies, Geely began to attack the market. In 2015, Geely launched the “Blue Geely Action” and proposed the goal: by 2020, the sales volume of new energy vehicles will account for over 90% of the total sales. In 2018, Geely launched the Geometry new energy brand aimed at the high-end market.Although Geely has ambitious goals, the reality is disappointing. By now, Geely’s hybrid vehicles have been outperformed by BYD and Great Wall, and the Geely brand was defeated in the market. With the arrival of NIO, the Geely brand has no meaning anymore. Last year, Geely sold a total of 68,000 new energy vehicles, accounting for only 5.2% of new car sales for the year, far from the 90% target.
Especially with the failure of the Geely brand, this is the biggest flaw that Geely has experienced in the new energy market in recent years. Turning back time to April 2019, Geely A was launched in Singapore with great fanfare. The reason for the high-profile overseas release was that Geely hoped to make Geely cars into a global pure electric vehicle brand.
In the face of the surging new energy market, Geely introduced the Geely brand, hoping that Geely vehicles could become a new growth point for the group, and allowing Geely to quickly keep pace with the development of the times despite Geely’s shallow new energy accumulation. Geely was very clear that it needed to change with the times.
The existence of Geely is a mistake
In order to make the Geely brand an overnight sensation, Geely has made a great effort.
First of all, Geely went to great lengths to recruit Zheng Zhuang from BYD to make up for the lack of expertise. At the same time, Geely spent heavily to build the Geely car brand, even scheduling the launch of Geely A in Singapore. In terms of marketing, in order to attract attention, they even called the Geely A the best pure electric vehicle in the eastern hemisphere.
However, in the face of the enthusiasm for Geely vehicles, the feedback from the new energy market was very cold. Official data shows that in 2019, Geely sold only 12,000 Geely cars since its launch in April of that year. In the electric vehicle market, this data is not bad, but it’s not great either, as there was only one model. Because it was produced by “big Geely,” people were disappointed.
There are many reasons for this disappointment. From the inside, last year Geely’s share of overall sales was less than one percent, which was too light compared to the high-profile publicity and high expectations for it. Also, there is a lot of water behind the data of Geely A, which confirms the suspicion of failure.
From the outside, Geely has been completely outcompeted. As a joint release with Geely, Guangqi New Energy Aion’s cumulative sales in 2019 were 42,000 units, which is 1.5 times that of Geely. Even compared to equivalent models, Geely A was completely eclipsed by Aion S. In 2019, the cumulative sales of Aion S, which was released at the same time as Geely A, were 32,000 units, almost three times that of Geely A.In the new car war, Geometry lost to Aiways, and Geely New Energy also lost to GAC New Energy. This is the most unacceptable part for Geely, after all, in the overall sales base, GAC Passenger Car is far ahead of Geely, but the sales of new energy has been surpassed so much that there were increasing voices of dissatisfaction with the Geometry brand within Geely at the time.
The sluggish sales of Geometry were quickly reflected in personnel changes. After the Geometry brand was launched for a year, in early May last year, media reports revealed that the general manager of Geometry, Zheng Zhuang, was quickly dismissed and replaced by Liu Zhifeng, who was transferred from Lynk & Co. Yes, in the eyes of Geely’s senior management, the failure of the Geometry brand was “man-made”.
However, in the nearly one year since Liu Zhifeng took office, the Geometry ship has not stopped sinking, despite the support of the impressive product power of Geometry C, the market is still indifferent. According to the statistics of the China Passenger Car Association, the sales of Geometry A in the whole year of 2020 were only 5051 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 44.6%. The sales volume of the new product Geometry C was only 5277 vehicles, with a total sales volume of just over 10,000 for the entire Geometry brand.
So, is it that Zheng Zhuang, Liu Zhifeng and others are incapable of supporting Geometry, or does Geometry simply have no meaning to exist? The market has given the answer.
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.