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our reporter chen yannan reports from beijing

a reporter from china business news learned that on september 5, the bmw group announced that it would launch its first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (fcev) for the market in 2028. on the same day, audi announced that it would build the largest product layout in its brand history for the chinese market, continuing to implement its strategic commitment to china.

just the day before, mercedes-benz announced plans to invest more than 14 billion yuan in china together with its chinese partners to further enrich its localized product lineup of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.

in fact, bba (mercedes-benz, bmw, audi) are facing a series of challenges. since the first half of the year, the delivery volume of bba in china has declined to varying degrees. relevant data show that bmw delivered 376,400 vehicles in the chinese market, a year-on-year decrease of 4.3%; mercedes-benz's sales in the first half of the year fell 9% year-on-year to 341,500 vehicles; audi's delivery volume in china fell 2.0% year-on-year to 322,000 vehicles.

as market competition intensifies, major automakers have entered a period of intensive model launches, and the rise of domestic brands is also squeezing out the market share of luxury brands. as the world's largest single market, the performance of the chinese market is continuing to affect the global market position of luxury automakers. however, bba is currently catching up and has started a new round of reforms, trying to reshape the "golden age" of luxury brands.

performance under pressure

recently, the three major luxury car brands bba successively released their financial reports for the first half of 2024, showing that bba's performance indicators showed a downward trend, among which the decline in profits was the most obvious. as for the reasons for the decline in performance, bba mentioned that china's increasingly fierce market environment had a significant impact on its performance.

it is understood that since the beginning of this year, many luxury brands have launched a wave of price cuts. subsequently, the topic of "big price cuts" became a hot search. several sales staff told reporters that the price in june has reached the historical "freezing point" and is in a state of losing money on every car sold.

in fact, fierce price wars are constantly eroding the profits of automobiles. financial report data show that in terms of profits, audi achieved an operating profit of approximately 1.982 billion euros in the first half of 2024, a year-on-year decrease of 42%, an operating profit margin of 6.4%, and a single vehicle operating profit of 36.8% year-on-year; bmw achieved a net profit of 5.656 billion euros, a year-on-year decrease of 14.6%, an operating profit margin of 8.65%, and a single vehicle operating profit of 19.1% year-on-year; mercedes-benz achieved a net profit of approximately 6.087 billion euros, a year-on-year decrease of 20%, and ebit of 7.9 billion euros, a year-on-year decrease of 25%.

in addition, the practice of trading price for volume has also damaged the brand value of high-end brands. based on this, many first-tier high-end car brands including audi, bmw and mercedes-benz seem to be willing to withdraw from the price war, and some of their models have also increased prices accordingly.

bba each released a "big move"

many industry insiders believe that in order to get out of the price "involution", a differentiated path must be taken. currently, the bmw group is taking a different approach.

on september 3, bmw group and toyota motor corporation signed a memorandum of understanding (mou) on comprehensive cooperation in fuel cell technology. based on the results of the cooperation, bmw will launch fuel cell vehicle products with brand characteristics; in addition, the two parties will also effectively reduce the overall cost of fuel cell technology through cooperation, thereby promoting the popularity of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the market.

"the launch of mass-produced fuel cell vehicles is an important milestone for bmw and the automotive industry. bmw has foreseen that market demand for fuel cell vehicles will increase significantly in the future," said zipse, chairman of the bmw group.

bmw is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, but there is currently no single solution that can meet the diverse travel needs of global customers. bmw therefore believes that different drive technologies will coexist in future sustainable travel scenarios.

therefore, bmw will begin to launch a new "new generation" model in the second half of 2025. mass-produced fuel cell vehicles will serve as a powerful supplement to battery-powered pure electric vehicles (bev) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (phev), further enriching bmw's new energy product portfolio.

it is understood that the bmw group's research on hydrogen energy economy and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is highly consistent with china's development strategy to promote hydrogen energy economy and innovative technologies. china's "medium- and long-term plan for the development of the hydrogen energy industry (2021-2035)" clearly states that hydrogen energy is an important part of the future national energy system, and the development of the domestic hydrogen energy industry is showing a positive trend. bmw's continued research and development in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will gradually turn the vision of future hydrogen travel into reality; at the same time, bmw brilliance has also been actively exploring the application scenarios of hydrogen energy in the logistics field.

in fact, based on the chinese market, the system reform of reshaping products and brands is imminent. however, audi still insists on the development policy of walking on two legs of pure electric and fuel vehicles.

the reporter learned that starting from mid-2025, audi will work with china faw to launch pure electric models based on the ppe platform specifically for the chinese market. the first model will be the audi q6l e-tron.

in terms of fuel vehicles, a new generation of local models based on the ppc (premium platform combustion) luxury fuel vehicle platform will also be unveiled, including the new audi a5 family, which will be jointly produced by faw audi and saic audi and provide different body styles.

luo yinghan, president of audi china, emphasized: "as part of audi's strategic growth plan in china, we will comprehensively upgrade our product lineup and work with strong local partners to promote the development of the same audi brand and bring more high-quality products to chinese users."

the reporter learned from mercedes-benz that the strategic layout of the mercedes-benz group's transformation, technological innovation, and the latest blockbuster products will continue to be implemented in china at the "china speed". through investment in china, mercedes-benz will further participate in the development of high-end manufacturing, new energy vehicles, intelligent connected vehicles and related industrial chains in beijing, fuzhou and surrounding areas, injecting new impetus into the development of local new quality productivity and industrial clusters.

"the chinese market is one of the important pillars of the mercedes-benz group's global strategy and an important driving force for our electrification transformation and technological innovation," said ola källenius, chairman of the board of management of mercedes-benz group ag.

it is understood that another focus of mercedes-benz's investment will be the local r&d and production of the new long-wheelbase gle suv model exclusively for china. starting from 2025, mercedes-benz will successively put into production the new pure electric long-wheelbase cla model exclusively for china, the new long-wheelbase gle suv model, and the new luxury pure electric mpv based on the van.ea platform. among them, the new long-wheelbase gle suv model is the first to be developed by a chinese team, and will provide a comfortable experience and advanced intelligent technology exclusive to china.

(editor: zhang shuo, reviewer: tong haihua, proofreader: yan yuxia)