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author | yang lu

editor | li guozheng

on september 10, the tech giant apple will hold its autumn press conference, attracting global attention. that day is also expected to be the busiest day for the chinese auto industry - huawei will release the five-seater version of the m9, and at least seven new car brands will be launched, including the jiyue 07, passat pro, chery tiggo 8 plus...

it is not known whether it is a coincidence or intentional that different automakers released new cars on the same day. however, from the perspective of the industry, even the same automaker is accelerating the pace of new product launches, and its various brands are launching new products in a rush, such as saic-gm-wuling.

on september 10, saic-gm-wuling's baojun brand launched a new car, the yunhai. officials said that this is a model that truly brings baojun into the mainstream. the new car is equipped with lingmou intelligent driving 2.0, and the pre-sale price is between 121,800 and 145,800 yuan.

just 12 days ago, on august 28, a new model of wuling brand under saic-gm-wuling, the starlight s, was launched. it is positioned as a large-space suv for home use and offers two power versions: plug-in hybrid (phev) and pure electric (ev). there are a total of 5 models in the series, with a market guide price of 99,800 to 129,800 yuan.

compared with previous models, the prices and product strength of xingguang s and baojun yunhai are increasing, which shows that saic-gm-wuling, which once relied on small cars to conquer the world, is on the road to growth.

in the past, this automaker has also made many attempts to upgrade its brand, such as launching the new baojun with a diamond logo in 2019 and the wuling global silver logo in 2020.

today, saic-gm-wuling has shifted the strategic focus of its brand upgrading to technology labels, hoping to use its technological strength to break its past low-price image and participate in market competition with its technological attributes. it has also adjusted relevant senior executives for this purpose. dr. zhao yifan, current secretary of the party committee of saic-gm-wuling's marketing system, general manager of the product marketing center, and general manager of the product innovation center, switched from research and development.

technology and products are the best marketing

"the industry is not only competing in configuration and price, but also in leadership." sun dexing, director of the passenger vehicle product marketing center of saic-gm-wuling, joked in a group interview at the xingguang s launch conference, "in the past, people competed in terms of fuel consumption per 100 kilometers. this year, many auto executives participated in offline road tests, and the industry is competing in terms of how many leaders can be achieved in 100 kilometers."

this is an era of personal ip and an era where ceos face users directly. after seeing the popularity brought by personal shows, ceos of various car companies have led their senior executives to participate in marketing.

li fenggang, executive vice general manager of faw audi sales co., ltd., calls himself an i-person (meaning introverted), but he can also be a marketing officer. zhao yifan also said: "marketing is much more difficult than technology. i am also learning packaging and thinking about how to become a marketing person."

but in the final analysis, the transition from r&d to marketing should be a natural one, and marketing cannot be separated from technology and products.

zhou ying, deputy general manager of saic-gm-wuling product marketing center, believes that the entire industry is driven by technology to improve products, and this trend is very obvious. to some extent, "technology and products are the best marketing."

therefore, saic-gm-wuling began to tell technology stories and showcase its advanced technology to the public. before the launch of the starlight s, it specially organized three on-site visits for the media to get a close look at its technology.

first,view different collision results in the laboratory. "xingguang s is a global car and must meet the safety standards of relevant countries." zhao yifan said that xingguang s benchmarked the safety standards of relevant countries and regions around the world, conducted a variety of collision tests, and displayed the scarred collision car and the collision text results.

second,visit the world's first island-style lean manufacturing factory, which was completed and put into production last year. there are 10 unmanned assembly islands and 240 intelligent robots, which can achieve a modularization rate of 43% and a whole-line automation rate of 51%. it is an industrial tourism check-in point in liuzhou, guangxi. there are only 80 people in the entire factory. saic-gm-wuling said that the factory "redefines the intelligent manufacturing assembly method of the automotive industry."

third,power battery manufacturing workshop and assembly line.

after visiting the site, many media people said frankly that "they have overturned their previous perception of wuling."

▲liuzhou baojun base

currently, saic-gm-wuling has three different technology brands, including "tian·ling·shen".

"tian" includes the tianling factory and the tianyu architecture. the tianyu architecture was released in april this year and is divided into three major platforms: s, m, and d, which can cover full-size models from micro (a00 class) to medium and large (c class).

"ling" refers to lingxi hybrid, lingmo intelligent driving and lingyu intelligent networking. among them, lingmo intelligent driving is jointly developed by saic-gm-wuling and dji's zhuoyu technology. zhao yifan said that all algorithm upgrades and chip upgrades of zhuoyu are first installed on saic-gm-wuling's models. the latter has made plans for intelligent driving in the next three years, including launching laser radar technology.

"god" is at the component level, and currently there is a shenlian battery.

apparently, saic-gm-wuling, which rarely talked about technology before, is now trying to build a technology label.

in terms of products, wuling people used to say that they did not know how to do marketing, but in fact, many of its products hit the right spots for users.

in 2020, hongguang miniev was hailed as the "people's car" as soon as it was launched. so far, the cumulative sales have exceeded 1.3 million units. in august this year, the sales volume was 26,466 units, a month-on-month increase of 67.8%, ranking first in the sales volume of a00-class new energy vehicles.

judging from the price alone, the hongguang miniev, which costs 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, seems to be difficult to get rid of the low-end image. from the perspective of consumer psychology, everyone wants to buy a cheap car, but many people cannot accept the low-end image of the car. however, wuling's precise marketing and brand communication have made the hongguang miniev a trendy toy, accurately resolving the contradiction and successfully being accepted by users.

another product, wuling bingo, is similar in performance, with sales of 96,000 units in the first eight months of this year, a significant year-on-year increase, and sales in august reaching 23,662 units.

today, on the starlight s, wuling better combines advanced technology and precise product strategy.

this car shoulders the responsibility of brand advancement. from a technical point of view, xingguang s is the first new energy dual-power suv of the tianyu architecture d platform. relying on the efficient and reliable process of the island-style lean manufacturing factory under the tianling model, combined with intelligent robot operation, the modularization rate and the whole line automation rate have reached the advanced level in the industry. it is equipped with two core technologies, wuling lingxi power and shenlian battery, and was also rated as one of the top ten chassis in china in 2024.

from the product point of view, the xingguang s has exhausted all the resources of saic-gm-wuling to create an "s-class" large space, low energy consumption, high safety and comfort. after being launched in china at the end of august, it will be launched as a global car in south america, india, indonesia, the middle east and other countries and regions next year.

as of the day of its launch, the orders for the xingguang s exceeded 10,000. wuling has high hopes for this car, believing that "monthly sales of 10,000 units are just passing, 20,000 units are excellent, and 30,000 units are outstanding."

however, the suv market is full of new products and fierce competition. if xingguang s wants to break through, it must use more tricks. "we are not focusing on a certain competitive product, but we should make products around consumers instead of using competition as an anchor point," said sun dexing.

progress will not happen overnight

whether the starlight s can become a hit will affect the future of saic-gm-wuling's brand.

brand upgrading is a topic that every chinese automaker cannot avoid, and saic-gm-wuling is no exception. it is both more important and more difficult for it.

but starlight s is not the only card in saic-gm-wuling's hand. in their minds, "upward" should be a combination of punches, so they proposed three upwards: scale upward, product upward, and brand upward.

in terms of scale, with the launch of the starlight s on august 28, this sino-foreign joint venture automaker welcomed its 2 millionth new energy vehicle, and the growth rate is accelerating - it took five years from 2017 to 2022 to achieve the first one million sales, and the second million, from 1 million to 2 million, took only two years. the overall scale of new energy is growing rapidly.

in terms of product structure, it is moving upward step by step. the first 1 million units sold were mainly from the hongguang miniev series under the gsev architecture; the second 1 million units covered small new energy vehicles on the s platform, the m platform bingo, and the d platform xingguang family, with an overall upward trend. moreover, from hongguang miniev to xingguang s, the price range is gradually increasing.

branding is the most difficult issue facing saic-gm-wuling. in the starlight s, it is given the product power of luxury and full configuration at the entry level, and it is expected that this practice will become the norm for its subsequent new products.

on the way up, saic-gm-wuling has two stumbling blocks that are difficult to overcome.

first, the brand has long focused on the low-end, forming a deep-rooted impression in the minds of consumers, making it difficult for the brand to break through the limitations of market positioning and the ceiling of its own image. generally speaking, if a high-end brand promotes low-priced products, consumers will be happy to see it, but if they are used to the low-price positioning, it will be difficult for consumers to accept the brand's higher price for a while.

secondthe average selling price of a brand's vehicles is not high, mainly because the selling prices of the main sales force hongguang miniev and wuling bingo are relatively low. as the saying goes, "success is due to xiao he, and failure is also due to xiao he", the popularity of these low-priced models makes it difficult to increase the average selling price of a brand's vehicles in the future.

in addition, saic-gm-wuling also encountered multiple internal and external problems during its upward development. internally, it faced brand image building, product improvement, and the effectiveness of marketing strategies; externally, it faced increasingly fierce market competition, changes in consumer demand, and the impact of the overall economic environment. these problems intertwined, making the brand's upward path difficult.

it is understood that in addition to the baojun yunhai which will be launched on september 10, saic-gm-wuling will also release a new car under baojun, which is defined as a technological flagship model that consumers can afford, and it is a smarter and better quality b-class car in this level.

in november this year, wuling hongguang will launch the extended-range version.

in addition, on the technical level, saic-gm-wuling will announce a new architecture in the first half of next year to carry more advanced and high-end models.

"give us more time." zhou ying admitted that brand upgrading is not achieved overnight, but step by step. in the future, saic-gm-wuling will launch more and better technologies and products.