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tencent news "high beam"

author: guo yifei

editor｜liu peng

after the failure of the first car s7, the tough battle of zhijie r7 became the first battle for huawei andcherya battle that had to be won.

at huawei's autumn full-scenario launch conference on september 24, blockbuster new mobile phones such as mate 6x and mate 70 were absent, and only conventional products such as watches, smart large screens, and speakers were presented. the main character of the whole event was the new model zhijie r7 jointly developed by huawei and chery. yu chengdong, huawei's executive director and chairman of the automotive bu, spent almost half of the time introducing the product configuration in detail, and directly benchmarked it in many details such as space size, drag coefficient, and cruising range.tesla model y。

although he was on a business trip abroad and unable to be present at the event in person, yin tongyue, chairman of chery holding group, as a partner, still recorded a video and shot a personal promotional video to show his importance.

he said frankly that as chery's top strategic priority project, zhijie has invested tens of billions of yuan and a research and development team of more than 1,000 people, and has deployed the best projects and the most outstanding teams to zhijie's product research and development, production and manufacturing, and service guarantee system.

this is the fourth time that the two anhui compatriots have appeared on the same stage in the past six months. since the sales of the first model, the enjoy s7, started high but ended low, from the huawei spring new product launch conference in april, the guangdong-hong kong-macao auto show in june, to the chengdu auto show in august, the two helmsmen, yu chengdong and yin tongyue, are taking practical actions to try to dispel rumors about the cooperation between the two parties in car manufacturing, all in order to pursue greater market ambitions for the zhijie r7.

domestic car companies are piling up materials to collectively attack tesla model y

"this pricing is very sincere. we are going to lose more than 30,000 yuan for one car just to allow more people to enjoy the good car experience. we hope to reduce costs together with chery after the scale is expanded and make no loss, but we will definitely make a loss this year." after the introduction of the product configuration and pricing of zhijie r7, yu chengdong couldn't help but interjected this at the end of the press conference.

he said that the zhijie r7 was truly built according to the standards of a 1 million yuan car, including the materials, design, performance and craftsmanship quality, as well as the generation-leading high-level intelligent driving, and was built completely according to the standards of a million-yuan luxury car.

compared with the "loss of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per car"ask the worldthe new m7 pro and r7 are priced higher, but they lost more money, which is enough to show huawei and chery's determination to break through. in the words of yu chengdong, the "r" in the name of r7 stands for "revolution", "to rely on talent and subversion, to create a revolutionary coupe suv product with space revolution, performance revolution, intelligence revolution and super safety."

the zhijie r7 is available in four models, including pro, max and ultra, with prices ranging from rmb 259,800 to rmb 339,800. the latter two versions are equipped with huawei qiankun intelligent driving ads 3.0 solution.

judging from the content of the press conference ppt, the models used by yu chengdong for comparison include tesla model y and the more expensivebmw x6、mercedes-benz gle、porsche cayenneamong them, model y is undoubtedly the biggest competitor and benchmark. the three versions of zhijie r7 are respectively benchmarked against model y rear-wheel drive version, long-range all-wheel drive version, and performance high-performance version.

comparing with entry-level models, the zhijie r7 pro is 10,000 yuan more expensive than the model y rear-wheel drive version, but it is superior in terms of space size, material selection, and air suspension. the battery pack has also increased its range by 113 kilometers, and the 800v high-voltage fast charging architecture is also higher than the latter's 400v.

although the model y has not undergone a major facelift in the five years since its launch, it still has good sales and its strength cannot be underestimated. its sales in china in the first half of 2024 still increased by 1.9% year-on-year to 207,000 units, and its monthly sales in august reached 45,800 units.

at present, domestic automakers are targeting this "super single product" and collectively besieging it. in september alone, includingledao l60、zeekr7X、avita07. brand newzhiji ls6a number of new cars are competing to be launched on the market. they all belong to the suv new energy category in the range of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, with full product configuration.

as a competitor, at the zeekr 7x launch conference last week, the company's ceo an conghui said, "in the era of pure electric suvs, it is simple to follow. it is not difficult to build a car that is more model y than model y. chinese car companies have the engineering capabilities and cost advantages. building a different pure electric suv is more difficult and requires redefining the product."

it is worth noting that this week, the avita 07, also a mid-size suv, will also be launched, with a pre-sale price of 250,000 to 300,000 yuan. in terms of intelligence, it is also equipped with huawei's hongmeng cockpit and qiankun intelligent driving ads 3.0 solution. just in august, avita, a subsidiary of changan automobile, just invested 11.5 billion yuan to strategically invest in huawei yinwang.

based on the experience of enjoy s7, can the over 30,000 orders for r7 be delivered as scheduled?

how is huawei's multi-brand operation capability? can it replicate the popular cases in the industry? this is the biggest question the market has when observing huawei's hongmeng intelligent driving model.

as the first product of huawei and chery's joint venture, the zhijie s7 will be launched in november 2023. the new car will be available in four versions with an official guide price of 249,800-349,800 yuan, which is lower than the pre-sale price of 258,000-358,000 yuan. at that time, yu chengdong said, "the company is arguing over pricing. after multiple rounds of cost calculations, the current prices of the four versions are all at a loss."

as the first sedan under the hongmeng intelligent driving mode, the zhijie s7 directly targets the tesla model 3. it originally had a market advantage and received more than 20,000 large orders in a short period of time. it was once expected to become a hit.

however, due to internal and external reasons such as chip shortages and factory relocation, the 20,000 large orders for zhijie s7 were not delivered as scheduled, which resulted in sales starting high and ending low, failing to exceed 1,000 for four consecutive months, and the market strategy of low prices and high volumes failed to work.

in this regard, caixin reported that after the success of the "wenjie", huawei once adjusted the hongmeng intelligent driving cooperation model. the cooperating car companies completely played the role of "oem" and only obtained relatively fixed income from product manufacturing. the other links were dominated by huawei. compared with seres, chery did not have enough motivation to cooperate with huawei to adjust and improve the production line, which led to the delay in delivery. after the conflict over zhijie s7 broke out, huawei and chery both adjusted the relevant persons in charge. in order to mobilize the enthusiasm of partners and share the benefits of product success, huawei also adjusted the hongmeng intelligent driving 2.0 model back to 1.0.

in april 2024, just five months after its launch, the zhijie s7 was launched again for an upgrade. while the price remained unchanged, the core product configurations such as battery life and intelligent driving solutions were improved.

at that time, yin tongyue said that zhijie was chery's most important project, and for this purpose, an independent business unit for the zhijie brand was established, with a dedicated new smart manufacturing industrial park, special resources invested to ensure that one car could be produced and delivered every minute. however, this rescue action still failed to win orders from consumers.

according to statistics from industry consulting firm jielanlu, the insurance volume of zhijie s7 reached 4,506 in the month of its secondary listing, but then it continued to decline. from may to august, the insurance volume was 3,563, 2,982, 2,548 and 1,422 respectively, and the cumulative number since its listing is only 17,466. in contrast, the cumulative number of orders for wenjie m9 exceeded 140,000 in the 9 months since its listing, and the delivery volume in august alone reached 15,836.

"the sales of zhijie s7 are not good enough." on july 15, yu chengdong also admitted this in a live broadcast.

he summed up that this is a very good product, with excellent smart driving, smart cockpit, large space and ultra-long battery life. "there is still a big gap in our marketing capabilities. it is quite difficult to build a new brand and it takes a long time. the zhijie brand has not yet been built."

the elimination round in the automotive industry has begun, and game participants need to remain vigilant and adjust strategies in a timely manner to cope with increasingly fierce market competition.

after nearly a year of running-in, both parties seem to be full of confidence in zhijie r7. yu chengdong revealed that within less than two weeks of the pre-sale, the order volume exceeded 30,000.

as the actual manufacturer, yin tongyue said that he will go all out to ensure the delivery of the zhijie r7, and that the r7 will definitely become a new benchmark for young people's first choice of smart luxury suvs. he even joked, "now i have one more worry. according to the current orders, it is a challenge for our production capacity."