When it comes to Hechuang Auto, some readers may not know much about it. It also had a name - GAC Aion.
Previously, a reporter from Beike Finance once reported that this brand, which was once jointly created by GAC Group and NIO , has ended the first phase of the "exploration period". Now, with the support of Zhujiang Investment Management Group (hereinafter referred to as "Zhutou Group"), Hechuang Automobile has begun to get on track with new achievements in technology, products and even factories, and is entering the second stage of development.
The industry is expanding rapidly. Should the enterprise develop rapidly or stable?
In 2022, sales of new energy vehicles are still growing rapidly. Data from the China Passenger Car Association shows that from January to May, my country's new energy passenger cars were wholesale 1.892 million, and increased by 117.4% year-on-year. While the market is expanding rapidly, competition is also intensifying. Many companies have performed outstandingly in the new energy vehicle market: BYD has stopped production of fuel vehicles, and it is reported that its brand has accumulated orders of more than 400,000 vehicles; Tesla has been continuously adjusting its prices, but it is still recognized by the market and its sales continue to rise. Joint venture brands have also brought heavy-duty models, and high-quality products such as BMW i3, Mercedes-Benz EQS have joined the market competition in a high-profile manner.
If you focus on the new forces in car manufacturing, NIO , Ideal, Xiaopeng , Nezha, and Zero Run are constantly receiving good reviews from brand reputation. Even the slightly behind WM Motor is seeking IPO listing.
Hechuang Z03 interior. Source | Enterprise official website
For Hechuang Auto, which is also a younger brand, after ending the first phase of GAC Aion, it is entering a new era full of challenges and opportunities. At this point in time, in the context of such fierce market competition, we can’t help but ask: Hechuang Automobile, is there still a chance?
If you call back the pointer of time, it is not difficult to find that history always tells us some experience.
To put it in the simplest example, BYD has also faced challenges and is facing pressure to grow at a lower rate of new energy vehicles than expected. Just a few years before the DM-i series was released, although BYD's sales were still ahead of other independent brands, there was still a big gap compared to Tesla. His financial performance was not optimistic, and he was even "deprecated" by some voices for a time.
But BYD did not make a decision or hesitate, but instead took every step, grasped core technologies, and continuously launched high-quality products. After Qin PLUS DM-i was born, BYD's sales continued to grow. It was the word "stability" at that time, and it was not arrogant or impatient, which created a giant with a market value of over one trillion yuan today.
On the other hand, brands that blindly seek speed and draw cakes for the market are also falling on the stage one by one. The most representative one is Sailen Automobile. The Sailen brand that landed in the Bird's Nest with a supercar hastily launched the microcar , which costs more than 100,000 yuan. It has continuously sparked heated discussions with its out-of-the-box marketing and words and deeds, and the brand ended up in a mess.
can't hold it and walk too fast and it will easily stumble to the waist. Automotive analyst Zhang Xiang told reporters that fast and stable are the core, but seeking speed in vain may not be as satisfactory as possible. Only by being able to hold on can you speed up.
For Hechuang Auto, there were indeed bumps and bumps caused by too fast speed in the past. Now, with the joining of new shareholders, the "stability" of the team has become the direction of corporate development.
is not Hechuang Auto, where is it stable?
Where is Hechuang Auto stable and how should the brand stand out?
Nowadays, the competition in the new energy vehicle market is fierce, how can Hechuang Auto stand out? Where does its stability reflect?
, simply put, can be divided into three angles.
1. The stability, persistence and low-key of the leadership team, and the marketing is consistent.
2. Adhere to independent research and development, steadily advance products, and do not make excessively boasted product planning.
3. Channel layout is gradually broadening, partners are becoming more and more abundant, and user trust is constantly increasing.
In the first stage, Hechuang Auto experienced some minor personnel changes, but according to the reporter of Beike Finance, except for a small number of people, most senior executives, middle-level and grassroots staff still perform their duties.The new blood brought by GAC + NIO and Zhutou Group have achieved a very complete integration. On the other hand, Hechuang Automobile's management team is very low-key and solid in the automotive field. In the past year, the brand has never had public opinion on "over-marketing", and communication is more dominated by products.
Hechuang Z03 is linked to EDG. Source | Enterprise official website
In terms of marketing, Hechuang Auto adopts a unique and consistent model. In addition to basic advertising marketing, Hechuang Auto is also unique and has worked closely with the e-sports team EDG. Become "friends" with young user groups and add favorite elements of young users to the product.
Beike Finance reporter learned that Hechuang Auto has been linked with EDG many times and released a questionnaire to young fans who support EDG. On the basis of understanding user preferences, it developed the Hechuang Z03 championship version model. Hechuang Automobile official told a reporter from Beike Finance that the company is currently in the strategic cooperation with EDG, and the teams of the two sides have relatively close communication and exchanges. The brand APP mall is also constantly launching peripheral products about EDG. The two sides are considering launching related activities such as EDG Auto Show interaction, offline meetings and sharing sessions for fan car owners this year.
focuses on the product. In addition to cross-border marketing and user thinking, Hechuang Automobile has many ingenious ideas.
Although the performance of Hechuang 007 is not eye-catching, the launch of Z03 has activated the market for Hechuang Auto.
Hechuang Z03 and the new Hechuang 007. Source | Enterprise official website
data from the Passenger Association shows that after Z03 was launched, its sales performance was excellent, and its sales in the first quarter of 2022 increased by dozens of times year-on-year. At present, due to the impact of the supply chain, the company still has about 6,000 orders to be delivered. It is understood that the owners of Hechuang Auto are mainly concentrated in East China, Pearl River Delta and other places.
Although this car has a considerable connection with the native platform, Hechuang Automobile is not shy about it. However, Z03 is very different from another product in terms of size, design, and intelligent applications, and such differentiated competition has also won the market.
Hechuang Z03 appearance picture. Source | Enterprise official website
At present, Hechuang Automobile is actively investing in independent research and development, trying to create a complete and controllable product chain. At present, Hechuang Automobile has mastered the core technology of three electric power, has a newly developed H-GEA Hechuang global pure electric platform, and has created the H-VIP technology system of the smart driving interconnection system.
According to the company's plan, new models such as pure electric coupe and pure electric MPV built based on the CONCEPT-S and CONCEPT-M concept cars will also meet users soon.
Compared with PPT's car manufacturing, Hechuang has shown sincerity and brought sincere planning. Releasing a new car in one year is not slow for Hechuang to move forward steadily enough.
Hechuang Automobile has also made great achievements in terms of channels and partners. As of June 5, Hechuang Auto has built 199 offline stores across the country, covering 125 cities across the country, and 243 dealer partners have joined Hechuang's family. The world's leading parts supplier Bosch , the domestic leading automotive intelligent chip company Horizon, and the well-known intelligent driving system development company Shanghai Zhijia and other suppliers have become Hechuang Automobile partners. Shanghai Jiaotong University also jointly established the Intelligent Connected Vehicle Joint R&D Center with Hechuang Automobile. The company's soft and hard strength have performed well.
Perhaps it is precisely because of the stable stability of the Hechuang Automobile team that we can gradually win the trust of users and achieve good sales results; we can be recognized among young user groups and win friendly and enthusiastic interactions under the Weibo of EDG team.
It is worth mentioning that Hechuang Automobile has also officially launched its first brand model in the production line of its production base in Hangzhou recently. In this era of fancy marketing, Hechuang Automobile has focused its attention on the production base, which makes people think a little more.
The first product of Hangzhou production base is launched. What does it mean for Hechuang Auto?
Beike Finance reporter learned that Hechuang Automobile attaches great importance to the implementation of the new production base, and in their eyes, this is almost a milestone event.
In this era when enterprises are accustomed to OEM, co-creators seem to have given us different answers.
What does a production base mean for a company?
Some people think that paying money, buying equipment, and investing in production bases by themselves means large investment, high costs, and waste of production capacity. So some companies chose OEM.
Of course, some people think that having a production base means controllable in its own production capacity, controllable in product quality, self-confidence without asking for help, and the cornerstone of stable development.
Hechuang Auto belongs to the latter.
Maybe there is no need to be too obsessed with the importance of whether there is a production base to the brand, but for brands and companies that are willing to invest in this, there is more or less a practical spirit of an industrialist.
Almost everyone knows that core technologies such as intelligent networking, raw materials, and motor and electronic control are the most profitable and have the most premium space. But these technologies cannot be the only ones in the market.
aerial photography of Hechuang Automobile Hangzhou production base. Source | Enterprise official website
Hechuang Automobile is doing "hard work".
Behind the production of Hechuang Automobile’s Hangzhou production base is the strong support of shareholders GAC Group and Zhutou Group. Under the coordination of the two parties, Hechuang Automobile acquired a stake in Guangcheng Hangzhou Company. According to official introduction, Guangcheng Hangzhou Company is a world-class smart factory built with GAC production system.
After investing in Guangcheng Hangzhou Company, Hechuang Automobile not only gained a production capacity of 200,000 vehicles per year, but also had very advanced technology. It is understood that the new factory completed the upgrade and transformation of the existing production line in just one month, realizing flexible collinear production of fuel vehicles and pure electric vehicles. Provide production services for GAC Trumpchi and Hechuang Automobile.
Under the leadership of Hechuang Automobile, Guangcheng Hangzhou Company has been optimized throughout the system in terms of "production automation, information digitalization, management intelligence, and intelligent manufacturing ecologicalization". At present, Guangcheng Hangzhou Company's body assembly line has achieved high-density welding robot integration, with a full flexible fixture switching system, which can achieve co-line production of 4+2 models; the assembly workshop is equipped with the first domestic chassis automatic vehicle merging process, as well as an advanced battery conveying and automatic installation system, and can switch handles and welding guns within one minute to complete the production of switch models; the production of bio-pipe logistics adopts machine vision AI technology and the original VIDM (visualization, informatization, digitalization, intelligent manufacturing) system to ensure efficient and orderly production, and achieve high-precision, flexible co-linearity of multi-models.
Hechuang Automobile's first supplier conference Picture source | Enterprise official website
In view of the characteristics of intelligent connected new energy vehicles, Guangcheng Hangzhou Company's vehicle quality inspection workshop has been optimized to conduct comprehensive inspections on the battery safety, intelligent technology and other fields of the vehicle. Among them, the intelligent integrated detection system adopts advanced technologies such as high-precision CCD laser imaging, ultrasonic sensing distance sensing and distance sensing, with reliability increased by 30% and accuracy increased by 25%; the advanced driving assistance detection system detects and calibrates vehicle cameras, radar and sensors, ensuring that customers can provide the best intelligent, technological and humanized driving assistance systems; the automated pure electric vehicle detection system conducts insulation, voltage resistance and battery charging and discharging tests on the vehicle. Hechuang Auto promises that the brand will ensure that the vehicle complies with national safety standards through science and technology, and bring users the safest travel experience.
In terms of factory, Hechuang Automobile has already possessed strong strength, but the brand has received much more than that.
Simply put, Hechuang Auto has received strong support from GAC Group in manufacturing and R&D; received a new baptism from NIO in user operations; and received full help from Zhutou Group from cultural and entertainment to multi-scene intelligent driving.
Perhaps, Hechuang is not moving forward as rapidly as the giants; perhaps, Hechuang still needs time to grow gradually; perhaps, the brand still faces some challenges that must be overcome, but this small and beautiful company is constantly bringing surprises to the market through its own steady but not slow speed, responsible and rigorous attitude towards users. Zhang Xiang told the reporter of Beike Finance that Hechuang Automobile's products have good cost-effectiveness, and the company has gradually gotten on track after the structural adjustment, and there may be more opportunities and possibilities in the future.
is written at the end: Now, the development of Hechuang Automobile has entered the second stage. Sales volume is rising, self-developed products are constantly rolling out, blending with users, and holding manufacturing in your own hands.
Ma Zhengfei, managing director of Xinding Capital, believes that Hechuang Automobile still has many opportunities. "The current new energy vehicle market is large enough. In the situation of a war of heroes, small enterprises can also have about five years of development. But when giants put down fuel vehicles and fully enter new energy vehicles, these small-scale brands must be vigilant." Ma Zhengfei said.
There is a saying in the investment circle that investors are more willing to believe in an entrepreneur who has failed or encountered setbacks. Hechuang Automobile and its management team are brave enough to face past shortcomings, dare to set sail again, and create new achievements step by step, which may also win favor in the capital market.
text/Liu Chang
editing/Yue Caizhou
proofreading/Li Ming
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