Weipai Blue Mountain: A Milestone of the Next Generation Automobile

Since the beginning of the year, the uncertainty about the future development of the automobile market has been pervading the entire automobile industry.

When the market growth slows down and technological innovation stagnates, the automobile industry urgently needs a shot in the arm. Although new cars have been listed one after another recently, in Lao Li's view, there are not many products that can lead the development of the next generation of cars to some extent. Blue Mountain is one of them, which seems to give a shot in the arm to the weak auto market.

On April 13, 2023, on the eve of the Shanghai Auto Show, Weipai Blue Mountain was listed in a long-awaited manner, and the price of the new car was 273,800-308,800 yuan.

At the turning point of China automobile industry entering the next stage, Weipai Blue Mountain is a milestone, because it has made a good start for the innovation of the next generation of automobiles from both the demand side and the supply side.

Many friends may not quite understand why Lao Li has always given Blue Mountain such a high evaluation. Today, Lao Li will talk to you from the perspective of the industry. Why is it that the automobile industry in China has reached a new turning point? Who plays games in China market? How does Blue Mountain define the next generation of cars?

Standing at the turning point of the industry

Since the new century, we have experienced China's automobile industry from weak to strong for more than 20 years. Although there are many ways to divide the stages of industrial development in the industry, in short, it can be divided into two stages around the changes of products:

The first stage is the traditional era represented by fuel vehicles. At present, fuel vehicles are the mainstream products, and the industry pattern has always been that joint venture vehicle companies are far ahead, while China vehicle companies are struggling to catch up. Great Wall, Chang 'an and other mainstream brands in China were born at this stage.

The second stage is the era of intelligent electric vehicles represented by new energy vehicles. This era has just begun, and Lao Li generally likes to call the products at this stage the next generation of cars.

The so-called next-generation car consists of two parts, one is a pure electric car that everyone is very familiar with at present, and the other is a plug-in hybrid car, including PHEV and REEV (Extended Range Electric). These products are characterized by high intelligence and high comfort.

In fact, according to the top-level design of the industry, hybrid vehicles are expected to replace traditional fuel vehicles and become half of the next stage of automobile products. It can be said that whoever can do a good job in hybrid power will be half a step ahead in the next market.

How can we build the next generation of cars? This is a question that the industry has been thinking about. In Lao Li's view, if we want to think about the next iterative development of automobile products, we must first find out the reasons for the changes in the industrial development stage. From the perspective of supply and demand, product change has two core driving forces:

The first core driving force is consumption upgrading, which is characterized by wealth, population and culture.

From the perspective of wealth attributes, in the past decade, China's economy has entered a period of steady growth, household users have accumulated more assets, and the domestic consumer market has gradually changed from just-needed consumption to quality consumption.

In terms of demographic attributes, the mainstream consumer groups of automobiles in China include the post-90s and post-1970s Mesozoic. The former is younger, while the latter, as a high-net-worth group, pursues quality.

From the perspective of cultural attributes, due to the rise of China's comprehensive national strength, it has gradually formed stronger cultural self-confidence, and the rise of national trends and independent brands has benefited from cultural self-confidence.

Seeing this, we can understand why Wei brand is named after coffee and why Wei brand can be recognized by young people and high net worth people in this era.

The second core driving force is technological upgrading, which is characterized by electrification, intelligence and networking.

In the past twenty years, China has formed the most complete technical system and infrastructure of automobile industry in the world. The time, energy, transportation and communication of the new automobile have been fully integrated, and the synergistic effect among the elements has begun to show the incomparable advantages of any country in the world, creating the best innovation environment for China automobile enterprises.

Generally speaking, in recent ten years, China's comprehensive national strength has grown rapidly, and at the same time, it has formed a strong cultural self-confidence. Cultural self-confidence has promoted the formation of a more unique way of life and car use, and the market has also formed a multi-level and diversified demand structure. In this process, China automobile enterprises seized the opportunity from quantitative change to qualitative change.

Wei brand, a brand that obviously broke through and hoped to occupy the luxury car market, was born under this historical background.

Who is playing in China market?

In the transition stage, China automobile market has become the forefront of the global automobile market. It can be said that China automobile market has one of the most critical user groups in the world, and this user group is also a high net worth group in the current capital market:

That is, those 30-45-year-old men who live in first-and second-tier cities, are married and have two children, are in a period of rising career, and can balance work life and family well with themselves.

They are rational and pragmatic, and belong to the social backbone with high speed and high knowledge. Whoever can meet their needs will have the opportunity to define a new China automobile market.

Therefore, we see that Weilai and Ideality are striving for these users, and joint venture car companies are striving for these users. As a new force in China's transformation, Micro-Pie is also serving these users.

Joint venture car companies, new forces and other parties are promoting product upgrades. At present, joint venture car companies still occupy half of the traditional car market in China, but they no longer have the ability to lead the consumption standards three years ago. On the contrary, in terms of electrification and intelligence, most joint venture car products have no obvious advantages, and their products are only "enough" for users.

In Lao Li's view, the reason why joint venture car companies are gradually lagging behind is because this round of car reform is not only a process of anti-globalization of the market, but also a process of anti-globalization of business models and product definitions. Only the strong ones who have evolved in their respective ecosystems are more capable of occupying a broader market.

In the era of electrification and intelligence, there are great differences in the ecology, culture and lifestyle of mobile Internet in different parts of the world, and localized products are often more competitive.

Therefore, in the new development stage, China automobile enterprises have more advantages. The new creative force represented by Wei Xiaoli has led the changes in the connotation and extension of automobile products in the direction of electrification and intelligence, representing the development trend of industry changes and making products "easy to use".

However, these products are not impeccable. In Lao Li's view, the new forces need to be further strengthened in the field of vehicle underlying technology, such as vehicle handling, comfort and reliability. These technologies must be accumulated over time.

Relatively speaking, the advantages of China automobile's high-quality transformation power represented by Wei brand will be more obvious in this round of transformation.

From the perspective of consumption and technology upgrading, Wei brand really broke through the past product cognition, which not only gave the connotation and extension of automobile renewal, but also made the innovative attribute of products surpass the users' favorite points and formed the logic of "planting grass".

Blue Mountain conforms to the logic of "planting grass", and its product attribute is "0 anxiety intelligent electric".

According to the official statement, Blue Mountain is a six-seat comfortable electric SUV under the brand positioning of "0 Anxiety Smart Electric" and under the guidance of Wei brand, and it is the core flagship model to consolidate the brand positioning of "0 Anxiety Smart Electric".

In Lao Li's words, the core advantage of Blue Mountain is that it not only takes into account the needs of users in the fields of electrification and intelligence, but also takes into account the handling, comfort and quality of vehicles, bringing a comprehensive user experience and making users feel that the car experience is "better".

Enlarged to the industry level, the logic of "planting grass" in Blue Mountain has helped the automobile industry find a breakthrough beyond users' expectations in the transformation of electrification and intelligence.

Who can define the next generation of cars?

Many friends in the secondary market often ask Lao Li what kind of products will be recognized by users in the future?

The answer given by Lao Li is that those products that can deeply understand the needs of users in China market segment must be the mainstream products in the future, and these products will also be the most important part of China automobile market in the future.

At present, some pure electric products have proved themselves. Facing the future, new products represented by Blue Mountain will also play an important role.

Specifically, users of Blue Mountain have more "hi points", which help to define Blue Mountain and the next generation of cars, and can be summarized into three aspects:

The first is the super power advantage, which is the core technology of the enterprise. Lanshan is equipped with series-parallel DHT architecture, which consists of 1.5T high thermal efficiency engine+130kW high integrated DHT gearbox +44.5kWh high energy density battery pack +220kW high performance electric rear drive axle.

Lao Li briefly explained that the advantage of this system lies in supporting various working modes such as pure electric drive, series drive, parallel drive, energy recovery, idle stop, direct drive and parallel drive, while the general hybrid system cannot support so many working modes.

Let's take the ideal L8 as an example. It is equipped with an extended-range engine and can only be used as a battery to generate electricity. It can't be directly driven, and the driving methods are not so rich.

The advantage of multiple driving modes is that it can achieve a perfect balance between power and fuel consumption in various driving scenarios.

The fuel consumption in Blue Mountain City is 35%-50% lower than that in conventional vehicles, 10%- 15% lower than that in series mode at high speed, and 18%-25% lower than that in series mode at high speed and heavy load. It can be said that a full-speed scene and an efficient and high-performance travel experience have been realized.

The second is high-level intelligent driving. Blue Mountain is equipped with a coffee pilot 2.5 intelligent assisted driving system for intelligent driving of coffee.

This system takes "safety first" as the underlying logic, superimposes redundant perception ability, realizes multiple scene coverage, and can provide users with a more powerful, universal and safer intelligent driving experience. In the field of intelligence, the advantages of China automobile enterprises will be more obvious in the future.

The third is good space and comfortable experience. Lao Li has always mentioned the definition of product localization in China. In fact, China car companies often know more about the needs of China users than foreign car companies, while China users need more space and better experience.

Blue Mountain is well optimized in space. One or two rows of seats can be connected into a big bed in a few seconds. With three-temperature air conditioning and large skylight, a camping feeling can be formed in the carriage.

In addition, Blue Mountain is also equipped with experiential configurations such as steering wheel heating, NAPPA leather seats, seat memory, and 25-inch enhanced HUD to alleviate and avoid sedentary fatigue, visual fatigue and mental fatigue during driving.

From the perspective of industrial development, in the past few years, the new power of building cars has defined the next generation of pure electric vehicles to a certain extent. In the future, with the development of new power architecture, hybrid vehicles will also become an important part of the market. At present, Weipai Blue Mountain is entering this core circle and becoming a milestone of the next generation of vehicles.

This article comes from autocarweekly, the author of Che Yi, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.