Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Recently, a short video of "buying a Mercedes-Benz EQC was ridiculed by Tesla" has gone viral on the Internet. A Mercedes-Benz EQC owner said he received a call from Tesla sales and received a "sneer and mockery" after telling him that he had bought a Mercedes-Benz EQC.

In the comment area of the video, many netizens not only did not criticize the sales attitude, but also joined the queue of ridicule.

Photo Source: Douyin user @ Pippi's food and drink although what kind of car to buy is entirely a personal preference, there is really no need to "ridicule". But this reflects that the electrified road of BBA (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi) in China is really not good.

Take Mercedes-Benz, for example, the monthly sales of all three EQA / B / C models are no more than 1000. In September this year, statistics showed that the monthly sales of the three models were 277, 213 and 235 respectively. The higher-priced EQS may even sell less than 100 vehicles a month.

Even such unbearable sales are based on terminal discounts of as much as 300000 yuan. The current terminal discount of EQC, which starts at 491900 yuan, ranges from 10 yuan to 180000 yuan, while the terminal discount of EQS has been exposed that there can be no more than 300000 yuan.

At the same time, another point of concern is that the report by Oliver Wyman shows that the average cost of producing an electric car in 2020 is 45% higher than that of a fuel car, and even by 2030, it is expected to be about 9% higher. AlixPartners's Global Automotive Outlook 2022 also shows that the average raw material cost per fuel vehicle in the United States is $3662, while the average raw material cost of electric vehicles is $8255, more than twice as high.

Tu Yuan: Oliver Wyman Consulting, that is to say, the original set of mature cost calculation formula has also failed. If you want to ensure the same profit margin, electric cars need to be sold more expensive than the same class of fuel-fueled cars. But at present, Mercedes-Benz electric cars, whether the guidance price or the terminal price, are basically the same as the current fuel vehicles of the same brand, and even cheaper than the same class fuel vehicles.

Mercedes-Benz is not alone. The other two BMWs and Audi are basically in a similar situation.

The problems of changing oil to electricity and intelligence are all platitudes, but in fact, not all the problems lie in product power.

Pincha has tried to drive high-end BBA electric cars such as BMW iX and Mercedes-Benz EQS. They are not oil to electricity, auxiliary driving experience is also good, although intelligence is not as strong as the new power, but with CarPlay can also meet the needs of many users. In terms of driving experience, BBA's car can make people understand what is "ginger or old spicy".

However, these cars are too high-end imported models, even the relatively cheap BMW iX costs about 700000 yuan. And relatively cheap models, the product power is insufficient. If BBA can reduce dimension, it may still have a chance to win, but the product model of BBA in the era of fuel cars makes it very difficult to "reduce dimension."

The premise of a reduced-dimensional strike is the emergence of more high-end technology. At present, the technological leadership of BBA is not obvious-at least from the average consumer side.

There is often a joke on the Internet that my blind date doesn't like my Audi R8, saying it's not as good as Porsche. Although this kind of joke is not credible, people think that the reason why Porsche is more advanced is that the cheapest model of Porsche has to land at about 600000 yuan, and even if Audi has a car of 2 million yuan, most people see it every day. most of them are domestic Audi models with no more than 500000 yuan. The product front is very long, which is one of the characteristics of BBA. The battle line is very long, it is necessary to consider the positioning of the series of electric products in the camp, so that it does not impact the already well-selling tankers.

Take the MLB (MLB evo) platform model as an example, it can cover many brands of Volkswagen Group, ranging from the most high-end Bentley Timberline and Lamborghini URUS to luxury brands such as Porsche Macan and Cayenne to Audi and Volkswagen. From time to time, there is a controversial topic that XX is a replacement of shell XX. However, through the adjustment of the engine, gearbox and various configurations, or even the different adjustments of the same engine, car companies can easily distinguish different models into "three, six or nine grades".

Under the same brand, it can even be subdivided into different grades of models. For example, the Audi A6 has not only sedan and travel versions (Avant, allroad), but also high-performance S6 and RS 6. There are so many differences in performance and configuration that it doesn't even feel like there is any relationship between A6 and RS 6.

However, after entering the electric era, this "knife method" is not easy to use.

Among Audi's current electric cars, only e-tron GT has launched the RS version and e-tron has the S version. From the overseas price point of view, although the price difference between the e-tron GT and RS versions overseas is about 300000 yuan, the gap between the two cars is very small, not only continuing the era of fuel cars, Audi's ancestral appearance of "pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger" (that is, high-performance models look similar to the ordinary version), in the actual performance parameters, the difference between the two cars is less than one second.

E-tron GT source: Audi similarly, the top version of Mercedes-Benz AMG EQS 53 and EQS also has a gap of about 200000 yuan in the guidance price, and the performance gap between the two cars is not big. Some netizens even joked that if there is AMG EQS 63, is there still an engineer winding the signed motor by hand? It can be seen that, without the engine and gearbox, there are obviously fewer places for car companies to cut the knife.

Not only the high-end performance is not good to do, ordinary luxury models also have the same problem. In the past, it was said that Q5 could refute the idea of changing the shell, but now the Q5 e-tron and Volkswagen ID.6, which are almost the same platform and size, may not be too much to say, and even the drum brake of the ID.6 is "inherited" to the Q5 e-tron intact.

That's why BBA can't reduce the dimension of the attack. In terms of electrification and intelligence, BBA does not see many technological advantages compared with the new power, but in order to maintain the complex product line logic left behind by the fuel era, BBA has to put the best technology on the top models. On the other hand, more people-friendly models are only equipped with "oil to electricity".

If BBA has higher-end technology in the field of new energy, then it can be devolved layer by layer. In other words, BBA will have to lag behind the new generation in order to ensure the differentiation of its high-end models when it comes to more mobile money. If BBA can be 2-3 generations ahead of other brands in technology, it can solve this problem. But none of them can do it right now.

The new technology is first used for the most high-end models, and the logic itself is fine, but the question arises again: can the electric BBA still support that price?

The "omnipotent" BYD reflects a situation in the current market. On the Internet, when we look at some luxury pure electric models and even pure electric sports cars, we often see comments like "30 seconds?" that's about the same as more than 300,000 BYD, why should I buy this million-dollar car? " . Basically, if zero hundred acceleration is used as the target standard, BYD's car is more "omnipotent".

This is the case not only at home, but also abroad. After Audi e-tron GT was released, some foreign netizens made a comparison picture. From the point of view of zero-hundred acceleration, RS e-tron GT is not as good as the high-performance version of Tesla Model 3 whose price is less than half of its own.

Figure source: the phenomenon of the network reflects a major feature of the electrified era: the performance parameters on paper can not open the gap. The advantages of BBA are also lost on the stability and ride comfort of engine and gearbox. This is another reason why BBA needs to "reduce dimension strike", it is because their current electrified technology can not support the most high-end price of BBA.

However, in the chassis adjustment, BBA's electric car has won a lot of praise in the media circle, and it is generally believed that the gap between driving and the new power can be felt.

Indeed, performance cannot be measured only in terms of zero-hundred acceleration. However, it is a pity that most consumers are different from car media people who have driven a lot of cars, especially for young consumers, if they have not driven too many cars, in fact, ordinary people will not be able to distinguish between the advantages and disadvantages of the chassis. In this node that is gradually entering the "self-driving era", the feeling of driving control will be more and more ignored. At the same time, in the Internet era, the feeling of driving control is the most difficult to convey directly to users, and everyone will have different feelings, and everyone can only draw a conclusion after a test drive.

The problem goes round and back to the original origin: the high end of the BBA is too expensive for most people to afford, and the power of the low-end products is too poor to be on the "waiting list" of many people, let alone a test drive.

Finally, I would like to talk about whether the BBA brand is still valuable. When consumers thoroughly understand that fuel vehicles and electric vehicles are two different products, more and more consumers can understand this, then the brand value of BBA in the field of electric vehicles will be lower and lower. Only when they can come up with a popular product that is unique in the market, will people re-recognize their sense of existence and brand power in the field of electric cars.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:Ping-Drive, author: JimmyMa

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