Cheng Yuan: Dwarfing and vilifying independent brands is not a good trend

On July 6, CNGC released the results of the second batch of C-NCAP models this year. The Geely Global Hawk GX7 received a “super five-star” safety rating of 50.3 points. This is the first "super five-star" obtained by China's auto brand. However, its biggest highlight is not yet there, but it is beyond all the joint venture brands involved in collision detection.

On the surface, the 15 models participating in this collision have five models of their own brands and joint venture models, and they have received five-star and above evaluations in equal numbers. However, from the point of view of scoring, Geely GX7 obtained the highest score of this evaluation, and was the fourth highest score among all 172 models since the collision of C-NCAP. In the SUV field, it surpassed the popular foreign brands such as Volkswagen Tiguan, Subaru Forester, and Beijing Hyundai ix35.

As everyone knows, China is the most competitive auto market in the world today, and it is also the market with the largest number of global auto brands. The C-NCAP test object includes all car brands that enter the Chinese market. Therefore, the C-NCAP test is a car safety “Olympiad”. The highest score in this test is the same as getting a “car Olympic gold medal”. Zhao Hang, director of the China National Steam Turbine Research Center, commented: "At present, independent brands are not inferior to joint venture brands in terms of safety performance."

All along, people think that there is a big difference between self-owned brands and joint-venture brands. Self-owned brands are synonymous with poor quality, and “self-owned brands” are not safe. The GX7 comprehensively surpassed the joint venture brands in terms of safety, represented a leap in the quality control of Geely, and was well-known for its own brand image in China. It marked an important turning point in the Chinese auto brand and brought Geely to bring confidence to its own brands, which is of great significance.

However, the social repercussions caused by this incident were not as strong as expected, although afterwards, Geely Group also held a press conference specifically to introduce the “behind the scenes” of the collision. Is everyone not paying attention to car safety issues and not caring?

I remember that at the beginning of C-NCAP in 2006, Geely participated in the collision test for the first time. The free ship only scored 28.4 points and won two stars. The community immediately burst into heat and did not rule out someone being surprised but someone really gloated. Today when Geely scored a "super five-star" crash, those cynics were silent. Two contrasts, what is the difference between love. No wonder, Zhao Hang said with emotion: "We have some people who think very strangely, that is, we can't see our own brand."

Here we must especially talk about the recent “feeling” of Liu Jinliang, vice president of Geely Group and general manager of the sales company: “Now the atmosphere of independent brands is not very good. There are many articles in the media, and there are more articles about self-owned brands for another 35 years. There may be only half left, and we continue to ask questions: Can independent brands continue to survive and develop? How do independent brands stand out? How do independent brands go out of all directions? And so on." He believes that "this kind of public opinion environment is not conducive to the overall development of independent brands."

Although these arguments are not directed at Geely, because the auto market as a whole was down in the first half of this year, and most of its own brands had negative growth, Geely still had a growth rate of 4.2%, completing 48.3% of its sales target of 460,000 units this year. The year-on-year increase of 200%. In particular, the Emgrand EC7 has grown by 16% and its monthly sales volume has reached 13,000, which is a very good sales performance. However, "Brothers smashed on the wall, and defended their humiliation", seeing that other independent brands had a hard time, Liu Jinliang was also uncomfortable in his heart. He had a feeling of "death and cold". He believes that "the independent brand as a whole has development and progress, Geely has the atmosphere, there is space, the domestic own brand is not good, have an impact on Geely." The so-called "one glory and one glory, one loss and one loss."

Some Chinese “experts” do not like independent brands, and they always feel that there are too many Chinese brands. Transnational corporations all over the world have come in, and so many joint ventures have been established. They are not too many. They have always insisted on "opposing the spread of scattered chaos." In their view, because of the independent brands, the Chinese auto industry has been "scattered" before it "disorderly" and only "poor", so it strongly advocates "increase the intensity of mergers and reorganizations." To own brand hurry to be merged with others, hurry out of the market. A Chinese auto industry that is not dominated by its own brand and dominated by foreign brands will not be a “scattered mess”, it will be quiet, and it will be from a “car big country” to a “car powerhouse.”

We know that it is precisely because of the long-term “opposition against scattered disparities,” that local companies are not allowed to build cars, and the good market is handed over to foreign brands, so that local companies miss the best opportunity for development, which leads to today’s joint venture companies dominating the world. We may as well count the number of auto joint ventures in the Chinese market today, and how many are our own brands. ?

Because they do not like their own brands, their own brand size out of something, some people gloat over, add fuel, fried speculation, desperately ugly, dwarf their own brands. The achievements made by independent brands are ignored. Shenzhen 5.26 traffic accident is one. The accident investigation has not yet come out. They assert that BYD's battery is insecure and desperately splashed dirty water on BYD. The investigation results prove BYD's innocence. They also insist that "BYD is difficult to withdraw from the crowd" and that it is unwilling for Chinese companies to do well.

At present, independent brands have encountered unprecedented difficulties, but this is the result of industrial policy-oriented errors, and is not the reason why independent brands do not work hard. The independent brand is really struggling. For example, the Geely Global Hawk GX7 “Super Five Star” uses 45 key safety technologies, develops 42 patents, conducts 107 vehicle collision tests, 128 slide experiments, and 200 verifications for zero and 400 overall experiments. . In Zhao Fuquan's words, it was "a few hundred engineers, days and nights of a few years".

It is not a simple accumulation of technology to achieve five-star safety. We must ensure that every car on the assembly line meets the design criteria. For the self-owned brand, there are still cost control problems, because after all, it is only a car with a cost of about RMB 100,000. It is too high in configuration, has too high material requirements, and cannot be used without restrictions. on".

It is necessary to create a good car that is safe and affordable for the people, to achieve a balance between cost and security, to do a good job of technology, to do well, but also to do it cheaply, to build a safe civilian vehicle. A safe luxury car is mostly difficult. Who knows how hard it is?