Geely Krypton： Krypton or Ketella？

On March 23rd, Geely announced the establishment of a new company "Extreme Krypton", focusing on the forward-looking technology research and development in the field of intelligent pure electricity. At first glance, I thought Polar Star and Link had knocked out CP.

According to reports, the company is Geely’s new intelligent pure electric vehicle enterprise, Li Shufu is the chairman of the company, and An Conghui is the CEO of the company.

Earlier, foreign media reported that Geely was planning to launch a new high-end electric vehicle brand Zeekr, which was against Tesla.

Extreme krypton? Geek? Immediately? One of the profound meanings contained in the new brand name may be that Gui Shengyue, the chief executive officer and executive director of Geely Automobile Holdings Co., Ltd., said at the Geely Automobile Performance Meeting that "it’s extremely embarrassing that it’s spot, not futures".

He explained: "We don’t tell a PPT cake about the future products like others, but we have ready-made products as soon as they are launched. It is a natural result to set up extreme krypton."

Naturally or trial and error adjustment

At present, Geely already owns Geometry, Polar Star, Maple Leaf, Polar Krypton, and smart, which is a joint venture. If you add the long-distance car and London electric car under Geely New Energy Commercial Vehicle Group, there are already seven new energy brands under Geely Holding.

It is inevitable that there will be a comparison in the composition of the same topic.

Among them, the most controversial is the "polar star", which also takes the high-end route, is also a new energy source, and also advertises intelligence and has a very similar name.

In 2017, Volvo and Geely established the brand "Polar Star" for the luxury electric vehicle market, trying to benchmark Tesla.

However, the identity of the rich second generation failed to make the polar star out of the circle successfully. On the contrary, it got up early and caught a late episode. From the establishment to the delivery, and then to the opening of the first store in October 2019, the long timeline made it take a low-key route and gradually disappeared in the vigorous ppt of the new car.

In February of this year, Polar Star Media Center released, and Polestar 1 officially opened the scheduled channel in 2021. Subsequently, less than ten days after the global booking, Polestar1 was reported to be discontinued at the end of the year. According to the official, Polestar1, as the first model of Polar Star brand, has always existed as a limited number of 500 vehicles per year, and the price is as high as 1.45 million yuan.

Judging from the available data, in November 2019, Polar Star said that the number of pre-orders received by Polestar 1 worldwide has exceeded the production capacity of Polar Star in the first year, but no specific figures have been announced; In 2020, domestic motor vehicle insurance data showed that Polestar 1 had only 24 vehicles.

Last August, Polar Star officially said that it would sell Polestar 2 in China, Europe and the United States at a price of 338,000 yuan. The company’s goal is to sell more than 50,000 units in two to three years. I am afraid whether it can be achieved or not will be a question mark.

If we stretch the lens to observe Geely’s layout and goals in the new energy level, we can find that the word "yaw" can completely summarize the results of previous actions.

In 2015, Geely proposed the "Blue Geely Action" plan: by 2020, Geely’s new energy vehicle sales will account for over 90% of the total sales. Among them, the sales of pure electric vehicles accounted for 35%, and the plug-in hybrid and oil-electric hybrid accounted for 65%.

The time nodes set in that year have all passed, but the results are not optimistic.

According to Geely’s 2020 performance report, the total sales volume of new energy and electrified vehicles (including EV, HEV, MHEV and PHEV) of Geely Automobile was 68,000, down nearly 40% compared with 2019.

In response to this result, Li Shufu admitted that the "Blue Geely Plan" was "not completed as scheduled". "But it is not surprising that this is not a mistake in strategic direction or a failure in strategic implementation, but that the historical opportunity is not mature and the external strategic conditions are not formed."

At the same time, he also announced that Geely has formed "two blue Geely action plans":

Blue Geely Action Plan 1: Intelligent energy-saving and new energy-saving vehicles, which are embodied in hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, extended-range plug-in hybrid vehicles and small-displacement energy-saving vehicles.

Blue Geely Action Plan II: Intelligent pure electric vehicles, set up a brand-new pure electric vehicle company, and actively participate in the competition in the intelligent pure electric vehicle market.

Extreme krypton is the latter. Some media said that it was Geely’s "casting a net everywhere" that made it extremely awkward, but from another perspective, the appearance of extremely awkward is more like keeping up with the trend and correcting the previous route.

When will you not play at this time?

At the beginning of 2021, new energy has become the topic that is the easiest to win the "greatest common denominator", which makes the capital like it, but also gives the car companies a chicken blood.

According to statistics, as of the end of February this year, there have been 13 investment and financing businesses in the field of new energy vehicles in China, mainly including private placement, introduction of strategic investment and listing financing, involving BYD, Evergrande, Zero Run, Hechuang and Faraday Future.

Turning into a new energy high-end player has become the first choice for traditional car companies.

In May last year, SAIC passenger car released a brand-new high-end pure electric exclusive brand R car, and officially entered the field of high-end new energy vehicles; In July, Dongfeng Company released its brand-new high-end electric brand, named "Lantu" in Chinese; In January this year, Zhiji Automobile, jointly built by SAIC, Alibaba and Pudong New Area, officially released the brand of high-end intelligent pure electric vehicles; In February, it was reported that BYD will launch a high-end brand, and the first model dolphin will be officially launched in the second half of the year; In March, the Great Wall high-end electric vehicle brand "Salon Zhixing" was formally established.

Old friends keep rushing forward, how can Geely hold back?

In January this year alone, on the 11th, Geely Holding and Baidu set up a smart electric vehicle company, which became a strategic partner of Baidu Electric Vehicle Company. On the 12th, Geely Holding signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with Chuanhua Group Co., Ltd.; On the 13th, Geely Holding teamed up with Foxconn to form a joint venture company to provide OEM and customized consulting services for global automobile and travel companies. On the 29th, Geely Holding officially announced its cooperation with Faraday Future (hereinafter referred to as FF).

Frequent actions, what you want, are tacit.

At this performance meeting, when talking about why Geely Automobile and Geely Holding Group (including employee investment platform and user rights platform) jointly invested, Li Donghui, CEO of Geely Holding Group, said bluntly: "Extreme will seek overseas listing in the future, and the current equity design is also to maintain flexibility for introducing strategic investors."

In addition, in Gui Shengyue’s view, the reason why Krypton can compete head-on with the new car-making forces is that it has four advantages: first, the technological leadership of the vast architecture of pure electric platforms; Second, the advantages of Geely’s collectivization can give Krypton the initiative; Third, the advantages of scale, vast architecture as an open platform, can reduce research and development costs and enhance supply chain capabilities; Fourth, An Conghui personally became the CEO, which can mobilize the resources of the entire Geely Automobile Group to cooperate with the development of Krypton automobile.

Some insiders said that Geely’s resource advantage is the best among its own, but whether it can beat the new car makers with four advantages remains to be discussed. The future growth direction of krypton still depends on whether it can get rid of the shadow of "Polar Star 2".