[Autohome Industry] On February 23rd, at the main venue of the Hangzhou Asian Games, a new energy strategy conference was held here. The protagonist was "Geely Galaxy", a brand new mid-to-high-end new energy series under the Geely brand, which recently set off a brand copywriting party in the car circle.
In addition to the regular display of new products, new technologies, and new designs, a group of Geely executives such as An Conghui, Gan Jiayue, and Lin Jie also staged a "chorus" to make crazy calls for Galaxy. It is enough to see how much Geely expects from Galaxy.
Moments has also been scrubbed by various screens, just like Geely’s new brand releases again and again in the past, which have attracted extensive attention in the industry. Interestingly, Great Wall Motors, one of the three major private car companies, also came out to work, posting Weibo "Congratulations to Geely Galaxy for its shining launch", and also warm up for its new energy strategy next month.
But for friends who are familiar with Geely, there will inevitably be questions in their hearts. For Geely, which has a number of brands comparable to Volkswagen, it has already laid out so many electric vehicle brands such as Geometry, Extreme Krypton, Smart, etc. Do you really need to build another Galaxy?
Launch a new "brand" in a month
Just like the polar krypton two years ago, the appearance of the Galaxy also gives people a sense of "hasty launch". According to an industry insider close to Geely, it did not take long for the Galaxy to finalize the project and officially launch it.
In terms of publicity, it only took Geely a month from the first release of the "mid-to-high-end new energy series" to the official release, which can be said to be "efficient".
Geely officials first announced during the Spring Festival that they would launch a new high-end new energy series. Two weeks later, Gan Jiayue, CEO of Geely Automobile Group, announced at the internal annual business work conference that the Geely brand will officially launch the "Geely Brand New Energy Strategy" at the main venue of the Hangzhou Asian Games on February 23, and launch the Geely brand mid-to-high-end new energy series.
On February 16, the mid-to-high-end new energy series was officially named "Geely Galaxy". Many Chinese brands, including Looking Up, Changan Deep Blue, Haval, and Lantu, have released posters to interact with Galaxy.
On February 23rd, at the Galaxy series conference, Geely launched seven cars in one go, including plug-in hybrid and pure electric power, and they will all be launched to the market within two years, which can be called "dumpling-like" speed. Of course, this is also Geely’s magic weapon of winning five years ago, but can it still reap the wonders of the past now?
Lin Jie, vice president of Geely Automobile Group, also bluntly stated in an interview with the media that the overall new energy market had a blowout development last year, but Geely’s efforts in new energy vehicles were not as good as those of fuel vehicles. The launch of the Galaxy series required further labeling of Geely Automobile’s new energy products.
In addition, at the end of last year, Geely also revealed a two-door four-seat micro-electric car, the Panda mini, which was launched earlier this month and priced at 3.99-5 3,900 yuan. For Geely, which has been adhering to upward development, it is still somewhat surprising to see this car for the first time.
But if you think about it carefully, it is actually understandable. At present, the penetration rate of the micro-electric vehicle market is the highest, and the market share will reach nearly 20% in 2022. Although the profit of the mini-car is low, or even sold at a loss, it can be quickly increased. Like the current Wuling, Chery, Changan, Zero Run, Nezha and other brands, most of the electric vehicle sales come from the mini-car.
"Panda mini"
Geely achieved sales of 300,000 new energy vehicles in 2022 without the layout of mini cars. If Panda Mini can provide part of the increase, Geely’s electric vehicle volume can easily reach a new level.
At present, the penetration rate of China’s new energy vehicle market has reached 27.6%, while Geely’s new energy penetration rate in 2022 is only about 24%, failing to catch up with the overall pace of the industry. Automobile is a large-scale industry, and miniature vehicles can provide strong help in the early stage.
In the tide of electrification, the former absolute leader seems to be really anxious this time.
unwilling to be a supporting actor
Last year, BYD’s stunning performance not only stunned Tesla, but also made other Chinese brands "envious and jealous". For Geely, which has always been the top seller of passenger car brands in China, it is conceivable that not only did the electric vehicle market fail, but even the position of the leader was handed over to its former younger brother, BYD.
In 2022, BYD’s annual sales exceeded 1.80 million units, surpassing Geely, which topped the sales list of Chinese passenger car manufacturers, and also opened a gap of more than 500,000 units with Geely. And from the retail data released by the Federation of Passengers, Geely was surpassed by Changan and is currently ranked third.
"Geely feels the crisis, and the reason why it is so anxious to launch the Galaxy is actually to break the dominance of the BYD family. In addition, the new car-making forces that Li Shufu once’disliked ‘are now in a state of prosperity, and it will be too late if he doesn’t hurry up and catch up," said automotive analyst Wang Liang (pseudonym).
From Geely itself, it has also faced the unfavorable situation of sluggish growth in recent years. In 2017, Geely’s sales soared by 54.8%, making it the leader of Chinese passenger car brands. It reached its peak in 2018, and its annual sales increased to 1.47 million vehicles. However, in the following years, Geely’s volume has been hovering between 1.20 million and 1.40 million. During this period, although it launched Bing series and Star series products based on BMA and CMA, it still failed to make a big breakthrough.
During this period, Geely’s various attempts at electrification were also full of resistance. The beauty of ideals is always overwhelmed by reality.
The "Blue Geely Action" launched in 2015 was basically a failure. The goals set: "By 2020, the sales of new energy vehicles will account for more than 90% of Geely’s overall sales", "the sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles and gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles will account for 65%, and the sales of pure electric vehicles will account for 35%" have not been achieved.
Seeing the new forces mass-produce one after another, the volume gradually rises. Tesla’s "big catfish" also does something from time to time. Geely began to carry out the second "Blue Geely Operation".
On February 20, 2021, at a sharing exchange held by Geely, Li Shufu, chairperson of Geely Holding Group, issued a 10,000-character sharing letter, which clearly stated that Geely has formed "two blue Geely action plans".
"Extreme Krypton 001"
Blue Geely Action Plan 1: Mainly focus on energy-saving and new energy vehicles. Including hybrid, plug-in hybrid, extended-range plug-in hybrid, and small-displacement energy-saving vehicles; 90% of them are new energy hybrid vehicles, and about 10% are traditional energy-saving small-displacement vehicles. Blue Geely Action Plan 2: Mainly focus on pure electric smart vehicles, form a new pure electric vehicle company, and actively participate in the competition in the intelligent pure electric vehicle market.
Two months later, Extreme Krypton entered the market, and in 2022, it entered the ranks of monthly sales of over 10,000 with the 001 car. The second plan was considered to have made some progress in the early stages. But the plan was not smooth.
In November of the same year, Gan Jiayue, CEO of Geely Automobile Group, released the "Smart Geely 2025" strategy, comprehensively promoting the "Nine Dragon Bay Action" implemented by "Smart Geely 2025". At the same time, Raytheon Zhiqing Hi · X officially appeared as a weapon for Geely to kill the hybrid market.
This time, Geely also set a grand goal: 2025 to achieve the group’s total sales of 3.65 million vehicles, to maintain the first market share of Chinese brands, catch up with mainstream joint venture brands. Specifically, JK Technology 650,000 vehicles, Geely Automobile Group 3 million vehicles, the domestic market, Geely brand 1.30 million vehicles; Geometry brand 300,000 vehicles; Lynk & Co brand 600,000 vehicles; new technology for electric travel brand 200,000 vehicles, the group’s overall overseas sales 600,000 vehicles.
Focusing may be the way to go
In recent years, Geely has incubated a series of brands such as Lynk & Co, Geometry, Ruilan, and Extreme Krypton. The huge brand army dazzled the outside world.
After the launch of Galaxy, it was also inevitable to clash with other brands under the "Da Geely", returning to the cliché of "having more children is easy to fight".
" (|) "
From the price range, the first to be hit is Lynk & Co. "After the release of Galaxy, the role of Lynk & Co was a little embarrassing," a Lynk & Co 01 owner said to Autohome. At present, in addition to the flagship 09, other new energy models under Lynk & Co are in the 15-300,000 range.
"Looking at Geely’s electric layout in the past few years, brands have emerged in an endless stream, such as the geometric one, the polar krypton separated by Lynk & Co, the Rui Lan after the evolution of Maple Leaf, etc. It seems that Geely has a layout in every field. But from the results, except for the slight improvement of polar krypton, other sectors have not made any achievements." Wang Liang (pseudonym) said in the exchange.
In the "Global New Energy Vehicle Category Trend Research Report" released by Reese, there was also such a strategic comment on Geely: "Although new brands continue to be launched in the new energy field, in Reese’s opinion, the hidden danger lies in the multi-head attack, the brand is out of focus, and the resources are scattered; and the brand gathers high-end and deviates from the main channel."
At present, Geely has as many as 10 brands involved in new energy, including Geely, Geometry, Ruilan, Lynk & Co, JK, Lotus, Polestar, Volvo, Radar, smart, among which the cheapest is the Panda Mini sold from 39,900, Polestar, Lotus The highest price is more than one million.
"Smart Elf #1"
However, in addition to Geely, Ruilan, most brands are basically positioned in the high-end market. 15-300,000 price points are distributed between Lynk & Co, Volvo, Radar, smart, etc.; above the 300,000, Krypton, Polaris, Volvo, Lotus are lined up.
In Wang Liang’s opinion, this is actually related to the competitive horse racing of internal projects in the enterprise. As a result, in addition to being out of focus, brands with similar positioning will also produce certain internal friction.
Today’s Geely may also recognize this problem, put "Galaxy" under the Geely brand, mainly attack the most mainstream 15-300,000 new energy market, and fill the gap in the market outside the Jixing series (China Star, Bing series created by BMA and CMA, etc.) and the geometric series of Volkswagen pure electric products (150,000 the following markets).
However, for Geely, how to do a good job in internal quotas is still the main problem in front of it. Whether Galaxy can help Geely build a "base" in the electric field in the future will also take time to verify. (Text/Autohome Yang Yichun)
