Has SAIC's self-owned business bounced back after six months of reform?

In the past nine months or so, SAIC's efforts have not been in vain.

From January to June, SAIC Motor achieved "six consecutive months of growth" in sales. The cumulative wholesale volume reached 2.053 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 12.4%.

It is worth mentioning that SAIC Motor's terminal delivery volume in the first half of the year reached 2.207 million vehicles, 154,000 more than the wholesale volume, which proves that it is effectively resolving the problem of inventory backlog.

While the total sales volume increased, the sales structure of SAIC Motor also became more balanced. In the first half of the year, its new energy vehicle sales reached 646,300 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 40.19%.

With the rapid growth of new energy vehicles, SAIC's self-owned brands have also risen. In the first half of the year, the cumulative sales volume was 1.304 million vehicles, accounting for 63.5% of the group's total sales volume.

Although Wuling is still the main force in this sales volume of 1.3 million vehicles (764,500 vehicles); SAIC Passenger Vehicle has also achieved relatively high growth. The sales volume of Roewe and MG increased by 15% and 32% respectively compared with the same period last year.

Currently, SAIC Passenger Vehicle's sales are still mainly fuel vehicles. In the future, with the concentrated launch of new energy products, it is expected that the sales volume will continue to grow.

Of course, objectively speaking, joint ventures, especially SAIC Volkswagen, are still the most important profit generators for SAIC Motor. Therefore, SAIC's self-owned brands still need to solve the problem of "quality" in the future, and this heavy responsibility will fall on IM and Shangjie.

NO.1 [Make Friends with Young People]

At the end of June, SAIC MG held a summer new product launch. When Chen Cui, the new general manager of the brand division, stepped onto the stage, the audience had two exclamations: handsome and young.

From Zhang Liang to Lu Jiajun, to Zhou Xing of the post-90s generation, and then to Chen Cui, a real post-90s, the leaders of the MG brand have become younger and younger in the past few years, which also represents that MG is trying its best to make friends with young people.

On Chen Cui's debut stage, on the left side, there is the "young people's first coupe", the MG5, with a zero-to-hundred acceleration of 6.9 seconds. It is known as the most powerful small hot hatch within 100,000 yuan, including new energy vehicles.

On the right side is the "young people's first convertible sports car", the MG Cyberster. The price of 300,000 yuan may not be cheap for young people, but for 300,000 yuan, you can buy the freedom of a convertible, and there is no other option in the entire market.

MG's next task is to fill the price range between the MG5 and the MG Cyberster with 13 new energy models within two years.

At Chen Cui's debut, MG announced its full commitment to new energy

According to Chen Cui, the cumulative investment in these 13 new cars is as high as 10 billion yuan, covering various categories such as sedans, SUVs, sports cars, and shooting brakes.

There are doubts about whether a century-old brand with a sports car gene can manage so many categories at the same time. And MG's answer is "YOUNG FOREVER". All products revolve around the three keywords of "youthful, intelligent and interesting, fashionable".

Young people's lives are fully surrounded by intelligence, so in August, the new MG4 will be equipped with an intelligent cockpit solution jointly developed by SAIC and OPPO over five years.

"We can provide the most powerful mobile-phone and car interconnection experience in the current market, supporting seamless connection of all Android systems. In the future, it will cover all mobile phone brands, including Apple." Yu Jingmin, the executive deputy general manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicle, said.

In addition, SAIC and OPPO also plan to cooperate in the channel. In the middle of this month, the new MG4 will first enter seven OPPO stores in shopping malls.

In addition to intelligence, young people also pursue unique beauty. It is expected that after the new MG4, MG's first boxy car, the Cyber X, will officially debut.

This car was previously unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show. Its design is by the famous design master, Josef Kaban, the creator of the Bugatti Veyron. Different from other boxy cars on the market, this car combines a sense of power with a sense of sportiness and science fiction.

In addition, this car also has some very clever designs. When its front headlights open, it reminds people of the Porsche 928 in the 1970s and 1980s, the first-generation Mazda MX-5, and the AE86, the king of Mount Akina in the hearts of countless car fans.

The MG Cyber X with flip-up headlights was unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show

Before the Shanghai Auto Show, the author had the honor to visit the real Cyber X in Anting, Shanghai. Of course, the key point is that we also saw two other models of the Cyber series at that time.

Although what we saw at that time was still a relatively rough version, we could still feel that the Kaban team was pursuing a kind of beauty that can help young people express their individuality and not follow the crowd.

In recent years, the success of "Xiaomi" has once again proved the importance of appearance. Sometimes it is very difficult to make friends with young people, and sometimes all it takes is a pleasing appearance.

NO.2 [Roewe Can't Afford to Lose in the Plug-in Hybrid Battle]

If MG pursues unique beauty, then Roewe pursues the beauty that is steady, grand, and in line with the mainstream of the times.

Regardless of the past of these two brands, the reality in front of Yu Jingmin is that it is difficult for them to differentiate in terms of price range. Therefore, Roewe needs to tell another story.

Not long ago, Roewe held a brand day event, emphasizing again that it builds cars for mainstream family users and extracting three core values of "value for money, decent, and reliable".

The Roewe M7 DMH, also designed by Master Kaban, and Qian Yang, the brand general manager who is also a post-90s, made their debut together at the event.

Roewe may be the self-owned brand in Chinese automotive history that has tried to go high-end the most times. After repeated failures, in late 2023, it launched the Roewe D7 and announced that it would refocus on mainstream family users. Even the Feifan brand returned last year.

However, due to years of constant up-and-down and back-and-forth, Roewe's brand image has become blurred. The high-end and intelligent sense that had just begun to sprout has disappeared, and brand reshaping requires time and accumulation.

Therefore, although SAIC's DMH hybrid technology can compete with BYD and Geely in key indicators such as range and energy consumption, several plug-in hybrid products of Roewe, such as the D7, D5X, and iMAX8 DMH, have been performing mediocrely. The best-selling D7 only has a monthly sales volume of about 2,000 vehicles.

Currently, the Roewe i5, with a terminal starting price of less than 50,000 yuan, is still the mainstay supporting Roewe's sales. To some extent, Roewe's transformation is more urgent than MG's, after all, the latter still has the overseas market as a foundation.

This year, the DMH technology has accumulated a certain market reputation. In addition, Roewe has launched a zero spontaneous combustion commitment and a lifetime warranty policy for the three-electric system, which is applicable to all owners regardless of the number of years of use and mileage. The sales volume of DMH models has begun to improve, with a year-on-year increase of 29%. The pure-electric Roewe D6, which was launched not long ago, also achieved a monthly sales volume of 2,000 vehicles.

Design master Josef Kaban unveiled the prototype of the Roewe M7 DMH

However, for Roewe to truly regain its vitality, it needs more new energy vehicles with high sales volume. The M7 DMH is a model that they pin high hopes on, and the real car has already arrived at the dealerships.

This car is positioned as a mid-large plug-in hybrid sedan, and its direct competitors include the popular Galaxy Xingyao 8 and the BYD Han DM-i. Its exterior design follows a grand and steady style. The biggest feature is the use of a waterfall-style front grille, which has high recognition in the homogeneous new energy vehicle market. As a latecomer, Roewe is likely to adopt a more aggressive pricing strategy than its competitors.

Regarding the future product plan, Qian Yang, the new brand leader, said: "With models firmly established in the 50,000-yuan, 60,000-yuan, and 70,000-yuan price ranges, we will launch products that can stand out in the 80,000-yuan, 90,000-yuan, 100,000-yuan, and 110,000-yuan price ranges, and move forward steadily step by step."

NO.3 [Which One is the 'Favorite Son': IM or Shangjie?]

Roewe and MG are showing signs of stability and improvement. In contrast, IM has had a tougher time.

In the first half of the year, IM Motors' cumulative sales volume was 19,158 vehicles, a year-on-year decline of 14.67%. Meanwhile, other state-owned high-end new energy brands such as Voyah and Avita have achieved a stable monthly sales volume of over 10,000 vehicles.

"If the sales volume is not good, then launch range-extended models" has become an industry practice. Last year, the cumulative sales volume of range-extended models reached 1.167 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 78.7%, far exceeding the growth rate of the passenger vehicle market (8.5%) and pure-electric vehicles (26%) in the same period.

In the third and fourth quarters of this year, IM will also launch two range-extended models respectively, the range-extended version of the IM LS6 and the new large SUV, the IM LS9.

According to the information about the range-extended version of the IM LS6 disclosed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, its range-extended technology will adopt the "large battery" solution, with two options of power batteries: 52.1 kWh lithium iron phosphate and 65.9 kWh ternary lithium, providing a longer pure-electric range.

"We will use pure-electric technology to support the range-extended system. Based on SAIC's accumulation in traditional internal combustion engines and combined with advanced three-electric technology, we aim to solve the main pain points of range-extended models, such as short pure-electric range, frequent charging, and low charging efficiency." Liu Tao, the co-CEO of IM Motors, said.

Spy photos of the IM LS9

Although IM is currently in a difficult situation, Wang Xiaoqiu, the chairman of SAIC Motor, still emphasized in public: "IM Motors is SAIC Motor's top project and the only high-end brand. This has never changed since the project was launched and will not change in the future."

Jia Jianxu, the president of SAIC Motor, also said: "All of the group's forward-looking technologies will be first mass-produced in IM models to ensure IM's technological leading edge in the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market."

However, these statements have not stopped the public from paying more attention and having higher expectations for Shangjie, a new project jointly developed by SAIC and Huawei.

It is reported that the Shangjie project has a total investment of 6 billion yuan and a dedicated team of 5,000 people. In April, the Shangjie vehicle production and battery supporting project was officially settled in the Lingang New Area. After the project is put into production, the annual vehicle production capacity of SAIC's Lingang base will increase to 280,000 vehicles.

Currently, it is known that the first model of Shangjie will be priced in the 200,000-yuan range and will be capable of urban NOA, targeting the mid-range market. However, the embarrassing thing is that the main models of IM Motors, the L6 and LS6, are also in the 200,000-yuan range.

How to differentiate between these two brands is a difficult question that Jia Jianxu must answer.

NO.4 [Don't Blame All Problems on the System]

Since the era of Chen Hong, SAIC has been shouting the slogan of reform for many years, but it has been ineffective. The real top-down change took place in July last year, after Wang Xiaoqiu and Jia Jianxu succeeded as the chairman and president of the group respectively.

At the Hongmeng Zhixing press conference in April this year, Yu Chengdong publicly praised that "SAIC is so efficient that it doesn't seem like a state-owned enterprise." Jia Jianxu immediately blocked with one hand and kept saying "No, no, no..."

But in fact, after taking office as the president of SAIC, he publicly stated: "The first problem I reflected on was 'slowness'. There are problems with our processes and systems."

To solve the efficiency problem, SAIC Motor integrated five enterprises, including SAIC Passenger Vehicle Company, SAIC International, the Innovation and Development Research Institute, Zero Beam Technology, and Overseas Mobility, to form the large passenger vehicle segment.

Jia Jianxu serves as the director of the executive management committee of the large passenger vehicle segment. He also takes charge of IM and Shangjie. SAIC's entire organization has become flatter, decision-making has become more efficient, and the barriers between enterprises have been broken, avoiding the repeated investment and waste of resources.

Taking R & D as an example, the R & D work of all brands has returned to the research institute. Through platform-based and standardized development, the development concept of large single products has been better implemented. It is said that after the integration, the BOM cost per vehicle of models such as the IM LS6 has dropped by 30%.

While completing the integration of the large passenger vehicle segment, Jia Jianxu implemented a competitive employment system within SAIC and removed and appointed more than 60 middle-level cadres at once in February this year.

Such a large-scale personnel adjustment shows SAIC's determination