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Li Shufu And Li Bin: Rebuild A New Porsche?

2021/9/7 15:17:00 0

      After four years of gestation, Li Shufu finally handed over the phased answer sheet of the super running brand "lutos".

      On August 31, luters technologies announced its establishment and released its product plan for the next five years. The company, headquartered in Wuhan, will focus on life cars in the future. At the same time, luttes UK will continue to focus on sports cars. The two will work together to form a "dual engine" for brand development.

Luters, from the UK, was founded in 1948 and is known as the "three largest sports car manufacturers in the world" with Ferrari and Porsche. In 2017, Geely Holdings Group acquired 51% of its equity.

According to the latest planning, luttes will start the comprehensive transformation of electrification and intelligence, and enter the emerging track of "super high-end pure electric intelligent car".

In the next five years, lutos will launch three pure electric models, including an E-class SUV, an E-class four door sedan, and a mysterious D-class "pure electric intelligent new species"; After launching the last fuel powered sports car Emira this year, luttes UK will launch a pure electric super run evija and a pure electric trot.

Electrification and intelligence are the general trend of the automobile industry. Geely tries to revitalize the "British aristocrat" who enjoys the glory of the track through transformation.

It's a double try. On the one hand, luttes broke through the category of sports car for the first time, and extended its products to the field of family cars; On the other hand, lutes has turned to electrification. In the construction of follow-up products, intelligence will become a new indicator to interpret "super luxury".

On these two points, the same name as luttes, Porsche is already ahead. Among several super brands, Porsche is the first to launch a family car on a large scale and launch its first pure electric model, taycan, in 2019. The sports car brand sold 270000 units last year, including more than 20000 taycan.

The annual sales target of lutes is 150000, which is the planned capacity of the new Wuhan plant. Feng Qingfeng, CEO of lutos group, said that "there are challenges", but "efforts should still be able to achieve".

Lutes will start a comprehensive transformation of electrification and intelligence. Visual China

Feng Qingfeng is also a senior vice president of Geely Holding Group. He is a veteran of Geely, and has been engaged in sales, manufacturing, project management, research and development. The year after lutos was acquired by Geely, Feng Qingfeng was appointed CEO of lutos group and began to travel frequently between China and Britain.

Although in terms of brand positioning and operation mode, lutes stressed that he was "not a Porsche", Feng Qingfeng could not hide his praise for this "pioneer of super running transformation"“ It not only makes the brand better, but also takes into account the ownership of the sports car 911, and even sells the cheaper products very well. All these are worthy of our study and study. "

It is worth mentioning that the transformation of lutes has also been supported by colleagues in the industry. In addition to Feng Qingfeng and some officials in Wuhan City, Li Bin, the founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, also appeared at the ceremony of the announcement of the establishment of lutes technology. According to the official statement, lutes technology and Weilai capital have signed an investment agreement to jointly promote the development of super high-end pure electric intelligent subdivision circuit.

This is the first time that Li Shufu and Li Bin have really joined hands. In 2019, Weilai has been searching for investors, and Li Shufu is one of the hot spots. Although the two sides did not finally reach cooperation, Li Shufu's attitude towards the new forces of car making had begun to change. As a large-scale automobile group, Geely's cooperation with new forces of car making has gradually begun to take shape. The information disclosed at the beginning of this year shows that Geely has invested in FF (the future of Faraday), and the two sides also plan to cooperate in the fields of technical support and engineering services. From this perspective, the cooperation between Weilai and lutes is also reasonable.

Imagination space of super high end electric vehicle

In fact, the road to the electric transformation of lutes has already begun. In 2018, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the birth of lutos, Geely put forward the brand rejuvenation plan of "vision 80", and Lutus became the first world-class sports car brand to transform to electric and intelligent.

But Luther's transformation is not easy“ Electrification and intellectualization are the development trend of the automobile industry and an opportunity given to us by the times, but the British team did not think clearly at that time. " Feng recalled that it was not until last year that the UK announced a total ban on the sale of fuel vehicles by 2030 that the UK team made it clear that this was the direction for the future.

Roadster brands such as lutes have always been famous for their large displacement engines and extreme performance. With the booming of large displacement engines, they are the image labels of these super luxury sports cars. After electrification, are sports cars still that sports cars?

Although there is a big gap about the brand tonality, the super high-end sports car manufacturers have more or less started the electric transformation. In addition to Porsche, which has launched taycan, Bentley and Ferrari both said that they would launch the first electric vehicle in 2025. Rolls Royce also plans to launch the first pure electric vehicle by 2030, while Lamborghini will launch the first pure electric vehicle between 2025 and 2030.

Electrification is an irreversible trend in the automotive industry, even for super high-end sports car brands. From the point of view of the helmsman, Feng Qingfeng pointed out that under the wave of the industry, "only through transformation can we succeed, and without transformation, we must fail."

But obviously, this is a brand-new market. Judging from the current situation, it is difficult to even predict the size of this market segment.

The global new energy vehicles have just begun to be on the market in recent two years, and the mainstream models are basically popular products. In a domestic consumer survey on the quality of automobile products, the agency even has no way to collect feedback information about luxury brands such as BBA, because the scale is too small, and the sample is not enough to form a reference - while the super high-end brands have stepped up a step, and the market capacity will only be smaller.

In fact, it is challenging to sell 150000 vehicles a year. Although this is only half of the current sales volume of Porsche, the main sales volume of Porsche still comes from traditional fuel vehicles. The annual sales volume of the electric vehicle taycan is only 20000, while luttes is ready to launch all pure electric vehicles, that is to say, all sales support will come from pure electric vehicles.

By comparison, Gaohe, the most advanced pure electric vehicle brand in China, has a starting price of 570000 yuan. At present, it has delivered more than 1000 vehicles in three months, while Weilai, a high-end pure electric brand, has an average transaction price of more than 430000 yuan, with a cumulative sales volume of 55700 vehicles from January to August this year.

According to Feng Qingfeng, the price of lutos family car will be around one million, basically benchmarking with taycan.

"As a super high-end product with a price of more than one million yuan, taycan can sell more than 700 vehicles a month. Such market feedback is excellent. And taycan's product strategy is to move down to the next level, and the target of competing products is to price the products at 900000. I believe that after the launch of this market strategy, its market share will continue to expand. " Feng Qingfeng pointed out that at present, China and many countries in the world are upgrading their consumption. Judging from the data, the market share of super luxury and luxury brands will further increase.

Qingyan, the chief marketing officer of lutes technology, analyzes it from another dimension. At present, the market share of pure electric luxury vehicles is very small. The growth of the market stems from two paths: one is that the users who have already driven pure trams have upgraded to higher-end markets; the other is that users who are still driving luxury fuel vehicles are gradually transferred to the pure electric field. Qingyan points out that the proportion of the second route may be far greater than that of the first, This provides a stronger driving force for the growth of pure electric luxury vehicles in the future.

"At present, the user growth of luxury models, especially luxury SUVs, in China is very fast. If we can provide better products, brands and services in this segment, our market potential will become very big. " Qing Yan said.

Weilai capital and Li Bin, who invested in lutos technology, are obviously optimistic about this market. Li Bin made no secret of his expectations for the super luxury sports car market at the founding ceremony of lutos technology. He believed that in the era of electrification, if the ultra luxury sports car is electrified, it will form a huge blue ocean market.

In fact, there is also a pure electric sports car under Weilai, namely ep9, which is said to be sold for 1.48 million US dollars, about 10 million yuan. Li Bin's investment in lutes technology, the future cooperation between the two sides is also quite imaginable. In this regard, Feng Qingfeng's answer is very vague, but it also makes people think, "Weilai, in addition to capital investment, we will also explore the possibility of more cooperation."

On September 6, a person familiar with the matter told reporters of the 21st century economic report that there would be technical cooperation in the future. According to the analysis, Weilai has a certain technical reserve in the fields of three electric, intelligent driving and intelligent network connection, while luttes has a deep accumulation in chassis adjustment and lightweight. Both sides are likely to complement each other in traditional and emerging fields.

It doesn't make sense to accelerate 100 kilometers

When the sports car brand transforms to the electric one, where will its acme be reflected? Why will consumers pay for the super high price?

The handling performance of the traditional super high-end sports car is the first. However, under the influence of electrification, even the fastest 100 km acceleration seems to be inferior, which is difficult to become a point of further breakthrough. Feng Qingfeng said that in the mechanical age, it is very fast to enter 5 seconds and 3 seconds for 100 km acceleration, but it is easy to realize in the era of electrification. For luttes, the direction of breakthrough is very important, and the 100 km acceleration is no longer meaningful.

"Luxury can also be redefined." Feng Qingfeng also pointed out that the past luxury may be 12 cylinder engine or lambskin seat. With the change of times, the standard of luxury will also change. He thinks that the future luxury lies in experience“ For example, now you don't need to go to the gas station any more. I think it's luxury. Why are electric vehicles irresistible now? Because it's as convenient as charging our mobile phones. It can be charged at home without having to go into the gas station. What it brings you is a sense of luxury. "

In the era of electrification, the track luttes focuses on has extended from F1 to all roads, and its core weapon is intelligent driving.

"Cutting into the intelligent driving track with track level intelligent driving is the direction that luttes technology has set for the next decade, and it is also a completely different technology path from any other brand." At the press conference, Feng Qingfeng said that within 10 years, with the help of luters intelligent driving, as long as you get the driving license, you can win the F1 championship.

On the track level intelligent driving, Feng Qingfeng explained that it was based on functions other than basic functions“ It's not intelligent to stop at a red light and change lanes automatically at a green light. The so-called intelligence is to play games. When the car next to us suddenly has an action, we can also take action in time. " For example, when a parallel vehicle suddenly approaches, it is necessary to react immediately according to the surrounding situation, whether to brake or to dodge.

It's essentially a higher level of autonomous driving. Compared with the current more common assisted driving, such intelligent driving should be able to cope with more emergencies and have the ability to respond to the speed of human response.

It seems that luttes is going to throw out a large part of the current smart cars on the market, and the main way to achieve this is: sufficient redundancy. Feng Qingfeng introduced that in mid September, lutos will release its intelligent driving brand. They adopt the technology route of laser radar + ultra high definition camera + 4D millimeter wave radar full field perception fusion, and ensure the safety of drivers through active redundancy in software and hardware.

"You may think that the cost must be high, but I think the redundancy is worth it. After all, security is the most important thing." Feng Qingfeng also said that the key to the high cost lies in the experience. Users can use it well, and they will buy it even if the cost is high. Just as consumers begin to choose Dyson's electric fans instead of buying noisy but cheap shaking fans.

According to the overall structure of lutos, lutos technology will integrate the R & D and design institutions and global resources in China, Britain and Germany to be responsible for the R & D and production of ultra high-end pure electric intelligent vehicles. Among them, Germany's science and technology innovation center will be responsible for the research and development of automobile intelligence and chassis by wire control, while in China, lutes has established R & D bases in Hangzhou and Shanghai, mainly responsible for the development of intelligent software.

Geely Holding Group will provide support for roaders' intelligent driving. With Li Bin's investment in lutos technology, Weilai may also become a partner of lutes“ In the future, it is not feasible to fight alone in the automobile market. Fortunately, under the huge system of Geely, luttes has great support and help. If we want to develop a single Lutus brand, I think the possibility of success is too small. " Feng Qingfeng said frankly.

He also said that in the mechanical age, manufacturers with small batch production can survive, but in the era of electric intelligence, small batch manufacturers are difficult to survive, which largely explains why luttes has extended its products from professional sports cars to household models while making electric and intelligent transformation.

"For example, a shock absorber can be produced in small quantities or in large quantities. Mass production is very cheap. Although small batch production is very expensive, it is not exorbitant. However, in the era of intelligence, if you want to amortization the huge cost of intelligent research and development, small batch production is difficult to succeed."

 

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