Car companies are launching large cars one after another, and the direction of "involution" in 2025 has changed.

In 2025, the direction of China's automotive industry seems to have changed.

On the third day after the New Year, Lynk & Co 900, the largest model in the history of Lynk & Co’s product development, was unveiled, officially entering the large luxury SUV market.

It is generally impossible for mainstream brands to fire the "first shot" of the new year randomly. The fact that such an important traffic position for the first launch in 2025 is given to this large car makes people wonder: Is it possible that the popular items in the Chinese car circle will change track in 2025?

This conjecture is undoubtedly valid.

According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the cumulative sales volume of medium-sized and large SUVs in 2024 will exceed 1.26 million, a year-on-year increase of 62%. Some people speculate that the market size of medium-sized and large SUVs will expand to 2 million in 2025.

Although compact SUVs are still the main force in the current market, it can be seen from these data that the sales growth of large cars is very fast. This means that the demand for large cars is increasing rapidly, and it is likely to become the mainstream development direction in the future.

Car companies are always more sensitive to information than users. When many of us have not yet perceived this trend, Chinese independent brands have already been busy. According to media statistics, in addition to Lynk & Co 900, there will be more than a dozen large cars of the same size as Lynk & Co 900 in the coming year.

For example, the Wenjie M8, which is expected to be launched in the first half of 2025, as well as the Shenlan S09, BYD Tang L, Denza N9, Haobo HL, Chery Fengyun T11, Galaxy Starship 9, Xiaopeng G01, Zeekr EX1H, including the Xiaomi N3 that may be unveiled this year, are all similar large cars.

From the perspective of brands, these are the most influential mainstream players at the moment, and their movements can basically represent the development trend of the year. In this way, it seems that the possibility of taking a big car in 2025 is still relatively high.

So, is the time really ripe for Chinese car companies to "take over" big cars in 2025?

Although the medium and large SUV market has been monopolized by traditional foreign luxury brands for a long time, and Chinese independent brands have a small share in it, with the rise of new forces and many traditional car companies, Chinese independent brands now have the strength to compete with joint venture big brands.

The extended-range electric vehicles represented by Ideal and Huawei have mature technologies, and Huawei has leading intelligence as a bargaining chip. The plug-in hybrids of Lynk & Co and BYD are also heavyweights in the market.

On the other hand, Chinese independent brands have already started laying the groundwork for breaking through the market position of medium and large SUVs a few years ago. Since 2021, new brands such as Ideal and Wenjie have been gradually loosening the monopoly of joint venture luxury brands on this market. At the same time, they are also changing the consumption habits of car consumers.

Because of the more advanced electrification and intelligence, China's independent brands have allowed many Chinese people to see that our own medium and large SUVs also have many advantages, in terms of luxury, configuration, three-electric systems, intelligence, marketing... In many aspects, we are not bad in technology or in work.

Through step-by-step guidance, coupled with the fact that people now travel more diversifiedly, many travel scenarios with higher requirements for space have emerged, which has made Chinese car consumers begin to feel the charm of "three-row large space" SUVs. When buying a car, they naturally add medium and large SUVs to their options.

In addition, for car companies that need to find a sales breakthrough in the fierce competition, this undoubtedly opens another window. After all, instead of "successfully" competing in the compact SUV field, it is better to find a new way and find a breakthrough in the large car market that has not yet been completely occupied.

With the necessary strength, a solid foundation and profitability, it seems that there is nothing wrong with Chinese automakers wanting to take over the big market in 2025.

Now that the time is right, will we be able to succeed?

If entering the market means success, then more and more domestic brands entering the large vehicle market will naturally have a positive impact on everyone's market share. But if we want to seriously discuss whether everyone can gain a foothold in the market, we need to look at specific issues specifically.

I don’t know if you have noticed that there are big differences in the price positioning of the series of large vehicles to be released in 2025. A few are “people-friendly”, while others are priced at more than 300,000 yuan.

As we all know, the market capacity below 300,000 yuan is large, covering the popular budget range for current consumers to buy cars. This is one of the reasons why brands such as Leapmotor and Xiaomi can always win favor with their cost-effectiveness. Cao Li, senior vice president of Leapmotor, once said that there is no plan to enter the market above 300,000 yuan at present, but to focus on a wider range of popular models to consolidate its position in the largest capacity market.

The implication is that the market below 300,000 is still the largest market at present. With a larger "position", there is certainly more room for development. Car companies only need to come up with more competitive technologies and products to have the opportunity to grab more "cakes".

The high-end market with prices above RMB 300,000 has limited capacity to begin with. The change in consumers' attitude towards medium and large SUVs does not mean that everyone is more willing to increase their car purchase budget to more than RMB 300,000.

The media has published data on Chinese consumers' spending intentions in the second quarter of 2024. According to the survey, more than half (51.0%) of consumers tend to choose models priced between 100,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan, a 4.4 percentage point increase from the previous month.

20.1% of consumers chose models priced below 100,000 yuan, a slight decrease of 0.8 percentage points month-on-month; 17.7% of consumers chose models priced between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan, a decrease of 2.5 percentage points month-on-month.

Nearly 90% (88.9%) of consumers have a car purchase budget of less than RMB 300,000, among which models priced between RMB 100,000 and RMB 200,000 are the first choice for consumers.

In other words, if you want to enter a market with a better mass base, a price below 200,000 yuan may be the best choice. Therefore, some domestic brands want to rush into the high-end market, which is a very good idea.

However, when entering the high-end market of more than 300,000 yuan, consumers have higher requirements for brand influence, product strength, technical strength, etc. It may not be easy to get a higher share in a market with more limited capacity.

The Chinese auto market and auto consumers have their own characteristics. With the change of demand, the trend of "big is beautiful" is still quite obvious. However, from the perspective of market capacity, it is no problem for everyone to sell large cars, but whether they can gain a foothold depends on the development ideas and product strength of each company.