The sales target of Xiangjie S9 this year is 60,000 units. Is this the only battle that will determine the success of BAIC Motor, which suffered a loss of 25 billion yuan?

"This car competes with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 7 Series and Audi A8L," Richard Yu, who served as the one-day store manager at the Huawei flagship store in Bantian, Shenzhen, told the audience about the Enjoy S9.

The pre-sale price of the Enjoy S9 is 450,000 to 550,000 yuan. After the Enjoy M9 occupied the 500,000+ high-end market, Yu Chengdong hoped that the Enjoy S9 could also replicate the miracle.

However, compared with Yu Chengdong's full confidence, his partner BAIC is somewhat lacking in confidence.

On July 19, BAIC Blue Valley suddenly changed its leader. Chairman Liu Yu resigned and Dai Kangwei took over. On the same day, BAIC Blue Valley suddenly crashed and closed at the limit down.

The change of leadership and the sudden collapse of stock prices are obviously not good news. Behind the problems are the multiple difficulties faced by BAIC Blue Valley.

The performance forecast released by BAIC Blue Valley shows that the loss is expected to exceed 2.4 billion yuan from January to June 2024. In fact, since its establishment in 2020, it has not made a penny, and the accumulated losses have reached 25 billion yuan.

Losses for new energy vehicle manufacturers are the norm in the industry. If they can maintain a certain sales volume and continuously launch new projects like NIO, investors may be patient enough to wait. However, BAIC BluePark's sales in the first half of this year were only 28,011 vehicles, down 20% year-on-year, and less than 5,000 vehicles per month.

This achievement is by no means impressive in the current new energy market.

Since the beginning of this year, BAIC BluePark's sales have also been bright spots. Its Polar Fox brand has rapidly rebounded from the low point in February, with sales exceeding 8,000 units in June.

But this is not enough to help BAIC BluePark out of its downturn. Moreover, in the sales of Arcfox in June, the main model Koala contributed 3,250 units and Alpha T5 contributed 3,702 units. However, the sales of these two models also did not enter the mainstream market and can only be described as "okay".

Generally speaking, when faced with this situation, large automakers have two main options: first, change the leader and let the newcomer bring some new atmosphere; second, adjust the product lineup and let the product performance speak for itself.

BAIC BluePark also adheres to this idea.

Dai Kangwei, who took over, is a rare female executive in the industry. So far, Dai Kangwei's most notable achievement is that she led a team to independently complete and apply for the "Key Technology and Industrialization of Three-Electric Platform for Electric Vehicles" project, and won the first prize of China's Automotive Industry Science and Technology Progress Award.

However, judging from BAIC Blue Valley’s performance in the past two years, neither technology nor industry awards have played a big role in BAIC Blue Valley’s market development. When it comes to BAIC New Energy Vehicles, few people can associate it with the technology label.

Moreover, Dai Kangwei is a technical expert, and it is unknown whether he can lead BAIC Blue Valley out of its sales difficulties.

Rather than a change of leadership, the outside world should pay more attention to the product, that is, the Enjoy S9 jointly created by BAIC and Huawei, which will be launched in August.

The size of the Xiangjie S9 is a pure electric medium and large sedan, with a length of 5160mm and a wheelbase of 3050mm. The maximum power is 385kW, and the maximum cruising range under CLTC conditions is over 800km. The basic performance is above mainstream.

In addition, it will also be equipped with Huawei's Hongmeng 4.0 smart cockpit, ADS 3.0 intelligent driving system, Tuling smart chassis, and optional high-end configurations such as intelligent laser projection system, zero-gravity seat package, and streaming media exterior rearview mirror. In other words, its main selling point still comes from Huawei's N-piece set.

With the success of Wenjie, the product performance of Xiangjie S9 is more trustworthy. Compared with Seres, the old partner, BAIC, is obviously more convincing in terms of quality control.

Moreover, Huawei transferred the "Xiangjie" trademark to BAIC in April, clarifying the cooperative relationship between the two parties, which can basically ensure that there will be no major problems in the future cooperation between the two parties.

Based on these judgments, BAIC is full of confidence in the future of Xiangjie S9. According to BAIC's own estimates, the sales volume of Xiangjie S9 is expected to reach 480,000 units in its five-year life cycle, reaching 60,000 units in 2024, and the sales volume in 2025-2028 is expected to be 120,000 units, 120,000 units, 96,000 units and 84,000 units respectively.

By the time Xiangjie S9 is officially released, there will be 4 months left until the end of 2024. A simple estimate shows that the average monthly delivery volume needs to reach 15,000 vehicles in order to achieve this year's target of 60,000 vehicles.

If this sales volume can be achieved, the huge losses of BAIC BluePark may be greatly alleviated. Seres, which also belongs to Huawei's Hongmeng Intelligent Driving camp, is expected to have a net profit of 1.39-1.7 billion yuan in the first half of this year, thanks to the continued hot sales of its "Wenjie" models, successfully turning losses into profits.

BAIC Blue Valley is eager to become the next Question World and hopes that Enjoy World can also play the role of Question World.

The question now is, can the cooperation with Huawei really help BAIC BluePark out of its predicament? Can the Enjoy S9 really become the next Enjoy M9?

Let’s take a look at the basic situation of the domestic mid-to-large sedan market.

The best-selling pure electric mid-to-large sedan in June was the Zeekr 001, which sold 14,383 units, followed by the Xiaomi SU7, which sold 14,296 units. The sales of the remaining pure electric mid-to-large sedans that can enter the mainstream market are not high, and none of them have an average price of more than 400,000 yuan and can enter the mainstream market.

Looking at the entire mid-to-large sedan market, there are only three mid-to-large sedans that are priced at 400,000 yuan and can achieve long-term monthly sales of over 10,000: the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Audi A6L, and BMW 5 Series.

The market for mid-to-large sedans is a very unfriendly one. The Xingjie S9 needs to reach the sales level of 56E within 120 days, a goal that is obviously not easy to achieve.

From the product perspective, the prospects of the Enjoy S9 are not optimistic. The Enjoy S9 and the Ask M9 both belong to Hongmeng Intelligent Driving. They both have the same thing in that they are equipped with Huawei's N-piece set, but the biggest difference is that Ask M9 is often regarded as "Huawei's car", but the Enjoy S9 may not be treated in this way.

Huawei is now setting up joint ventures and transferring trademarks, determined to prove to the outside world that it really "does not build cars". This means that future cooperative car models are unlikely to share Huawei's brand appeal in the high-end market like the Wenjie.

This phenomenon has actually been reflected in the Zhijie brand. The Zhijie S7 was jointly developed by Huawei and Chery, and is also a car with a high "Chinese content", but its sales are far from expectations. The sales in June were only 2,306 units, proving that Huawei is not a golden brand.

Without the support of the Huawei brand and using only Huawei's core components, it is a big question whether the Enjoy S9 can have an influence in the high-end market of more than 400,000 yuan.

To take a step back, even if the Xiangjie S9 really performs well, it is still unknown whether BAIC BluePark can get out of the trough. The reason is very simple. BAIC is not SERES, and it is impossible for it to hand over all the dominance to Huawei.

As a veteran national team in the automotive industry, BAIC has not produced convincing results in the past. In terms of technical support, it has received a lot from Mercedes-Benz, but has never produced a competitive model. In addition, due to the complicated internal relationships, it is unlikely that it will be as focused as Seres in cooperating with Huawei.

It can be said that for any car company with a certain foundation, its own set of technologies, and its own mature team, it is unlikely to achieve the same level of results in cooperation with Huawei, and BAIC is no exception.

But no matter what, the cooperation with Huawei is an opportunity for BAIC Blue Valley to turn around.

In the first half of 2024, BAIC Blue Valley's sales volume fell sharply year-on-year, but its stock price has been rising. This seems to prove that the outside world still has certain expectations for the cooperation between Huawei and BAIC. It is hoped that when the report card of Enjoy World is announced in the golden September and silver October, there will be a result that satisfies BAIC, Huawei and shareholders.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.