FAW-Volkswagen's volume and price have collapsed. It's time for Chinese companies to rescue it.

FAW-Volkswagen, once the king, sold 124,000 vehicles in May, second only to BYD, but its market share fell to 7.3%, less than half of BYD. This is the fourth consecutive month of decline. From February to May this year, its retail sales fell by 16.2%, 4.2%, 15.6% and 17.5% respectively.

In its more than 30 years since its establishment, FAW-Volkswagen has never experienced such a bleak decline.

If FAW-Volkswagen could maintain its brand positioning when sales were declining, it might not be so panic. But the problem is that, like most joint venture brands, FAW-Volkswagen is now experiencing a collapse in both volume and price, and its price system is showing a trend of collapse - the Lanchuang has dropped by 60,000 yuan; the Sagitar and Bora have dropped by 45,000 yuan; even the Golf, a small steel cannon popular among young people, has dropped by 18,000 yuan.

Fuel vehicles are not doing well, so how are the ID. series electric vehicles performing? In May, the sales of ID.4 CROZZ were 3,961 units, the sales of ID.6 CROZZ were 897 units, and the sales of ID.7 VIZZION were 342 units.

What's the classic saying? It's better to lose at the starting line than at the finish line. It saves you a lot of running.

FAW-Volkswagen has been working hard to develop new energy, but after several years it suddenly discovered that it is not much better than Honda and Toyota, which have been standing still.

Poor sales are a headache for not only the brand itself, but also the dealers. Even Porsche dealers have been forced to resign due to the pressure from the manufacturer, not to mention FAW-Volkswagen dealers. In 2024, news broke out that dealers in Henan, Jiangsu and other places had withdrawn from the network and ran away.

The price drops in the off-season and in the peak season; it drops when there are no new cars and it drops again when there are new cars; it drops when there is no discount and it drops again when there is a discount. In short, it is a variety of reductions from the inside out.

In fact, it is not the first time that joint venture brands have encountered a market crisis. In the past few years, their market share has been gradually swallowed up by domestic brands, but it is like boiling a frog in warm water, or no professional manager is willing to look directly at the emperor's new Pack Anyway, the company is not mine, and the foreigners are not in a hurry. Even if I see the truth, what can I do? If I sell less, I will sell less. At most, I can find a new job in a new power manufacturer in two years. It's just to make a living, why take it so seriously?

Compared with Volkswagen's surging, American, French and Korean cars have already been lying flat. Of course, this is mainly because Volkswagen has no way to lie flat in China. Volkswagen sold 9.24 million vehicles worldwide last year, of which China contributed 3.24 million, accounting for more than 35%.

The Chinese market accounts for half of Volkswagen's market share. Facing such an important market, Volkswagen cannot just sit back and do nothing, because its shareholders and capital will not allow it.

Since they don’t want to give up and can’t give up, how can FAW-Volkswagen get out of this predicament? In fact, it only needs to do one thing well: give its soul to the Chinese people.

If traditional car manufacturers want to successfully transform, they need to first use the money earned from fuel vehicles to support their new energy product lines, create popular new energy vehicle models as soon as possible, and at the same time speed up the launch of new energy vehicle models, gradually replacing fuel vehicles with new energy vehicles.

This is what BYD did, and so did Geely. A large-scale manufacturer like FAW-Volkswagen cannot play the same game as Xiaomi. It operates with heavy assets and can only transform slowly.

In fact, although FAW-Volkswagen's sales have declined, its sales are still strong. Oil-powered vehicles will not disappear from the Chinese market for another ten or eight years. If it can make good use of this "window period", it may be possible to successfully land on the market before the tide of new energy floods the entire market.

The question now is, can FAW-Volkswagen do this? To describe it in one word, it is "probably not that easy."

FAW-Volkswagen is indeed actively developing new energy models, but where do these models come from? Still from Germany, that is to say, although FAW-Volkswagen attaches great importance to the Chinese market, it is still waiting for Volkswagen headquarters to develop a new energy vehicle before introducing it to the Chinese market.

In the era of fuel vehicles, there was nothing wrong with this approach, because overseas brands such as Volkswagen dominated the market at that time; but now the situation has long been reversed. China occupies more than 60% of the global new energy market and leads the world's design trends and technological directions, while Volkswagen's ID. series of electric vehicles are still sticking to their poor development and focusing on the so-called global market, which is somewhat like not climbing out of the well to look at the sky.

Think about it, among all the cars in the Volkswagen ID. series, is there any one developed for the Chinese market? The answer is none.

It's not just FAW-Volkswagen. Joint venture manufacturers such as Dongfeng Honda have also often said in the past two years that they would hand over design leadership to their teams in China, but in the end they just listened.

crooked Nuts The feelings towards the Chinese auto market are always so complicated and cunning. They hope that the Chinese market will be as large as India, as obedient as Thailand, and as quick to pay as Russia, so that they can always sit in the position of the teacher and count money until their hands cramp. The only thing they don't want is that the Chinese market will have its own thinking and even produce cars that are better than theirs.

In the field of electric vehicles, although Volkswagen does not have much core technology, it still has the strength to sell 3 million vehicles a year in China. Although most of them are fuel vehicles, it can at least provide food, ammunition and time for transformation. If it wants to continue to stay at the table, it is better to hand over its soul to Chinese manufacturers and let the Chinese who are good at software reshape Volkswagen's soul.

Didn't Volkswagen invest in Xiaopeng to hand over its soul to Chinese manufacturers more safely? Instead of advancing slowly, it is better to take a big step and let Xiaopeng take over all the work directly, so as to achieve "big" with "small", kill two birds with one stone, and Xiaopeng and Volkswagen can both get out of the quagmire, the former gaining sales, and the latter being reborn. Alternatively, Volkswagen can also invest in a new Chinese force again, not putting the soul in the same basket, and let the two companies carrying the soul start a horse race, and use whichever is better, isn't it beautiful?

Time is running out for FAW-Volkswagen. According to the China Passenger Car Association, the retail share of domestic brands reached 57.6% in May 2024, a year-on-year increase of 7.3 percentage points.

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.