The Zhijie S7 cannot be delivered and cannot be charged. Are Chery and Huawei unable to join forces?

It is said that "it is good to sit under a big tree to enjoy the shade", and this sentence also applies to the automotive industry. Since the second half of 2023, Wenjie, which is backed by Huawei, has achieved a double harvest of sales and popularity in the new energy vehicle market.

Not long ago, Zhijie, jointly created by Huawei Zhixuan and Chery, also received impressive orders and discussions after the launch of Zhijie S7. However, just when everyone thought that Zhijie would replicate the success of Wenjie and become another rapidly rising new force empowered by Huawei, problems followed one after another.

The first problem is the delay in delivery. Most of the first car owners who placed orders were promised that they would receive their cars within December 2023 when they paid the deposit. Many car owners even gave up the color options in order to get their cars as early as possible to catch the Spring Festival holiday. However, the result was that the delivery date was postponed and the salesperson didn't know anything. If they wanted to cancel the deposit, the large deposit could not be refunded.

In addition to the delivery delay, the channel situation of the Zhijie S7 also puzzled many consumers who were interested in this car. First, in Huawei Zhixuan stores, the number of Zhijie S7s that can be seen is very small, and in many areas, this car cannot be seen at all; second, even if there are Zhijie S7 display cars available for viewing in the store, there are no test drives for potential customers to experience. Neither "delivery" to you, nor "viewing the goods", this behavior is really abnormal.

Just when the author thought that the failure to deliver cars and the low efficiency of channel distribution were the biggest problems of the Zhijie S7 and even the Zhijie brand, I saw some complaints from users who had already picked up their cars on the Internet.

First of all, the texture of the new car's interior is rather average, and it does not have an advantage among the models priced just over 200,000 yuan; secondly, the configuration of the entry-level model is average. As a model under Huawei Smart Selection, if you want to enjoy "iconic" configurations such as Huawei Smart Driving, you basically have to buy the Zhijie S7 Max version starting at 289,800 yuan, which is quite a high threshold.

In addition to the above two points, another big complaint comes from the 800V high-voltage fast charging that the new car focuses on promoting.

Since the entire Zhijie S7 series is equipped with 800V high-voltage fast charging, the vehicle cannot support some 500V DC charging piles, which will cause incompatibility and failure to charge. In other words, if you can't find a charging pile of 750V or above, you can only wait overnight with a slow home charger if you want to recharge the Zhijie S7. Although the owner saw the prompt "Use ≥750V charging pile for fast charging" on the charging port, no one told him this information when he bought the car.

On the other hand, even for models with 800V architecture, as long as a supercharging component costing a few thousand yuan is installed, it can achieve compatibility with charging piles of different voltages. Even if 800V architecture is the trend of the future, the cancellation of supercharging components at the moment when 800V is just being rolled out in order to save costs will bring inconvenience to users in the subsequent use of the car, which inevitably makes people doubt whether Zhijie intends to sell cars well.

At the same time, the two big bosses behind the Zhijie brand seem to have no time to pay attention to this "newcomer in the market".

On the one hand, Chery "turned a blind eye" to the Zhijie S7, and instead focused on the Xingtu Xingjiyuan, which it can fully control. After the release of the Zhijie S7, Xingjiyuan ES took over. Whether in terms of styling, pricing or positioning, the new car overlaps with the Zhijie S7. At the beginning of 2024, Xingjiyuan ES has a price discount of 20,000 yuan, which will impact the market of Zhijie S7 to a certain extent. © Provided by Pacific

On the other hand, Huawei also focused on related matters after the release of Wenjie M9 and the preparation and release of new brands such as Aojie and Xiangjie. Zhijie and Zhijie S7 were a little embarrassed for a while.

According to people familiar with the matter, there are currently major differences within Chery regarding the subsequent new energy route. One group believes that Chery should take the route of independent research and development and rely on its own strength; the other group believes that it should cooperate with "technology masters" such as Huawei to achieve win-win results, achieve "1+1>2", and accelerate Chery's new energy process.

If this is true, then the Xingjiyuan ES and Zhijie S7 currently on the market can be regarded as products of the initial stages of car manufacturing differences.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of the truth for now, the current problems with the channels and delivery of the Zhijie S7 are all in front of us, and the entire brand has a tendency to start high and end low.

In fact, the timing of the launch of Zhijie S7 was still good. At that time, Zhijie had just made a great comeback, and Huawei's empowerment had once again become the code for traffic. From the order volume of the new car, we can also know that the consumer market is still quite interested in it. However, a series of problems after its listing have abruptly blocked the rise of this new brand, especially the delayed delivery at the time point before the Spring Festival, which will have a serious negative impact on its reputation.

Could it be that Chery and Huawei had no confidence before the launch of the Zhijie S7, so they did not make relevant channel preparations? Or, could it be that both parties were not very interested in this brand and had no intention of making it bigger and stronger?


The pictures and text are all transferred from Pacific

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.