From network car to super sports car, the ambition and challenge of Guangzhou Automobile Aian.

This is the familiar Guangzhou Automobile Aion S, and it is also the model used by most taxis in Guangzhou.

Thanks to ample space, excellent comfort and low price, Aion’s compact car Aion S and compact SUV Aion Y have not only become the first choice for taxis in Guangzhou, but also the first choice for online car rental companies in Shanghai, Hubei, Jiangxi and other cities.

High cost performance, stable quality, large space and exclusive network car once became the label of Ai ‘an. Therefore, when Ai ‘an launched a new brand "Haobo" and released a million-level super-running "SSR", my heart was full of questions:

Is this span a little too big?

You know, the seemingly low-key GAC Ai ‘an has firmly established a market of 100,000-200,000. In the sales ranking of new energy car companies from January to June this year, GAC Ai ‘an won the third place with sales of more than 200,000 units, which not only surpassed Wuling, but also surpassed a number of new car companies, second only to Tesla.

Many people don’t understand: under the premise that the sales volume is already so optimistic, why should GAC Ai ‘an give up its original brand influence, create a new brand Haobo, and even build a super sports car that seems to be unattended?

The sweetness and sadness of "the king of the network car"

Although LI’s Zhou Du sales list never included GAC Aeon, GAC Aeon is an out-and-out "new force" in the field of new energy vehicles.

Moreover, the growth rate of Ai ‘an is extremely fierce-according to Xiao Yong, deputy general manager of Ai ‘an, the annual sales target of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an in 2023 is 500,000 vehicles, with an impact of 600,000 vehicles. In LI, where the public opinion is very loud, the CEO Li Xiang’s forecast for sales in 2023 is 300,000 vehicles.

According to the published data, the sales volume of GAC Ai ‘an in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 reached 42,003 vehicles, 60,033 vehicles, 120,155 vehicles and 271,156 vehicles respectively-almost doubling every year.

Along with the rapid increase in sales, there is also the revenue capacity of GAC Ai ‘an.

Similarly, from 2019 to 2022, the revenue of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an was 5.234 billion yuan, 7.61 billion yuan, 17.265 billion yuan and 38.703 billion yuan respectively-Ai ‘an’s revenue has accounted for 35% of Guangzhou Automobile’s total revenue, making it the next development engine with great potential.

Behind the sharp increase in sales and revenue, GAC Aian is facing sweet troubles: the main sales models Aion S and Aion Y are low-end models of 100,000-150,000 yuan, accounting for about 90% of the sales of all models.

In the whole year of 2022, the sales volume of Ai ‘an Aion S bicycles was 116,332 units, which was very close to Tesla Model 3；. Aion Y sold 120,585 units in the whole year, ranking fifth in the sales list of new energy SUVs.

Although Aion S and AIon Y can be regarded as explosions, GAC Aian is trapped in two major dilemmas: First, the high proportion of network cars is not conducive to the development of C-side business; The second is to take the cost-effective route, and the profit space is limited. In 2021, for example, 43% of the annual sales of 127,000 vehicles in Ai ‘an came from the B-end market, of which 63% of the new cars of AION S were put on the B-end, and AION Y also had 20.33%.

In addition, according to relevant data, the average sales prices of all models in Ai ‘an are 125,000, 127,000, 144,000 and 143,000 from 2019 to 2022, respectively, which makes the profit margin of Ai ‘an extremely narrow.

Therefore, Ai ‘an urgently needs to break through upward, get rid of the strange circle of exchanging price/performance ratio for the market in the low-end price range, and at the same time, get rid of the image of online car rental to attract more ordinary consumers.

However, the high-end road of the brand is not smooth.

The price of the medium and large SUV Ai ‘an LX, which is positioned in the middle and high end, is 28.66-46.96 million. However, this car has not been greatly redesigned and iterated since 2019, and its competitiveness is insufficient in the fierce competition environment.

LX has not caused a splash in the market, and the current situation that the main sales models of Ai ‘an are concentrated in 100,000-150,000 has not been alleviated. Therefore, despite the rising sales volume, the loss of Ai ‘an seems to have never stopped: the loss in 2021 was 1.398 billion yuan, and the loss in the first half of 2022 exceeded 1 billion yuan.

However, objectively speaking, burning money in the early days of brand birth has become a normal phenomenon in the industry: in 2022, Weilai’s net loss was 14.4 billion yuan; Xpeng Motors’s net loss was 9.14 billion yuan. In contrast, because Guangzhou Automobile Group shared some of the burdens of research and development, marketing and other parts of Ai ‘an, the loss of Ai ‘an was not exaggerated.

Referring to Tesla’s successful experience from loss to profit, there are only three things that GAC Ai ‘an needs to do: First, improve production efficiency and vertical integration ability, reduce costs and increase efficiency; Second, the core technology is self-researched, and the premium is improved with the improvement of product strength; The third is to increase the average selling price and increase the profit margin.

Refer to the styles of Geely, BYD and SAIC: Since the price and positioning of this brand are difficult to be high-end, why not independently create a new brand to rebuild its image?

In this way, the accumulated technology also has a new soil to take root and sprout. And this is the original intention of the birth of the "Haobo" brand.

Million-class super-running, proving the upper limit of technology

If we talk about technology accumulation and technology accumulation, GAC Ai ‘an can definitely rank among the top domestic car companies.

As the first car company to abandon "oil to electricity", Ai ‘an launched its first pure electric platform AEP 1.0 as early as 2017. In 2019, Aeon launched AEP 2.0. Thanks to highly integrated parts and excellent body design, the "axle length ratio" of Aion S, Aion V and other models using AEP 2.0 platform reached 61.7%, surpassing Tesla Model 3.

When the time came to 2022, Aeon launched a brand-new platform of AEP 3.0, and when it first arrived, it was a big breath: Aeon said that AEP 3.0 technology completely surpassed Tesla.

Whether we can surpass Tesla or not is a question mark for the time being, but the new platform of Ai ‘an is really strong. Similar to BYD’s E-platform 3.0 and the vast SEA platform, this is a masterpiece of Aeon technology, and it has strong strength in three aspects: electricity, intelligence and control level.

For example, in order to prove himself, the first model to use this platform turned out to be a super sports car with a price of more than 1 million-HyperSSR.

More importantly, this supercar belongs to the high-end brand "Haobo" of Ai ‘an. Without the prefix of "Ai ‘an" and a new logo, Ai ‘an’s second high-end campaign was officially launched.

It’s nothing new for brand-new brands to show off their technology and strength by super-running. Weilai also made headlines in the world’s major media through EP9 in its early days. From the paper parameters, Haoplatinum SSR is definitely a qualified supercar.

For example, through self-developed electric drive technology, SSR’s acceleration time of 100 kilometers is only 1.9 seconds, and its top speed reaches an astonishing 300 km/h.

For another example, the comprehensive horsepower of SSR reaches 1225 PS, and the highest acceleration can reach 1.7 g. And the 100% carbon fiber cover of the car body further lightens the vehicle …

Compared with Weilai EP9, Haobo announced that SSR will be mass-produced this year-the official announced that a dedicated production line has been built, and all dimensions are extremely mature.

Being able to mass-produce is a very important indicator, and Haobo also proves the upper limit of AEP 3.0 platform through this, and these technologies have the ability of backwards compatibility.

Therefore, the second product of Haobo brand, Hyper GT, is not surprisingly priced in the range of 200,000-300,000, and directly enters the hinterland of popular models such as Model 3, Extreme Krypton 001 and Weilai ET5.

Hyper GT of sword finger Model 3

At the beginning of July, Hyper GT officially announced the price range: 21.99-33.99 million, and the new car was also born from AEP 3.0 platform.

Although it is a newly born brand, Hyper GT has almost the most popular and mainstream technology at present, and it has achieved a comprehensive achievement-not only the power exchange version, the 800V high-voltage overcharge version, but even Haobo has equipped this car with a "rotor door".

The new brand Haobo, which changed its new logo and redesigned its exterior and interior, not only caught up with the first echelon in its internal technology, but also had a quite high-end image in terms of appearance and interior design.

For example, the extremely low and smooth body lines create a sports car-like visual feeling of elegant movement, and the "rotor door" that often only appears on the super-run is also very individual and recognizable. It is a very important thing to design a pure electric car without being heavy. After Tucki P7, almost no pure electric car can have such a smooth and dynamic shape.

The interior is the same, the style is elegant and high-grade, and the color tone selection, material application and layout of various elements look pleasing to the eye. Although the appearance of this car is somewhat domineering, the interior is advanced.

Without the brand restriction of Ai ‘an, Haobo can safely and boldly give Hyper GT the best three-electricity technology and intelligent level.

The rear axle motor of Hyper GT has a maximum power of 250 kW, a maximum torque of 430 N.m and an acceleration of 4.9 seconds per 100 km. A single motor has surpassed the power of some dual-motor models of car companies, and also greatly exceeded the maximum power of the Model 3 rear-drive version of 194 kW.

This is also one of the most powerful motors among the new domestic car companies, and the long-term technical accumulation of GAC has finally been released.

While the acceleration performance is strong, the energy consumption control of Hyper GT is also excellent. The official CLTC battery life of the model equipped with 80.1 kWh battery pack reaches 710 km, and the official average power consumption per 100 km is only 12.7 kWh, which is very close to the 12.5 kWh of Model 3-but the Hyper GT exceeds Model 3 in both size and seating space.

The top-equipped and sub-top-equipped overcharged models not only support the ultra-fast charging of 800 V and 480 kW. Compared with the maximum charging power of 240 kW of most car companies, this performance also belongs to the excellent level of domestic car companies.

The Hyper GT is positioned as a "young man" and has also made great efforts in handling: in hardware, the suspension with front double wishbone and rear five-bar linkage is a standard sports car layout, and AICS intelligent chassis, ne-box brake-by-wire system, DMC dynamic torque control unit, ASTC intelligent active steering stabilization and DTCS direct-drive torque control systems combine software and hardware, with the goal of making the handling feel better.

The drag coefficient of Hyper GT 0.197 is also the lowest in the world’s mass production cars, even exceeding the 0.20 of Mercedes-Benz EQS.

In addition to the fierce "stacking" of the three power plants, the intelligent part of Hyper GT has also caught up with the mainstream. In addition to the platformization of the car body, Ai ‘an has also developed the latest "Spirit Architecture", pushing the electronic and electrical architecture to the latest generation.

In the key intelligent driving field, Spirit architecture uses Huawei Shengteng 610 high-performance chip, with a computing power of 400 TOPS, and the maximum computing power can be extended to 2000 TOPS. In the cockpit domain, Spirit architecture is also compatible with Qualcomm Snapdragon’s 8155 and 8295.

Compared with the previous generation electronic and electrical architecture of GAC, the computing power of Spirit architecture is increased by 50 times, the data transmission rate is increased by 10 times, the wire harness loop is reduced by about 40%, and the number of controllers is reduced by about 20. Moreover, the data transmission rate is increased by 10 times by being equipped with high-speed vehicle Ethernet, and hardware plug and play is realized.

On the top of Hyper GT, the intelligent driving hardware is: two laser radars, 12 cameras, 6 millimeter waves and 1 infrared night vision camera, which has the ability to realize high-speed/city navigation-assisted driving.

Obviously, GAC, which has advantages in traditional hardware, has paid more and more attention to software research and development. Jiang Jianshan, chief ICV engineer of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an R&D Center, once said:

"Simple hardware stacking can’t really achieve safe and intelligent driving, and software algorithm ability is the key to winning."

Therefore, there are currently more than 2,000 software developers in Ai ‘an, and the R&D team accounts for more than 50%. Obviously, it can be seen that Hyper GT embodies all the expectations and efforts of GAC, and all the technologies and reserves are unreservedly given to this expected vehicle.

Ian, hopefully becoming the next BYD.

In October last year, GAC Ai ‘an completed the A round of financing, with a total amount of 18.294 billion yuan. After the financing is completed, the total direct and indirect shareholding ratio of GAC Group will be changed from 93.45% to 76.89%.

In this regard, the valuation of GAC Ai ‘an will also exceed 100 billion yuan, making it the highest valuation of domestic unlisted new energy automobile companies exceeding 100 billion yuan.

In just over a year, GAC Ai ‘an has completed various tasks such as asset and personnel reorganization, mixed reform, share reform and A-round competition, and its efficiency is as high as that of private enterprises.

After the completion of the mixed reform, GAC Ai ‘an has also introduced a large number of strategic support and industrial cooperative investors, and it has become more dynamic than before.

For example, in the power battery, Ganfeng Lithium Industry, Hanrui Cobalt Industry, Hanhui Capital and Keda Manufacturing were introduced; In chip design and manufacturing, SMIC and Yuexin Semiconductor are introduced. China Communications Capital was introduced for the coordination of intelligent driving vehicles and roads, and Southern Network Nengchuang and State Grid Yingda Industrial Fund were introduced for the energy ecology of charging and replacing electricity.

Even in terms of media and business collaboration, GAC Ai ‘an also introduced CCTV Financial Media Fund, Guangwu Holding Group and Lingnan Business Travel Group.

One hand is responsible for holding hands and working closely with leading enterprises in the industry to introduce investment; The other hand is responsible for clenching the fist, which improves the priority of self-research ability and vertical integration ability.

Therefore, in addition to self-research, GAC Aian also actively invests in R&D enterprises to build its own ecological chain, such as Juwan Technology Research, Ruipai Power and Inpai Battery, which are enterprises around batteries and electric drives.

When you see this, you will find how similar Ai ‘an and BYD are: from financing to investment, from investment to ecological chain building. The purpose is to ensure that technology is not backward and that the supply chain is not subject to people.

Guangzhou Automobile Group and Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute behind Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an also provided it with a lot of R&D, manufacturing and manpower support, which is also the core point why this enterprise can quickly stand firm in the new energy field.

And "Haobo" is to Ai ‘an, just as "Tengshi" or "Looking Up" is to BYD-only by breaking through to the high end, the flywheel of benign development will continue to rotate.