Recently, the much-anticipated Chery iCAR V23 officially debuted. The new car was jointly built by Chery and Zhimi Technology and is positioned as a small SUV, although it is only 4 meters long. It has a body size of about 2.7 meters, but has a wheelbase of 2.7 meters. It can be said that it is another product with very distinctive features. It is reported that the new car will be unveiled at the upcoming Beijing Auto Show, and will start pre-sale, launch and delivery in the second half of the year. The official said that the car “although we cannot get the price of 149,900, we are sincere.”
“iCAR V23”
“iCAR X25”
At the same time, iCAR officials also brought a little easter egg. A brand new model called “X25” was exposed. It has a compact body and is officially defined as a One Box off-road MPV. It has a similar design idea to the V23. It also pushes the four wheels as hard as possible to the four corners of the vehicle, making it have higher space utilization inside and enhancing the vehicle’s passability.
During the exclusive interview before the press conference, iCAR brand executives announced future product plans. It is reported that the iCAR brand builds cars for young user groups. “The cars that young people like are that they want the car to be fun, easy to drive, impress them in terms of styling, and also have a sense of technology and a soul. So we focus on these directions. The cars we will make in the future are divided into three sequences.”
“iCAR 03”
iCAR 03 represents the 0 sequence, representing the direction of technology and sophistication. Currently, a total of 10,000 units have been rolled off the production line. The sales volume in the first month of the launch was 8,000+. The sales volume in March was 5,487 units, and the first OTA was launched on April 6.
The V23 is the first model in the V series, representing the direction of off-road style. However, the official also emphasized that this is an urban-style off-road model and is not a product suitable for “conquering the polar regions”.
In addition, the X series is a brand-new “new species” of single-box cars. The first model is the X25 released this time. We predict that this product series will take an unusual path in the future and open up some new market segments.
In addition to the brand’s future product planning, the official also talked about the company’s operating model, the brand’s design concept, development direction, etc. during the exclusive interview. The interviewee was Zhang Hongyu, general manager of Chery New Energy Vehicle Co., Ltd. and general manager of the iCAR Brand Division. , Su Jun, founder and CEO of Zhimi Technology and chief product officer of iCAR Automobile, part of the interview is as follows:
Media: Zhimi calls itself an ecological chain company of Xiaomi. In communication, the distinction between Zhimi and Xiaomi is very blurred. I would like to ask Mr. Su to explain what kind of company Zhimi is? Please tell me, Mr. Zhang, how Chery and Zhimi got together?
Su Jun: This has actually caused a lot of trouble to everyone, and I’m very sorry. You can definitely read the statement posted on my personal Weibo and Zhimi Weibo. The cars we make now are under the iCAR brand, and our qualifications are iCAR. Now we all belong to the iCAR division of Chery Group.
Smartmi began to incubate car-building teams in 2021. The main incubator at that time was Smartmi. However, during the development process, the automobile industry changed, so we found President Yin (Tongyue), who arranged for me to meet with President Hongyu. We hit it off and became very harmonious, and then we led our respective teams to start integrating.
Now the automobile entrepreneurial team incubated by Zhimi has been fully integrated into the iCAR business unit, which means that the labor relations of most of our entrepreneurial team are subordinate to the iCAR brand. Therefore, there are fundamental differences between us and Huawei in making cars. The essence of iCAR is still Chery making cars, but the Zhimi entrepreneurial team has injected some vitality into iCAR in the form of integration.
Zhang Hongyu: As a traditional independent brand, it is actually quite difficult for Chery to become a new energy brand. The “difficulty” here is not only difficult for traditional independent brands like Chery to become new energy brands, but also for the entire industry. Whether it is SAIC, FAW, Dongfeng, Geely, Great Wall, or Changan, it is quite difficult to build a new brand of new energy.
The difficulty is that we apply the inertia accumulated by making traditional cars to the new energy track. However, old car people always have inertia in the user thinking, Internet thinking, and marketing strategies required by this track. Huawei and Xiaomi hold a press conference and basically suck away all the traffic. This is something that traditional companies do not have. However, in the current market, we have to compete on the same stage, so it is extremely difficult for traditional companies to build such new energy brands.
But iCAR is very lucky. When I was thinking about how to break out of the new energy track for iCAR, we came together with Dr. Su’s team. Chery has traditional R&D, engineering and manufacturing, and supply chain capabilities, but what we lack is the Internet approach, user thinking, and methodology for making explosive products. Dr. Su’s team can provide them.
Media: Hello, leaders, I have two questions. The first one is what is the meaning of our current naming rules? The first car was 03, and now it is called V23. What kind of rules does it follow? Is it possible to make friends with 90,000? Thanks.
Zhang Hongyu: After integrating with Dr. Su’s team, the first thing we did was to think about what products iCAR would launch to impress our users, because iCAR makes cars for young people, and young people want cars that are fun and good. In order to impress them in terms of styling, it must also have a sense of technology and soul. So we divided the cars we want to build in the future into three sequences around these directions.
iCAR 03 represents the 0 sequence, which represents the direction of technology and sophistication;
V23 is the first model in the V series and represents the direction of off-road style;
In addition, we will also launch the X series, which is a brand-new “new species” of single-cabin cars.
You mentioned “99,000” just now. I also explained in today’s press conference that the future prices of our series of models will definitely reflect our sincerity and strength, which is to provide young people with such outstanding value cars. The price must exceed young people’s expectations. However, it ultimately depends on the positioning of the model itself and the core technology we apply.
Media: I follow Dr. Su on Weibo. You often drive off-road vehicles to play; and Hongyu is always a product expert. I want to ask a product-level question: iCAR has a wild meaning in it from 03 to V23, and this wild meaning is more important. It is more like a wild that gives people a sense of yearning. It is not a wild in a purely functional sense. I would like to ask whether we will build the first pure electric off-road vehicle of our own brand in the future? Second, young people like to be cool, so we need to give them a cool foundation. It doesn’t just change the shell to make it cool. It has to do things that others can’t do. What is our future product plan? If there is a plan, which technology do you think is the highlight?
Su Jun: Product planning is not about what we want to do, but about transforming from technology Chery to technology Chery + user Chery, that is, we do what users need. As you said, assuming that our core users need hard-core pure electric off-roading, we will do it. Everything we do starts from user needs.
Let us use an example to better understand “user needs”: iCAR’s core target users are highly educated youths in first- and second-tier cities. Just like Zhimi Technology is surrounded by Zhihu, Feishu, and 58.com, and further away is Baidu and Xiaomi. , TAL, Kuaishou, (our goal) are these young people in these companies, how do we achieve insights? Because we are them, we are essentially making products for ourselves, that is, understanding user needs and making friends with users, so we are essentially making products for ourselves. We can’t make a product to sell to customers that we don’t even want; we are part of the core users, and this is the best way to understand users.
I think this method has also been verified in the automobile industry. For example, why is Li Xiang so successful? Li Xiang is a core user of L9, and his cognitive insight into this product far exceeds that of ordinary users. When Mr. Lei was making phones, he often carried more than a dozen phones in his pocket and hundreds of phones in his drawer. Do you think he was a phone geek? His insight into this industry is so deep that he goes beyond the average consumer’s understanding of this industry.
If you look at my Weibo, you may find that I often say “waiting online”, but actually I am waiting for everyone’s feedback. This is a way to make friends.
