“the age of 40 is the right age to run.
” On December 10, at the site of SAIC-Volkswagen’s 40th anniversary event, many media colleagues borrowed the workplace stalker created from the perspective of “elderly workers” to describe the 40-year-old SAIC-Volkswagen still very competitive.
It is true that the global automobile industry is facing great changes not seen in a century, electrification is in the ascendant, and intelligence is booming.
Between the breaking of the old pattern and the establishment of new business type, it is difficult for many traditional enterprises to follow.
More and more brands and models that played a dominant role in the last era have become a piece of yellow sand under the wheel of the times.
At the same time, there are still several joint venture car companies that take into account brand beliefs and product strength, stick to the market in the rapid development of their own brands, not only show profound strength in fuel models, but also make good achievements in electrification, becoming an important reference sample for a number of joint venture brands when switching tracks.
SAIC Volkswagen is one of them.
On the one hand, we can still see Lang Yi, Passat and the Tuguan family perform steadily in the fuel car market.
on the other hand, with ID.
The new energy vehicle represented by the family is not only the core force of Volkswagen’s transformation, but also the hope of the whole village of the joint venture brand.
Based on this, it is inevitable that some people will play tricks-SAIC Volkswagen is at the right age.
But then again, when you look back to 40 years ago, does the fledgling SAIC-Volkswagen believe it will sell 28 million cars and become one of the most successful joint ventures in the Chinese market? Forerunners, disputes and 28 million vehicles, in the early days of reform and opening up, the Sino-foreign joint venture model is still a new thing, few enterprises have tried.
Carl Hahn, then chairman of Volkswagen, encountered a lot of internal resistance from Volkswagen in promoting cooperation with Chinese car companies.
At the board meeting of Volkswagen at that time, the debate lasted more than half a year, which made Volkswagen’s opinion on the Chinese market extremely divided.
However, after many friendly exchanges between China and Germany, in October 1984, SAIC and Volkswagen finally signed a cooperation agreement at the Great Hall of the people, ushering in a new era for foreign car companies to enter China.
SAIC-Volkswagen, together with Beijing Gyibug and Guangzhou Peugeot, became the first batch of joint ventures to enter the Chinese market and the forerunner of the joint venture model between Chinese and foreign car companies.
And given the division of opinion within Volkswagen and the unknown Chinese auto market, perhaps at the beginning of its establishment, SAIC Volkswagen did not expect to achieve so much in the future.
However, the fact is that Volkswagen has successfully gained the love of the Volkswagen brand by virtue of a series of successful models, and is regarded as one of the “most successful joint venture car companies”.
As SAIC Party Committee Secretary and Chairman Wang Xiaoqiu said: “over the past 40 years, SAIC has cooperated sincerely with Germany’s Volkswagen and achieved fruitful results, which has not only promoted the development and growth of SAIC-Volkswagen.
At the same time, it also promotes the development of China’s auto parts industry and lays a solid foundation for China’s auto industry chain.
” Not only achieved fruitful results, the road to enter the Chinese market is so smooth.
At that time, the market background was that the independent R & D capability of domestic automobile enterprises was relatively weak, the joint venture became the main force of the automobile market, and the market transfer was the main theme.
With the entry of foreign capital, many Sino-foreign joint venture brands emerge as the times require.
Joint ventures make use of foreign advanced technology and management experience to accelerate the development of the domestic automobile market.
SAIC Volkswagen is one of the best in terms of technology, management, vehicle models and brand beliefs.
As a result, SAIC-Volkswagen has been on the road to development since Santana, China’s first joint venture car, went offline in 1983.
The first model, Santana, has won the top spot in the domestic automobile market for 22 years in a row, with cumulative sales of more than 6 million vehicles.
Passat sold nearly 400000 vehicles in the past five years, making it the evergreen tree in the medium-sized car market.
Lang Yi has sold more than 1 million bikes in four years.
Between 2016 and 2019, when Tuguan became the best-selling joint venture brand SUV.
, especially after Shanghai Volkswagen changed its name to SAIC-Volkswagen, SAIC-Volkswagen sold more than 2 million vehicles for four consecutive years, reaching its peak and becoming an unshakeable champion brand in China’s auto market.
However, a poisonous apple from Christmas Eve in 2019 has exposed SAIC-Volkswagen to unprecedented controversy in the Chinese market.
On Christmas Eve 2019, when the China Insurance Research Institute released the results of the Passat collision test, the bending and collapse of the A-pillar made Passat a weakness of SAIC Volkswagen, and the bad mood of consumers also broke out completely at this moment.
Subsequently, “Pasata 25%” continued to ferment on media and social platforms, and even the story of being on 315 several times a few years ago was mentioned again-SAIC-Volkswagen suffered a serious public relations crisis.
This was followed by a significant decline in SAIC-Volkswagen sales since 2020, falling to 1.
505 million in 2020 and continuing to decline to 1.
242 million in 2021.
Although it rebounded to 1.
32 million in 2022, it fell again to 1.
215 million in 2023.
However, the strength of the Volkswagen brand and the adjustment ability of SAIC-Volkswagen have gradually eliminated the impact of the Passat collision.
Today, the reformed and reformed Passat has ranked first in sales of medium-and high-class fuel cars almost every month since January 2024, and the Passat family has sold nearly 200000 vehicles in the first ten months of this year.
It is still one of the best-selling B-class cars.
Passat’s “self-help” is only a microcosm of SAIC-Volkswagen’s ability to adjust.
In recent years, SAIC-Volkswagen has been optimized in many aspects, such as organizational structure adjustment, product planning adjustment, channel reform and marketing effort, including Passat, Lanya, and Touguan.
Many classic models are still in this market environment where new energy seizes the main flow, maintaining good competitiveness.
Not only that, the ID of SAIC Volkswagen.
Since its birth, the cumulative sales of the family has exceeded 300000, and this year it has also sold more than 100000.
Among them, SAIC-Volkswagen ID.
3 performed particularly well, with monthly sales of about 10,000 vehicles, leading the list of joint venture pure electricity.
In Santana’s blockbuster, in the highlight of Passat, in the enterprise self-adjustment, in the continuous development of new energy, SAIC Volkswagen ushered in its 40th birthday.
This year, SAIC Volkswagen received the support of more than 28 million users, remains one of the most successful joint ventures, and shines at the special moment of new energy switching.
With the change and upgrading of the automobile industry, China’s automobile industry has experienced decades of development and butterfly changes since in the last century.
The world’s largest car market.
During this period, a number of competitive domestic brands such as BYD, Geely, Chery and Great Wall emerged, driving the continuous upgrading of the entire industry.
At the same time, Chinese automobile enterprises have strengthened their strategic deployment of globalization and actively opened up overseas markets.
For example, Geely bought Volvo, Great Wall entered the European market, and so on.
In addition, multinational corporations have also begun to move their production base to China, which has led to the rapid development of China’s automobile industry.
It can be said that China’s automobile industry has realized the process from market transfer to technology equality.
On the one hand, there is the continuous upward attack of Chinese brands, and on the other is the trend of new energy.
Foreign brands that have been in China for decades have begun to be reshuffled by the industry, which is the inevitable result of the rise of China’s manufacturing industry.
it is also the only way for the development of new energy in China.
Even mainstream joint venture brands such as Volkswagen, GM and the top three Japanese brands have suffered varying degrees of decline in sales and market share, not to mention that those second-tier joint ventures have been squeezed out of the market by first-tier enterprises because of their weak product power.
in addition, without the support of new energy technology, they are quickly alienated by users in the market, and even many of them have withdrawn from the Chinese market.
In the new changing situation, only change can have the hope of living and the possibility of going forward.
Therefore, a new Sino-foreign joint venture model began to prevail.
We all know that for more than 40 years, all Sino-foreign joint venture automobile manufacturing enterprises have been provided with products, technology, brands and manufacturing by the foreign side, while the Chinese side is responsible for sales, using broad market opportunities in exchange for time for technological development.
With the continuous development of new energy technology, China has surpassed the foreign side in electrified products and technology, and the latter has also relied on the former technology.
Therefore, including Volkswagen holding hands Xiaopeng, Jaguar Land Rover and Chery, Stellantis shares in Zero run.
More and more foreign enterprises take the initiative to seek cooperation with Chinese car companies, equipped with China’s electrified platform and other new energy technologies, in order to seek the growth of product power and the continuation of brand power.
The birth of this new joint venture model undoubtedly announced the beginning of a new joint venture era, which changed the Sino-foreign joint venture mode of providing products and technology from in the last century.
the significance of the industry is comparable to the establishment of Beijing Gyibug and SAIC Volkswagen.
And embracing the era is also the choice of SAIC Volkswagen.
On the eve of the Guangzhou Auto Show, Audi’s new luxury electric brand AUDI, built by SAIC and Volkswagen, will be on the market in 2025.
Predictably, this model, based on the intelligent digital platform jointly developed by Audi and SAIC, will usher in a significant upgrade in intelligence and cockpit experience, and the competitiveness of the product will be further enhanced.
Two weeks ago, SAIC and Volkswagen signed an extension of the joint venture agreement in Shanghai, extending SAIC-Volkswagen’s joint venture period to 2040.
At the site of the 40th anniversary event, SAIC Volkswagen also demonstrated some of the new intelligent technologies being developed.
At the same time, SAIC Volkswagen will launch a number of products based on new hybrid platforms and pure electric platforms in the next two to three years.
What makes them unique is that they will have smart car “brains”, efficient and safe new three-electricity system and urban NOA function, newly designed interface, and AI big language model will also help intelligent cockpit.
It is believed that these upgrades are inseparable from China’s technical support, which is the stepping stone for SAIC-Volkswagen to enter the era of joint venture 2.
0, and it is also an important basis for determining how far SAIC-Volkswagen can go and how high it can climb in the new era.
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