On April 14, 2024, when “Luftwaffe one” Airbus A350 landed at Chongqing Jiangbei Airport, Germanic dignitaries and business elites set foot on the land of oriental dragons.
This is Schultz’s second visit to China since becoming German chancellor, but the BMW Group Chief Executive Officer Ziptzer, who followed him, is obviously more familiar with the Chinese scenery.
After all, BMW has played the banner of “home in China”.
Before and after the Beijing auto show in late April, Chipze had half a month to not only accompany Schultz to discuss more possibilities of Sino-German cooperation, but also to release the latest localization strategy on behalf of BMW Group at the Beijing auto show.
Guan announced a capital increase plan of up to 20 billion yuan, which is related to the development process of BMW’s Chinese market in the next decade or even two decades.
It’s just that German cars, including BMW, are in a very different situation compared with the situation when they first entered China 30 years ago.
In the past, German cars played an enlightening role in car consumption, especially luxury cars in the Chinese market.
With the intensification of industrial change, German’s share in China has shrunk, and BMW cannot avoid it.
5-Series and X5L are no longer in the limelight, and a number of new rivals, such as M9 and Lulai ET7, have entered the battlefield from oblique thorns.
How should German brands deal with it? Is the current pain “labor pains” or “long pain”? At the moment of getting off the plane, Chipze’s mood must have been mixed.
The sublimity of man comes from the recognition of his own pain.
” Mathematician and thinker Pascal defines the value of pain.
BMW and even German cars as a whole have obviously tasted the pain of the transition era.
But for those who work hard, this pain is just “labor pains”, enough to accumulate self-motivating energy for the subsequent accelerated transformation.
From the positive change of the I sub-brand promoted by Norbert Rathoff at that time, to Kruger sticking to the stability and conservatism of the fuel car base, in fact, both the radical line and the conservative line are the routes that BMW has the ability to run wild, but it needs to identify a good direction.
And has this Shenjun from Bavaria ever been willing to be mediocre and lonely? Speed up: the ambition of “New Generation”, you can say that BMW’s electrification has taken a detour, or got up early in the morning to catch up with the late collection, but it cannot be said that BMW has forgotten the electrification and intelligence.
Of course, even among BMW fans, some people lament that “the I-series took the lead in the BBA tram, but now BMW ignores the pure electric dedicated platform.
” According to the 2011 I sub-brand, BMW was the first to start the modern electric transformation in BBA Sanjia.
But as Mercedes-Benz and Audi successively launched the EVA and PPE pure electric platform architecture, BMW fell into hesitation and denial after the change of head.
Kruger’s pragmatism and conservatism won BMW a profit margin, but it also gave up the opportunity of rapid development of electrification and intelligence.
as a result, most of BMW’s I-series still use “oil-electricity sharing” platforms such as CLAR and CLAR We, and have not yet got rid of the “oil-to-electricity” hat.
So what answer will BMW use to respond to the transformation of the electrified and intelligent age? During the Beijing auto show, the answer surfaced and condensed into three words: the new generation.
The “new generation” of the BMW Group is not just a car, but marks the beginning of the next generation of BMW’s new product line, which represents a leap forward in BMW design, technology and overall production innovation.
This should be traced back to several important decisions made by Chipze during the Beijing auto show.
First, the “new generation” model is about to land.
According to the plan of BMW Group, the BMW “New Generation” model will be launched in the global market in 2025 and made in Shenyang, China in 2026.
In the long run, the new generation of BMW models will integrate the core innovations in the three major areas of future travel.
“New Generation” is not just a car, it represents the beginning of the new product line of the next generation of BMW.
Recently, BMW Group plans to bring more than 20 new and upgraded models of BMW and MINI brands to China in 2024, including the new all-electric BMW i4, which was launched globally at BMW Night.
Second, the strategy of “Home in China” will be accelerated.
At present, China is the market with the largest increment of pure electric models in BMW Group.
BMW plans to invest an additional 20 billion yuan in Shenyang production base, laying the foundation for the start of localized production of BMW’s “new generation” models in 2026.
It is reported that the focus of this investment is on the large-scale upgrading and technological innovation of the Dadong plant, the birthplace of BMW production in China.
In addition, the total investment of the sixth generation power battery project for the “new generation” model amounts to 10 billion yuan.
the main building of the project was fully completed in Shenyang in November last year, and the equipment installation is planned to be completed within this year.
And officially opened in 2026.
To some extent, this year’s BMW Night and Beijing Auto Show have been given a unique meaning by BMW.
It not only strengthens the group’s vision of electrification and intelligence, but also releases another important message: the strategic deployment planned in the past is about to become a reality in practice, during the landing of mass production cars.
BMW has been key verification at the technical and product level.
Why did BMW make up its mind? Through electric and intelligent lane change, Chinese brands not only stay at the level of popular brands, but also go up to the hinterland of BBA.
This year, the M9 won the crown of more than 500000 yuan in car sales, while polar krypton 001 and Ulai ET7 also aimed at 56e to launch an impact.
BMW can no longer stand still, BBA can no longer walk slowly.
If it is said that of the 2.
55 million vehicles sold by the BMW Group worldwide last year, 375000 were pure electric models, which was a good achievement, and that nearly 100000 of the 820000 pure electric vehicles sold in China, and the pure electric BMW i4 completed the phased transformation campaign at the Beijing Auto Show, then the completion of China’s debut of the BMW new generation concept car at the Beijing Auto Show is that BMW is really determined to speed up the transformation and seize the rhythm of the Chinese market.
And this is the real power within BMW.
From the “Ninth five-year Plan struggle” to the “lost five-year War”, since the Internet has swept all industries, there have been all kinds of popular words, such as “barbarians at the door”, “outsiders become killers”, “the times eliminate you and have nothing to do with you” and so on.
Although it is exaggerated most of the time, it can still have an impact on the major industries in the local context.
Like BMW, which has been the top seller of luxury brands for too long, it will be grateful for the domestic decision of the X5 since 2022, which has not only become a new growth point for BMW’s sales in China, but also an important “profit cow”.
But in 2024, the BMW X5L suffered an unprecedented “attack”, not from Mercedes-Benz GLE or Audi Q7, let alone Cadillac XT6, Volvo XC90, etc.
Second-tier luxury SUV, but from the new power of car-building.
If the monthly sales of the ideal L9 reaches a maximum of 14900 at a price of 440000 yuan, it can be regarded as a replacement for the German large luxury SUV, then the monthly sales of more than 15000 M9 at the line of sight of 550000 yuan will really make the German luxury SUV feel pain.
In April and May, M9 became the champion of vehicle sales of more than 500000 yuan in a row, and the sales figure of 15875 vehicles was enough to alert BBA-this is a new era.
Consumer groups have undergone major changes in the scale of value orientation, from the industrial chain to the dimension of competition among vehicle enterprises.
Admittedly, the food circle can criticize the world for “not as good as BBA”, or ridicule that “the foundation of building a car is a well-off van”, or hold a negative attitude towards the weight of Huawei’s intelligent technology in car purchase decisions.
However, the changes of the times never stop because of stubbornness or stubbornness, so electrification and intelligent technology will certainly get closer to the core of automobile functions.
similarly, the adherence to the laws of the industry has never been given up because of shouting “revolution”, so safety and reliability is always the bottom demand of cars.
This is doomed to the extreme ideas of “unwillingness to change” and “complete subversion”, which will eventually hit a brick wall.
Therefore, the question of M9 sudden heights, dilution of BMW X5L and other luxury SUV share, really belongs to “existence is reasonable”.
Even in the foreseeable future, assuming that M9 loses potential energy and is beaten back to its original form because of ignoring safety and quality, it will not deny that BBA large-scale SUV does have the disadvantage of slow change at this time.
The “Ninth five-year Plan struggle” is the defeat of the BBA profit cow, while the “lost five Wars”, the key model of the brand defined by BBA, has suffered a decline.
For Chinese consumers, recalling the enlightening history of luxury brands, 56e can be called the model of the brand defined by BBA and the benchmark of “luxury car concept”.
In a sense, models that can strike a balance between sales, profit and brand height are often called “Hero Car”.
Although the “hero car” characters fall more often on some medium and large SUV, the 5-Series, A6 and E-Class are the heroes of BMW Audi Mercedes-Benz.
If the hero is late, it is inevitable that grief hangs over him.
The BMW 5-Series was renewed at the end of January this year, far from dusk, but the results are lack of vitality.
The reason is that, except for some objective unfavorable factors, the pricing of the new 5 series is slightly higher than that of the old model, and the replacement of the light mix structure from ISG to BSG is not the optimal solution for NVH, and the power of the low-power version may not meet the expectations of potential customers, coupled with the controversy over the design and renewal (cancellation of angel eyes, chicken legs, etc.
), each single disassembly may not be too serious, but it will constitute a heavy burden after superposition.
From a peripheral perspective, what direction will the C-class high-end car market segment evolve? Whether hunting cars like Polar Krypton 001 will win with sporty and youthful design, or whether the ET7 will stir up the storm with the high comfort of the smart electric car era after the replacement, this is a topic that both the BMW 5-Series and i5 need to ponder.
Trade-offs and labor pains, for the star of Bavaria, from the glory of the past, to the slowness of today’s transformation, and then to the potential solution, all maintain a common underlying logic-tied to history and to people.
Glory and gloom, sadness and joy are always two sides of the same coin.
In 2015, BMW, which is at the top of global sales of luxury cars, ushered in the top election related to the transformation of electrification.
Norbert Nobert Reithofer, group chairman and CEO, is about to retire, and in his last year at the helm of BMW (2014), the company sold an unprecedented 2 million vehicles.
In 2008, Rathoff retired, and there were two favourites competing for the baton, Herbert Diess and Harald Krueger.
Although the voice of Dees was louder at that time, Kruger eventually became the new head of the group because of Rathoff’s support.
When Kruger came to power, Dice ran away angrily and joined the Volkswagen Group, which also belonged to the German camp, and became the new leader there.
Looking back a few years later, these two professional managers who were born in BMW went on their own management journey at that moment, but looking back a few years later, they both became scapegoats for the transformation of the company in the dispute, and their merits and demerits were judged by the industry.
Volkswagen’s transformation pains came earlier than BMW.
Deiss, which once pulled the group out of the mud of the “diesel door”, was “triple negated” by the Volkswagen supervisory board, the Porsche family and the Piech family, and was fired in 2022.
When competing with Deiss for the position of chairman, Kruger repeatedly stressed his determination to accelerate the development and breakthrough of electrification, but after taking office, he did not quickly and simply increase the relevant research and development in the field of pure electric power.
instead, he insisted on a very cautious attitude and instead increased the proportion of plug-in hybrid models.
Kruger stepped down early in 2019 because of his wavering strategic route, and BMW ushered in a new CEO Oliver Zipse that is good at adjusting.
Let’s take a look at these three leaders– Reithofer, who actively embraced electrification and pushed the BMW I brand and pure electric models i3 and i8, which are years ahead of their rivals.
Mercedes-Benz EQ series and Audi’s E-tron series are all products around 2019.
Kruger, who is very cautious about pure electricity, abandons the political legacy of the Rathoff era and moves closer to the traditional idea of “changing oil to electricity”, increasing the proportion of plug-in models.
In the short term, many “oil to electricity” models sell well, bringing good benefits to BMW, but in the long run, the process of pure electricity within BMW slows down and the overall strategy is conservative.
Chipze, appointed in the face of danger, is regarded as a fire-fighting hero in the “post-Kruger era”, exploring the optimal path among different route strategies of fuel vehicles, hybrid cars and electric vehicles, and finally choosing a flexible hybrid development strategy that goes hand in hand.
We can see that under the management of two wavering leaders, BMW did run faster than its competitors in the short term, becoming the highest-selling luxury brand and enjoying dividends, but everything had its two sides– if BMW, like Audi and Mercedes-Benz, had done more positive platform research and development in pure electric, sales growth and profit performance might not have been so good.
The process of balance and trade-off is essentially a paradox.
It can be predicted that the downturn of the BMW 5-Series is only an “introduction”.
In the following period of time, it will be a difficult period for BMW, but it will also be a difficult one.
BMW’s opportunity to build the ground for the next cycle.
, The “dividend period” and the “pain period” overlap, which is a “sweet worry” that only people with a long history can enjoy.
For brands with short history, I am afraid that they have not yet gone through a complete business cycle and can only use half of the peak-valley curve to describe all their stories.
“In 2023, BMW Group’s net profit will reach 18.
48 billion euros (equivalent to RMB 144.
7 billion).
” Perhaps such a peak of dividends will leave BMW for a while, but if BMW moves forward with the pace of hard work, it will be in the next cycle.
What kind of new glory will it usher in? Chipzer’s countermeasures and the sweat of the BMW China team will determine the direction in which the blue sky and white clouds move on this hot land.
Return to First Electric Network Home>.
