What is more painful than death is being forgotten.
"Liuzhou Jimny", the younger brother of Tank 300, "Tank 30" and "Electric G" …
Years later, there are more and more discussions about a new car with unique shape on the Internet. Such a variety of ridicule containing spit and attention has attracted a crowd of people in the industry. With the listing of Bao Junyue, the protagonist under discussion, the brand of Bao Jun was once again discussed intensively, and even boarded the hot list several times, which attracted the leadership of Bao Jun to forward it one after another.
To be honest, Baojun brand has not enjoyed such a "treatment" for a long time.
Strictly speaking, since it was renamed as "Xinbaojun", Baojun has been neglected by the market. From the mainstream brand with a monthly sales volume of 140,000 vehicles and an annual sales volume of over one million vehicles at its peak, it has become a marginal brand with a monthly sales volume of 1,000 vehicles and a weaker market presence-we seem to be looking at a self-owned brand with great rising momentum and falling on the eve of dawn.
Borrowing a sentence that most people in the industry discuss Baojun is: Baojun, what a pity.
Nine years of horse’s head marks, just like a dream of Huangliang.
When it comes to the birth of Baojun brand, we have to mention Wuling Hongguang, the "God Car".
In the first generation of "People’s God Car", Wuling Hongguang not only measured rural roads and witnessed the success of entrepreneurs one after another, but also helped Wuling reach the peak of an era, deeply branding the shining Wuling red label into the glorious history of China’s automobile industry and becoming a real myth.
Therefore, under the complicated background of the changes of domestic consumption market, the sharp shrinkage of micro-market and the overcapacity of the industry, Wuling aims to seize new opportunities, continue the sales myth and seek more market voices.
So, in 2010, Wuling made a major decision-to get rid of the brand attribute of commercial vehicles and move to the passenger car market with broader development prospects. Baojun brand was born in time.
Judging from the subsequent development of Baojun brand, we have to admit that Wuling is right.
After the short-term failure of Baojun 630 and hatchback 610, Baojun brand quickly ushered in its first explosion. Baojun 730, based on the car platform, well filled the gap in the market at that time and officially opened the development history of Baojun.
In 2016, with the performance of over 370,000 vehicles, Baojun 730 ranked second in the MPV sales list that year, second only to its own model Wuling Hongguang. Coincidentally, in addition to being a great success in the MPV field that he is good at, Baojun has also made some gains in the SUV market. The compact SUV Baojun 560 was even compared with another national car Haval H6 at that time.
Coupled with the later Baojun 510, Baojun 310 and 310 WAGON, successful models were successively launched in different market segments, which enabled Baojun to successfully occupy a place in the low-end market, constantly harvesting market share and becoming an "explosive professional household".
In 2017, Baojun brand ushered in its peak moment. In December of that year, Baojun achieved the highest sales volume of over 140,000 vehicles in a single month, second only to SAIC Volkswagen and Geely. Among them, Baojun 510 sold 54,000 vehicles; Baojun 310 sold35,000 vehicles; Baojun 730 sold 32,000 vehicles.
That year, Baojun also reached the same level as the Great Wall, BYD and Chang ‘an in the independent camp with sales exceeding one million.
However, like many car companies that hit the annual sales of millions of cars, Baojun failed to go any further after that. Its overall sales volume has never achieved a big leap. On the contrary, it has stopped in the market changes, internal friction of its own models and the shackles of production capacity.
The reason for the success of Baojun is that the technology supported by GM and the value of low pricing are indispensable. However, with the upgrading of consumption, more and more products with better configuration and more suitable prices are pouring into the market. This has made Baojun, who has been deeply rooted in the low-end positioning of 50,000-80,000 yuan for a long time, suffer enough, gradually being replaced and abandoned.
Baojun also realized the seriousness of the problem. Not wanting to be eliminated, it chose to complete the brand renewal in 2019. The brand-new diamond logo pushed Baojun to a strange battlefield, and the new Baojun was born. However, consumers do not buy the move of changing the soup without changing the medicine. The conjecture that the new Baojun will fail, which was described in detail by the Automobile Commune in Baojun, Starting from Death, has now been fulfilled.
Xinbaojun returned without success.
Can Bao Junyue also make a comeback?
"We have played down ‘ Xinbaojun ’ The concept returns to the name of Baojun. "
At a test drive meeting of Baojun Yueye, an engineer from Liuzhou said this. This is undoubtedly a denial of the new Baojun era.
Since the Matou standard was upgraded to the diamond standard, although Wuling focused all its new cars on Xinbaojun, and the original models of Baojun brand were only changed, Xinbaojun did not follow the set development route. Especially after Wuling launched the global silver standard with upward brand, the situation of Xinbaojun became more and more pessimistic. Xin Baojun, who wanted to be separated from Wuling, seemed out of place.
In 2020, Baojun sold 422,000 vehicles, down 36.7% year-on-year. In the same year, it appeared at the "315 party", and the frequent breakdowns of the speed box were named by CCTV, becoming the only brand named in the automobile industry. In 2021, its sales volume continued to fall to 215,000 units; In 2022, Baojun directly did not disclose sales to the public; In the first quarter of this year, its sales volume was only over 3,000 …
The reason is that after the price of Xinbaojun is "upward", consumers don’t pay for the quality, and the cost performance is not as extreme as before, which leads to missing the replacement period of the original user group.
In addition, due to the concentrated development of new Baojun models, the previously popular Baojun 510, Baojun 310 and Baojun 730 have not been greatly upgraded for a long time, resulting in the product strength not keeping up with the development of competing products, and the sales volume of the original models also declined irreversibly.
During the period, Xinbaojun, which focused on development, also made an attempt in new energy, and launched Xinbaojun E300 and KiWi EV, but the explosion did not arrive as scheduled.
Among them, Xinbaojun E300 was listed earlier than Hongguang MINIEV. But on the one hand, the price of Xinbaojun E300 is twice as expensive, which discourages many consumers from buying cars. On the other hand, the over-personalized design also makes consumers have mixed comments on the new Baojun E300.
For various reasons, Xinbaojun E300 regretted losing, and now there is no sales volume to check. The KiWi EV, which was born on the basis of the new Baojun E300, failed to cause much trouble. This makes Xin Baojun gradually enter a dangerous moment.
In a previous trip to Liuzhou, when the author visited Wuling and talked about Baojun’s related topics, the other party replied: "There is no way, we need to constantly explore and plan as a whole." The "overall planning" here is very worth pondering.
The more bitter Bao Jun has been, the more it seems that Bao Junyue is also the mission of this exquisite car.
Bao Junyue is also the first product carried by Bao Jun after re-bidding, and the first product made by Zhou Shuo after returning to Wuling, aiming to fill the off-road style and pickup truck model of A00 mini-car. So, can Bao Junyue also achieve great success?
In fact, Zhou Yuezao expressed his views on Bao Junyue on his personal social account. He said: "Can Yue create the glory of Hongguang mini again? The answer is obviously no, acknowledging that it is not far ahead, nor is it 5 million the best! "
Sincerity is the greatest killer skill.
Generous recognition and consistent frankness are good habits that Zhou Shuo had when he was trading Hongguang MINIEV in his early years. Obviously, the over-personalized design and low price will still be obstacles to the sales of Baojunyue, just like the new Baojun E300, but it also has advantages, as Zhou Shuo said: "From a global perspective, it is the only choice for a small hard-core pure electric SUV."