Author | Chai Xuchen Editor | Zhou Zhiyu Faced with the trend of new energy electrification and the loss of market share under price wars, joint venture car companies have been "Renovating" their famous cars in an attempt to mount a strong counterattack. On May 30, SAIC Volkswagen's Touareg L Pro was launched. The car, which is said to be "the smartest gasoline car", had been preheated for nearly two months prior to its launch. The launch invited representatives from DJI Car and Tencent Travel, as well as the person in charge of iFLYTEK, all of whom attended in person to demonstrate the strength of its smart driving and smart cabin. As a "meritorious model" of SAIC Volkswagen, Touareg has been synonymous with Volkswagen SUVs for the past 15 years and was once the best-selling joint venture SUV. With a monthly sales volume of nearly 20,000 units for a long time, it occupies a 20% share of SAIC Volkswagen. SAIC Volkswagen hopes that the new Touareg will become a disruptor in the current market, from gasoline car intelligence to a stable price system with value-added buyback policy. In the view of Yu Jingmin, Vice President of Sales and Marketing of SAIC Volkswagen, new energy vehicles still have range anxiety and gasoline cars have an advantage that needs no explanation, but the biggest difference between them and electric vehicles lies mainly in their appearance and intelligence. After fulfilling the core needs of contemporary consumers, this once "famous car" seems to be reborn. Thus, from DJI's advanced intelligent driving solution to iFLYTEK's smart cabin voice assistant, this 200,000 yuan-level SUV brings together the strengths of various parties, aiming to break through the industry's perception that gasoline cars are less intelligent than electric vehicles. The launch of the new Touareg marks the beginning of SAIC Volkswagen's counterattack. In a post-event interview, Yu Jingmin mentioned several times that due to external cooperation and the accumulation of joint venture partners, SAIC Volkswagen's technology center is actually ahead of many independent brands, but unfortunately the rhythm is too slow. The company will now accelerate its efforts to catch up and even surpass in electric, hybrid or gasoline cars. Yu Jingmin revealed to Wall Street News that the new Touareg is the first gasoline car product in the Pro series, which is focused on intelligence, and that the Passat and Touareg Pro versions will also be introduced within the year. While polishing its technology, it is also preparing for the intelligence of its A-class cars. A counteroffensive war ignited by a gasoline fueled chariot seems to be brewing rapidly. But to be fair, SAIC Volkswagen's intelligence still lags far behind new forces such as Huawei, Xiaopeng, and Ideal. At the same time, in the current context where BBA is crazy about price cuts and the BMW electric car at over 180,000 yuan is setting a new industry low price, the 236,800 yuan Touareg L Pro seems somewhat out of step and the counterattack is difficult to achieve. In response to the challenge, SAIC Volkswagen has given a three-year 20% discount buyback plan. Users no longer need to worry about the fluctuation of vehicle purchase costs and second-hand car prices. SAIC Volkswagen locks in the difference between the purchase and final selling prices of users' vehicles, in a move to crack the price war. This also buys precious time for SAIC Volkswagen to speed up product and intelligence catch-up. This is the backdrop of the efforts to win back the former "king" of the Chinese car market.

In today's weather is good. Today's weather is good.

The former number one joint venture has once again faced BYD Company Limited head-on.

Recently, with the 71st anniversary of FAW Group, FAW-Volkswagen launched a mid-year promotion. The entry-level models of Bora, Sagitar and Tayron were officially reduced to CNY 0.0698 million, CNY 0.0898 million and CNY 0.1398 million respectively. At the same time, zero down payment plans were prepared to increase attraction, lowering the threshold for purchase to the minimum.

It is now possible to drive a former German luxury car worth 200,000 to 300,000 yuan back home for CNY 0.07 million which would have been considered impossible just a few years ago. In the view of industry insiders, this is likely to counter BYD's siege on joint venture A-class gasoline vehicles.

Earlier this year, BYD threw out a "nuclear bomb" - QIN PLUS Honor Edition and the more powerful EX5 at CNY 0.0798 million, continuing to expand the compact sedan market and occupy the last high ground of joint venture gasoline vehicles. From January to June, the two models respectively ranked first and fifth in sales in their respective sub-markets with sales volume of 0.241 million and 0.097 million.

With BYD in the mix, the Bora disappeared from the top 10 list of compact sedans and its previously glorious monthly sales of 0.04 million units are no longer visible. Its total sales in the first six months of this year fell by nearly 40% to 0.048 million. Although the Sagitar kept its fourth position, its sales volume decreased by 7.3% year-on-year and its monthly sales highlight was no longer the 0.03 million+ units as in previous years, with an average monthly sales of 0.016 million in the first half of the year.

Compared with the sedan family, their performance in the SUV family has been even weaker. In June, a total of nine SUVs owned by FAW-Volkswagen were delivered, totaling 0.0286 million units, less than the 0.041 million units of Tesla Model Y in the same period. However, they were once contributors to the FAW-Volkswagen becoming top seller among Chinese car makers.

The glory of FAW-Volkswagen also stayed in 2022. In that year, BYD became the new number one among domestic car makers, and the gap has been widening since then. According to data from CAAM, FAW-Volkswagen ranked second on the retail list for the first six months of this year with 0.771 million units sold, which was only half of the sales volume of BYD (1.388 million units) and a difference of nearly half.

FAW-Volkswagen, which is eager to break through this situation, has launched several promotional campaigns this year and all models participate in a trade-in policy. Not only the fuel vehicles, but the ID. family of pure electric vehicles has subsidies amounting to about CNY 0.02 million.

However, the stimulating effect of price cuts is no longer obvious, only keeping FAW-Volkswagen's monthly sales at 70,000 units, while the monthly sales peak of 100,000 units a few years ago is difficult to achieve. This is also a side effect of the challenges and difficulties faced by joint ventures in the transitional period of the industry.

Two years ago, Stephan Woellenstein, President and CEO of Volkswagen China, predicted that 'Volkswagen's main competitor in China would no longer be other joint venture car makers, but BYD.' In fact, not only BYD, but also independent brands such as Geely and Changan are catching up behind FAW-Volkswagen.

When new energy begins to replace gasoline vehicle as the market mainstream, traditional joint venture car makers also need to "fight to the death."

Facing increasingly fierce competition, FAW-Volkswagen, as the leader of joint venture brands, is determined to break through and set an example for the whole joint venture car industry.

Two months ago, FAW-Volkswagen pushed an internal notice called "Breakthrough Action," which stated, 'FAW-Volkswagen is now in the last and only transformation window. We have no choice but to fight back and we must unite and make the best of a bad job.'

Under the pivotal moment of "the fast fish eat the slow fish" announced by Richard Yu, FAW-Volkswagen is preparing for an accelerated launch of electric and hybrid products, and accelerating the export of Jetta brand. Internally, FAW-Volkswagen has set an annual sales target of 1.9 million to 2 million units. This means that it must achieve steady growth from last year's 1.91 million.

On July 9th, FAW-Volkswagen upgraded its flagship model Magotan by updating the appearance design of the electric car and equipping it with new technologies such as L2-level Intelligent Driving, with the slogan "oil and electricity with intelligence," to consolidate its dominant position in the B-class car TOP3.

In the pure electric field, according to publicly available information, the project under carmaker's Audi brand located in Changchun to produce PPE platform products is planned to be completed in December this year. This is a new energy production line planned for the Audi brand under FAW-Volkswagen. The annual production capacity will be 0.15 million vehicles, and the first PPE platform FAW-Audi Q6L e-tron is ready to go.

In the eyes of industry insiders, FAW-Volkswagen is trying to 'make up for its weaknesses and take advantage of its strengths' and reshape a new star product that is both voluminous and profitable to boost morale.

However, the former car maker boss must accelerate further. Now, BYD's fifth-generation DMi hybrid technology is about to be launched, with fuel consumption already reaching 2.9L per 100 kilometers and comprehensive cruising range surpassing 2000 kilometers. Geely is expected to quickly follow suit next year. New forces are also making differentiation in terms of services, intelligence, supplementary power, market positioning, in the joint venture gasoline vehicle market.

If FAW-Volkswagen wants to regain its past glory, it must learn the strategies of domestic brands and cross-border players such as Xiaomi and Huawei and respond promptly to new rules in new era. FAW-Volkswagen will usher in a new beginning when it turns 40 in 2024.

Looking back on history, in the more than 30 years before entering China, FAW-Volkswagen established an invincible position with its excellent product quality and strong brand appeal. In the era of gasoline vehicles, FAW-Volkswagen had both the well-known Santana and the Audi brand that dominated the high-end market.

Even in the deep waters of the industry reshuffle, top joint venture brands like FAW-Volkswagen still possess enormous potential energy. If fully utilized, it is not impossible to once again reverse the industry landscape. FAW-Volkswagen also needs some time to find the direction to break through and launch a fierce attack. It also has the hope of regaining the top spot.