Chinese car companies "Five Constants" fiercely compete at the Beijing Auto Show: BYD is unshakable, Great Wall exceeds expectations

On April 25th, the Beijing Auto Show officially opened, with numerous domestic and foreign car companies gathering to showcase many new and concept cars. Since last year, new energy vehicles have become the undisputed focus of international auto shows across the country. Looking at the global new energy vehicle industry, domestic new energy vehicle sales account for more than 60% of the global market share, and the market share of domestic new energy vehicles has exceeded 80% in 2022, clearly in a leading position.

As one of the top five domestic brands, BYD, Changan, Great Wall, Chery, and Geely, along with many subsidiary brands, participated in the auto show with new car models. With domestic sales of independent brands surpassing joint venture cars today, the performance of the top five independent brands is undoubtedly highly anticipated.

However, these five car companies have shown varying degrees of importance for this year's auto show, leading to significant differences in their performance at the show. Based on booth popularity, as well as the number of products and technologies released, Xiaotong has ranked the performance of the top five car companies at this year's auto show as follows.

Champion BYD: The king remains

BYD, a veteran car company with the most active layout of new energy vehicles in China, has rapidly developed from an ordinary brand with annual sales of four to five hundred thousand vehicles to the leading independent brand in just a few years, in response to the new energy vehicle industry. The BYD booth at this year's auto show was extremely popular, attracting not only numerous domestic automotive media but also many foreign media outlets. Xiaomi's CEO, Lei Jun, personally visited the BYD booth and had a candid conversation with BYD CEO Wang Chuanfu about cars, attracting a lot of attention to BYD.

In terms of products, BYD brought two new models, Qin L DM-i and Dolphin 06 DM-i, to the show. Among them, the Qin L DM-i is positioned as a B-class car, between the Qin PULS DM-i and the Han DM-i, equipped with BYD's fifth-generation DM technology, with certain improvements in energy consumption and power, and is set to be launched in the second quarter of this year.

Considering BYD's strong launch of a price war, the Qin PLUS DM-i and the destroyer 05 continue to lower prices, the larger and more expensive Qin L DM-i can help BYD fill the gap of around 150,000 yuan.

The Sea Lion 06 DM-i belongs to the marine network sister model of the Qin L DM-i. Currently, most of BYD's models on the Wangchao network have corresponding models on the marine network, with little difference in configuration and a certain price difference. The main difference lies in the fact that the Wangchao network models are designed to be more business-oriented and stable, while the marine network models are designed to be more sporty and targeted at young consumers.

The Ocean Network also released a two-door pure electric rear-wheel drive small cannon OCEAN-M concept car, which is expected to be launched in the third quarter of this year, with a expected production version price of 150,000 to 200,000 yuan.

In addition to the two major brands of Wangchao and Ocean Network, BYD's other sub-brands have also exhibited many new products. For example, the Formula Leopard brand has showcased the newly released Leopard 8 and the all-new supercar SUPER 9. The Tengshi brand has exhibited the heavyweight racing car Z9 GT, and the Yangwang brand U7, U9 and other models have made appearances.

As the saying goes, "the old is still spicy." As a leader in domestic and even global new energy vehicles, whenever BYD appears at an auto show, it is definitely the protagonist. Even the most popular Xiaomi car in the current industry, Lei Jun, chose to visit the friend's booth at BYD as the first stop.

With such performance, BYD's first place among the top four domestic leading car companies can be said to be without suspense.

Runner-up Changan: Transformable cars attract countless visitors

In 2023, Changan Automobile's independent brand car sales reached as high as 2.0978 million units, ranking second among independent brands. At the same time, in the face of new energy vehicles, Changan's transformation speed is also extremely amazing. It has previously stated that it will stop producing fuel vehicles by 2025, making it likely to be the second enterprise among the old car giants to stop producing fuel vehicles, with the first being BYD mentioned above.

At this auto show, Changan Automobile exhibited 33 models and 56 vehicles with its sub-brands and joint venture products. This includes eight new cars such as the Qiyuan E07, Avita 11 2024, Shenlan G318, Shenlan SL03/S7 two-year anniversary black gold knight commemorative edition, the second generation UNI-V smart electric iDD, Kaicheng intelligent large VAN, and MAZDA EZ-6.

The most eye-catching one is undoubtedly the QY E07, which is claimed to be the world's first "transformable car" with three major features: changeable appearance, changeable functions, and changeable software.

The so-called changeable appearance means that it looks like a crossover between a coupe SUV and a crossover vehicle at first glance, and indeed combines the off-road capability and spaciousness of an SUV with the handling of a sedan. What makes it unique is that the car can transform into a pickup truck, with stronger cargo-carrying capacity.

Changan's sub-brand Avita, which cooperates with Huawei in the Hi mode, has not launched a new product, but the 2024 Avita 11 is also eye-catching. The Deep Blue brand previously only relied on the SL03 and S7 models, achieving monthly sales of over 10,000. With the launch of the off-road vehicle G318 and the progress of Changan's new energy technology, Deep Blue is likely to achieve further breakthroughs in sales this year.

The arrival of the transformable car QY E07 has aroused the curiosity of many media outlets, who have visited Changan's booth to experience the "pickup-level SUV." Avita, which cooperates with Huawei in the Hi mode, has also attracted a lot of media attention for its outstanding HarmonyOS cockpit.

It can be said that Changan's firm transformation into new energy has made it a popular brand second only to BYD among the "Big Five," and its rich product lineup has delighted the attending media and audience. In the long run, what Changan needs to do is to bring more stimulating products and technologies to the market, and not to "get up early and arrive late."

Chery, the third place winner: the most popular Chinese brand among foreigners?

At this auto show, Chery Group's four major brands, Chery Automobile, EXEED Starway Automobile, Jetour Automobile, and iCAR Automobile, gathered together. The recent popular figure in the automotive industry, Zhou Hongyi, also appeared at the E107 Chery booth, indicating the high popularity of Chery.

The popularity of Chery's booth is even higher than expected, but upon closer inspection, it is mostly foreigners. It seems that Chery's popularity is largely attributed to its successful overseas strategy. Chery has been the top Chinese car exporter for several years in a row, and is believed to be the most familiar Chinese automotive brand in the eyes of foreigners.

Returning to the product, Chery brought the new E06 to this auto show, positioning it as a large five-seater SUV, offering pure electric and extended-range power options, with dimensions of 4820*1920*1685 mm and a wheelbase of 2920mm, slightly larger than the Wuling M5, targeting the market of 150,000 to 200,000 yuan. Strictly speaking, this car's positioning is not high, but it is equipped with features such as laser radar and a refrigerator that are only found in luxury cars, making it worth a closer look.

Of course, the exact price of the Fengyun E06 has not been announced yet, but judging from its hardware configuration, it will have good competitiveness even at a price above 200,000 yuan, and it is likely to be Chery's key product to compete in the high-end new energy vehicle market.

For the mid-to-low-end market, Chery has also launched the plug-in hybrid model, the Exploration 06 C-DM, positioning it as a compact SUV, equipped with the Kunpeng super hybrid system, including the fifth-generation ACTECO 1.5TGDI efficient hybrid engine, the stepless super electric hybrid DHT, and the hybrid intelligent electric management system. The car is priced at 129,900 to 139,900 yuan, and the official has also launched a 10,000 yuan trade-in subsidy and other promotional activities.

Although Chery's overseas sales of cars are good, for every domestic independent brand, the domestic market is the foundation. Especially at the rise of new energy vehicles, it is crucial to hold onto the largest market for new energy vehicles. Chery has restarted the Fengyun series, and other brands are also accelerating the transformation to new energy. New energy vehicle sales may achieve good results in 2024.

Great Wall Motors: The SUV king's style remains

Great Wall's SUV models did not have purely new car releases, mainly iterating the 2024 models of the original models, so their popularity is slightly lower than the above-mentioned products. However, thanks to the long-standing reputation in the SUV and off-road vehicle market, as well as the arrival of the new pickup trucks, the Great Wall booth attracted many people taking photos around the off-road vehicles and pickup trucks. After all, which man wouldn't be tempted by the powerful off-road vehicles and pickup trucks?

At this auto show, Great Wall's five major brands, WEY, Tank, Haval, ORA, and Great Wall Pickup, brought more than 20 heavyweight models to the exhibition. The debut appearance of the WEY Blue Mountain Intelligent Driving Edition marks that Great Wall Motors has also entered the top tier in the fields of intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit.

Among traditional domestic car companies, Great Wall New Energy's transformation enthusiasm can be said to be second only to BYD. As early as 2016, it launched the predecessor of the Wei brand "WEY," and in 2018, it launched the Ora brand. Now, Great Wall's new energy vehicle models cover low, medium, and high-end SUVs and high-end MPVs, and their sales performance is also good.

In the SUV and MPV fields, Great Wall has many competitors, but in the pickup and off-road vehicle industries, it is almost impossible to find competitors. The vehicles exhibited this time, such as the Great Wall Cannon and the Great Wall Cannon Hi4-T, have received a lot of attention, especially the Great Wall Cannon Hi4-T, which claims to lead the era of "4.0 full-scenario intelligent new energy" for pickups.

In addition to traditional cars, Great Wall also released its first and the world's first horizontally opposed eight-cylinder motorcycle engine at the auto show, officially entering the motorcycle industry. Judging from this engine, Great Wall's first motorcycle is probably a heavy-duty motorcycle.

Great Wall Motors has been the leader of independent brands for many years. Although its status is not as high as before in the era of new energy vehicles, its technical strength remains. Great Wall Motors did not release many new products at the Beijing Auto Show, so its popularity is not particularly high, but its overall performance is still good.

Geely: Technological Competition

Perhaps due to not releasing many attention-grabbing new products, the only eye-catching one is the Geely Galaxy Technology flagship SUV prototype called "Galactic Starship," which led to low popularity at the Geely booth, with many media personnel sitting there resting. Indeed, if the focus is mainly on experiencing old models or minor facelift models that are usually available, it is difficult to attract a lot of attention at the auto show.

At this auto show, Geely's truly heavyweight new products mainly focus on technology. The all-new generation of the Thunder God electric hybrid system has a high thermal efficiency of up to 46%, paired with an 11-in-1 intelligent electric drive, with a full tank and full electric range of over 2000km, and a fuel consumption of as low as 2L per 100km. Geely's pursuit of sound quality has also reached its peak, with the all-new FLYME SOUND full-scene surround AI intelligent sound system, featuring 27 speakers, a power output of over 2000W, and support for 9.1.6 channels.

Geely also emphasized the AI and intelligent functions, launching the Galaxy AI Digital Elf for multimodal AI video retrieval and creation. It is expected that the Galaxy E8 will be able to upgrade this feature via OTA in the second quarter of this year. Geely's GEA global intelligent new energy architecture claims to be the world's first architecture integrating hardware, system, ecology, and AI layers. The Geely AI digital chassis has an extreme 4ms response capability, achieving the world's first unmanned driving drift.

In addition, Geely's sub-brand Geometry attracted a lot of attention at the auto show, unveiling the Geometry MIX model tailored for family users. With dimensions of 4688*1995*1755mm and a wheelbase of 3008mm, the five-seater model offers spacious interior, making it very suitable for families with children.

Compared to the obscure and difficult-to-understand technology, most people are more concerned about new products, so Geely's popularity is not as high as other domestic brands. However, for the entire automotive industry, the probability of new products being released at auto shows will likely decrease, and auto shows may become sales-oriented exhibitions where car manufacturers provide close contact with a large number of cars to ordinary consumers. It will also be difficult for auto shows to maintain their past glory.

With the rankings settled, it will be difficult to maintain the grandeur of auto shows.

The ranking of this article is mainly based on the new products and technologies released by car manufacturers, and is not related to the technical strength of the car manufacturers themselves. However, as mentioned above, it can be seen that the five major domestic brands at the Beijing Auto Show did not attach enough importance, and did not release many heavyweight new products at this year's auto show. The reason for this is simply that the popularity of the auto show is not as high as it used to be.

Not only in China, but also at the Geneva Motor Show, which was once on par with the Munich Motor Show, Paris Motor Show, North American International Auto Show, and Tokyo Motor Show, only 5 mainstream brands and over 30 companies participated, leading many media to directly evaluate the Geneva Motor Show as "cooling down." The Geneva Motor Show, which has been held for 100 years, has fallen into a predicament, and compared to this, the popularity of the Beijing Auto Show is much higher. International auto shows in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other places in China have also experienced a cold reception, and it can almost be said that they rely entirely on automotive media to boost their popularity.

The main reasons for this, as widely believed by the media, are twofold. First, the impact of the epidemic has led to a global economic downturn, and car manufacturers are unwilling to invest too many resources in auto shows. Second, the flourishing of internet culture has made information dissemination more extensive and faster.

When checking the Weibo hot search list, the only automotive-related topic in the top ten is surprisingly related to Lei Jun's response to Xiaomi's car. To be blunt, the hype surrounding the release of Xiaomi's car may be higher than that of the entire Beijing Auto Show. Instead of investing heavily in participating in auto shows, it may be more beneficial to learn from Lei Jun and achieve better marketing results.

For this reason, many car companies have also given up on releasing new products and new technologies at auto shows. Just before the auto show, companies such as Huawei and Lantu held press conferences to announce some new technologies and future vehicle plans. It's not a matter of waiting for a day or two, but rather there's no need to wait for the auto show.

BYD, Changan, Chery, Geely, and Great Wall are all powerful car companies, but truly significant vehicle models can be independently announced without relying on the popularity of auto shows. According to the plans of these companies, there may be multiple press conferences held from May to July after the auto show, and it's possible that some vehicle models displayed or not displayed at the auto show will be announced one after another.