Whether BYD can make a lot of money depends on Teng Shi

Production | Tiger Smell Automotive Group

Author | thoughtful

Editor | Zhang Bowen

Head Picture | Visual China

In the past May, BYD has ushered in its shining moment since its establishment: throughout the month, BYD sold a total of 24200 new energy vehicles, setting a new high in monthly sales.

At the same time, many people have also noticed the performance of Tengshi, another car brand under BYD Group. It is understood that the only product under the brand, the luxury MPV Tengshi D9, sold over 11000 units in May, indicating a trend to bring down the Buick GL8, the MPV king in the Chinese market.

However, the current performance is not enough to satisfy Tengshi. After all, BYD Group Chairman Wang Chuanfu's strategic positioning for Tengshi is to "only provide new energy luxury cars", rather than "only provide new energy luxury MPVs". As a result, Tengshi's second vehicle, the mid size pure electric SUVN7, which had undergone multiple rounds of preheating, was finally scheduled to be launched in June and delivered in July.

For this car, Zhao Changjiang, the head of the Tengshi brand and the official title "Chief Co Creator of Tengshi Brand," has high hopes. At the internal communication meeting, he revealed that the team's sales expectation for the N7 is to achieve 5000 vehicles per month in the short term after delivery and over 10000 vehicles per month by the end of the year. That is to say, this pure electric vehicle, priced at over 300000 yuan, directly targets the high-end models of Mercedes Benz GLC, BMW X3, and Audi Q5L, and its sales should also be on par with BBA's midsize SUVs.

So, why is BYD's luxury brand so bold?

What is the quality of Tengshi's "BMW X3"?

Due to multiple rounds of warm-up since the beginning of the year, the only thing I am currently unclear about the Tengshi N7 may be the specific configuration parameters and price of each model. Based on the information already released, the overall size of this car is similar to the Avita 11, seemingly focusing on sports and personality.

Regarding the detailed analysis of the vehicle's appearance, the author has already conducted an analysis in the article "If BYD's high-end cars want to sell well, they still need to be" rolled up ". This time, we will mainly share some new information, first of all, the adjustment of the Tengshi N7's appearance.

On the front face, the Tengshi N7 adopts a family style front face design, with two side lights that resemble upward "edges" greatly improving the vehicle's recognition. If you recognize the distance of N7 on the street at night, it is likely to increase to 100-200 meters.

Of course, the biggest controversy on the Tencent N7 currently lies in these two light strips. After all, the use of such a large area of lighting layout on the front face of the vehicle greatly tests the design level. In fact, even if its design ability is as strong as BMW's, its practice of using light-emitting dual kidneys on XM has also caused many roast.

That's why on Brand Day on May 30th, Tencent claimed to have "spent tens of millions of dollars" and "created a second lighting solution for the market through user collaboration". Of course, which of these two designs is better? I believe everyone, like me, finds it difficult to make their own choice at once.

Secondly, it is the widely circulated Yunnian-A intelligent air body control system recently. As BYD's first self-developed chassis system, Tengshi is equipped with the Yunnian-A, which is a brand exclusive product that can adjust three parameters: body height, stiffness, and damping. It can adjust the suspension stroke of the N7 up to over 80mm, and provides multiple modes including speed adjustment, intelligent welcome, load mode, height safety locking, etc.

Of course, the more powerful one is the intelligent chassis system that the Tengshi N7 will be equipped with, including the iADC intelligent drift control system. The system can adjust the intervention threshold of the system by jointly controlling power output, braking, and active suspension, thereby providing users with three drift difficulty modes: "beginner", "player", and "master". Novice players can choose lower difficulty levels to "float with one click", while experts can also choose "master" mode to face larger challenges.

During this process, iADC can monitor the dynamics of the vehicle in real-time and, in conjunction with ESP, automatically connect to the receiver after the vehicle's posture is in place, ensuring the safety of drift. At the same time, the dynamic parameters of the vehicle body will also be displayed on the HUD, instrument panel, and central control screen, providing users with more reference.

Finally, in terms of the ultimate performance of the vehicle, Yunnian-A also provides an iCVC intelligent vector control system for the Tengshi N7. This system can proactively integrate and control the braking, driving, and suspension systems in advance by sensing the road environment ahead, thereby changing the vehicle's cornering characteristics. While ensuring driving safety, it reduces the frequency of ESP intervention and enhances the vehicle's handling limits, which is equivalent to enhancing driving pleasure.

From the above perspective, the overall impression given by the Tengshi N7 to the author is that in luxury mid size pure electric SUVs priced at over 300000 yuan, while ensuring spatial comfort, driving pleasure is listed as a product label. On this basis, high-level assisted driving with LiDAR, intelligent cockpit with multi screen linkage, and dual gun fast charging are used to supplement the other puzzles of this car.

From a product perspective, this is naturally reasonable. But from the composition of Tengshi's existing products and Tengshi's brand image, it seems to be somewhat contradictory. Because the first car of the brand was an MPV like the D9, which is "suitable for business and IKEA", and the second car became a hunting SUV, which seems to have no genetic inheritance except for some styling elements.

But Zhao Changjiang obviously doesn't think so.

In exploration, make a luxury car for BYD

On the noon of Tengshi Brand Day, the author had a one-on-one conversation with Zhao Changjiang for over an hour. At that time, the head of the BYD luxury brand had just completed face-to-face communication with 20 user representatives, and this part of the arrangement was obviously overdue. After repeatedly apologizing, Zhao Changjiang finally sat opposite the author.

Zhao Changjiang, General Manager and Chief Co Creator of Tengshi Sales Business Unit Source: Visual China

Faced with the questions raised earlier by the author, Zhao Changjiang revealed that they still have multiple products after the N7. This includes a facelift of the existing mid to large SUV Tencent X - the Tencent N8, as well as the planned full size household SUV Tencent N9. We will also have sedans behind us, one of which will be compared to the Porsche Paramera and the other to the Mercedes Benz S. In addition, there will be a younger sedan

Obviously, Tengshi is doing something similar to NIO, both of which are completing their product series. In fact, these two brands have many similarities in product price ranges, service systems, and user communities. Especially in the latter two, Tengshi has released its own solutions for valet energy replenishment and valet parking this time. At the same time, its user community often organizes activities and invites old users to participate in face-to-face communication with Zhao Changjiang and the team.

However, the difference between the two brands is equally significant. It should be noted that NIO had already done a lot of brand and user community building work before the delivery of its first product, ES8. After departing in May last year, Tengshi was basically busy building stores, receiving orders, expanding production capacity, and delivering Tengshi D9. That's why NIO established a relatively clear brand image even at the end of 2018. In addition to the label "BYD's luxury car", Tengshi's biggest assets are the D9, which can sell over 10000 yuan per month, and over 50000 car owners who have picked up their cars so far.

The sales performance of D9 has given Tengshi and BYD great confidence

Similarly, this is also Zhao Changjiang's most satisfied point with Tengshi at present.But the problem is that the user profile and requirements of MPVs are significantly different from SUVs. More importantly, the demand for the former is composed of many enterprises, institutions, and private entrepreneurs. Whether these people will purchase the N7 due to their recognition of the D9 or recommend other models of the Tengshi brand to those around them still requires the efforts of the team.

In this regard, the approach of Zhao Changjiang and Tengshi's team is quite simple and robust.On the one hand, as mentioned earlier, we strive to enhance product strength and provide advanced technology on the N7, allowing users to pay a premium for the product itself. For example, Tengshi has conducted multiple communications this year regarding the installation of Tivare audio on the N7. On this car, Tengshi is also equipped with high-power discharge for external electrical appliances, 60kW DC discharge for other Tengshi vehicles, and intelligent pulse self heating technology for battery packs in harsh winter conditions.

To put it bluntly, Tengshi relies on BYD's vertical integration system to enhance the product strength of various dimensions of the car model at the lowest possible cost.

On the other hand, it is to build more channels and improve service levels. Zhao Changjiang stated that the channel construction of Tengshi is still a bit slow at present. Now the brand's stores only cover 88 cities. If they want to deliver more products, they will increase their stores to 400 by the end of the year, covering 150 cities. By next year, Tengshi's channels will be expanded to 200 cities across the country.

Tengshi D9

In this process, Tengshi can also expand its service channels faster by using lower costs compared to other competitors. Zhao Changjiang stated that in some areas where Tengshi's self operated service system has not yet been established, they will choose to rent workstations from local BYD stores to achieve network coverage. Next, we will also build MINI stores in areas with a high density of car owners to provide users with simple repair and maintenance services. These stores are closer to users, which helps reduce their waiting time

Obviously, for Tengshi, who has just completed its first anniversary of the Huanxin, the greater pressure now is still on how to serve existing car owners well and deliver the next car well. In contrast, it doesn't seem particularly important to determine the image and label of Tengshi brand. In the author's inquiry, Zhao Changjiang labeled Tengshi's products as "All Yousheng" and "New Luxury". Our car must have no shortcomings, "Zhao Changjiang said at the end.

This expression is indeed a very 'engineer culture'.

At present, BYD has already announced three luxury brands, namely Tengshi, Yangwang, and F, among its car brands, excluding BYD. Among them, Yangwang will adopt BYD's most advanced technology to achieve ultimate performance at the highest price; Personalized brands (F brand) will create rugged off-road and sports cars, selling personalized models for 400000 to 600000 yuan.

In contrast, Tencent, which focuses on 300000 to 800000 yuan and targets the most mainstream luxury brand users, is clearly a "family member" of BYD who wants to take the lead in sales. Therefore, how to make the N7, N8, and subsequent N9 popular like the D9 will become the biggest challenge for Zhao Changjiang and even BYD.

For BYD, which has never been a luxury brand, the difficulty of this matter may not be inferior to vertical integration.