The slogan of lacrosse

? Speaking of Buick LaCrosse, domestic consumers should be very familiar with it. After all, the LaCrosse has cultivated in the China market for more than ten years, and has developed a market segment with American luxury B+ class cars.

Past experience tells us that the non-luxury brand B+ class car is a false proposition in most cases in the China market, and the LaCrosse just survived in this crack. Although the sales volume has not been very top-notch, it can basically hover at the level of thousands of vehicles per month and occasionally break through 10,000. For a B+ class car, it is not easy to have such a steady performance.

However, just after the mid-term change of this generation of models, the LaCrosse seems to have encountered some troubles. Since 2065438+March 2009, the sales volume of LaCrosse has been difficult to climb to more than 5000 vehicles. It is not difficult to find the problem by opening the car catalogue.

This generation of LaCrosse was listed on March 20 16. Gasoline models mainly provide two kinds of power, namely 1.5T (tail label 20T) and 2.0T (tail label 28T). However, after March 20 19, LaCrosse only provided 2.0T (the tail label was changed from 2020 to 652T).

▲20 16 LaCrosse 28T

Although the threshold of the 2.0T model has been happily lowered from 269,800 yuan to 229,800 yuan, which is consistent with the starting price of 1.5T before the change, the maximum horsepower data has decreased after the replacement of the new LSY engine, and the configuration level has also declined to some extent. After all, manufacturers are also doing business. The former 2.0T takes the high-end route, and the following is 1.5T as the carrying capacity. After the change, the 2.0T needs to carry the banner alone.

▲20 16 LaCrosse 28T

Until the recent launch of 202 1 LaCrosse, we once again saw the emergence of entry-level power on Buick, a quite successful B+ class car series-or 1.5T (tail mark 552T), which met the national six emission standards.

Compared with the previous version of National Five, the maximum horsepower is reduced by 1 and the maximum torque is reduced by 2. However, the maximum torque output platform is widened from the previous 2000-4000rpm to 1700-4000rpm, and the gearbox is changed from seven-speed dual clutch to 9AT, which is theoretically more friendly to daily driving, and the official output is 0- 100 km/.

However, because the positioning of the 2.0T has moved down a little, there is not much room left for the 1.5T model. Therefore, the LaCrosse 1.5T has only one model, which is called the luxury model like the 2.0T minimum model. 1.5T luxury model has the same configuration as the 2.0T luxury model except that the rim is smaller.

To what extent did lacrosse's sales decline after the mid-term change, which was the lack of entry-level motivation?

It is difficult for us to quantify this problem. After all, there may be many reasons for the decline in sales. Maybe people don't like the modified design, maybe the market competition pattern has changed, or maybe it's other reasons.

However, for the LaCrosse itself, although the threshold of the 2.0T model is lowered after losing the entry-level power, the starting price of the whole vehicle system is the same as that before the mid-term change, but the preferential margin is limited at the market terminal.

Moreover, we can see that 1.5T LaCrosse returned to the market in July, and its sales accounted for about a quarter of LaCrosse cars. It can be seen that 1.5T LaCrosse still has a good market. Buick's operation is too late to mend.

This is probably the last thing Buick and even SAIC-GM want to touch. There is a simple reason. They were struggling whether to use the slightly newer 1.3T three-cylinder or the slightly older 1.5T four-cylinder for a long time, so they decided not to use anyone. After all, the way to avoid selection difficulties is to avoid selection, and then move the price of 2.0T down to show greater sincerity.

▲ 1.3T engine carried by Angola GX.

In fact, SAIC-GM's 1.3T three-cylinder engine itself is not bad, its ride comfort is excellent in the field of three-cylinder engines, and its power performance is not worse than its own 1.5T. According to the data of Chevrolet Mai Rui Bao XL, the acceleration ability of 1.3T model is consistent with that of1.5t, and its fuel economy is better.

If this 1.3T appears on LaCrosse, with a higher level of positioning of LaCrosse, better sound insulation and shock absorption materials and means, theoretically, the attributes of the three cylinders will not have a significant impact on driving quality.

But the problem is that Buick suffered a big loss on the three-cylinder machine, and Yinglang is a "bloody" example. After the replacement of 20 15 Yinglang, due to the new product layout strategy of Buick brand, the positioning of Yinglang car series has changed greatly, from the original A+ class car to the entry A-class car. And this is also the beginning of Yinglang's rapid summit. At its peak, Yinglang maintained a monthly sales volume of more than 30,000 vehicles for more than one year, which was the most powerful competitor of LaVida at that time.

However, 20 17, 10 Yinglang introduced mid-term modified models. In addition to the adjustment of appearance, the biggest change is that the whole department is equipped with two three-cylinder engines-1.0t and1.3t. Since then, Yinglang's monthly sales will never exceed 30,000 vehicles.

Finally, in March this year, Buick adjusted Yinglang's power equipment again, canceled the power of 1.0T, and moved out the previous 1.5L naturally aspirated engine again.

Interestingly, Yinglang now has two kinds of power: 1.5L four-cylinder and 1.3T three-cylinder, each with two configurations, with the same configuration level and the same pricing. 1.5L four-cylinder has better ride comfort, while 1.3T has much better power performance and better fuel economy. From the sales situation, consumers obviously prefer 1.5L model, and the sales of 1.3T account for less than a quarter of Yinglang car sales.

Therefore, the three-cylinder machine is inherently unpopular, and no matter how hard the manufacturers try to optimize it, it will not help. So today many manufacturers and models are beginning to fade out of three-cylinder models, Buick is naturally one of them, as are Honda and BMW. By the way, Mai Rui Bao XL also changed the three-cylinder 1.3T into four-cylinder 1.5T in the latest change.

In fact, before the mid-term change of the LaCrosse, we saw the news on the Internet that the LaCrosse will be equipped with a 1.3T three-cylinder engine. Later, Buick related people told us that there was no such thing. In the end, we didn't see the listing of the three-cylinder LaCrosse, and the rumor was successful.

▲202 1 lacrosse 552T 1.5T engine.

And why did the previous 1.5T four cylinders withdraw from the market?

One of the guesses is that this 1.5T needs to make greater efforts to meet the national six emission standards. But in the final analysis, it may still be a question of cost. Four-cylinder machine has more parts than three-cylinder machine. If the production scale of the two machines is similar, the manufacturing cost of the three-cylinder machine will be lower than that of the four-cylinder machine. Moreover, the general 1.3T is better than 1.5T in fuel economy, which is obviously more friendly to those two policies and the average fuel consumption level of enterprises. Therefore, GM only uses this three-cylinder 1.3T to replace the original 1.4T and 1.5T of its models.

In this respect, GM is not as thorough as Volkswagen. Volkswagen is extremely determined in the China market, preferring to use the weaker 1.5L self-priming four-cylinder engine, and to kill the 1.0TSI three-cylinder engine that has not been widely popularized overseas.

So far, the product layout of Buick brand and even General Motors Group in China market can be said to be quite perfect, and there are also many children who love fighting. In the absolute mainstream market, from 654.38+million to 300,000, whether it is a car or an SUV, there is always the type you are looking for.

However, in recent years, the pace of GM seems to be dragged down by the power system. Just like LaCrosse, it will give people a feeling of "inorganic advantage". But if you count down, you will find that there are quite a few engines launched by GM in recent years, including 1.0T, 1.3T, 1.4T and 65438 for small-displacement turbocharging alone.

In the gold specification of 2.0T, GM also has LTG with excellent power performance in the past and LSY with better environmental protection performance today, but the latter is weaker than the former in power performance, which leads to disputes in the intermediate connection. For example, Cadillac doesn't have a really fast car now. After the Regal GS was replaced with the new LSY 2.0T, the measured acceleration performance slowed down strangely, but Angkor and the explorers still used the LTG engine with better power, which is the only vehicle in GM that didn't replace the LSY engine.

In short, the general power system layout is quite chaotic. Although it is the era of electrification, the power system of internal combustion engine is still the mainstream. For GM, it should continue to invest in the research and development of internal combustion engines to make up for this disadvantage.

Fortunately, in the latest sales data released in July, SAIC-GM ushered in good news, with monthly sales of 1 1.3 million vehicles, up 1. 1% year-on-year, achieving positive growth for the first time. Among them, Buick brands GL8, Regal, LaCrosse and Yinglang all performed well. According to this rhythm, it is not a big problem for Yinglang to maintain the top ten position in the car list.