208,900 yuan, reliable Buick, reliable Buick E5.

The listing of Buick E5 is the biggest offline activity of the brand in the past three years. At the moment the price was released, the applause and cheers that followed explained everything. It is commendable to be able to do this when you have been a little numb by all kinds of low prices. After all, there is no "opportunity" in the new energy market.

Of course, Buick is familiar with the stories of "getting ahead" and "being late". I don't know when it started, but we often worry that we can't "win at the starting line", but forget that there is another kind of person.

When they debut, they are at their peak.

Obviously, there are too many stories about Buick in China market, which are "not the earliest, but still become the market leader". It is not that the market is not big enough, nor that the competitors are not strong enough, but that the ability determines the ranking.

The most courageous thing about Buick E5 is that it is the first joint venture brand that truly achieves "the same price of oil and electricity". The price of 208,900-278,900 yuan is almost the price of a 5-seat joint venture SUV, with a length of 4.9 meters and a wheelbase of 2.9 meters.

Five versions and three series-standard battery life, long battery life and Avia four-wheel drive. The division of labor is clear. First of all, the anxiety about choice is avoided from the vehicle configuration. Daily and practical, the starting price of the standard endurance version is enough; Pursuing quality, close your eyes and choose a long-life version of 239,900 yuan. The Avia version of 278,900 yuan not only uses dual-motor four-wheel drive to make the performance more full, but Buick is comparable to the leapfrog texture of luxury brands. I believe that people who have been in contact with Avia in the past are impressed.

In the era when luxury is getting cheaper and cheaper, I want to say that Buick's high-end is not the kind of high-end that Wei Xiaoli said, nor is it the kind of high-end piled up. Aesthetics, in the final analysis, is not a question of money, but a question of form, sound, smell, taste and touch.

Just as the listing site was ingeniously placed next to the production line of SAIC-GM Wuhan Aoteneng Super Factory, the stage, sound and lighting effects were exactly the same as the top indoor release site in China.

Just like Buick stubbornly tried to echo the high-position brake light with the brand-new logo, making it into three independent color blocks, and repeatedly negotiated with the traffic law-making department in North America, and finally got his wish.

These persistence and stubbornness are very advanced when they are used to compromise and anxiety.

In 2022, I think everyone, every team and every company has encountered anxiety head-on. I had it, too. In 2022, I wrote a sentence that gave me the greatest strength: "The antonym of anxiety is concreteness". When we put our actions into concrete events, our anxiety disappeared.

So in my eyes, the greatest value of Buick E5 is that it solves the very specific anxiety of mainstream users of electric vehicles one by one.

The anxiety about configuration choice I mentioned at the beginning is actually only a small level. First of all, it should be anxiety about safety. There is no doubt that on the pure electric track, the top players are China and the United States. For GM, the lunar rover was made in the 1960s-the story materials in the fields of new energy and intelligent driving are comparable to those of automobile inventors.

GM's investment in electrification is $35 billion, and SAIC-GM alone will invest 70 billion RMB in electrification and new technologies of intelligent networking before 2025-the accumulation comes not only from talents, history and experience, but also from whether it has strong financial resources.

Top talents, technology accumulation and supply chain system, plus investment regardless of cost, have created a super platform. After Cadillac launched its first model, Buick E5 was the first product on Buick Ultrapower super platform.

Before Buick E5, many people probably didn't know much about the most advanced electric platform in the world. It doesn't matter, you just need to remember that cars can be the face and lining of GM as a global manufacturer. Other brands can be unsafe, radical and boastful, but not GM and Buick.

Don't forget that in the fuel age, only GM and Mercedes-Benz are willing to develop their own gearboxes. On the one hand, I don't want to leave the core technology in the hands of others; On the other hand, take full responsibility for your own products.

What is the big factory style? Safety is the style of big factories. What is safety? From technology, supply chain to values, we are fully responsible for our products.

After I visited Wuhan Aoteneng Super Factory, I took the battery technology of Aoteneng platform as an example and once talked about "What is the safety of electric vehicles". Interested parties can have a look.

Anxiety about electric vehicles comes from battery life. I don't need to say more about this. Look at the number of complaints about "virtual endurance" on the Internet, and you will know how anxious and disgusted everyone is about these digital games. In the fuel age, there is a virtual standard showing fuel consumption; In the electric age, it has almost become the common sense of users to "calibrate the battery life by 60% to 70%".

Endurance is the second face of a big factory. I just tested Autoenergy's car at high speed. Four people turn on the air conditioner at full speed+high speed, with a discount rate of 83%. I believe the number of Buick E5 can't be worse than this. What level? Throughout 2022, the driving school's Extreme Anxiety column tested more than 20 cars, which ranked in the top three (of course, the working conditions we tested were harsh, and we look forward to the performance of Buick E5 in our program).

Instead of marking a battery life number that will never run out, it is better to be infinitely close to your promise. Believe in big manufacturers, but it is a choice-to avoid getting yourself into unnecessary internal friction in digital games.

People's third anxiety about electric vehicles comes from service. The dimension of service is wide enough to write another manuscript. I only say two things here:

1, stable determination is the best service. The sales service mode of Buick E5 adopts factory direct sales, orders are placed through official APP or small programs, and dealers provide delivery and after-sales service. In 2023, it is estimated that there will be nearly 60 exhibition halls in Buick Pure Electric City, and there will be more than 600 Buick New Energy Zone (i.e. dealer service network). For a mainstream pure tram with a price of 200,000 yuan, Buick's service system will provide users with a very stable experience in terms of convenience and consistency of service standards.

2. The charging service network adopts the mode of self-construction and access to mainstream third-party terminals. It is estimated that by the end of 2023, in addition to self-built charging terminals, SAIC-GM will also cooperate with mainstream charging operators to reach more than 400,000 third-party charging terminals. Charging piles are also gifts, paying attention to safety and reliability.

The final anxiety of electric vehicles, I think, lies in emotional value and identity. The label brought by buying new forces seems to have changed from fresh to more and more solidified. But buying Buick is more about pursuing mainstream recognition and paying for the brand value of big manufacturers.

In this matter, Buick's most commendable thing is that from the pricing of Buick E5, it can be said that Buick has minimized the premium desire of the "joint venture factory", although it is a response to the "price involution effect" in the current automobile market, and it also expresses Buick's determination to E5.

As for handling, chassis and driving experience, I think it is not among the "anxiety" of mainstream consumers. After all, many new cars without driving sense dare to talk about performance under the aura of stacking materials, relying on the acceleration factor existing in the mother tire of electric vehicles. I think only old drivers can understand the dynamic performance of Buick E5.

Buick needs to solve the problem of "what makes people sit in the driver's seat". After sitting in, the driver's steering wheel will have an answer to every inch of the road that has been run over.

Postscript of Jiashi

Buick E5 is the first new energy vehicle with Buick brand-new logo. For Buick, this is a strategic revival on the green track. As a former owner of Micro Blue 6, it is hard to resist the attractions brought by Buick E5: quietly advanced quality, texture that can only be known by hands, and irreplaceable peace of mind.

China market should not be ignorant of the strength of Otneng platform. If put into the hands of some new forces, the material of this super platform is enough to blow for two years.

Compared with general use, it is relatively restrained, because the product is always the best expression, and the platform technology is awesome, and it needs to be honed in ordinary and tedious daily scenes, and then shine.

Instead of talking casually before the owner pays the bill.

Restraint may also be one of the demeanor of big manufacturers. After a hundred years, there is no need to rush to show off and consume. What Buick has to do is to tell the story of brand rejuvenation in the new energy era.

This story is the high-end of Buick century, and it is also the "upward" force that Buick brand has never given up. Some time ago, I specially studied the dynamic and static experience of the century. I also sincerely invite every brand that wants to know what it means to "know the mainstream high-end users in China" and carefully study Buick Century: luxury does not lie in the lack of beauty and logic, but only emphasizes the hardware stack of "I have"; Luxury lies in knowing what you said, and the temperature, emotion and meteor you didn't say.

This story, also carried by Buick E5, has a sense of intelligence and electrification. On the track of new energy, whether to choose to be dragged forward or to choose to walk out of your own rhythm depends on your own ability. The platform is in a stable incubation period, and the safety, balance and stability of Buick E5 will fully reflect the advantages of the platform.

Because Buick E5 is prepared, you don't have to care whether it comes in time or too late. Its target users have always been there-all those who are uneasy about electric cars and anxious about who to choose.

If you don't believe me, you can ask someone who bought a Buick fuel car. Their reasons for placing orders in the past were enough to support mainstream users in the electric age to pay for Buick.

Especially, Buick E5 restrained the desire of "joint venture premium" when it showed the determination of "the same price of oil and electricity".

200,000-class five-seat pure electric SUV. For Buick E5, my advice to you is to close your eyes and buy it.

Wen | Zhao Xiaocha

Figure | Network

This article comes from the author's Che Yi license plate driving school, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.