From knock-off old-man's electric vehicles to industrial giant

Chapter 266 is simply endangering society.

The next morning.

The top trending topic on Weibo: Xingchen Motors sells 500,000 vehicles annually!

The second point is that Vaillant's stock price has been rising for a week...

The third item is a message reminding citizens to pay attention to traffic safety as snow and rain begin to fall in various places.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, consumer enthusiasm was high, with factories operating at full capacity and even test drive vehicles in stores in short supply!
It's very strange that this got out.

According to company regulations, the test drive lifespan of a vehicle in a store is 6-15 months, and will not exceed 24 months at most.

Test drive vehicles often have much greater wear and tear and mileage than those driven under normal conditions.

Leather seats, for example, are made by dozens of different people every day, and noticeable wrinkles will appear in less than two months.

With different test drive owners driving the vehicles every day, various minor collisions are highly likely to occur.

These test drive vehicles at the store will be refurbished and offered at a 10% discount, with priority given to internal employees for purchase, or they will be converted into after-sales service vehicles.

Xingchen Auto offers this service.

If a car owner needs to use their vehicle during accident repairs and maintenance, they can redeem points for a replacement vehicle voucher, which is half the price of renting a car on the market.

Perhaps due to the recent surge in new orders, some car owners have somehow found out about this channel.

They even started searching for test drive vehicles for sale in stores across the country.

Buy it outright at slightly below market price, then sell it on the secondary market as a new car!

Xu Yi was stunned when he learned of this operation.

L7 test drive vehicles that are officially priced 1.5 to 2 RMB cheaper are being resold online at the same price as new cars, and there are still slots available for purchase!
This can actually make you money?!

It can only be said that strong people never complain about their environment.

-

"Tuk-tuk-tuk-"

There was a knock on the door.

“Go in,” Xu Yi replied casually.

The office door opened, and Zhu Wenbo, the administrative director, came in with a document. "President Xu, please approve the annual meeting's program plan and prize budget list."

Xu Yi took the document and glanced at it. The company's annual meeting arrangements weren't that fancy. It was just an opening ceremony, performances, awards, a lucky draw, and a banquet.

The main prize list includes three grand prize winners, each receiving a Star S7; fifty first prize winners, each receiving 50,000 RMB in cash; one hundred second prize winners, each receiving 30,000 RMB in cash; and two hundred third prize winners, each receiving 10,000 RMB in cash…

In addition to these, there are also participation prizes, lucky draw prizes, perfect attendance prizes, and "lucky koi" prizes...

"The grand prize has been changed to a Starry Sky L7, and the first prize has been changed to 80,000 yuan in cash for each person..."

Xu Yi increased the reward amount and changed the actual vehicle reward to a Starry Night L7.

Their Starry Night L7 is very popular internally, and there are many internal purchase slots available, especially under the 20% internal purchase condition.

Later, it was changed to only employees who had been with the company for more than one year being eligible for a 20% discount on car purchases, and they could only purchase one car per year to prevent employees from reselling cars privately.

"Okay, Mr. Xu." Zhu Wenbo took the documents back and turned to find the finance department.

After approving the documents.

Xu Yi then looked through last year's R&D expenses again.

Xingchen Group's R&D expenses reached 89 billion yuan from Q1 to Q4 last year, accounting for 18% of its revenue.

It's amazing.

去年吉利汽车的Q1到Q3研发费用才38亿，就算加上Q4估摸着也不会超过50亿，占比仅仅才6%。

However, Xingchen's R&D path is also very diverse, with almost the entire industry chain being developed in-house. In addition to the complete vehicle, it also invests in the research and development of batteries, motors, autonomous driving, semiconductors, intelligent cockpits, and even participates in the research and development of air suspension and lidar...

But in any case, the R&D results are worth the investment. Now, not only are the cars and car malls making money, but the externally supplied power batteries and consumer-grade batteries, as well as their own power hybrid modules, are all on the path to profitability.

the other side.

Huang Yongqiang stood in the conference room, where everyone looked as if their mothers had died. He said coldly, "I don't care what methods you use, the sales of Highlander and Camry cannot continue to decline this month! Otherwise, you can wait and see about your performance bonuses and year-end bonuses!"

It's time to come.

Highlander sales last month: 7500 units!
It's 200 units cheaper than the Starry Night L7.

How can he remain rational?

They could have maintained sales of over 10,000 units thanks to their established reputation and long-standing brand image. But who could have imagined that the second scandal would shatter that illusion?

This time, it truly triggered widespread car returns and consumer complaints.

The complaints escalated from offline channels to consumer hotlines, with hundreds of new complaints appearing on the CarQuality.com website. Sales nearly stagnated in the last week, and even pressure on local 4S stores proved ineffective.

Some people went directly to the 4S store with banners to cause trouble, called the police and demanded a refund for their cars. The offline stores were already overwhelmed just dealing with these issues.

The fact that money has prevented these issues from being widely reported in the news and reduced their trending status is already a testament to its power.

Otherwise, if this continues to fester, it could very well end up on March 315th in a couple of months.

“Mr. Huang, we’ve recalled too many vehicles recently. The fact that our offline dealers can manage after-sales service and soothe consumer sentiment is already a sign that the situation has been stabilized…” Zhang Huan, the marketing director, sighed, his expression one of helplessness.

In this situation, no amount of pressure on dealers will help unless they sell their 0-kilometer used cars to the secondary market.

To be honest.

We already did that last month.

But now, with a series of scandals, even the secondary market and car dealers dare not buy anymore. Those who did buy before are now cursing and swearing, so sales have naturally plummeted.

"Market sentiment is being stirred up by people with ulterior motives. We've already recalled the products and taken responsibility for after-sales service, what more do they want?!" Huang Yongqiang's face was gloomy.

I was so angry.

In his opinion, some car owners really went too far.

You've had the car for a year already, and you're still asking to return it? Isn't that ridiculous?!

They replaced the engine fuel pump for you.

The car body has also been inspected, and no problems were found.

They even dared to clamor for compensation for the resale value. Haven't they ever heard of "once you buy, you sell"?
These comments online made him feel irritable.

They also knew that someone was behind it all.

Cars in this price range generate huge profits in sales. If you dare to make a mistake, don't blame others for sabotaging you.

Buying press releases and spreading rumors can easily cripple competitors; everyone is willing to do something so profitable.

In contrast, consider Xingchen Motors.

He was envious, and his sales almost jumped into the top tier of domestic independent brands.

Why can't the stars also stumble and make a mistake?

He felt inexplicably unbalanced.

"Mr. Huang, I have a plan..."

Seeing the increasingly oppressive atmosphere in the office, and also for the sake of year-end performance, the marketing director suddenly had an idea.

"What do you mean?" Huang Yongqiang turned his head. The sales of several of his car models were on the verge of collapse, and he urgently needed a solution.

"Later, I'll have someone collect the videos of the Star Car crash to see if we can find a breakthrough. We can try to get it trending on social media to offset the damage," Zhang Huan suggested.

This is a marketing strategy to counter the enemy.

If a brand cannot find any problems in terms of operation, vehicle configuration, and quality for the time being.

Searching for car accident videos and accident scene photos is also a viable method.

The more cars sold, the larger the car owner group becomes.

With a large number of car owners, car accidents are more likely to occur.

Some car accident scenes don't even require attacking the car company; for example, a car might have crashed into a flower bed, damaged public facilities, or had its front tire come off due to an impact at a certain angle.

Once these kinds of pictures are exposed, they are easily labeled as "low-quality car owners" or "the car is of poor quality."

Even luxury cars worth millions can't withstand the "magnifying glass effect" of the internet.

If accidents happen frequently, that would be even better!
They directly labeled the car owner as a "ghost fire" (a type of fire engine).

Why are you driving so fast?!

Why give it such strong power!

Providing such powerful new energy vehicles is practically endangering society!

(End of this chapter)