With the advancement of the "new four" process of automobile, the new energy penetration rate is going up, and the new car brands have reconstructed the new energy vehicle market. Traditional Chinese automakers have also responded by launching mid-range and high-end new-energy brands: ZhiGi, Avita, and Lantu.

Recently, the launch of the ZhiGi LS7 model has once again brought the ZhiGi brand back to the forefront. Zhiji is a new energy brand jointly created by SAIC, Alibaba and Shanghai Pudong; while Feifan, born much later, is a wholly-owned new energy sub-brand of SAIC.

Why did SAIC set up two similar brands? How is the dual brand positioned and developed?

Strong alliance Zhiji to fight the high-end electric car market

January 2021 the birth of Zhiji its brand positioning is aimed at high-end new energy vehicle market. In this, Alibaba for brand models to provide big data and intelligent system and other technical support.

Currently, the first model of ZhiJi on sale is the medium-large sedan L7, which will be launched in April 2022, with an official guide price of 338,800-5788,000 yuan. The car focuses on the high-end smart sedan market, with competing models such as the Azera ET7 and Mercedes-Benz EQE.

The ZhiJi mid-size SUV LS7, which was launched in February 2023, is priced at 309,800-459,800 yuan. In view of the modest sales of the L7 model, the pricing of the ZhiJi LS7 dips down to the 300,000-500,000 yuan smart electric SUV market, with competing models such as the Azalea ES7, Xiaopeng G9 and so on.

It is well known that because of cost differences and industry practice, SUV pricing in the same class is often higher than sedans, and the Smart LS7 is so priced that it objectively improves affinity and boosts the overall price-performance ratio.

The company will follow up with a new mid-size SUV (naming not yet announced) and a mid-size sedan, the L5, whose official pricing is expected to be further lowered, with a starting price of less than 300,000 won't be in doubt, which also means that the two cars will cover a wider range of audiences to boost end sales.

Feifan to boost mid-to-high-end market, help brand transformation

October 2021, more than half a year after the launch of the ZhiJi brand, SAIC announced that its wholly-owned new energy sub-brand "SAIC R" was renamed "Feifan Automobile", and that its new energy sub-brand "SAIC R" would be renamed "Feifan Automobile". "Feifan Automobile", Feifan will make an effort in the mid- to high-end smart car market, boosting SAIC's new energy transformation and brand upward.

The predecessor of the R brand is the R-labeled series of SAIC Rongwei brand models that were unveiled in April 2020.

It's clear that Feifan's "solo flight" is intended to completely separate itself from the Rongwei brand and avoid being subjected to its constraints, in order to raise the selling price of a single vehicle and facilitate the brand's premiumization process.

Feifan's product sequence is divided into two periods. The first is a continuation of the Rongwei brand models ER6 and Marvel R. The former is an electric compact sedan updated from the Rongwei i6 EV, with a price range of less than 200,000 yuan for the main sales model, which is currently being discontinued and on sale.

The latter is the Feifan MARVEL R, updated from the Rongwei Marvel X, officially priced at 229,800-269,800 yuan, which has not ruled out the possibility of being discontinued as well, in order to fully abandon the previous models derived from Rongwei.

The second stage is the "post-Rongwei era", Feifan brand "flying solo" after the first model, is born from the new structure of the pure electric medium-sized SUV R7, priced at 279,900 yuan-389,900 yuan, the car has been March 1, the delivery of the car started. Deliveries started from March 1, which is about 30,000 yuan lower than the official guide price of the comparable ZhiJi LS7 model.

Feifan will also launch the mid-size sedan F7, which has been accepted for booking on February 5, 2023, with a pre-sale price of 280,000-350,000 yuan, about 30,000-110,000 yuan lower than the official price of the ZhiJi L7. And the model's official guide price when it is officially launched is likely to be lower than the pre-sale price.

It should be noted that Feifan F7 and ZhiJi L7 have a high degree of similarity in appearance, and it is said that the exterior design of the two vehicles is handled by SAIC's design department, and both vehicles offer single-motor and dual-motor versions, which apparently ****enjoys the group's resources, as well as overlap in the price of the two main models for sale.

So it's hard to rule out the possibility of the F7 stealing the market from the L7, creating a situation where the two cars are born from the same root.

It is true that there is nothing wrong with enjoying the technology **** within the same group, but it is better to make a clear distinction between the two brands and model positioning, reflecting the brand differences, and find their own style, tone, to avoid the phenomenon of "left and right fighting each other".

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