Touch Porcelain Porsche’s “Domestic New Energy Ceiling” Learn from Jia Yueting to Cut Leeks

Ding Lei, the founder and chairman of Human Express Gaohe Auto, worked with Jia Yueting in his early years, and served as the co-founder and global vice chairman of LeTV Auto.

In 2016, after Jia Yueting fled the United States, Ding Lei also left LeTV. But his dream of building a car has not been shattered. After finding a suitable investor, Gaohe Automobile came into being.

Probably influenced by Jia Yueting, Ding Lei is very keen on “ecology”. In his eyes, Human Express wants to create revolutionary new energy smart products and solutions that lead the way of human travel, and has repeatedly raised grand strategic ideas such as smart transportation and smart city.

Under the gorgeous concept packaging, Gaohe Auto has repeatedly refreshed people’s perception of high-end electric vehicles.The first car HiPhiX broke through the price ceiling of domestic new energy vehicles with a high price of 680,000 and 800,000.This time, the upcoming HiPhi Z mass-produced customized model is priced at millions.

This has also raised questions from the outside world. Is Gaohe Auto really high-end or cutting leeks?

More importantly, Gaohe Automobile, which claims to have crushed Porsche in sales, will only sell 4,237 units in 2021 (delivered since May 8 of that year), with an average monthly output of 605 units. But from the perspective of the entire auto industry, no brand can survive with monthly sales of hundreds of vehicles.

Empty concept, product performance can not support the price

The founder often decides what development path a company chooses. Perhaps it was because he started a business together with Jia Yueting in the early days. Ding Lei loves to tell stories and create concepts when making cars.

Under his construction, Gaohe’s first HiPhiX founding six-seat and four-seat two models, the former is priced at 680,000 yuan, while the latter’s price is close to 800,000 yuan. Ding Lei also shouted “The domestic new energy ceiling, the slogan of rolling Porsche.“

As a new car brand with no technical accumulation and no brand heritage, Gaohe Auto anchored the price in the range of 680,000-800,000 at the beginning, and repeatedly touched Porsche in publicity, which is really rare in the industry. This has also raised questions from the outside world. Is Gaohe Auto really high-end or cutting leeks? .

Of course, Gaohe did a lot of “superficial” efforts for high-end development. In addition to the electrically-opened wingspan door and the side-to-side door structure, the HiPhi X is also equipped with three large screens: 19.9-inch co-driver large screen + 16.9-inch central control screen + 14.6-inch instrument screen, and there are executive-level seats in the rear row. Chair, with luxury decorations such as car refrigerator, champagne tray, velvet carpet, etc., and “dignified” blessings such as British Treasure custom audio system.

Ding Lei himself also advertised the configuration of the champagne holder for HiPhi X. The best drinking temperature for champagne is 7°C, and HiPhi car users can achieve “champagne freedom” here.

However, gorgeous and exquisite accessories do not represent the ability to be high-end. High-end is a concept that is difficult to generalize but does exist. Its background is often history, feelings, and technology, but these high-end cars do not have it.

As an electric brand focusing on technological intelligence, Gaohe has no independent technology. The HiPhi X battery uses the Ningde era ternary lithium battery; the front and rear motors are all from Bosch, and the chassis is also provided by off-the-shelf suppliers, although the hardware used are all big brands.

It also means. Any brand can copy Gaohe.

Judging from the performance parameters of the HiPhi X, the zero-to-100 acceleration of 3.9 seconds is also significantly behind the Porsche Taycan (2.8 seconds) and Tesla Model X (2.6 seconds). A Gaohe owner once said that the Gaohe HiPhi X has many defects, including no rear entertainment system, lidar cannot be upgraded, no side-view camera on the B-pillar, and the chassis performance may not be as good as the tuning of BMW’s chassis of the same size”

The gimmick is greater than the reality, and Gaohe Auto has been criticized by users. HiPhi Z, the second flagship model of Gaohe Auto, which was newly released last November, was criticized by the outside world as being special for the sake of being special. The most prominent part of this model is the design of the digital mecha style and the ISD intelligent interactive headlights.

Some car users said that Gaohe Auto always feels like a person who tries hard to put diamonds and gold on himself.

Sales are sluggish, pure leeks?

The performance configuration is only one aspect. Gaohe Automobile is highly similar to Jia Yueting’s FF91 car. One can’t help but wonder if this is an “IQ tax”?

Sharp-eyed car reviewers pointed out that the HiPhiX model is very similar to the FF91 in terms of the design of the door handle instead of swiping to enter, as well as the steel and aluminum body, air suspension, and interior layout.

In terms of brand positioning, Ding Lei has the same idea as Jia Yueting, both are luxurious and high-end. The difference is that Jia Yueting’s FF91 is a Ferrari, and Gaohe is a Porsche.

Among the countless attributives about car sales, Ding Lei helped Gaohe Auto find the most suitable one – “the sales ranking of luxury brand electric vehicles over 500,000 yuan”. In this list, the monthly sales of Gaohe cars have never exceeded 1,000 units, but they have shown the heroic posture of punching Porsche and kicking BBA.

But the actual situation is that in 2021, Gaohe Automobile has delivered a total of 4,237 new cars. Compared with the sales of 90,000+ vehicles in the head camp (Xpeng Motors 98,155, Weilai 91,429, and Ideal Motors 90,491), Gaohe also less than a fraction of them.

It’s no wonder that netizens joked about this, “As long as more attributives are added, anyone can rank first on the list.”

High-profile and gorgeous publicity can hardly hide the hidden dangers of Gaohe Automobile. As we all know, the production of automobiles requires a lot of human and material resources from the supply of spare parts, production bases, sales channels, and after-sales maintenance, and the corresponding investment is also massive.

Previously, new energy car companies had more or less news that their funds were tight, and even Tesla once came to the brink of bankruptcy. One can imagine how expensive it is to build a car.

At present, Weilai, Ideal, and Xiaopeng among the new car-making forces have been successfully listed, and Leapmotor has also successfully submitted the form, and the pressure on capital has eased to a certain extent. However, Gaohe Auto, which often uses the concept of smart transportation, has little information on financing, except for the intentional credit of 5 billion yuan from the Bank of Communications.

Although Gaohe Automobile also reported the news of its listing, there was no progress at all, which made the outside world break a sweat. After all, from the perspective of the development of the auto industry, there is no car company that can survive on the monthly sales of hundreds of units.

Before that, there was also a high-profile luxury electric precedent in the industry, that is, the Qiantu K50. This electric sports car is like a combination of Ferrari and McLaren. When it was launched in 2018, the price was as high as more than 700,000 yuan. However, due to the lack of background and little actual competitiveness, the final sales were bleak and went extinct.

No one knows whether Gaohe’s future will be promoted to China’s Porsche, or reduced to become the next future. I only hope that Jia Yueting’s car-building story will not repeat itself in Ding Lei’s body.

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