Which is more advanced, Mercedes-Benz or Tesla?

"The high-end atmosphere is high-grade, and low-key luxury has connotation." A joke says that luxury and high-end are equivalent to some extent.

High-end, traditionally representing luxury cars. Moreover, luxury used to be the definition of high-end in Germany, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi. Of course, ultra-luxury is also defined by German departments, such as Maibakh, Rolls-Royce and Porsche. In addition to the gorgeous image, the core lies in excellent performance, excellent workmanship and "high sense"

Nowadays, in the domestic market, thousands of troops are thinking about the "high-end" single-plank bridge. However, on the whole, after some tossing, the result is not satisfactory. The closed loop of brand-product-market cannot be closed for a long time. High-end independent brand, brand upward, although it is the only way, but it is also the way for Sisyphus to push the stone up the mountain.

When Wei Jianjun, the founder of Great Wall Motor, gambled his name, WEY represented the hope and determination to move towards high-end luxury. After four years of preparation, Lectra blew the high-end horn on 20 16. By this year's Beijing Auto Show, it launched the vast SEA architecture and entered a new stage. However, you still can't say that their high-end is successful.

At the same time, with the passage of time, the definitions of high-end and luxury in the future are constantly evolving. This is about Tesla. When it comes to workmanship, there may be a gap with domestic leading cars, but why do so many people still become its fans?

In fact, the consumer groups have also undergone tremendous changes. From the bobo crowd that Lexus faced at that time to the mainstream car buyers of Generation Y and Generation Z, they paid attention to fashion trends, and the more prominent demand was intelligence and personalization. Therefore, Mercedes-Benz and Tesla, like Motorola, Nokia and Apple, will become two choices in the future.

So, whether to choose the luxury of advanced sense or the trendy sense of science and technology, for independent brands, although they all want it, it is "yes?" Is it? Or? Isn't it? Where to? Be "-like path selection, standing at the fork of the road in the future, which direction does the wind blow?

Behind luxury

High-end means higher price and premium of products. For example, the Buick Avenir version recently launched by SAIC-GM directly increased the price range of Buick brand by 300 ~ 654.38+ten thousand yuan. The benefits of high-end brands and products are obvious.

In fact, high-end is also an export of consumption upgrading and automobile industry upgrading. But behind the high-end, whether it can represent higher technical content, better user experience and higher value is something that all China auto people need to explore together.

The definition of high-end once, the background was the manufacturing base of the country. Just as the "car inventor" Mercedes-Benz is made in Germany and Volvo is made in Sweden, it represents the quality of products. The luxury represented by Mercedes-Benz is the symbol of that kind of identity and quality, and it is also the direction of independent brands' efforts. The high profits of German car companies represented by Mercedes-Benz are also the core driving force for many independent brands to pursue high-end.

Like ten generations? When Mercedes-Benz S-Class was released, the interior design featuring dual screens not only led the design style of Mercedes-Benz, but even defined the factors that luxury atmosphere should have. At present, the dual-screen interiors of independent brands emerge in an endless stream, which cannot be said to be learned from Mercedes-Benz. The brand-new 1 1 generation S-class embracing and "yacht cockpit" style will undoubtedly set off a luxury wave.

On the road to high-end, there is also a famous case, that is, the rise of Toyota Lexus. The success of Toyota Lexus has even become a beacon to illuminate the upward expansion of domestic automobile brands. The operating mode, mode and strategy of Lexus high-end independent brand have been borrowed and even imitated by many domestic manufacturers who are committed to the development of high-end brands.

However, what we know is that it took Lexus six years, 1, 400 engineers, 2,300 professional technicians, and 1 billion dollars to invest and analyze 450 models, among which the painstaking efforts and cost are very high. What we don't know much about is that Lexus has improved the accuracy of engine parts tenfold in technology. This is the core. Moreover, when Lexus entered the Japanese market, it further established a 500-point differentiation with Toyota brand models. Must.

On the other hand, our domestic car companies are impetuous and can't wait to be all high-end in one or two years. The slogan is loud, but the cognition and understanding of high-end mostly stays on the superficial appearance of "shell changing" and heap configuration. Although we all know that without core competitiveness, it is difficult to attract the favor of target consumer groups.

If the high-end slogan is empty, it is just like the army only looks at the flag bearer, not the general. If the lofty ideal in the slogan can't land, it is a castle in the air. Therefore, high-end products should not only have a tangible texture, but also be fully reflected in every detail. Greatness lies in the accumulation of details, and the devil is also hidden in the details.

In fact, among the traditional car companies, only Hongqi has achieved staged success in the impact of luxury positioning. It can be said that in the field of traditional fuel vehicles, the only brand that really owns luxury car genes is Red Flag. On the road to the revival of the red flag, we also see that its strength is still above the traditional luxury. Speaking of short board, its electrification strength is very weak, and its sense of science and technology is much worse than Tesla.

Therefore, the difficulty of Red Flag is relatively high, and it is unlikely that other brands will catch up with BBA in the field of traditional fuel vehicles. Even if the next best thing is to make high-end brands and products first, it is still very difficult. So, where are the roots of these shortcomings that impact high-end and luxury?

The difficulty lies in the system.

For many years, China's independent brands have always had the dream of going high-end, but they have failed repeatedly. Moreover, in the past two years, the pace of independent brands hitting the high-end is getting faster and faster. For example, Roewe changed the double standard and the R standard went straight to the high-end new energy market. In addition, in addition to Baojun's diamond logo, Wuling Hong Guang is also launching Capgemini, which is also taking the road of high-end.

High-end enthusiasm, even marginalized brands are also eager. For example, recently, Mingjun Otani, executive vice president of Baoneng Automobile Group, revealed that "Baoneng Automobile Group is planning high-end automobile brands, and its positioning will be higher than that of Qoros Automobile." Jianghuai Automobile also abandoned JAC's passenger car logo and used the joint venture "Sihao" brand instead. Can Jianghuai, who "gave up the tuba and practiced the trumpet", come out in this round? No one knows, "Huashan has been the Tao since ancient times", and there seems to be no other good way.

Although it is entirely possible for independent brands to realize high-end dreams, it is no longer far away. But there is no shortcut to the high end, and a whole set of system construction is needed. We can see that the early failure of BAIC ARCFOX and Chirengtu lies in the lack of a complete system.

Yang Xueliang, vice president of Geely Automobile Group, is right. "High-end is essentially the recognition of value, from design, manufacturing, technical reserves to product strength, providing users with a sense of value that exceeds expectations." But it doesn't mean that a slogan is high-end. Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, also said in an interview with reporters at the Beijing Auto Show, "You have no reason to say that I am high-end, and then you come to buy me. There is no such reason. "

Using a physical term "potential energy" as an analogy, only by relying on the potential energy created by technology and system can we be high-end. This potential energy is empowered by strong technical strength, and the core is of course the platform system of positive research and development. No core technical strength, just castles in the air.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, Kelin and WEY are two very distinctive examples of high-end independent brands trying and exploring. The starting time is similar, but today, we see the difference between the two brands. With the blessing of CMA platform, Lectra still has considerable stamina, and the Beijing Auto Show also unveiled the huge architecture of SEA based on CMA platform. WEY has shown signs of weakness since last year.

We know that the failure of H8 and H9 was an example before WEY. WEY has made some efforts, but it has no new platform foundation, and there is still a dilemma of helpless price war and high-end obstruction. In other words, after the threshold of 6.5438+0.5 million yuan has passed, consumers will still feel that their own brands of around 200,000 are not as good as joint ventures.

Changan UNI-T has made some achievements in its exploration, but it is still in the stage of high-end products, and Changan is very cautious about high-end brands. That's right. On the other hand, ARCFOX's high-end and Dongfeng's blue maps show more lonely and cold images. On the morning of the 26th Beijing Auto Show, the reporter saw Dongfeng executives standing in front of the iFREE concept car, silently looking at the car and thinking silently.

It hasn't been a year or two since the high-end self-owned brand was put forward, and there have been countless rounds of discussions and debates. However, until today, there are still few independent brands that can successfully achieve high-end in the industry. Previously, there was a cognition in the industry that the launch of high-end brands should be based on the accumulation of production and sales scale of more than 1 10,000 vehicles. Looking around, there are really few things that can be done, but I don't know how many people have fallen down because there is no sales.

Pioneers WEY and Link are still struggling, not to mention others. So high-end is the only way, but if the internal force of the system is not enough, it is likely to fall into the "high-end trap" of haste makes waste, wasting valuable enterprise resources. The high-end needs stability and can withstand loneliness. I hope people in the industry can think deeply.

Software defines the future?

In fact, in addition to the luxury route, with the changes in global consumer demand and cognition, and the impact of Internet technology on the automobile industry, everyone has stood on the watershed of the times, and their cognition of brands and cars has undergone tremendous changes. Traditional cars and new energy vehicles began to go their separate ways.

At the same time, the definitions of high-end and luxury have quietly diverged.

The technical advantages behind the high-end and luxury that consumers originally thought were "expensive" are facing elimination when the evaluation criteria are rewritten. For example, giving up the manufacturing technology of large displacement engines and so on. On the other hand, with the technological leap of automobile manufacturing, the gap of hardware level is getting smaller and smaller, and electrification technology even makes some luxury brands easily break through their once proud performance, such as zero acceleration.

The arena suddenly changed. The premium of high-end and luxury must be based on the product, but the product has undergone tremendous changes in technology. The novel product experience brought by Tesla, especially in terms of intelligence, whether it is automatic driving assistance, remote control or FOTA, is not fully satisfied by traditional fuel vehicles.

On August 25th, Li Gang, managing director of SDIC Innovation, expressed a view that due to the natural fit between intelligence and electric vehicles, the luxury car in the future is likely to be a high-end smart electric vehicle. "The era of automobile intelligence has arrived, and the definition of German luxury cars will be rewritten."

The era of "software-defined car" has begun, and the car will eventually become a "large mobile terminal, energy storage unit and digital space". (Defined from the Medium and Long-term Development Plan of Automobile Industry issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology on April 201July), the degree of automobile intelligence represents the future.

Looking back at history, the past two decades have been the era of the Internet, including the mobile Internet. At that time, the automobile industry was mainly "+Internet", with hardware as the protagonist and software as the supporting role. The next twenty years will be the era of artificial intelligence, and the automobile industry will be the "internet plus". Under the Internet of Everything, everything will be driven by the software-led network.

From tangible to intangible, from hard to soft, from outside to inside, the texture of hardware has become the basic condition of luxury goods, but it is not the most important condition to define luxury goods. Tesla's "lane change overtaking" is a very clear signal. The head strength of the new domestic car-making forces is also dominated by Tesla, and it does not mind the vision of traditional car companies.

We are also glad to see that Weilai, Tucki and Ideality, the new forces in the automobile manufacturing industry, have made some breakthroughs at present. Although they are still immature, the light of hope has illuminated the way forward for the industry. However, this capital-driven speed model is not suitable for those who are "fully armed" and unable to make up their minds. In.

However, when many people around us change cars, they have already put Tesla models? 3. Weilai ES8, Tucki P7, Guangzhou Automobile New Energy Aion? LX and others are considered together with Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, which was impossible five years ago. It is mentioned in Little Trend that the small trend of 1% people's actions will soon affect the actions of a wider range of people. Once a certain point has passed, for example, within three to five years, the era of intelligent electric vehicles may accelerate.

We say that the strength of products actually comes from the innovation of Siwei and technology, which in turn drives the evolution of high-end brands. Tesla's high-end and luxury are fully reflected in the scientific and technological content. The emergence of Tesla mode gives a new definition of high-end and luxury. These are exactly what many traditional car companies can't do.

As revealed by the landmark event that Tesla's market value surpassed Toyota a few days ago, Musk's every move shocked the industry, not only because he was portrayed as a national hero after Jobs. Behind this is actually a harbinger of the transition from "Toyota Doctrine" to "Tesla Doctrine" and from the traditional industrial system to the digital technology system.

Specifically, different from the traditional definition, the starting point of Tesla model design is "a computer with driving function", and the design is based on a powerful information technology architecture. This architecture can realize the interconnection of all internal components from powertrain to internal functions, and can continuously optimize the vehicle during its life cycle through subsequent FOTA.

Someone once said, "Tesla is a software company that produces cars, and the human-computer relationship has been deeply embedded in its DNA." Therefore, Tesla's internal operation is also very different from that of traditional car companies. It can be said that it is a technology company that pursues Moore's Law. Tesla's "test and learning" method of driving logic is based on human-computer learning, and innovative services are continuously introduced through three "flat" dimensions of super production, software integration and start-up leadership.

So you should be able to understand the difference between Mercedes and Tesla. The core essence of luxury represented by Mercedes-Benz is spiritual transcendence beyond the secular and practical. Go beyond material, function and practicality, and pursue higher spirit, lifestyle and added value. Even in an entry-level car, it is refracted. This is the inherent cornerstone of its brand premium. In addition to the product strength created by technological advantages, there is also systematic and continuous investment in marketing and services, which was not built in a day.

Tesla, on the other hand, subverted the traditional "shield" of the industry through the accumulation of software strength with the spear of "first principle". The key is that software strength also needs to be accumulated. This is also the reason why Dr. Diss, CEO of Volkswagen Group, made an exception to praise Elon Musk when the ID.3 software problem was overwhelming. It is also the direction of new forces such as Weilai and Tucki, and it is also a turning point for traditional car companies to make decisions.

Of course, the complexity of the industrial chain of automobile manufacturing determines that awe is extremely important. Otherwise, you can only see the "survivor prejudice" put forward by Cicero, an ancient Roman politician more than 2,000 years ago, but you can't see the "silent majority" left behind, just like the prediction that "only three will survive" by the new car-making forces is gradually verified.

In the final analysis, being a Mercedes-Benz and being a Tesla are all a long way to go. You have to have the courage and patience to "cross thousands of people". Too much tacit knowledge and understanding? Anyway, there is always a heavy price to pay. The so-called "Kung Fu is time." However, there is no turning back for high-end products.

This article is taken from the cover story of "Automobile Commune" magazine 10.

Text/Wang Xiaoxi

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This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.