Home » Business » Autotalk Special
Public invited to help design the ideal auto
Print Edition
The “Internet plus” concept — China’s new mantra for innovation — has the much-touted potential of unlocking business opportunities for traditional industries, but only if it doesn’t mislead us in our thinking.
The Internet tag reigns paramount now, providing a space of convenience where selective facts can be shoehorned in to make a popular story. It is an efficient but dubious way of being all things to all industries.
To help develop a real solid story, the perspective should be shifted a bit and called “plus Internet.” The Internet can help the physical economy to catapult industry into a new realm, while never defining its being in the first place.
Having jumped on the Internet wagon, China’s auto industry is searching for its new self while trying to stay true to its old self.
The Internet’s openness and ability to leverage public opinion has led Cowin Auto, a car brand owned partly by domestic carmaker Chery, to pursue an unconventional way of manufacturing.
After the launch of its crowd-sourcing platform this month, the clock is ticking for Cowin to churn out a car model by 2017.
Given the usual time frame for vehicle development, it’s a pressing deadline. As the brand’s name suggests, the project holds the promise of “co-winning” efficiency, a direct channel for the carmaker to get to know its future consumers and tailor its production to demand. But the argument that many hands make work light doesn’t necessarily apply to a task that requires professional expertise.
Taking one step at a time, Cowin started crowd-sourcing with interior design, an area with a lower bar for participation. It plans to solicit further opinions about exterior and interactive interfaces later.
On an online platform, everyone is welcome to submit his dream design — perhaps an extra storage compartment for a female driver to put her high heels and make-up kit in. The public will vote for the favorite design to carry into production.
If only the instinct of the populace were infallible, especially where feasibility and, more importantly, manufacturing costs are concerned. The mold-making and validation work for every new feature will cost a fortune. For Cowin, whose market positioning is budget cars sold for around 50,000 yuan (US$7,812), it could be quite a big headache reconciling budget controls with the fanciful spirit of Internet brainstorming. The carmaker has made clear that it has to maintain some supervision over crowd-sourced concepts.
Actually, previous crowd-sourcing projects of big carmakers like Volkswagen never went beyond the sketch stage. Reaching that level is already an achievement in terms of customer engagement, which can become contagious in the democratic sphere of the Internet and translate into customer loyalty, and, eventually, a fan base.
This might be the ultimate return for Cowin. As a low-end brand established only last year without much public exposure, it has to secure a fan base to gain a market foothold. These are trying times, as much more established brands experience fading consumer interest amid China’s economic downturn.
Potential Cowin car buyers may be motivated by the thought of growing together with a brand that comes from an equally humble background. But what happens to great expectations if the Cowin model unveiled in 2017 looks nothing like their dream. Even true democracy cannot please everyone.
Chevrolet Epicas, with a sticker price of 40 percent off, were sold on Alibaba’s newly launched vehicle online shopping channel. The fixed-price platform is making headlines these days, along with the e-commerce giant’s partnership with major China dealership group Yongda.
It brings a renewed sense of crisis to those who worry about the demise of brick-and-mortar retailing as everything becomes just a mouse-click away — including autos.
In the past, online car purchasing on a big scale seemed like a pipe dream. Automotive e-commerce sites were nothing more than a portal for attracting potential customers, who in turn would turn up at dealerships for a close look at cars and face-to-face price negotiations.
But the Internet is a Pandora’s box for consumers with an increasingly hardened habit of shopping in the digital age — easy, breezy, cheaper and no need for bargaining.
Alibaba is aspiring to make online car purchasing as convenient as buying clothes. Its success in nonautomotive online retailing has sent shock waves through physical stores that can’t match the cheaper prices and natural openness offered in cyber-buying.
Quoting a fixed price for a car model demonstrates the power of e-commerce. Skeptics say online buying will not be a disruptive influence in the auto industry, which has different dynamics from companies selling clothing, books and cosmetics.
The automotive industry works from the top down. Carmakers influence the retail end through franchising. Many of them are already in partnership with e-commerce, but as a marketing tool to complement dealerships, not as a platform to replace them.
The truth is that carmakers need dealerships, not just to sell cars or handle after-sales services. As a capital-intensive business, carmakers need to push their inventory turnover to keep themselves afloat. That means passing some of the risk downstream to dealerships, who have had to grudgingly accept high debt ratios to keep taking stock.
This industry practice challenges the somewhat airier way e-commerce does business. A high volume strategy in pursuit of influence would risk a cash flow bind. A small-scale strategy wouldn’t be worth taking all those risks. It would just sell on behalf of dealerships, as usual.
Amid the current sales slowdown, discounts are king as dealerships try to dump inventory backlog. In this sense, Alibaba plays a helpful role and may shake the boat, but it won’t sink it.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
