BMW Brilliance: A real luxury brand must have a sense of responsibility

The car industry has a history of one hundred years. Traditional cars, especially high-end car manufacturers, have to prepare for a new round of competition in the face of fuel vehicles that are about to withdraw from the stage of history. In the electrification transition, BMW Group stated that by 2025, one-quarter of the vehicles delivered by the group in China will be pure electric vehicles.

One of the main reasons why electrification will become the main theme in the future is the increasing destruction of the environment by human beings. Based on this, countries around the world are advocating low-carbon travel to reduce damage to the natural environment. As a responsible and responsible car company for a century, the BMW Group realizes that only by integrating the concept of sustainable development into the corporate strategy is the essence of a luxury brand.

IIA: Hello everyone! We are very fortunate to have Ms. Yang Meihong, Vice President of BMW Brilliance Automotive Co., Ltd., to participate in our interview today.

Yang Meihong: Hello, friends and netizens of IIA! Today I am very honored to come to IIA to share with you the situation of the BMW brand at the Shanghai International Auto Show.

IIA: Would you please introduce to netizens what kind of heavyweight models BMW brings to you?

Yang Meihong: In the entire exhibition area, the BMW brand is the largest booth, covering an area of more than 4,600 square meters. The first is the heavyweight latest product BMW iX, which is a new energy SAV based on the brand's new four modernization concepts. There is also a limited edition new BMW 7 series equipped with a V12 engine, which is limited to 25 units in the world and is specially created for Chinese customers. We named this car the new BMW 7 Series Yaoying Special Edition. The biggest highlight is the extravagant two-tone design. There is also the MINI brand. MINI has three doors, five doors, and convertibles. New cars are released respectively. There is also a special edition model of the innovative BMW X2.

The BMW brand focused on "customer-centric" at the booth, so the concept of this booth was completely different from the past. In the past, BMW's booth would not display art cars. This time we have a special corner to display art cars. For example, the art car M3 GT2 created by the famous pop artist for BMW. This car has brightly colored lines and has participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. There are also the classic BMW 328 and 328 Hommge. The former is a classic sportsman of the BMW family, and the latter is a concept car produced in tribute to it.

The 328 Hommge not only incorporates a large number of retro designs, its body is covered with carbon fiber materials, which interprets BMW's pursuit of extreme performance. In addition, we also have many M models, such as the new generation of BMW M3 and BMW M4 coupes just launched, and the rare first-generation BMW M3. There is also a concept car called the BMW Vision M Next concept car, which fully demonstrates BMW's determination to embrace the future. Finally, the BMW booth also released the new BMW iDrive, which uses the BMW operating system 8.0 and the new BMW curved display.

The car-machine system can also be operated by natural voice, and can even recognize eye contact, and incorporate many APPs in it.

IIA: There are iX models representing the future, M models representing the ultimate performance, as well as limited edition 7 series models with V12 engines, as well as the younger X2 and BMW M3 GT2 art cars, so this year The BMW booth lineup is very strong. In addition to the new product lineup, we also review last year. Last year was an extraordinary year. Even so, BMW also demonstrated its strong strength and achieved another breakthrough in the Chinese market. Please analyze it for us.

Yang Meihong: From two aspects. First of all, the most important reason is that under the strong leadership of the Chinese government, China was the first country to take the lead in containing the epidemic, while Europe and the United States have continued to be completely open until now. Our government and medical staff have made great contributions to the control of the epidemic, enabling the Chinese economy to recover rapidly from the second half of last year. Under this background, the auto industry will recover. BMW continued to exert strength in the second half of the year, and almost every month's sales volume exceeded. Another reason is that BMW has made a lot of transformations. For example, we focus on customers and provide customers with the ultimate luxury service. BMW has made many changes from top to bottom, and the direction of the changes is mainly digital. This digitization is not the digitization of car-machine systems, but the digitization of service processes.

BMW currently has two digital companies, one is Lingyue Digital Company, which does a lot of integration of customer-level data. For example, we have an APP. Now there are 1.5 million BMW owners registered online. Because users need to register with their engine numbers, So it's a real car owner. Since its launch in September last year, 1.5 million people have now registered, and we have not yet made a large-scale promotion.

More than that, this platform can watch cars, book cars, make appointments for test drives and other services, and our users can enjoy a richer digital experience. We established the BMW ArcherMind joint venture in Nanjing, which is a high-tech IT company. As we all know, BMW is a car brand, and the technology in the IT field is not our strong point. Therefore, we hope to do research and development in this area with powerful high-tech IT companies. Of course, another point is the attractiveness of the BMW brand. Although there was an epidemic last year, the brand's sales reached a record high, with a cumulative sales of more than 770,000 units. Of course, if it were not for the limitation of production capacity, we could have better results, but I think that every car sold now is of high quality, so we also talk about high-quality development internally, rather than blindly pursuing quantity.

IIA: You just mentioned two core points, one is our IT services, and the second is green and sustainable development. I hope you will introduce these two topics to us again.

Yang Meihong: At the BMW brand launch conference on April 19, the chairman's speech mentioned that the concept and strategy of sustainable development is the core strategy of the BMW Group, and it is also the highest strategy. And he put forward that "if there is no sustainable development strategy, don't talk about luxury." In other words, there is no such idea that it is not called true luxury. Therefore, under the guidance of this belief, the BMW Group has formulated a very radical strategy.

In fact, the automobile industry is a very deep industry with a huge supply chain, and it is planned to reduce emissions by 20% in this part of the supply chain. Although the supply chain is not BMW's own company, we hope to require them to continue to be low-carbon, green and environmentally friendly through a contractual relationship. At the same time, we also proposed to lead BMW dealers to reduce carbon emissions during use.

How can we reduce carbon emissions? In addition to using green driving methods every day, there is also an important way to buy BMW electric vehicles and achieve green environmental protection through the use of new energy vehicles.

IIA: So, should BMW make sustainable green development its top priority?

Yang Meihong: Yes. If we do not take action now, our next generation may face a terrible living environment. As a company, everyone should clearly realize that this is our responsibility, and whether the company makes money is the next step. At present, sustainable development has formed a concept. Once this concept is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, different measures will be taken in your work and production in the future.

IIA: So, this can explain what luxury is. Luxury does not mean how high the price is, how high the taste is. In fact, the sense of responsibility is the highest.

Yang Meihong: Yes.

IIA: What models will be launched in the future for electrification?

Yang Meihong: By 2023, 90% of BMW's subdivision models must have at least one NEV. By 2025, the brand's NEV sales will reach 25%. In the future, there will be NEVs for consumers to choose from in subdivisions.

IIA: The BMW iX3 was launched last year. What is the current sales volume of this car?

Yang Meihong: Some users of BMW iX3 like the BMW brand. There are both prospective car owners and existing car owners. Part of the reason is that there is no license plate, and the other is that the new energy license plate is shaken, but I feel that the new force may not be mature enough to build a car, and then I will choose the iX3. The BMW iX3 is the highest level at this stage in terms of battery life, control, and human-computer interaction systems and interconnected driving systems. This car is equipped with BMW's fifth-generation power drive system, advanced driver assistance system above the second level.

This car has gone through a period of climbing after its launch, and its sales in March have exceeded 1,000 units. It is worth mentioning that for this car, BMW invited the famous composer Hans Zimmer to create a unique sound for it, and the BMW iX3 is the first car to carry this sound. At the same time, this car is also BMW Brilliance's first car made in China and exported to the world. It was exported abroad at the end of last year, but the export was suspended due to the outbreak of the European epidemic. At present, the price of BMW iX3 in Europe is slightly higher than that in China, and the market feedback is very good, probably because there are fewer options for NEVs in Europe.