· Dialogue Jacob George: How JD Power "watches" the Chinese auto market
When it comes to JDPower, many people are impressed by the new car quality survey that it launches every year, but I believe many people don't know how this report on the new car evaluation wind vane in the Chinese and American auto markets is released. For JD Power, which is looking forward to watching the Chinese auto market, how does it view the Chinese brands that are in the midst of wind and rain? How does JDPower “fire†for the growing Volkswagen Sagitar Gate? And how does it evaluate these future stars for the emerging new energy market? Global Network reporter exclusive interview with Jacob George, vice president and general manager of global consulting services at JD Power and Associates, hoping that he can “make the pulse†for the Chinese auto market from a quality perspective. Cooler And Warmer Box,Warmer Box,Cooler Box ,Electric Cool Box Yuyao Veedai Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd , https://www.coycyqi.com
Self-owned brands are narrowing the gap with international brands. This conversation started with Chinese local auto brands. British media AUTOCAR recently reported that China has now become the world's largest auto producer and the EU has relegated to second place. According to the latest data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), the EU's automobile production was almost flat between 2012 and 2013, while China's automobile production exceeded the EU in 2012 and continued to climb in 2013, reaching 18 million, far exceeding 14.6 million vehicles in the European Union.
Despite the aura of manufacturing big countries and big sales countries, under the impact of foreign brands, Chinese local automakers are still faltering. Since September last year, their own brands have declined for 12 consecutive months in terms of market share. After the "12 consecutive landings", the market share of self-owned brand passenger cars finally stopped falling. According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in September this year, the sales of self-owned brand passenger cars reached 653,600, with a market share of 38.54%, an increase of 0.19 percentage points year-on-year. However, industry insiders pointed out that this short-term recovery is difficult to cover the reality of the brand dispersion of self-owned brand passenger cars, quality lag, and vicious competition. Dong Yang, executive vice president of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, even issued a sound of "the Chinese self-owned brand will die half in the next five years."
As a native Chinese car brand, its fate is naturally concerned by the Chinese people. So, as JD Power, which has been in China for fifteen years, how does it look at the development of Chinese local brands? As a senior data analysis expert, after Jacob George transferred his job in China in 2010, he gradually began to get to know a lot of Chinese brands because of his work.
In detail, Jacob George explained the status quo of self-owned brand products through the 2014 China New Car Quality Research SM (IQS) report. “In 2014, the total new car quality averaged 131, which was reduced by 24 compared with 2013 (155). The number of international brands has decreased from 104 in 2013 to 95 in 2014. It can be seen that the gap between self-owned brands and international brands in further narrowing the quality of new cars has been going on for four years since 2011. And it has shrunk to 36 this year."
While achieving their own achievements, independent brands still face enormous challenges. “Independent brands have further narrowed the gap with international brands, but core issues and design flaws still exist.†Jacob George has pointed out the weakness of his own brand.
From the stranger to the familiarity, there is more concern. The bit by bit progress of Chinese local brands has made this foreigner who has been engaged in data statistics for a long time feel happy. “I have seen that their own brands have been generally rising. If you compare all of your own brands this year with the international brands we surveyed, we have about 30 problems with PP100 vehicles this year. Around, the data of the international brand is about 30% more PP. In the previous year, the number of PP100 was 100. In the last year, the PP100 was 50, and this year's PP100 was 36, so you see that the number of problems is declining."
“If we keep local brands to keep this trend, we predict that the number of local and international brands will overlap in 2018, and they basically reach the same level of problem.†At Jacob George and his The team seems that local brands still have to maintain sufficient confidence in the face of adversity.
Jacob George also told reporters that a phenomenon worth pondering, according to the city level, compared with the first-tier cities (146 PP100), second-tier cities (136 PP100) and third-tier cities (118 PP100) of their own brand owners experienced more problems less.
However, according to the China New Car Purchase Intention Research SM (NVIS) released by JD Power Asia Pacific in August this year, although second- and third-tier cities have experienced fewer problems, Chinese car buyers are buying their own brands in second- and third-tier cities. The rates fell to 16% and 20% respectively. The brand image of the independent brand has not kept pace with the continuous improvement of the quality of new cars.
As a big brand (FAW Volkswagen) may not improve quality so quickly. After chatting about the independent brand, the reporter took the opportunity to lead the topic to the public's most recent public “Sagitar Gate†event.
Recently, because the public is dissatisfied with the public's tough stance on the quality defects of Sagitar and the recall measures are not thorough, Sagitar has continued to upgrade. According to the European version of "Automotive News" on October 27th, the Volkswagen Group will recall 581,090 new sagitars and beetles in China due to the hidden danger of rear suspension fracture. The owner of the car was dissatisfied with the solution to install a metal lining on the rear axle of the recalled vehicle for a nationwide demonstration.
Su Weiming, CEO of Volkswagen (China), said on the 24th that there is no safety problem with the rear axle of the Volkswagen model. The installation of metal lining is "providing double insurance." Hezman, President and CEO of Volkswagen Group (China), also made it clear that “all sagitar owners are invited to get to the Volkswagen authorized 4S store as soon as possible for free and professional coupled rod rear suspension detection.â€
However, the owners did not buy the accounts. Some of the Sagitar owners recently demonstrated in major cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. They also said that the suspension was deformed after the new sagitar, or there was paint detachment. They asked the public to change the rear suspension or refund.
Jacob George also frankly expressed his opinion on Sagitar. He believes that the correct way for car companies is to actively contact consumers to solve problems before they are "upgraded" to anger.
However, he has consistently insisted on relying on data to speak. He did not make a contribution to the public. "In the IQS survey, we did not find consumers complaining about the recall of this sagitar. FAW-Volkswagen has a lot of market share, they have this market share. A driving, guiding, as such a big brand, may not be as fast as the quality immediately."
The number of complaints about new energy vehicles and the number of complaints about traditional vehicles are basically the same. Since the beginning of this year, with the introduction of a series of support policies, the new energy automobile industry has become increasingly popular. The 12 departments of the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have recently issued plans to strengthen the coordination of "cars, oil, and roads" and accelerate the comprehensive prevention and control of motor vehicle pollution. The program emphasizes the promotion of new energy vehicles.
The sales of new energy new vehicles also rose rapidly. In 2013, China’s new energy vehicle production was 17,500 units, and in 2012 it was 12,000 units. This means that the sales of new energy vehicles in the first nine months of this year are close to last year and the previous year. Sum. Reuters has analyzed the growth of China's new energy vehicle market. The author pointed out that "China has set an ambitious goal for electric vehicles: the total number of electric vehicles will reach 5 million by 2020.
The spring of new energy is coming to the fore, then will JD Power also add new energy models to the evaluation system with the times? Jacob George gave a definite answer. “If the number of new energy vehicles reaches a certain percentage, JDPower will definitely conduct some research on new energy (automobiles).â€
He also revealed to the World Wide Web reporter some results of preliminary survey data on new energy vehicles. "In fact, we have also done some sample sorting and analysis. We can still see that the number of complaints from consumers about new energy vehicles and consumers' complaints about traditional cars are basically the same."
Watching the quality pulse of the Chinese car market For ordinary people, the huge and trivial data is undoubtedly boring, but Jacob George and his team are not tired. They believe that simply collecting large amounts of big data doesn't make sense, because data is fragmented, and scientific analysis and careful research based on big data is the value of their work.
JD Power has tried to achieve a watch on the ever-changing Chinese auto market through massive data analysis. As a company with a mission to the Chinese auto market, how does JD Power collect samples? How does it consider the number of samples and reflect the actual situation? Jacob George explained the logic behind PP100 in detail.
“In terms of research methods, we feel that the best research method (in China) is currently the survey questionnaire, because the case can see the owner of the car, face-to-face interviews are the best. The same reason if you want to buy a car If you are a car, you can also ask a lot of people and ask them how the quality of the car they buy is a word of mouth. You will definitely ask a lot of people, but how many people you can ask to satisfy your information is a problem. Through us After years of research, I found that if you want to analyze the data at a deeper level, you need at least 100 samples. This is the measurement of our new car quality survey is PP100, because we found that after the sample car reached 100, the data analysis was It has a certain meaning. This PP100 is not only applicable to China, but also applicable to other markets around the world."
Undoubtedly, the simple truth is that the near-infinite data accumulation can describe the objective situation more realistically, but the infinite data sample collection and statistics are not objective. How to read the real automobile market operation trend from a limited sample is the test. Skilled. In the view of Jacob George, the meaning of PP100 is that the number of samples selected can be “enough†to achieve a deeper analysis of information.