Getting to know Changan
From manufacturing to retail
As we thought this year was winding down, Changan Philippines, now under the care of Inchcape in the Philippines, invited us to visit their HQ in Chongqing, China.
The City of Chongqing is in a mountainous area and where two great waterways meet, the Yangtze and the Jianling rivers. It is also the home of Changan. The weather there was cool and seemed to make our long days a bit easier.
We headed to Changan’s Global R&D center, a sprawling campus which was a short bus ride from our hotel, this was where we were introduced to brands under their organization.
Changan split into its base words, “Chang” means lasting and “an” meaning “safety”, which together represent “Lasting Safety.” There are five brands under Changan: Changan-Qiyuan their new EV brand, Deepal, Changan’s New Energy Vehicle (NEV) brand, AVATR, is a brand partnership between Huawei Technologies and Changan to develop four electric vehicle models by 2025, and they’ve already produced two – the AVATR 11 and 12, Changan UNI the arm that produces ICE vehicles with the prefix UNI (We have the UNI-K and UNI-T here in the Philippines), and Kaicene is their commercial vehicle brand. Changan also produces vehicles for Ford and the Mazda3 and CX5 under joint ventures. All told, Changan is pretty busy.
Some interesting facts
Changan has nine thousand dealerships worldwide, with their key markets in Mexico, Peru, Chile, Russia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand and Pakistan. Vehicles are manufactured in eight plants in China, in Harbin, Beijing, Hebei, Chongqing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hefei, Jianxi and one facility outside of China, Pakistan. With over 72,000 employees around the world and over 1M jobs across the supply chain.
Changan has a global R&D network of ten centers in six countries: the Global R&D center in Chongqing, another R&D center in Beijing and Hefei, light vehicle R7D in Hebei, software development in Shanghai, a styling design center in Japan, Germany and Europe, intelligent driving R&D center in the US and a power R&D center in the UK. Changan has the R&D capabilities for vehicle, chassis, engine, transmission, software and more.
We were given insight into their “Vast Ocean” plan, which is to “build a world-class auto brand”. With a design team of over 750 from around the world, and some notable personalities with extensive experience in other automotive brands and a determination to do everything in-house, like the R&D and production of the battery pack, electric drive and e-controller, independent R&D and production of battery management systems, their 7-in-1 vehicle domain controller, and 7-in-1 e-drive and partnering with Huawei and battery producer, CATL, to make three EV platforms, their EPA0, EPA1 and CHN.
To improve customer experience, and to improve both products and services, Changan has opened 16 WeChat groups where around 117 senior executives can talk with customers directly. With this, they’ve a built a pool of more than 16,000 key opinion customers. Changan has also initiated 80 customer activities per year with over 20,000 eager attendees and an annual fans activity.
Drive experience
After the short presentation about Changan, we proceeded to performance test road which was all the way at the back of the R&D campus where got to try a mix of ICE, hybrid and EV offerings from brands under Changan. We got to experience the differences in acceleration speeds of the different vehicles. Vehicles we got to drive were the Quiyuan AO7, AO5, Changan UNI-V and a sporty UNI-K, AVATR 11, Deepal S7 (which was teased at the Changan brand launch in BGC), Deepal SLO3 to name a few.
After a quick lunch, we headed to their Liangjiang manufacturing facility which was not far from the R&D center. Surprisingly, we were allowed to take photos inside the plant. We had a short tour in the area where body panels are welded together to form the chassis, and like all modern automotive manufacturing facilities, robots did all the heavy work, ensuring repetitive precision and quality. The next area we toured was the assembly area, which was right after the paint facility. Here was where the shell comes together to become a vehicle. Like a dance, all the parts come together at the right time in the line, to be installed. Other activities on the side we saw were the preparation of the wiring looms and harnesses being pre-installed in the dashboards before deploying to the final assembly line. No matter how many times we’ve seen this with different brands, it’s still amazing to watch bits of metal, plastic and rubber put together to become a vehicle.
The next day, we were driven out of town to Changan’s test track, the Chongqing Xibu Automobile Proving Ground. This 1,360 hectare facility is a place where manufacturers can test their vehicles on any conceivable road condition along with a high speed oval where cars can do speeds in excess of 200-kph for long durations without needing to slow down. Changan brought over some of the vehicles we had driven the previous day, but this time we would have an official driver take us around the high speed oval, which was a pretty cool experience in itself, it was an active test track that day so we only got one trip around the track. Changan says the facility is able to test for both US and Euro parameters, making the track versatile for actual testing and also allow other brands to conduct their testing here saving them time and money.
On our last day, we headed into the city to visit one of the many Changan dealerships to see their vehicle displays and a look into their service area. It was a busy Thursday for the dealership and it was business as usual for them as we observed the continuous inquiries by customers on the ICE Changan vehicles on display. Our next stop was at the Automobile Expo Center which housed different EV brands and also housed the AVATR Delivery Center, which a had completely different look and feel to Changan’s. It had a more upscale feel owing to the different market this brand caters to. This was where also got a peek at a small car Changan hinted at being introduced to the Philippines, the Lumin.
The trip to Chongqing showed us that Changan is well on their way to accomplishing their Vast Ocean plan. To this date, Changan has sold more than 24.95 million vehicles under all their Chinese brands since 2010. And with their diverse brands and lineup, they’re sure to find more markets to penetrate with the Philippines already under way. Exciting times for the Filipino car buyer.