Head image source: Stills from "Let the Bullets Fly"
In 2021, the five models of the Volkswagen ID. series achieved sales of only 70,000 vehicles, which did not meet the previous expectations of 80,000-100,000 vehicles. Not only Herbert Diess, CEO of volkswagen group, was not satisfied with this achievement, but even Daniela Cavallo, president of volkswagen group unions, was not satisfied.
The new Wolf of Wolfsburg was quick to come to his conclusion that Volkswagen had no idea what Chinese consumers wanted. "For German drivers, functions such as the integration of karaoke in the central control screen may not be valued; but in China, if Volkswagen cannot provide these functions, it will disappoint other consumers."
An optional car karaoke
I don't know which research company Daniela Cavallo read the report of the research company to reach this conclusion, the reality is that although some new forces have indeed launched the K song function, there are probably very few users who really buy cars to sing. As early as 2018, a Chinese brand cooperated with the sing bar with great fanfare and launched the K song function in the car - not only can sing, but also automatically repair the sound and upload it to the platform for PK. As a result, not only did sales not increase, but the models were soon discontinued, and even the boss who promoted this feature was "out of class".
Fortunately, Volkswagen still understands people, and Ralf Brandstaetter, who will succeed Dies as the head of Volkswagen Group's China business, is one. "In the past, our approach was to develop in Germany and localize in China, but by establishing more local R&D resources in China, especially in software, this approach will drive major changes for Volkswagen, making cars faster and more independent," he said in a recent interview. In addition, he also revealed that after the completion of the construction of Volkswagen's Anhui plant, Volkswagen's electric vehicle production capacity in China will reach 1 million in 2023.
With 70,000 vehicles actually completed in 2021 and 1 million units planned for 2023, the strong contrast between the two figures gives people an unreal feeling. If you want the production capacity of these 1 million vehicles not to be wasted, Volkswagen undoubtedly wants to accelerate the pace of electrification transformation in China, but Anhui, will it be Volkswagen's acceleration key?
#上
How do I press the accelerator key?
In 2021, Tesla will sell 167,000 vehicles in Europe, and the Model 3 will catch up with the BMW 3 Series and Passat to become the best-selling mid-size car in Europe. Today, the capacity of the Model 3 in 2022 is close to being sold out, and consumers will not be able to pick up the car until at least November after placing an order.
All of the above achievements are achieved by Tesla Europe relying on the pure import model, and it is difficult for the outside world to imagine what kind of power Tesla can explode in Europe after the Berlin factory is approved and completed. It can be said that the Berlin factory is Tesla's accelerator key in Europe.
In the view of the Volkswagen Group, the significance of Volkswagen Anhui is completely comparable to Tesla's Berlin factory. Because this is not just a production base, but an innovation center around new energy vehicles. Innovation, especially at the software level, is precisely what the public is not good at at this stage.
In 2021, PwC analyzed the reasons for the poor sales of volkswagen ID. series in China, the biggest of which was that it was not smart. If you look at the European electric vehicle sales data before 2021, it is not difficult to find that the top models are Nissan Leaf, Renault ZOE, Peugeot e208, etc., and this is the 1.0 era of the electric vehicle market, that is, the era of electrification. Electric vehicles in this era have only replaced the energy power model, and other dimensions are no different from fuel vehicles.
Under the baptism of Tesla and domestic new power players, China's pure electric vehicle market has entered the 2.0 stage, that is, the era of electrification + intelligence. Although the Volkswagen ID. series is a new product under the pure electric platform, it was born in Europe and still cannot escape the limitations of the 1.0 era. From the perspective of the product itself, although the Volkswagen ID. series has performed well in the field of vehicle engineering, it has begun to lag behind in the core points of the new era such as three-electric technology, electronic and electrical architecture, and human-computer interaction.
To take the simplest example, today, OTA upgrades are no longer unfamiliar to Chinese users, and major intelligent network manufacturers have also used OTAs to the fullest. And to ID. This, customers need to go to the outlets first to do an offline upgrade. After that, the remote online OTA upgrade can be realized. It is not difficult to understand that the products of the 1.0 era are involved in the market competition of the 2.0 era, and the performance is not good.
The root cause of the above backwardness is mainly the research and development model. For a long time, Volkswagen's joint venture in China has been mainly responsible for local production and sales, while research and development work has been carried out more at the Wolfsburg headquarters. Compared with China, European car users are more mature, but also older, they evaluate the dimensions of a car is power, control, economy, and best environmental protection; while Chinese electric vehicle users pay more attention to human-computer interaction, intelligent networking, automatic driving and other related functions. In this bias of preference, it is difficult for Volkswagen product managers and engineers in Wolfsburg not to be influenced by the preferences of European users.
But can the establishment of an R&D center in China solve the above problems? It's not that simple, because Volkswagen doesn't lack R&D centers in China, what it lacks is authority.
As early as 1999, Volkswagen had set up a R&D center in the Beijing 751 Park, and by 2014, the center had more than 2,700 R&D personnel, of which more than 90% were Chinese employees, mainly responsible for localizing, improving and optimizing the existing mature technologies of the headquarters to help Volkswagen better adapt to the Chinese market.
Photo of an open day at a Volkswagen R&D center
For example, in the Volkswagen e-up! pure electric vehicle is introduced in the form of import after the localization of the R & D center and improvement. Volkswagen's first batch of vehicle networking systems were also introduced into domestic models after the center optimized the navigation tools and function menu functions. However, compared to "research and development", the "auxiliary" of the center is too strong.
During the 2017 Guangzhou Auto Show, Volkswagen released a smart travel brand called "Yi driving intelligence", which is one of the teams that Volkswagen Group has invested heavily in the world, mainly responsible for the Internet of Vehicles, travel ecology, infrastructure construction, big data research, intelligent driving, but the research and development of related technologies is still strongly related to Wolfsburg, and the team is still unable to escape the "auxiliary" function.
Previously, there were employees within the Volkswagen Group and the car market story complaining, saying that when doing software in Volkswagen, it is necessary to be prepared to be marginalized. "What the Chinese team and the Chinese supplier can do at the software level is nothing more than optimize the EDGE work such as UI, and as for all the software involving driving and safety, all of them are responsible for the engineers at the Wolfsburg headquarters, and we have no right to intervene."
Volkswagen's ID model car machine interface
Now, with the construction of Volkswagen Anhui, Volkswagen has planned a new wave of R&D centers, the most important of which is the landing of the CARIAD software department of Volkswagen Group in China. It is reported that the department's Chinese headquarters will be set up in Beijing to integrate the original Yi driving intelligent team; the CARIAD detachment in Anhui is mainly around the standard software and electronic architecture for in-vehicle applications; the Shanghai CARIAD detachment focuses on automatic driving; and the team in Chengdu is committed to software programming.
According to Stephan Wollenstein, CEO of Volkswagen Group (China), the innovation work of Volkswagen Group in the future will mainly be carried out around CARIAD and the work department set up by CARIAD in China. But I don't know what the authority of the Chinese team in this is, perhaps when the research and development rights of the intelligent network connection are officially separated from Wolfsburg, Volkswagen really pressed the electrification strategy acceleration button.
#下
Two rounds of the game
Volkswagen Anhui, the first beneficiary of the implementation of the share ratio reform in China's automobile industry, is also Volkswagen's favorite joint venture in China. On July 13 last year, Volkswagen released the 2030 strategy, which clearly mentioned that Volkswagen's next-generation pure electric platform SSP will be put into production in Volkswagen Anhui.
At present, the Volkswagen Group has two main pure electric platforms – MEB and PPE. Earlier, in order to make a splash in electrification, Volkswagen had built a number of cutting-edge technologies based on the above platforms, such as E3 electrical architecture, vw. OS and much more. But it may be the caution of the Germans, these two platforms are in line with the current competitive trend, but the potential in advanced driverless, V2X, smart cockpit is still somewhat insufficient.
The new energy platform of the Volkswagen Group
So in early 2021, Volkswagen announced that it would merge MEB and PPE to develop a new SSP platform with automotive electronics, software and computer systems as the core. Under the large framework of the platform, different modular architectures will be derived, and in the future, the Volkswagen Group will only retain the SSP, a pure electric platform, which can produce Porsche and Audi on the top, and Seat and Skoda under the production.
Although FAW, SAIC and Volkswagen have cooperated for many years and established a deep friendship, this cutting-edge technology was first allocated to Volkswagen Anhui. The reason is not difficult to understand, in FAW-Volkswagen, Volkswagen only holds 40% of the shares, in SAIC Volkswagen, Volkswagen holds 50%, and in the Volkswagen Anhui project, Volkswagen holds up to 75%, under the same profit, a higher share ratio means a higher profit sharing, there are good things, of course, it is important to themselves.
But things are not so simple, although the profit sharing is high, the premise is to earn enough profits. Compared with Volkswagen Anhui, which only produces new energy vehicles, FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen's annual sales of more than 3 million vehicles are the guarantee of profits.
In this way, there is a possibility of a game. What makes the north and south public hungry is the SSP platform exclusive to Volkswagen Anhui, and volkswagen wants more, such as equity. As early as 2014, due to the promotion of the top level, the relevant person in charge of FAW-Volkswagen said in an interview with the media that FAW Group and Volkswagen agreed in principle to adjust and are currently in the promotion stage. But so far, 8 years later, FAW Group still accounts for 60%, in the stock ratio open today, FAW-Volkswagen's shareholding structure is a rare "strong in the middle and weak outside".
Another example is the pricing of the ID.series. According to PwC research, smart electric brands such as Tesla will fully consider carbon emission points and the domestic double credit policy in product pricing, and the point value brought by the production of an electric vehicle is an additional subsidy for car companies. If the Volkswagen ID.4 series models can also fully consider this money, there is still room for price reduction of 30,000-50,000 yuan for bicycles. As a result, the car will have a huge competitiveness.
However, this practice will also make the financial competitiveness of Volkswagen brand fuel vehicles deteriorate significantly, and it may be necessary to cut 30% of fuel vehicle sales to make the overall sales structure tend to be reasonable, and now North and South Volkswagen cannot accept the reduction in total sales. Now with the SSP platform as bait, volkswagens eager to complete the electrification transformation have more room for maneuver.
The second round of the game is the traditional drama between the top management of the Volkswagen Group - the palace fight, and the two sides of the game are the group executives and the trade union.
Under the traditional business model, the Wolfsburg headquarters is responsible for research and development, and the Chinese joint venture is responsible for production and sales. But if the new model is really implemented, and China becomes the forefront of the research and development of volkswagen group intelligent networking, then the Wolfsburg headquarters will face a new round of struggle - who is in charge. If the Wolfsburg side continues to dominate, the acceleration key of the public in terms of intelligence will not be pressed, and if the Chinese side is dominant, the employment problem of the Wolfsburg headquarters will be difficult to guarantee.
Daniela Cavallo
Previously, the two presidents of the Volkswagen Group union had argued with the CEO of the group, Diess, several times over the issue of "why ID.3 is not produced in Wolfsburg", and the current president of the union, Daniela Cavallo, even debated publicly in front of the 7,000 employees at the Volkswagen Group employee meeting.
If the main function of software research and development is transferred to China, who will quell the anger of the unions if the main function of software research and development is transferred to China?
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