Written by / Jacob
Editor/ Zhang Nan
Design / Shi Yuchao
When I did this issue of Automotive Business Review magazine, my feelings were mixed. Chinese may not have recovered from Xuzhou and had to face two wars: a duel with the epidemic in the immediate future, and a Russian-Ukrainian war that was not far away. Every game is relevant to everyone, but everyone seems to be unable to do anything about it. What's wrong with the world? Will the world be a better place? Many people are worried, some people come to me to discuss, what should I do now? Is it to shrink? Is there something else to think of?
Cui Jian sang "It's not that I don't understand, the world is changing fast." As the years go by, the world is changing fast, and I only believe in one thing, we will understand more and more. To ask ourselves what year it is, we can no longer think in terms of traditional thinking, that is probably outdated, the old era has "helpless to spend", we must believe in human reason. In 1942, three years before the victory in World War II, the famous Austrian writer Zweig said: "A new era has begun, but to reach this new era, how many hells and purgatory will pass!" He lost patience and committed suicide to say goodbye to the world. We must not lose patience, over the years, human beings have experienced a lot, reason is gradually reaching a consensus, a new page will be turned.
Back in the automotive industry, some time ago, Stellantis Group CEO Tang Weishi said a lot of things about electric vehicles that foreign media consider to be "fairy tales and lies" - for example, "There are other technologies that can reduce emissions faster." Pure electric vehicles need to travel 70,000 kilometers to offset the carbon dioxide emissions generated in the production process" "Electrification is chosen by politicians, not the automotive industry" "The European Commission intends to ban the sale of fuel vehicles in 2035, which is too early." The automotive industry is forced to transition to all-electric vehicle production faster than planned" "A rapid transition to only electric vehicles will cause social unrest" "New electric technologies cost 50% more than the internal combustion engine, and it is difficult to deal with this additional cost of 50% for an industry that works very hard to achieve 2% to 3% annual productivity growth" - but in the end the situation is stronger than people, and the new strategy is to promise to achieve all the cars sold by the Group in Europe by the end of 2030 are pure electric models. 50% of the cars sold in the U.S. are pure electric models.
As the CEO of a large automobile group, whether it is a lie or a fairy tale, Tang Weishi is trying to put the interests of the group in the highest priority position as much as possible, and fantasizes about staying in his comfort zone, not knowing or unwilling to know that the new intelligent electric car is already reopening the track. The slow pace of transformation of the traditional automotive industry over the past few decades has given newcomers the opportunity to join the track. New competitors with different cultural backgrounds and different views on life and progress are constantly innovating. Among them, the new forces and new strengths of China's car manufacturing can be said to have stood at the forefront of the innovation tide of global automobile changes. They aspire to make contributions not only in China, but also in the world and become truly global enterprises. This is a less ambitious ambition that many Chinese companies have had before.
Indeed, on the new smart electric car track, Chinese are seizing opportunities. The content of the 2021 China Automotive Supply Chain Summit and the 6th Lingxuan Awards Ceremony continues to be published as the cover article of this issue of "Chain Change (Part 2)", and the insights of these participants further show how hard we Chinese automakers work hard, how smart and how advanced we are with the times. Here I would like to mention in particular the entrepreneurial project of Li Peng, a student of the first phase of Xuanyuan Learning Giant Wave, and the yo-yo running technology of the skateboard chassis. He made his first public speech since its establishment in April 2021 at the summit, proposing two evolutionary solutions that the automotive industry is exploring: one is to subtract hardware and add functions, and gradually realize the modularization, platformization and integration of the car-making industry chain; second, it will turn the automobile chassis into a standardized product through "upper and lower split" car manufacturing. Today, the chassis is still regarded as a master of the home, and it will be eliminated by the era of intelligent electric vehicles in the future. At least 10 years ago, when I talked to Professor Xu Min of Shanghai Jiao Tong University about the future of the automobile industry, he imagined that the car shell could be flexibly organized, what he wanted to change, and now it seems that this ideal is on the road to realization.
Zhang Xiaoliang, a columnist for automotive business review, said that it is likely that in the next 5 to 10 years, that is, 1 to 2 product life cycles, the automotive industry will have a phased anti-globalization cycle, that is, the demand characteristics, car preferences, and product forms of several major markets around the world will be very different, until the deep change process of a certain market is gradually clear, and they will come up with products that have undergone upgraded dimensional evolution to affect the world again. The more positive the market embraces change, the more opportunities there are to be a new batch of great brands and great products. There is no doubt that the Chinese market is bucking the globalization of demand for electric vehicles like Europe, our electric vehicles are more intelligent, and their electric vehicles also want to be more like oil vehicles. It is almost certain that in the future, Chinese car companies have great opportunities.
Now is really the best opportunity for Chinese cars, but the premise of everything is globalization. Since the epidemic, the industry has been talking about the regional layout of the supply chain, which is undoubtedly beneficial to ensuring the safety of the industry. The epidemic and natural disasters require us to do this kind of anti-global layout of the supply chain, but to some extent, it is still for the coherence of production and minimize losses, which should be changed for a while, not a permanent change. The central government's emphasis on building a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycles promoting each other does not mean that there is no international cycle. The restructuring of the world's industrial chain is inevitable, but we expect that this is moving in the direction of optimization, rather than restructuring at the cost of decoupling, which is an unbearable weight in the business. This is also an important reason why I firmly believe that everything will go well.
Dear readers, in this complicated month, the small exercise goals I have set for myself have paid off. Before the Spring Festival in 2022, I determined that there must be 3 kilometers of running every two days. I started out brisk walking, but now I've been able to run 4 kilometers straight. For my life, this is almost a new page. I had resisted running before, and thanks to the urging of the Xuanyuan students, I finally found the feeling. Of course, my ultimate goal is 5 kilometers, I will not break through it, sweating is the first goal, protecting my knees is equally important, I don't want to run and run crippled. You see, how rational I am! I think reason, not madness, will make us all turn a new page!
Finally, the 14th China Automotive Blue Book Forum 2022 will be held in Wuhan from June 9 to 11, with the theme of "Refresh". Of course, whether it can be held as scheduled in the end depends on our war with the epidemic. Of course, for the results, I still choose to believe. At that time, let's refresh ourselves together.
This article was originally produced by Automotive Business Review
For reprint or content cooperation, please contact the instructions
Illegal reprints must be investigated
Scan the code to join the reader's WeChat group
Communicate about cars