The car giant started by marrying the daughter of the king

Chapter 302: A legendary car rolls off the assembly line, the strongest rival of domestically produced cars?
"It would be best if BMW Technology could directly acquire the factory and import technology from abroad, just like lead-acid batteries."

"But the schedule is still quite tight. We plan to launch the BMW E within this year."

Hou Guoming is very clear about the relationship between BMW Technology and Jiang Hui.

Now that Jiang Hui says he wants to communicate with BMW Technology, there will definitely be no problem.

"For the two parts, motors and motor controllers, basically we just need to acquire the corresponding factories and use the existing equipment to produce them, or make some minor modifications to continue to produce parts that meet our needs."

“More often than not, it’s a problem with part design and component quality.”

"BMW Technology can use the existing information from your investigation to quickly contact the relevant departments and factories and complete the acquisition arrangements within the next month. There is still a chance."

With the two cases of the Peking Battery Factory and the Chaoyang Motorcycle Factory, Jiang Hui believed that many factories on the verge of bankruptcy would be happy to see BMW Technology acquire them.

The capitalists are not here to oppress them, but to lead them to live a good life.

"Well, I will arrange for someone to sort out the information and hand it over to BMW Technology."

In the development of BMW E, there was hope of solving the bottleneck parts problem, so Hou Guoming naturally had to take action as soon as possible.

Although electric bicycles have been available in foreign countries for many years.

However, no matter which country it is in, there is no large-scale production and sales yet.

If Chaoyang Motorcycle Manufacturing Plant can make a breakthrough in this area, it can be said to be a world-class achievement when it is promoted.

This kind of project brings both fame and fortune.

……

While Chaoyang Motorcycle Manufacturing and BMW are working hard, other manufacturers are also not idle.

As the first joint venture car company in China this time, Shanghai Volkswagen has also made a big move.

The first batch of Santana cars, which were imported from Germany and assembled on the original production line of the Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant, officially rolled off the production line today.

As one of the most classic models of the Volkswagen Group, "Santana" is definitely a legendary model in the Chinese auto market.

In the 38 years since it entered the domestic automobile market, it has won the title of domestic automobile sales champion for 22 consecutive years.

In 1980, Volkswagen launched the second generation Passat.

After negotiations, the Shanghai Automobile Factory decided to enter the domestic market through CKD assembly.

Then in March this year, the first "Passat B3" was successfully assembled at the Shanghai Automobile Factory.

Since it is a CKD assembly method, it is 100% consistent with the overseas version.

The only difference is the name. in the country it is called Santana.

So the first generation of Santana is actually the second generation of Passat.

However, now that Capital Automobile Manufacturing has already launched the BJ310, which has decent sales and acceptable performance, the Santana's brilliance seems not so dazzling.

Even so, all parties attach great importance to Santana's offline.

Many leaders from both the Ministry of First Machine Building and Shanghai attended the launching ceremony, and related reports were continuously circulated in many newspapers.

After this information spread, the first to feel the pressure was the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant.

"Director, our advertisement on Huaxia Channel will be officially launched next week."

"By then, the sales volume of BJ310 will surely see a wave of rapid growth, and the impact of Santana produced by Shanghai Volkswagen on us should be very limited."

Shi Wengui knew what Chen Qi was worried about, so he immediately reported to Chen Qi any new developments in the marketing department.

Before Santana, BJ310 was the most successful model in the domestic sedan industry.

Whether it is FAW's Hongqi sedan or the Shanghai Automobile Factory's Shanghai-brand sedan, they are inferior to BJ310 in appearance and performance.

Therefore, BJ310 has also created a record of selling more than 2000 units per month, and this figure is still increasing.

According to Shi Wengui's plan, after the advertising promotion on China TV, the monthly sales of BJ310 will exceed 3000 units, challenge 4000 units, and strive to produce 5 units a year.

This will quickly reduce the shared costs, improve the profits of Capital Automobile Manufacturing, and quickly increase the influence of BJ310.

But now that Santana is rolling off the production line at such a fast speed, the pressure on the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant has suddenly increased.

"The cooperation between Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant and Volkswagen was just concluded last year, and now they have assembled the Santana so quickly."

"This will definitely become a typical case of reform for publicity within the ministry."

"With the influence of Volkswagen, the CKD Santana will definitely be more attractive to many consumers than our BJ310."

"Especially since our BJ310 uses the chassis of BJ212, there is definitely a gap in comfort compared to Santana."

"In this case, your marketing department must prepare a good marketing plan to ensure that the development of our BJ310 will not be affected."

Chen Qi is also a little annoyed now.

The Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant was all set to develop its own brand of sedans, but the Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant quickly cooperated with Volkswagen and directly introduced their mature models.

How can they compare?

Even if they try their best to prove that BJ310 has good performance, few people will believe that it is better than Volkswagen's Santana.

"According to the information I have learned, Santana's initial plan is to complete the CKD assembly of 1 vehicles in the next three years and then carry out localized production."

"With this amount of production, even if Santana is very popular, the impact on us is relatively limited."

"As for increasing production, considering the impact of foreign exchange consumption, I don't think the ministry or Shanghai will easily agree to it."

After Shi Wengui's explanation, Chen Qi felt a little relieved.

CKD assembly means that all parts are imported from Germany, which requires the consumption of precious foreign exchange.

If there is no way to produce cars domestically, then the foreign exchange will be wasted.

Now that there are obviously good products, the nature of the situation is different.

"Anyway, the situation is changing now."

"Our BJ310 really has no advantage over Santana, and this is something we must consider."

"I will discuss with the R&D center later to see how to make some improvements to the BJ310."

"Before Santana is produced domestically, we must significantly improve the competitiveness of our BJ310."

Chen Qi knew that he would have to work at the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant for a few more years, and he would have to take into account some future risks.

If Santana had not emerged as a competitor, Chen Qi would definitely be able to live a good life for a few years with the help of BJ212 and BJ310.

By then, it would be almost certain that he would be promoted to another place smoothly. Now it was different. Once the sales of Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant began to decline under Chen Qi's leadership, or even the BJ310 became unsalable, then Chen Qi would definitely be held responsible.

"We do need to improve the technology of BJ310 so that it can be on par with imported cars in terms of comfort."

"Now the exposure rate of Toyota Crown and Nissan Duke in the market is getting higher and higher, especially in the southern region, many people have a relatively high evaluation of these two cars."

"Then the factory can consider purchasing one and dismantling it thoroughly for comparison, and make some targeted technical improvements to our BJ310."

Shi Wengui is now in charge of the marketing department, and has also conducted a special investigation into the situation of China's automobile industry.

As far as the sedan market is concerned, the domestic market is still relatively weak.

There are too few models that are worth mentioning, otherwise BJ310 would not be able to take the lead.

Objectively speaking, there is still a gap between domestic automobile production technology and that of foreign manufacturers such as Japan.

Otherwise, imported cars wouldn't be so popular.

"This is a good suggestion. Developing for other people's cars will reduce the difficulty of development and significantly shorten the development time."

The strength of the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant's R&D center has improved significantly in recent years, especially when Jiang Hui was still there, and he left something for everyone.

But overall, it is definitely far inferior to the R&D capabilities of automobile giants such as Toyota, Volkswagen, and Nissan.

Chen Qi knew that it would be very difficult to ask them to independently develop some new parts to enhance the competitiveness of BJ310.

If you have a reference and copy it from it, the situation will be different.

As for whether this would turn the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant's R&D center into a "tape measure department", that was not something he was worried about right now.

In the early stages of development of the automobile industry in various countries, the R&D departments of automobile companies were actually "tape measure departments."

Even for the current Chinese automakers, it is already very remarkable to have a "tape measure department" with a very qualified management level in the R&D center.

This means that you can produce all the parts for other people's mature car models through imitation, and then assemble them into qualified vehicles for sale.

This action is actually not that easy to achieve.

……

"Director, after the Santana rolled off the production line, it's hard to get one. Almost every car is taken away before it leaves the factory."

“I think we can consider increasing production?”

Wang Huiliang was originally under a lot of pressure because the main product of the Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant was Shanghai-brand cars.

However, this sedan was produced more than a decade ago and has no competitiveness at all.

Not to mention compared with imported cars, even compared with the BJ310 of Capital Automobile Manufacturing, it is far inferior.

So last year, the sales of automobile manufacturers in Shanghai actually fell, and the trend was very bad.

As the director of the design department, the leaders in the factory all hoped that he could take the lead in the modification of Shanghai brand cars.

But he knew the situation in the Design Department best.

They simply don't have the capabilities to develop new products.

Now, the Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant has cooperated with Volkswagen to establish Shanghai Volkswagen, directly using the original factory to assemble Santana.

This is equivalent to their factory having very good products, and their efficiency can be greatly improved. The decline of Shanghai-branded cars in the future will be over.

Even if it is necessary to redesign, we can learn from Santana's situation and use the money earned from selling Santana to slowly develop it.

"You think I don't want to increase production?"

"The workers on this production line are not very familiar with assembling Santana, so the output cannot be increased so quickly."

"The most important thing is that we have only been given a quota of 2000 vehicles this year, and only 1 vehicles in the next three years."

"Even if we increase production now, it won't solve the fundamental problem."

"What we should do now is to find ways to promote the localization of Santana parts, so that we don't have to waste a lot of foreign exchange and can increase production as much as we want."

"For this, we need your Design Department to take the lead and organize the Purchasing Department, Technical Department and other departments to work together."

After Yu Jin said this, Wang Huiliang became troubled again.

Even though it is just a simple matter of localizing parts, it is actually very difficult.

Many of the technologies used on Santana are common internationally, but are still very new in China.

New technology means that no supporting factory has made similar parts in the past, so they need to be redeveloped.

They are not like Jiang Hui who can easily guide the supporting factories to provide various instructions.

"Director, the localization of Santana is of extraordinary significance to our factory and to the whole of Shanghai."

"If it is further expanded, it can be said to be very meaningful for the development of the entire Chinese car industry."

"I think we can bring in more factories and related departments to form a Santana localization community, and work together to find ways to promote the localization of various parts."

"Otherwise, this localization schedule is likely to last for a longer period of time."

Wang Huiliang has a relatively good understanding of the technical strength of the existing supporting manufacturers of Shanghai automobile manufacturing plants.

For many parts of Santana, especially those on the engine, it is definitely not possible for current supporting factories to produce products of the same quality as imported parts in a short period of time.

There is not only a gap in technology, but also a gap in production equipment.

For example, the machining accuracy of other people's parts is required to achieve a tolerance of plus or minus 0.01 mm, but your equipment itself does not have the processing capability of such precision, then how can you produce qualified parts?

Introducing new equipment is a long process.

Every factory wants to introduce advanced equipment from abroad, but funds are limited, especially foreign exchange.

If we follow the normal procedures, it may take two or three years to complete.

However, if there is a special organization like the "Santana Localization Community" to promote it, and if Shanghai leaders pay attention to it, some work will be easier to do.

It would also be easier for Wang Huiliang to transfer some personnel from other factories or schools.

"Your proposal is good. Let's try to come up with a clear plan in the next few years. I will discuss it at the factory committee meeting and then report to the higher-ups."

Yu Jin had a relatively clear understanding of the current situation and knew that Wang Huiliang's proposal was meaningful.

At this stage, he will definitely give his full support to anything that is helpful in promoting the localization of Santana.

(End of this chapter)