The car giant started by marrying the daughter of the king

Chapter 307: The Rise of Peugeot in Guangzhou
The impact on the automotive industry is huge.

No matter which province or city, they all hope to have a powerful automobile factory in their jurisdiction.

There are about ten famous automobile factories in China, including FAW, Second Automobile Works, Capital Automobile Works, Shanghai Automobile Works, and Jinling Automobile Works.

There are dozens or even hundreds of less well-known factories, including Southwest Light Vehicle Company, Capital Travel Vehicle Factory, etc.

As a factory between well-known and unknown, Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant naturally has some ideas.

In 1969, Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant launched the "Hongwei" brand trucks, but because it could not compete with FAW's "Jiefang" brand and Second Automobile Works' "Dongfeng" brand trucks, it had to stop production in 1979, and the total output in 10 years was only about 1 vehicles.

In conjunction with the policy changes of the First Ministry of Machine Building, the head of the Yangcheng Automobile Factory, who was eager to get out of the predicament, proposed the idea of ​​producing cars.

However, in the 1970s and 1980s, Guangzhou’s industrial base was far behind that of other major cities such as the Capital, Shanghai, and Spring City.

Even cement has to be imported, not to mention other industrial materials.

How easy is it to mass-produce cars when we have no technology, no funds, and no talent?
At this time, the French Peugeot Automobile Company came into the sight of the Yangcheng Automobile Factory, and the two sides reached an agreement on the production of light trucks, and the situation began to change.

After the news of the establishment of Shanghai Volkswagen spread, the Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant also accelerated the negotiations with French Peugeot Automobile. Finally, in April this year, the two parties successfully signed a joint venture contract.

Yangcheng Peugeot, originally intended to be China's third joint venture car company, appeared ahead of schedule.

Many people may no longer have any impression of Guangzhou Peugeot, but in fact it was once glorious.

As the earliest French joint venture brand to enter the Chinese automobile market, Yangcheng Peugeot once dominated the Chinese market, and its popularity and influence were no less than that of today's Audi and Mercedes-Benz.

However, the history of Guangzhou Peugeot is full of twists and challenges, from its establishment to its eventual bankruptcy and reorganization, showing the ups and downs and lessons of a brand in the market.

So when Chen Chenxing reported to Jiang Hui that China's second automobile joint venture had appeared in Yangcheng, Jiang Hui took it very seriously.

"Have the Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant and Peugeot already decided on the first model to be mass-produced?"

The Guangzhou Peugeot has appeared in history, it's just a little earlier now. Jiang Hui was not particularly surprised to hear the news.

Shanghai Volkswagen was established in advance, so it is normal for Guangzhou Peugeot to appear in advance.

"Master, I asked the First Ministry of Machine Building about it. Yangcheng Peugeot has not yet obtained the qualification to produce sedans, so the first mass-produced car is likely to be the Peugeot 504 pickup truck."

"I estimate that the main task for Yangcheng Peugeot and even the local area of ​​Yangcheng in the coming period will be to communicate closely with the First Ministry of Machine Building and other relevant departments to see if they can obtain the qualification to produce cars."

Chen Chenxing is no longer the easily startled boy.

After receiving the news that Yangcheng Peugeot was established, he immediately tried his best to find out the relevant information.

Otherwise, the Peugeot 504 pickup truck has not yet started production, and Guangzhou Peugeot has not announced this news to the public. How could he easily obtain this information?
"If they can't obtain the production qualification for sedans as soon as possible and only produce pickup trucks, they probably won't have much development prospects in China."

Although pickup trucks are very popular in the American market, and have even been a regular on the American car sales list for many years.

But the situation in China is different.

In front of the trucks of FAW and Second FAW, and under the pressure of vans like the BMW Sunshine, there is simply not much room for pickup trucks to survive.

Especially in China, pickup trucks are managed as trucks, which further affects the development of pickup truck models.

For the Peugeot 504 pickup truck, it would be considered good if 100 units could be sold in a month.

Of course, even if they produce sedans, they mainly assemble them through CKD, and they can only sell a few thousand cars a year.

The output of automobile factories in this era cannot be compared with the annual output of hundreds of thousands or even millions of vehicles in later generations.

"Yes, I think so too. So it is inevitable that Guangzhou Peugeot will produce sedans. I think it will happen within the next three years."

Chen Chenxing gave a very specific judgment.

He is not like Jiang Hui who has a God's perspective. He was able to come to this conclusion by combining information from all aspects.

"Yangcheng Automobile Factory has produced nearly 10,000 trucks before, and has formed a certain supporting capacity in the Pearl River Delta region."

"We can also take advantage of this industrial chain and see if we can find some supporting factories to produce parts for our BMW Sunshine."

"In the future, our production will definitely continue to break records. It is not enough to entrust most parts to one supporting factory for production."

"It would be best to have points A and B, which is very beneficial for promoting suppliers' technology improvement and price reduction, and is also of great help to our stable supply."

Although it is very annoying for supporting manufacturers that the OEMs use AB points, the effect is really great.

Jiang Hui will definitely promote this practice within BMW.

Especially now that the production capacity of various domestic supporting factories is very limited, simply pinning all production on one factory is really very risky.

There are so many parts in a car. If the supply of one part is not guaranteed, the car cannot roll off the production line.

"This is indeed a direction worth working towards. Although the strength of Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant is not very strong, it is better than us cultivating a supply chain from scratch."

"However, many small private workshops have emerged in the south. It is said that some workshops directly invite engineers from large state-owned factories to provide technical and production guidance on weekends or after get off work."

"In terms of processing according to drawings, some workshops can make the cost of parts very low."

"I think we can get in touch with these factories in the future to see which ones are worth supporting."

Chen Chenxing made a suggestion from another dimension.

“It’s okay to give it a try, but in the short term, the capabilities of these factories will still be far behind those of state-owned enterprises.”

"Especially in terms of investment in production equipment, this gap cannot be made up so quickly."

"But it's not impossible to maintain contact and let them produce some parts with lower difficulty."

China's private auto parts companies basically did not start to grow and develop until after 2000.

In 1983, their influence was largely negligible.

However, there is no problem in maintaining a moderate level of attention, and even supporting some more competitive manufacturers so that we can all develop together.

After all, no matter how powerful BMW cars are, it is impossible for them to make all the parts by themselves, and there is no need to make all the parts by themselves.

It is enough as long as the core parts are in your own hands.

……

As for the establishment of the Yangcheng logo, BMW is just paying attention for the time being, but the situation is different for the Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant.

As the first automobile joint venture in China, Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant has been paying close attention to the emergence of any other joint venture automobile companies.

"Old Wang, when did Yangcheng Automobile Factory get involved with Peugeot?"

"I didn't hear any rumors before." Yu Jin was not in a good mood.

One more joint venture car company means one more competitor for Shanghai Volkswagen.

In the global market, Peugeot is not much weaker than Volkswagen.

Volkswagen cars of this era were not as awesome as they are in later generations.

Even though Santana is selling very well now, Peugeot also has some models that are not inferior to Santana at all.

For example, Peugeot 505 has better global sales than Passat, the prototype of Santana.

If Guangzhou Peugeot introduced Peugeot 505, it would definitely have a great impact on the development of Santana.

The Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant is now vigorously promoting the localization of Santana, hoping to significantly increase the production of Shanghai Volkswagen and contribute to the development of the Shanghai automobile industry.

It would be hard to accept if the development rhythm was disrupted by Guangzhou Peugeot.

"I only found out about the cooperation between Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant and Peugeot after seeing the news."

"It is estimated that the previous contacts between the two sides were relatively low-key. In addition, Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant does not have a very high presence in China. Our attention has always been on FAW, Second Automobile and Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant."

Wang Huiliang could naturally understand why Yu Jin was so irritable.

The launch of Santana made life much better for automobile manufacturers in Shanghai.

Although the monthly production quantity is small, the sales price is high and the profit is huge.

Thanks to the production of several thousand Santanas every year, the operating conditions of automobile manufacturers in Shanghai are much better than last year.

Now that this situation may be disrupted, everyone is naturally nervous.

"Go and ask around to see what models Yangcheng Peugeot is planning to introduce and when they plan to start mass production and sales."

"It is highly likely that the other party will also assemble the models through CKD first in order to quickly seize the market, which is very disadvantageous to us."

At this time, Yu Jin must do something and cannot just let Yangcheng Peugeot develop.

However, before he figured out the situation, there was very little he could do.

However, as the big brother of China's automobile industry, the situation at FAW is different.

The speed at which they obtain industry information is obviously faster than that of local car companies such as Shanghai Automobile.

"Director, although Yangcheng Peugeot has been established, they have not obtained the qualifications to produce cars and will not pose any threat to the development of our FAW Audi."

Zhao Guangming reported this hot event in China's automobile industry to Geng Weidong with certainty, without any panic on his face.

As the big brother, FAW is not just a simple car manufacturer; it can influence industry policies.

As long as FAW feels that the development of Yangcheng Peugeot poses a threat to itself, it can completely suppress the other party through some policy means.

This is a capability that ordinary car companies do not have.

This was also the reason why FAW was able to maintain a relatively strong position when it later formed a joint venture with Volkswagen, and its shares even exceeded the 50% requirement of ordinary joint venture car companies.

“No qualifications for car production?”

"So what kind of cars do they make?"

Geng Weidong didn't expect that Zhao Guangming would bring him such news.

According to his understanding, Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant has had ten years of unsuccessful experience in trucks and will probably not choose this field.

Now the Ministry of First Machine Industry is encouraging various automobile factories to enter the field of passenger car production. It is most appropriate for joint ventures to first choose to produce passenger cars.

"Pickup trucks, they will first introduce the Peugeot 504 pickup truck model."

"Because pickup trucks are managed as trucks, Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant has the qualifications in this regard."

"If you want to produce cars in the future, you need to apply for car qualifications from the relevant departments."

After Zhao Guangming's explanation, Geng Weidong basically understood it.

It seemed that in order to set up the joint venture as quickly as possible, the Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant did not even wait to find the relevant departments to obtain the qualification for car production and was eager to announce that the two parties had established a joint venture.

However, thinking from the other party's perspective, Geng Weidong also felt that he could understand it.

At that time, Yangcheng City and even Lingnan Province did not have any decent automobile factories.

The level of development of the province's automobile industry is still far behind that of the capital, Shanghai and other places.

Against the backdrop of reform and opening up, Guangzhou certainly hopes to develop its economy.

As an important area to boost the economy, everyone wants to develop the automobile industry well.

A car can easily cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As long as there is a production of 10,000 vehicles, the direct output value will basically be several hundred million or even billions of yuan.

The impact on the entire industrial chain is that the output value has increased by tens of billions.

In an era when the average monthly income is only a few dozen yuan, the output value of tens of billions is something that absolutely cannot be ignored anywhere.

During this period in China, the annual output value of most cities and counties was less than several billion.

It is easy to imagine how attractive a large automobile factory is to the local area.

It is a very normal thing that Yangcheng Automobile Manufacturing Plant can't wait to form a joint venture with France's Peugeot and import each other's car models.

"You should ask someone to find out what Peugeot's best-selling cars are and whether they compete with Audi's models."

"If Yangcheng Peugeot's production of Peugeot cars will pose a threat to FAW Audi's development, then we should find a way to delay their obtaining car production qualifications."

Geng Weidong knew that this was not the time to be merciful.

FAW's main growth points are now placed on FAW-Volkswagen. If it fails, Geng Weidong feels that his position will be unstable.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

It is not easy for Guangzhou Peugeot to emerge as a dark horse.

(End of this chapter)