The car giant started by marrying the daughter of the king

Chapter 324 BMW Speed, Setting Records

"Yes, I think making the BMW Light the most important taxi in the country can not only quickly increase its sales, but also quickly establish its reputation and contribute to achieving next year's sales target."

Chen Chenxing gave his answer very affirmatively.

Although this idea had only come up two days ago, he had already fully considered the pros and cons.

In his opinion, this plan has only benefits and no disadvantages.

This plan must be implemented as soon as possible.

"Jiang Hui, I was having dinner with someone yesterday, and when they talked about the BMW Sunshine, they said it was the best van."

"Now we are vigorously promoting the BMW Light as a taxi."

"In order to avoid giving everyone a bad impression, I think we can do more publicity and position the BMW Sunshine as a business car."

"As for business cars, I feel that they are much more high-end than vans, which will also be beneficial for BMW to launch other high-end models in the future."

Zhu Lin, who seldom expressed his opinions on business matters, couldn't help but interrupt after listening to the conversation between Chen Chenxing and Jiang Hui.

As the nominal general manager of BMW Technology, Zhu Lin is now a native of Gangcheng.

After coming to Shenzhen, I occasionally have gatherings with people from the Hong Kong investment circle.

Gradually, I have developed my own circle of friends.

As a very popular product in recent times, BMW Light is naturally discussed by many people.

Especially during this period, many customers from other places came directly with several or even more than a dozen drivers to pick up the cars. The scene of picking up the cars was quite shocking.

"Business car?"

"This statement does need to be guided. Vans seem too low-end, while commercial vehicles seem more high-end."

Jiang Hui had previously realized that if BMW’s first car was a van, it would have a negative impact on future brand promotion.

However, the most important goal at this stage is to increase the sales of BMW cars and form a complete industrial chain.

Only in this way can BMW enter a faster development path.

For this reason, Jiang Hui accepted it even if it gave people the impression of producing low-end models at the beginning.

The worst that can happen is that we can create a new brand in the future.

Besides, Toyota, the most profitable car in the world in later generations, mainly sells Toyota-branded models, which are not considered high-end models.

Therefore, as long as you do it well, even if your performance in the high-end market is not very good, you still have the opportunity to make a lot of money.

Besides, it is only the 1980s now, and BMW still has enough time to change its brand image in China.

Later independent brand car companies such as BYD, Chery and Geely had not yet been established.

"I will immediately hold a meeting within the sales department to emphasize the positioning of the BMW Sunshine model."

"From now on, no matter our dealers or relevant personnel in the industry chain, all of them can no longer describe the BMW Light as a van, but must call it a business car."

Chen Chenxing is now in sales, so he can naturally realize the impact behind what Zhu Lin said.

Putting aside any negative developments in the future for BMW's brand influence, the fact that everyone now thinks the BMW Sunshine is a relatively high-end model, coupled with a price tag of 2.99 yuan, can also help increase the sales of the BMW Sunshine.

Even though the BMW X5 has no trouble selling now, no one would complain that its sales are too hot.

"Well, this is indeed something we need to pay attention to. And since we have positioned the BMW Sunshine as a business car, we can also consider using the BMW Sunshine in some business occasions, or guide some customers to use the BMW Sunshine in this way."

"The configuration of the 2.99 yuan version is currently available. We can make the seats more comfortable based on this, and then come up with a business version, which may also have a market."

In order to reduce costs as much as possible, BMW Light did not have too many derivatives at the beginning.

There is only one engine, which is a 1.5L inline four-cylinder product.

There is also only one type of gearbox, a 4MT manual gearbox supplied by Capital Gear Factory.

The other various configurations are not combined with high and low to form a different configuration, because there is no special configuration at all now, basically everything that can be saved is saved.

"If we just change the seats, the design difficulty is very low and we can definitely launch it smoothly next year."

"We can promote it well during the autumn Canton Fair."

As Chen Chenxing and Jiang Hui were talking, BMW also took quick action.

After the first batch of 20 BMW Lights purchased by Baiyun Taxi Company in Yangcheng were put on the market, the response was very good.

A week later, 80 more vehicles were added.

Baiyun Taxi Company is not the only one operating taxi business in Guangzhou. After seeing the actions of Baiyun Taxi Company, everyone immediately followed suit.

Soon, the taxi market in Guangzhou was taken over by BMW.

As for Shenzhen, there is naturally no need to worry about falling behind.

Taxi companies in many other cities are taking similar actions.

It can be said that in just over a month, BMW has taken over the new taxi market in most cities in China.

In Lingnan Province, even many public institutions have purchased BMW Sunshine as their official vehicles.

Especially in public security, procuratorial and judicial units, commercial vehicles such as the BMW Sunshine are still very likely to be used.

With appropriate modifications, such as adding a row of stainless steel anti-theft nets behind the driver's seat, it can be used directly to catch suspects.

And units like the post office can directly use the BMW Light as a freight vehicle, which is very cost-effective.

BMW Light is being used in more and more units, with sales increasing, and naturally it has attracted more and more topics.

"Director, our BMW Sunshine was launched in mid-December last year. The sales volume exceeded 2000 units that month, and exceeded 5000 units last month."

"This is because the Spring Festival this year is on February 2. In the last week of January, many companies were unwilling to arrange for drivers to come and pick up the cars directly, so the sales volume was not that high."

"Plus, our production capacity is still in the ramp-up stage. Even if we want to sell more, there is no way for the time being."

"Otherwise, even if the sales in January hit 1 units, there would be no problem."

Just after the Spring Festival, Chen Chenxing reported to Jiang Hui on the market performance of BMW Light.

The entire company is very concerned about this data.

It is not like the later times, where every car company starts releasing their sales data on the 1st of every month.

Basically, as long as the car companies do not proactively disclose the information or have not reported it to the higher authorities, it will be difficult for everyone to know this information.

Of course, if people in the industry have connections, it is not that difficult to find out. For example, if someone from FAW wants to find out the sales volume of Second Automobile Works last month, it is really not difficult.

After all, many people at Second Automobile Works came from First Automobile Works, and it is not particularly sensitive information, so everyone is willing to disclose it.

In a society where favors are important, many times you help me and I help you.

If you don't show any response when someone asks you for help, then it will not be easy to ask others to do something for you in the future.

"Taking advantage of this trend, we should continue to work hard to create a new sales record in March."

February is the Spring Festival, and the time in February itself is relatively short, so it is naturally difficult to set a record at this time.

But starting in March, things were different.

That's why Jiang Hui set a goal for Chen Chenxing to create a new record in March.

Chen Chenxing was naturally very clear about these situations. "No problem. We will definitely aim for 3 units in March, and strive to achieve the high goal of 8000 units in a certain month in the first half of this year."

So far, no car model in China has achieved monthly sales of over 1 units.

Even the BJ212 from Capital Automobile Works or the Shanghai-branded cars from Shanghai Automobile would not work.

After all, the country's automobile production is limited, and a car model with monthly sales of over 10 means that the annual sales can basically exceed .

Such a car model has an absolutely huge influence in China.

"As sales increase, the supply from various supporting factories must keep up. Don't let the situation where customers want cars but we can't produce them, that would be embarrassing."

Jiang Hui feels that the current Chinese automobile market does not need hunger marketing.

There is no need for BMW to use this method so quickly.

Some people say that the Chinese market in the 1980s and 1990s was actually a consumer market.

The rapid development of various economies is basically driven by domestic demand.

On the contrary, after entering the 21st century, the growth was mainly driven by exports.

It is only a twenty-year cycle. In the first twenty years of the 1980s and 1990s, the suppressed demand in the Chinese market was fully released.

As long as you can produce relevant products, you basically don’t have to worry about not being able to sell them.

The most typical example is the TV.

In the past few years, it was really difficult to buy a television, so in recent years, various factories have introduced television production lines. In just a few years, domestic television products have increased several times.

This trend will continue in the next few years.

The number of televisions owned by Chinese people will also experience explosive growth.

But this trend began to unsustainable after the late 1990s.

Because basically everything that should be bought has been bought, and the production capacity of various products has increased significantly in recent years, but domestic consumption capacity has not kept up with the pace.

Under such circumstances, by stimulating demand through export trade, China was able to enjoy another decade of good life.

With a scale as large as China's, it would naturally defeat many of its international competitors in a decade or so if it were to engage in exports.

Whether from the perspective of overall demand or from the perspective of others' defense against China, this path cannot be sustained forever.

At this time, we naturally return to the stage of continuing to stimulate consumption among the Chinese people.

"I understand. I will communicate with the purchasing department and other departments later and try to come up with an overall response plan before the next company ministerial meeting."

BMW Sunshine is the only product of BMW at this stage. The R&D investment of various new engines and new models needs to rely on the profits from the sale of BMW Sunshine to support development.

Otherwise, it would be obviously inappropriate to rely solely on the profits that the parent company obtains from the Chaoyang Motorcycle Manufacturing Plant for transfusions.

……

The sales of BMW Light are very good, so people who work with BMW cars are naturally very happy.

But it may not be the case for people in other factories.

"Director, let's continue to launch a commercial vehicle as soon as possible. This market is much larger than we thought."

Lu Jianqiang had previously discussed with Chen Qi about developing a car model similar to the BMW Sunbeam, and their R&D center had indeed taken some actions.

However, after the price of the BMW X5 was announced, I felt that I would never be able to make such a cheap car no matter what I did, and related progress basically stopped.

But when he found out that more than 1 BMW Sunshine cars were sold in January this year and that many BMW Sunshine taxis were seen on the streets of the capital, his attitude changed.

This market is bigger than he imagined.

“Can you handle the production cost thing?”

Chen Qi naturally also hopes that the sales of Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant will continue to increase, which will be very beneficial to him.

However, the case of Capital Motorcycle Manufacturing Factory is still fresh in our minds. When they had no competitiveness, they forced themselves to launch products to compete with Chaoyang Motorcycle Manufacturing Factory, and ultimately ended up killing themselves.

To be honest, Chen Qi was a little worried about this, so his attitude kept changing.

Both... and...

Many people have this mentality, but the reality is not so kind.

"We purchase the 1.5L engine directly from BMW, and the gearbox is the same as the BMW Sunshine, which uses a 4MT manual gearbox."

"As for other parts, if they can be highly shared with our BJ212 and BJ310, the cost can be further reduced."

"If it really doesn't work, we will find some new manufacturers to produce parts to reduce the cost."

Since Lu Jianqiang mentioned this plan to Chen Qi, he must have thought about it for quite a while.

Otherwise, it would be meaningless to discuss this with Chen Qi again at this time.

"Although Jiang Hui said at the last BMW Light roll-off ceremony that BMW's engines will be sold to the public in the future, I think it's hard to say how long that will take."

"If you can be sure that you can purchase a 1.5L engine from BMW, then I will fully support this project."

"If we still want to continue to purchase 2.5L engines from the Capital Internal Combustion Engine Factory, then we need to reconsider this commercial vehicle project."

In order to minimize the risk, Chen Qi told Lu Jianqiang his thoughts directly.

Next, it depends on whether Lu Jianqiang can come up with a result that satisfies him.

(End of this chapter)