The car giant started by marrying the daughter of the king

Chapter 406: European Parts Companies Stimulated
"Director, FAW's attitude towards us has changed a lot in recent times."

"We have arranged a special team to connect with Nanshan Technology to discuss which products of FAW-Volkswagen and FAW-Toyota we can produce."

Hou Guoming now also serves as the chief engineer of Nanshan Technology. With so many people coming from FAW, he must come out to receive them.

I originally thought that it was just a routine visit and exchange with FAW, but I didn't expect the other party to be so enthusiastic.

In this regard, Nanshan Technology is definitely very happy to cooperate with FAW.

Even under the leadership of Nanshan Technology, all the parts companies in Shenzhen Automobile Industrial Park have communicated with FAW people.

By then, the entire industrial park will be able to supply products to FAW's related factories at the same time.

"FAW's sales have not increased significantly in recent years, which is inconsistent with the changes in the entire auto market."

"We finally worked with Toyota to develop a Crown sedan, but due to the import quota for CKD parts, we can only produce a few hundred units per month."

"This is naturally very detrimental to enhancing FAW's influence in China's automobile industry."

"Now, Volkswagen Shanghai is promoting the localization project of Santana sedans, and the production volume is increasing every month."

"FAW is probably a little anxious too."

After a little thought, Jiang Hui roughly figured out what FAW was thinking this time.

However, this change is a good thing for BMW Group, and Jiang Hui is also happy to see it.

Although FAW’s current sales are not good, its future development prospects are still worth looking forward to.

With the emergence of BMW Group, the development pace of China's automobile industry will definitely change.

However, in the future, as joint venture car companies' products quickly seize the market, it will obviously not be easy to completely subvert them.

By becoming a core supplier of various automobile groups such as FAW, Shanghai Automobile, Second Automobile, and Shouqi in advance, we will be able to reap some benefits in the future.

……

When auto parts companies such as Nanshan Technology have made breakthroughs in the Chinese and even global auto parts markets, some auto parts manufacturers in Europe and North America have begun to get anxious.

"Fertik, the hot stamping forming technology was first developed by our company and used in Saab's door panel reinforcement beams."

"But due to various problems, it is not widely used."

"How come these problems disappeared when they were in the hands of the Chinese?"

As the president of Plannja, Greya was very dissatisfied with the rapid development of Nanshan Technology in the field of hot stamping.

Of course, his main target of dissatisfaction was the company's R&D center.

It was the R&D director Ferdik who reported to him the various defects of the hot stamping parts technology and asked the company to find customers for promotion when the technology was mature in a dozen years.

I didn't expect that my technology would be surpassed by others before it matured.

This feeling is absolutely unpleasant.

At the beginning, the people below did not dare to take the initiative to report this information to him.

Or he heard the relevant content from news reports himself, and then asked someone to investigate the specific situation.

"Greya, I specifically studied Nanshan Technology's hot stamping technology. The key to their breakthrough is the use of hot stamping steel plates with aluminum-silicon coatings."

"This can fully solve the corrosion resistance problem and the problem of oxide layer peeling after quenching."

"We have previously contacted many steel mills including ThyssenKrupp to discuss material issues, but have not received an effective solution."

"Another thing is that they adopted a more reasonable production line layout, which made the production rhythm more stable."

“We also innovatively use laser cutting technology for drilling and trimming, allowing parts to be used in more areas.”

Ferdik must explain why Nanshan Technology can produce hot stamping parts on a large scale, but they themselves cannot do it.

Otherwise, Graya would put all the responsibility on him.

"Isn't it said that China's automobile industry is very backward?"

“Why can they find solutions to these problems?”

Graya was obviously very dissatisfied with Ferdik's answer.

What he wants is a solution, and he hopes that the company can come up with a hot stamping technology solution that can be used for large-scale mass production in the shortest possible time.

As the company's most important customer, someone from Saab Automobile has called him to inquire about this issue.

Even car companies such as Volkswagen and BMW have approached him for advice on this topic.

After all, their company is the first manufacturer in the world to develop hot stamping technology. Many people subconsciously think that if Chinese manufacturers can master the technology, they can definitely do it too.

Who knew that the situation was not the case at all.

"China's automobile industry was indeed relatively backward before, and it is still the case now."

“Although they are backward overall, they have produced a genius in terms of vehicle exterior design.”

"Jiang Hui, head of the BMW Group, has successfully designed a new model."

"GM's Buick G-series SUV and Chevrolet X-series pickup truck, which are both very popular this year, were designed by Jiang Hui."

As an auto parts manufacturer, we will definitely pay attention to major events in the world's automotive industry.

As the global automobile giant, General Motors' best-selling cars are studied by many people under a magnifying glass.

"I don't care about that. I just want to know when our factory can produce hot stamping parts on a large scale."

“Where is the current production bottleneck?”

Graya was in a very bad mood and had no interest in listening to Ferdik's explanation.

For the management of many European and American companies, what they care about most is the results, and the process is not that important.

"The first is the material. If we don't solve the problem of aluminum-silicon coated steel plates, our hot stamping parts will need to add a shot blasting and oiling process, which will not only increase the cost, but also increase the production time."

"It takes a lot of time to heat the steel plate and hold the pressure to form it. If we add a time-consuming shot blasting process, the production efficiency will be even lower."

"In addition, we lack sufficient experience in the design of hot stamping dies, which takes a long time and may even be scrapped."

If you don't take this opportunity to explain the difficulties you encounter, you will never have the chance to explain them later.

Ferdik certainly wouldn't miss it.

"Can we import raw materials and hot stamping production lines directly from China, or even find their mold manufacturers to make molds?"

For Greia, the first step is to enable their company to have the ability to mass-produce hot stamping parts.

They already have the foundation, and as long as they have a reference production line, they can quickly achieve technological improvement.

By then, we will be able to respond flexibly as to where to purchase equipment for the newly invested production line.

As for the steel plates, they have to be purchased from outside anyway, so as long as the price is not too exaggerated, he can accept it.

"This kind of steel plate, mold and production line are all technologies exclusively owned by Nanshan Technology in China."

"If we purchase these things, we will definitely be in competition with Nanshan Technology."

"Unless we can communicate well with the OEM, we can each take half of the order."

"And we purchased the relevant molds and hot stamping production lines from Nanshan Technology at a high price."

“This is the only way it’s possible.”

Ferdik knew there was no free lunch.

Nanshan Technology would not be foolish enough to support a rival for itself.

"It is impossible for a Chinese company to monopolize the supply of hot stamping parts for the European automotive industry."

"I believe Nanshan Technology can understand this."

"As long as they cooperate with us, we can communicate well in advance when quoting prices, avoid vicious competition and achieve a win-win situation."

"The most important thing is that Nanshan Technology can also make extra profits by selling production lines, materials and molds."

"If they are still not satisfied with this, it will only lead to the emergence of more competitors."

For a professional manager like Graya, things that can be solved with money are not a big deal.

If he fails to achieve large-scale mass production of hot stamping parts, his position will be in danger.

So even though the biggest profit would be taken away by the other party after cooperating with Nanshan Technology, he chose to accept it.

Of course, new technology products such as hot stamping parts often have higher profit margins.

The purchased production line is more expensive, the mold cost is higher, and the materials need to be imported. These can all be amortized into the final parts cost and paid for by the OEM.

In the absence of any competitors, there is no need to worry that the OEMs will be unwilling to buy.

"What you said makes sense. I will arrange for someone to discuss this matter as soon as possible and strive to finalize the cooperation between the two parties within this year."

Hearing what Graya said, Ferdik breathed a sigh of relief.

As long as he is not forced to lead his R&D team to be self-reliant, everything will be fine.

Anyway, as long as it can be solved with money, it’s not a big deal.

……

Compared with Plannja, Benteler, another European automotive parts giant, has slightly different ideas.

As a century-old family business established in 1876, Benteler is a core supplier to many European automobile manufacturers such as Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen and Audi.

They not only provide chassis parts such as subframes to OEMs, but also provide body stamping parts.

Benteler had not originally conducted research on hot stamping parts technology, but in recent months, hot stamping parts technology has caused quite a stir in the global automotive industry, and the company's president, Karl Benteler, saw new opportunities.

In the future, automobile body-in-white will certainly use a large amount of hot stamping parts technology.

So last month, Benteler formed a special project team to tackle the hot stamping parts technology. However, as the project team learned more information, they found that things were not that simple.

"Karl, according to what we have now, there are several key issues that need to be overcome in order to master the hot stamping parts technology."

"The first is the issue of raw materials. Huaxia Enterprises has registered aluminum-silicon coated hot stamping steel plates worldwide."

“This should be the material that has been proven to be the most suitable for processing hot stamping parts.”

"We have not found a suitable steel manufacturer to supply us with such materials."

"Even if there is a steel mill that can produce it, it still needs to obtain patent authorization from others."

As Benteler's R&D director, Deliman has been under a lot of pressure recently.

It is said that Europeans don't work overtime, but that actually depends on the situation.

There have been few days in recent times when Deliman has not been able to get off work on time.

"The second problem is the research on the heating temperature of the steel plate. What is the most suitable heating temperature? This requires a lot of empirical data to determine."

"In addition, the water channel design and processing of the mold are very different from traditional cold stamping molds."

Deliman quickly reported the situation.

There was no other way. Ever since Karl Bentler learned that BMW had officially changed more than 7 parts on the Series body to hot stamping parts, he has been very active in cracking this technology.

He would listen to the project team's reports on research and development progress every week.

"How long will it take you to completely resolve these issues?"

For Karl Bentler, he doesn't want to know how difficult it is, he just wants to know when it can be done.

"In terms of production equipment, it will take about a year to meet the requirements."

“Then we spent half a year debugging and confirming to find the most suitable process parameters.”

"At the same time, we studied the design of the mold and basically came up with our own hot stamping solution."

“So as long as we can purchase the right hot stamping steel plates, I can enable the company to initially have the processing capabilities of hot stamping parts in as little as one and a half years.”

"With another half a year of adjustment, we will basically be able to form large-scale production capacity."

"Then we can replicate more production lines and ask OEMs for orders for hot stamping parts."

Deliman didn't dare to delay at all and told her what she thought was the fastest time.

"Just tell me what resources you need."

“After two years, I need the company to have the technology to mass-produce hot stamping parts.”

"As for the OEM, once our production line is put into operation, we will formally provide them with a quotation and process plan so that we can get the order as soon as possible."

"In this way, once our production line is ready to start production, we can start providing samples to customers."

"During the trial production phase of new models, we continue to improve our own technology."

Karl Benteler is ready to take the path of independent research and development to enable the company to have the production capacity of hot stamping parts.

Of course, hot stamping steel plates do not fall within Benteler's business scope and can only be purchased from steel mills.

These European steel mills have seen the booming development of hot stamping parts in automobile bodies, and some manufacturers will definitely be interested in developing this technology.

If all else fails, some steel mills will look for opportunities to cooperate with Chinese companies.

"As for heating furnaces, our company has some relevant technical accumulation. I plan to develop it independently when the time comes."

"I plan to talk to Schuler about the press and ask them to arrange a special team to cooperate in developing a press for hot stamping parts processing."

"With Schuler's background, as long as we are willing to develop such a press, there will definitely be no problem."

"As for laser cutting equipment, I will talk to the people at TRUMPF to see which of their existing products is most suitable for processing our parts."

"In terms of mold making, I think we need to purchase some special machine tools."

Deliman quickly explained her arrangements.

Even though we have plans, we will definitely encounter many problems in implementing them.

"I am familiar with the people at Shuler, and I will specifically mention this project to them when the time comes."

"If there are any problems with TRUMPF, please report to me at any time."

"Regarding equipment purchases, please work with the purchasing department to make a list, and I will review and approve it as soon as possible."

"Then we also asked the purchasing department to communicate with the steel mills and urge them to develop hot stamping materials. Otherwise, we will have no choice but to purchase from China."

As the most outstanding figure of this generation in the Bentler family, Karl Bentler is very decisive in doing things.

After realizing that hot stamping parts were a great opportunity, we immediately prepared to devote all our efforts to developing this new technology.

Although it has fallen behind Chinese manufacturers, he believes that Benteler will be able to catch up with the industry in a few years.

After that, Benteler took another step forward and became a major player in the field of hot stamping parts.

In its previous life, Benteler was the first parts manufacturer to use hot stamping parts on a large scale in automobile bodies. It not only had several hot stamping production lines in Germany, but also invested in five or six hot stamping production lines in China in cooperation with several partners.

They were among the first batch of auto parts manufacturers in China to invest in hot stamping production lines at that time.

It is precisely because of their arrival that China's parts companies have begun to come into contact with hot stamping technology.

Somehow, in this life, Benteler chose to develop hot stamping parts technology as a new technology for his own company.

As Benteler and Plannja are both entering the hot stamping parts technology, the relevant steel mills have naturally received some inquiries.

Can you produce the steel sheets needed for hot stamped parts?

When will you be able to develop steel plates that meet the processing needs of hot stamping parts?

As an automotive steel plate, and a material in such a niche field, not all companies are interested in it.

For example, Germany's traditional steel giant Thyssen Steel, after a discussion within the company, felt that the patent for the most critical aluminum-silicon coating technology was held by a Chinese company.

If you want to produce hot-stamped steel plates with aluminum-silicon coating, you need to pay patent royalties to the Chinese manufacturers.

This is a hard thing to accept.

The most important thing is that even if you pay the fee, others may not be willing to give you authorization.

Ultimately, only Luxembourg-based Arbed is seriously considering hot stamping of sheet steel.

Speaking of Arbed steel, many people are probably very unfamiliar with it.

99.99% of Chinese people have definitely never heard of this company.

But when it comes to ArcelorMittal Steel Group, probably a lot more people know about it.

People in the domestic steel industry and many manufacturers that need to use steel plates have more or less heard of this company.

In fact, ArcelorMittal was formed in February 2002 by the merger of France's Usinor, Luxembourg's Arbed and Spain's Aceralia, the three largest European steel manufacturers, through a share swap.

"Madiko, I have specially arranged for someone to do an investigation."

"BMW is currently preparing to use a large number of hot stamping parts on the 7 Series. It is estimated that the amount of hot stamping steel used in one car may reach about kilograms."

"If we produce 4 vehicles a year, that means we use 4000 tons."

"All BMW models may adopt a similar solution to the 7 Series in the future, so the annual demand could reach tens of thousands of tons in the future."

“This is just the demand of BWM.”

"If you add up the demands from Volkswagen, Mercedes, PSA and others, the quantity could reach hundreds of thousands of tons."

"If we also take into account the needs of companies such as General Motors and Ford, the market will exceed 100 million tons a year, and may even reach several million tons."

As the company's R&D director, Ulm is very active in promoting the development of new steels.

Only if the company invests more R&D resources will he, as the R&D director, have greater power.

Otherwise, if no one is developing new technologies, what are the points of employing so many people in the R&D center?
If you drink coffee loudly, you will feel guilty.

“The use of hot stamping parts has really suddenly become popular.”

"This parts technology is completely controlled by Chinese companies, which is definitely unacceptable."

"But they have a patent for aluminum-silicon coating technology. Is there any way we can circumvent this patent?"

Medico also realized the importance of this new material, so it was willing to arrange people to carry out research.

As one of Arbed Steel's core products in the future, it can provide the company with very good growth space.

“The production cost of hot stamped steel sheets is actually very close to that of ordinary automotive galvanized sheets.”

"But due to its special nature, the price of this steel can be much higher than that of ordinary automotive steel, and there is enough room to absorb the patent fees."

"In order to produce this material as quickly as possible, I suggest that the company cooperate directly with Chinese manufacturers."

“This makes us the only two producers of hot stamped steel plates in the world.”

“Then we will all divide the market and share the profits.”

After Ulm said this, Medico immediately became interested.

It is unrealistic for one company to monopolize production.

It would be different if both parties cooperated and divided the market together.

Wool comes from sheep.

At that time, Arbed can recover the extra costs from the customers.

Anyway, the trend of using hot stamping parts technology has already been formed, so there is no need to worry about a lack of customers.

(End of this chapter)