September 3, 2005.
BYD's third model F3 is officially launched.
Thanks to the ultra-low price of 49,900 to 89,900, F3 sales exceeded 10,000 units in the first month of its launch.
This situation completely exceeded everyone's expectations.
Even during the National Day holiday, many people within BYD are still working overtime.
"Mr. Wang, our F3 has completely exploded this time. Sales volume in September was 10,653 units, of which more than 10,000 units are still undelivered."
"If our production capacity had not been planned to be 100,000 units per year, it is estimated that our sales this month would have reached 20,000 or 20,000 units and become the sales champion."
Wu Huabing was very excited to report the sales data of F3 to Wang Fu.
Although when planning, they were more optimistic about the F3 and felt that this car would sell well.
In this era, setting the annual sales target of a model at 100,000 units is already very challenging.
Who knew that consumers' love for F3 far exceeded their expectations.
“Where are the current production capacity bottlenecks?”
“Can it be solved by working overtime?”
Wang Fu is also in pain and happiness now.
There are still so many orders that have not been delivered, and there is no way to set a new record, which is heartbreaking.
However, the F3 is selling like hotcakes, which must be an unprecedented good thing.
Although the profit of this car is very low, as long as it is measured, everything is easy to say.
"The main bottleneck is that the production capacity of our own factory is there. We only have one day off during the National Day holiday and we are working overtime at other times."
"And the production line that originally worked in two shifts now works two hours of overtime in each shift, which is equivalent to 20 hours of production a day."
"In addition, if the monthly sales volume really reaches 20,000 units, then Nanshan Engine's production capacity will also need to work hard to meet it."
"Yangcheng Huaqiang Stamping Factory and other suppliers of some skeleton parts still have some issues with their production capacity."
"The main reason is that the difference between the planned quantity and the actual demand is a bit big. I haven't prepared molds, fixtures and the like according to this before."
“Even the equipment for individual parts has bottlenecks.”
Although Wu Huabian is only the head of the sales department, his interaction with the purchasing department was also very close during this period.
Therefore, we also have a relatively good understanding of the supply of parts and components.
The production of automobiles involves hundreds of suppliers, thousands of assembly parts and tens or even hundreds of thousands of constituent parts.
As long as some parts are missing, there is no way to assemble it.
In this case, if the number of production units is much higher than planned, some problems will definitely occur.
"You should work together with the purchasing department and production plants to review and see if you can increase the production capacity of F3 to 20,000 units per month, or even challenge 25,000 units."
"Our car is equipped with a Nanshan 1.0T engine and two types of gearboxes, 4MT and 4AT. Its power will not be worse than that of joint venture car companies of the same level."
"But the price is only half of others, and even low-end models are less than half of others."
"The previous goal of 100,000 units per year was too low. I think 200,000 units per year is no problem. We can even challenge 250,000 units per year."
"Coupled with the sales of F6 and S6, the sales target for next year can directly hit 400,000."
When Wang Fu said this number, he felt a little dreamy.
How many years has BYD started making cars?
Can we now consider hitting the target of 400,000 annual output?
Is this something that I never dared to think about before?
"I'll make arrangements later!"
"Not to mention other things, I think there is still hope for the overall sales volume in October to reach 30,000 units."
After Wu Huabian finished speaking, he picked up the phone and made appointments with various departments for meetings.
At the same time, BYD is also very active in announcing the overall sales volume in September on its official website.
This naturally caused quite a stir in the automotive industry.
…
"Old Zeng, the report on Autohome said that BYD sold more than 20,000 cars in September, of which the F3, which was just launched, actually sold more than 10,000 units."
"The key is that the report also said that BYD still has a large number of F3 orders that have not been delivered."
“If it weren’t for production capacity, sales could have exceeded 20,000 units in the first month of launch.”
"This news is a bit exaggerated. What do you think?"
Yangcheng Automobile Group is already accelerating the promotion of its own brand models.
The Automobile Research Institute is recruiting engineers every day and hopes to develop new cars this year.
But during this process, they continued to receive various stimulations.
This made Zhang Jiaqi feel a lot more impetuous.
"I also saw this news. At first I thought BYD deliberately promoted such an exaggerated number for advertising effect."
"After all, in the first month of the market, I can reduce the inventory of various 4S stores a lot."
"But it just so happened that we were in contact with Nanshan Engine during this period to discuss purchasing a 1.5T turbocharged engine from them in the future."
"The 1.0T turbocharged engine used in BYD's F3 is also supplied by Nanshan Engine, so I asked them about it."
"Last month, Nanshan Engine supplied more than 10,000 1.0T engines to BYD."
"They are even starting to work overtime now to produce this model of engine, otherwise they will not be able to meet BYD's order demand."
"Before F3, the sales of 1.0T engines were not particularly large. Nanshan Engine's main focus was 1.5T products."
"Now that F3 is popular, it is estimated that some companies will start producing similar models in the future."
"Nanshan Engine's 1.0T product is expected to be a hot seller."
What Zeng Guangda said clearly confirmed that the news released by BYD was true and reliable.
That would be even more exciting for Zhang Jiaqi.
One model sells over 10,000 yuan a month, and demand exceeds supply.
Looking at this, is it possible to hit monthly sales of 20,000?
As long as Yangcheng Motor's independent brand has a model like this, it will be considered a success.
Thinking of this, he became more eager and said: "Our initial plan now is to develop a sedan of similar level to Accord, and then develop an SUV of similar level to CRV."
"Now it seems that we need to consider developing a car similar to the F3."
“Otherwise, wouldn’t it be a pity if we don’t have the product when consumers demand it?”
When companies like Yangcheng Motor promote their own brand models, it is easy for them to rush into developing multiple models at the same time.
This is also difficult to avoid.
After all, if this money is not spent, it will not reach your own pocket.
In this case, it is better to develop a few more models, and then the results will be even more impressive.
As for the development of too many models, whether some models will fail is not something they will consider in advance.
If you really fail, then you have to pay the tuition fee.
Anyway, every company has failed models.
International automobile giants are no exception.
Even if it's for an audit, it still makes sense.
"If we develop three products at the same time, our manpower will be even tighter."
"Should we set a sequence and stagger the development schedule a little?"
Zeng Guangda is responsible for the affairs of independent brands, and naturally supports expanding the business.
But don't mess around.
Don’t be embarrassed if none of them are successful by then.
“It’s natural to stagger, but don’t stagger too much.”
"The schedule of each model only needs to be three or four months apart. This way we can ensure that we have new models on the market one year after our first model is launched."
"Even some configurations with different displacements and different gearboxes can be launched in two stages, so that the model can always maintain the popularity it deserves."
Zhang Jiaqi has already begun to think about the day when Yangcheng Automobile Group's independent brand will be launched.
He was looking forward to this day.
"This plan shouldn't be a big problem. I'll hold a meeting with the institute to discuss it."
"Then the construction of the factory must start as soon as possible."
"Otherwise we won't even have space to produce prototype cars by then."
Taking this opportunity, Zeng Guangda also urged Zhang Jiaqi to push forward some projects as soon as possible.
Without completing some processes, some jobs in state-owned enterprises cannot be done.
"You start the preparation work. Tutu Panyu is already preparing, and the factory planning is also in progress."
"We will start construction after approval."
With this conversation between Zhang Jiaqi and Zeng Guangda, the progress of Yangcheng Automobile Group's own brand models has accelerated.
At the same time, some other automobile groups have also begun to take new actions due to the hot sales of BYD F3.
"Mr. Zhu, the preparations for the Bestune brand have been almost completed. It is expected to be officially launched in the first half of next year and sales of models with the Bestune brand will begin."
Tao Wen is also quite busy during this time.
The domestic automobile industry is developing rapidly, and people in various automobile companies naturally have a lot to do.
Even if her department is the brand public relations department, there is no exception.
"Don't wait for the first half of next year, list it for me before the end of December this year!"
"Look at the articles on Autohome. They say that our Spring City sedan, as a self-owned brand model under the Spring City Automobile Group, cannot match the sales volume of early private car companies such as Chery, Geely and Great Wall. Even if it was established less than three years ago, BYD can’t compare to it, isn’t it a shame?”
"Mazda6 accounts for 80% of Spring City's annual sales of tens of thousands of cars. Our Hongqi brand's annual sales cannot match others' monthly sales."
"This situation is certainly unacceptable."
Zhu Zhengfeng is also an ambitious person.
Regardless of ability, there are many ideas.
Especially as the boss of Spring City Automobile Group, he feels it is shameful to lose to a private enterprise.
So I always wanted to do something.
"Our Hongqi models basically use the older generation engines or styles of Spring City Volkswagen's corresponding models, and they are not very competitive in the market."
"Especially now that almost all competitors have begun to use the turbocharged engines provided by Nanshan Engine, and all parameters are better than ours."
"In this case, it's normal that we can't compete with others."
"But the establishment of the Pentium brand should be able to effectively reverse this situation."
"The models we are developing are relatively similar in appearance and powertrain to Volkswagen's latest generation products."
"I think sales will definitely be better than now."
Tao Wen must show confidence in the company.
Otherwise, the position under the buttocks will be unstable.
"So we need to launch new brands as soon as possible, and don't wait too long."
"At least in terms of publicity, we cannot lag behind."
"Otherwise, let alone Chery and Geely, who will show off their power there, even new companies like BYD Auto will shit on our heads."
Zhu Zhengfeng is obviously very dissatisfied with BYD's good sales performance last month.
In particular, various reports on the Internet comparing companies such as Spring City Automobile with BYD and other newly emerging private car manufacturers made him very angry.
"Mr. Zhu, actually I think we can also consider purchasing some engines from Nanshan Engine. Then we can better compare the differences and make some contributions to our own research and development?"
Although Tao Wen doesn't like Nanshan Group, its QCD products are very good, and he and she know this.
In order to make the Pentium car really run, she felt that it was not unacceptable to purchase the engine from Nanshan Group.
"Let's talk to Volkswagen first to see if they are willing to transfer some engine technology to us."
"If you can do it yourself, there is no need to buy it from Nanshan Engine."
Zhu Zhengfeng has opinions about Nanshan Group. This is not a matter of one or two days.
As long as it does not bring benefits to Nanshan Group, he will go in this direction.
However, speaking of the Chinese automobile industry, not everyone thinks the same as Zhu Zhengfeng.
Zotye Motors, which just changed its name this year, has very different opinions.
"Old Chen, do you think that if we, like BYD, purchase engines, gearboxes, and even other parts of the car directly from Nanshan, and then imitate a model similar to the F3, will we be as successful as the F3?"
Although Zotye's first model is already under development and is planned to be launched next year.
This car uses the production line of Toyota Terios purchased from other companies in the first half of this year.
This model is not available in China.
Obviously it's not a mainstream model.
Originally, Wu Kaiwei was quite confident, but now he feels that he has a better choice.
"Directly imitating a model similar to the F3 would mean that we would have to invest a lot of money."
"I think the interior, body frame, and chassis of the car should be kept as unchanged as possible, and only the appearance of the car body should be adjusted. The engine and gearbox are purchased from Nanshan, and the same specifications from other car companies can be directly used to minimize investment."
"In this case, can we still ensure that it will be launched next year?"
As the vice president in charge of research and development at Zotye Automobile, Chen Baikun naturally knows the company's strength very well.
It is unrealistic to develop a car from scratch, but turning the R&D center into a "tape measure department" is not a big problem.
"You are right, then follow your plan."
"Let's see if the dimensions of this current model are similar to any of the best-selling models. We will just buy a few of them and modify the drawings."
Wu Kaiwei is a very courageous person.
After thinking for a while, he agreed to Chen Baikun's plan.
Zotye, which once caused a stir in the Chinese automobile market, will soon make its official debut.
(End of chapter)
