Nanshan Group is the biggest beneficiary of the development of China's independent brands.
Especially in the past two years, almost all SUVs launched by independent brands use Nanshan engines and Nanshan gearboxes.
Many other parts are also purchased from Nanshan Group.
Even the robots and other equipment used by various car companies to expand their production lines were purchased from Nanshan Robotics.
This situation is naturally not acceptable to everyone.
In particular, some more "ambitious" car companies want to change the situation.
In the past, many independent brands had poor technical accumulation in engines and gearboxes, and almost all of them purchased part or all of their engines and gearboxes from outside.
It's not that they don't know the importance of these two things.
But there is no money!
Without money, you cannot recruit a large number of experienced R&D personnel.
Without money, you cannot spend a lot of money on various experiments.
Without money, you would not dare to find some foreign institutions to cooperate in product development.
Things are different now.
Regardless of whether it is Chery, Geely, Great Wall or BYD, sales this year have all exceeded 200,000 vehicles.
This result is definitely not bad.
The key is that the prices of these models are higher compared to the same period in history.
The SUVs they make are generally priced around 100,000, or even 11,120,000.
In this way, the profit of a bicycle is much higher than that of a car costing 50,000 to 60,000 yuan.
The most important thing is that the styling of these cars refers to the current best-selling products of international automobile giants, which is more in line with consumers' aesthetics.
Therefore, even if the discount amount of the 4S store is not very large, the sales are still good.
In this way, after a year of hard work, each car company can still make some money.
Not to mention a car, if you earn 3,000 yuan, you will have a profit of more than 600 million a year.
In 2007, 600 million could still do a lot of things.
For these companies, it doesn't make much sense if they don't expand production scale and develop more new products after making money.
Among them, Chery, BYD and Great Wall performed most prominently.
Great Wall Motors has obtained the authorization for Nanshan Engine's 1.5T engine technology a long time ago, and now it is producing corresponding products in its own engine factory.
Chery is even more different. About 30% of their models use their own engines.
Even though these engine technologies are a bit backward, they have not been completely abandoned.
Now that they have money in their hands, their thoughts are even different.
"Mr. Yin, if we develop products based on Nanshan Engine, it will inevitably infringe on some of their patents."
"And the future cooperative relationship with Nanshan Group should also be affected."
Inside Chery Automobile, Yin Chuan was having a meeting with Zhang Wuchao, director of the research institute, and Song Xianming, director of the purchasing department, to discuss the independent research and development of engines.
The more he sees the rapid development of the domestic automobile market, the more Yin Chuan feels that Chery needs its own core technology.
Otherwise, the problem of homogeneity with other independent brand products will become more and more obvious in the future.
Everyone uses engines and gearboxes from Nanshan Group, and even the key components are exactly the same.
Sooner or later, the competition will heat up.
This is a situation that Yin Chuan doesn't want to see.
"We can buy their auto parts, such as starters and generators, from Nanshan Group. If we buy their products directly, doesn't it constitute patent infringement?"
Yin Chuan was determined to build his own engine.
It is okay to continue to purchase some engines from Nanshan Group in a short period of time.
But in the long run, most engines need to be built in-house.
Unless it is a large-displacement engine, Nanshan Group is willing to sell it. If they have demand, they can consider continuing to purchase it.
"It's possible, but in this case, the final cost is likely to be higher than purchasing the entire engine directly."
Song Xianming reminded him from the side.
Even though they all buy parts and assemble them into engines, the price at which Nanshan Auto Parts is sold within the group is definitely different from the price at which it is sold to outsiders.
They also understand this truth.
"Nanshan Engine is not the only one making turbocharged engines. Volkswagen and General Motors all have their own products."
"At that time, we will combine the strengths of several companies to develop an engine with a different displacement from the Nanshan engine, and various parts can be purchased more freely."
“If Nanshan Auto Parts wants to get orders, it must lower its prices.”
Yin Chuan also quickly found a solution.
If you directly copy Nanshan Engine's products, many of the parts inside may only be purchased from Nanshan Group.
But if you modify it yourself, then a 1.4T or 1.8T engine will be produced. Even the displacement will be different from your Nanshan engine. Then it will not be so easy to file a patent infringement lawsuit.
As for parts and components, Nanshan Group is not the only one that can make them.
United Electronics, Denso, Hitachi, Valeo, Delphi, BorgWarner and other manufacturers can also produce most engine parts.
He didn't believe that he couldn't buy parts for money. It was impossible.
"If we really want to build our own engine, I think we can use some tricks."
"For example, some of our models now use 1.5T engines from Nanshan Group. Then we will ask Nanshan Group if there are 1.2T products, and we want to enrich the product line so that consumers can have more choose."
"Nine times out of ten, Nanshan Engine will not develop a product for us alone. When the time comes, it will be natural for us to develop a 1.2T product ourselves."
Zhang Wuchao proposed a more flexible solution.
He naturally supports his own engine research and development, otherwise the importance of the institute will continue to decline.
But he is also worried that if the research and development work is too radical, then his products will not be available, and Nanshan Group will not sell engines to Chery, which will put too much pressure on him.
"Dean Zhang's plan, I think we can give it a try."
"Including the gearbox, I think we can try a similar method."
“Don’t Nanshan Transmission have 4AT and 6AT products?”
"But they don't have 5AT. We can start developing it from 5AT."
Song Xianming knew that the topic of today's meeting was to discuss the independent research and development of engines and gearboxes.
So I directly brought up the topic of gearboxes.
"Then let's do what you said first, and strive to develop Chery Automobile's 1.2T engine and 1.8T engine, as well as a 5AT automatic transmission within the next two years."
"Then our road will suddenly become wider."
"At the same time, the company is also preparing to establish Chery Auto Parts Co., Ltd. to specialize in researching other core parts and try our best to equip ourselves with relevant R&D capabilities."
"On this point, Great Wall Motors and BYD are already ahead of us."
"The traditional Spring City Automobile Group, Xifeng Automobile and Modu Automobile have always had their own parts industry."
Yin Chuan came up with a new plan.
People not only want to make engines and gearboxes, but also other auto parts.
Anyway, now that there is some money in the company account, my thoughts will naturally increase.
In this regard, this change can also be felt within Nanshan Group.
"Mr. Cao, BYD has successively established the 15th Business Unit and the 16th Business Unit in recent months, which are responsible for the development of automotive chassis, automotive electronics, automotive interior and exterior decoration and other components."
"According to what I've learned, BYD plans to make 80% of the parts on the vehicle in-house in the future."
"Only some parts that are not very important, or parts with relatively high technical content that cannot be handled by ourselves, are purchased from outside suppliers."
Nanshan Group, a ray of sunlight shines through the glass on the evergreens by the windowsill. Cao Yang is watering the evergreens there while listening to Zeng Tingting's report to him.
"Wang always hires talents with technical backgrounds. Most of BYD Auto's parts are now purchased from outside."
"He definitely can't accept this situation forever."
"Have you not been engaged in some technical research and development of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles before?"
"Now it seems that the in-house work on the powertrain is no longer enough, and we want to further expand the research on other parts."
Cao Yang was not surprised at all by the news reported by Zeng Tingting.
The original BYD was developing projects across the entire industry chain based on the principle that it could make all its own parts.
Even components such as semiconductors are made by ourselves.
This is different from many car companies.
Although there is a lot of controversy about whether this method is good or not, judging from the final result, BYD succeeded, so this method is naturally a good method.
If it fails, then this approach will definitely be criticized by many "experts" as reversing the course of history.
After all, Ford and General Motors made a large number of their own parts in the early years, and later they slowly peeled them off.
Now that BYD is doing the opposite, isn't it a step backwards in history?
"The trouble now is that not only BYD is accelerating independent research and development, but Chery Automobile, Great Wall Motors, and even Yangcheng Motors have also made some moves."
"From a long-term perspective, at least in the engine business, it is likely that after reaching a historical peak next year, it will begin to decline."
Zeng Tingting gave her own judgment with certainty.
Although many car companies are engaged in independent research and development, there is definitely no need to worry about this year's performance.
After all, research and development also takes time.
Especially engine research and development cannot be completed in a few months.
But there are already successful templates out there, and the time required is greatly reduced.
If we can’t do it this year, it’s still possible to do it next year.
Then there will definitely be many models starting from the year after next that are equipped with each manufacturer's own engine.
"This trend is definitely like this, but as long as the performance of our engine products remains far ahead, even if the business cannot continue to grow explosively, it will not decline so quickly."
"Great Wall, Chery, and BYD are not the only domestic companies that want to produce cars. There are so many car companies. Even if each of them orders 108,000 engines from us, it will be very impressive in one year. "
"Of course, we really can't ignore what you said."
"You can make several plans to see how we are going to cooperate with others in the future to deal with different situations."
"The world is not just black and white, there are many choices left for us in between."
Cao Yang knew that the engine could not survive alone.
On the contrary, the gearbox is likely to occupy most of the domestic market in a relatively long period of time.
When the domestic sales exceed 20 million, even if only 30% of the cars are equipped with Nanshan transmission products, that will be a very scary figure.
"That's true. I'll go back and sort out a few plans."
"For customers such as BYD and Chery who plan to use their own engines, we will see some differences in terms of production capacity supply and price concessions from long-term cooperative customers like Changan Automobile."
"In addition, I think the legal department should also be prepared to conflict with them."
"If any customer directly takes our technology and kicks us out, that will never be tolerated."
Although Zeng Tingting also knows that the engine business cannot continue to expand the business.
But the orders that have already been received will slowly be taken away by each OEM's own factory, which must be uncomfortable in my heart.
"The products we have launched are basically competitive products in the world at this stage. In the future, we will at most carry out a technical update based on these products, and then we can consider fully transforming into hybrid engines and electric vehicles. The car is gone."
"In a short period of time, it will be difficult for each OEM to do better than us, even if they develop their own engines."
"As for three to five years from now, we will also have a new generation of products to compete with them."
"At that time, we can also combine marketing measures through channels such as Autohome and Weibo to make the sales of customers such as Changan Automobile that have been using our products exceed those of other models that have switched to producing their own engines."
“We can even launch some public opinion campaigns on the Internet to tell consumers that their new models no longer use Nanshan engines and they need to pay attention to quality issues.”
Cao Yang was not panicked at all.
He has many ways to deal with customers who want to get rid of Nanshan Group.
Although being self-reliant and researching its own engine is a reflection of the efforts of its own brand.
But Cao Yang's situation is not that big.
There is already a company like Nanshan Group in China that can provide advanced engine products. From a higher level perspective, other companies continue to invest a lot of money in engine research and development, but the significance is not as great as they advertise.
Of course, everyone's position is different, so it's impossible to say who is right and who is wrong.
It can only be said that in the shopping mall, everyone depends on their ability!
"Shoot the first bird!"
"Kill the chicken to scare the monkey!"
"Mr. Cao, I think we really need to put some effort into this aspect by then."
"Of course, we can't let other companies take the blame."
Seeing Cao Yang's calm performance, Zeng Tingting breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he continued: "There are currently some customers who are tentatively asking us about the possibility of selling a 3.0T engine. I have not given a direct reply yet."
"Look at this problem, how do we deal with it later?"
Dahongqi has performed well in the domestic market this year.
Although there is no way to compare with Ziweixing, compared with previous high-end Hongqi cars, it is already very good.
Naturally, some other car companies have new ideas.
"We will not consider this issue for the next two years until Xingchen Motors has completely established a foothold."
Cao Yang gave the answer very directly.
Dahongqi is taking a high-end route, and there will be no problem selling the 3.0T engine to them.
If other car companies with insufficient brand strength are also using this engine, it will obviously not be a good thing for Ziweixing's sales.
"Then I will quote a very high price and let them give up?"
Zeng Tingting also knows very well how to deal with customers.
It would definitely be inappropriate to refuse directly.
But if I quote a sky-high price, you should know what it means, right?
Everyone’s emotional intelligence is not low.
…
Domestic engines that need to be outsourced are basically self-owned brands.
Almost all joint venture car companies have their own engine factories.
Under this situation, even Nanshan Engine, which has the highest technical level, is facing some small actions from customers. Engine manufacturers such as Aerospace Mitsubishi have an even more difficult life.
"Lu Sang, China's automobile market has been growing rapidly in recent years, but the company's turnover has not increased for several consecutive years, and has even declined."
"Originally we thought that after the launch of a new generation of engines in the second half of last year, the situation would slowly improve."
"But almost three quarters have passed this year, but the situation has not improved."
"Is there anything you can do to change this situation?"
Taro Yonekawa, the sales director, was in a bad mood.
The company's performance was not good, and it became increasingly difficult for him to realize his dream of returning to his country and getting promoted.
Originally, he was stationed in China, which meant that he would be dispatched to the frontiers.
If you don't achieve very good results, don't think about being promoted after returning to your country.
"Yonekawa, the new models launched by various independent brands in the past few years basically use Nanshan engine products."
"The performance of their various engines from 1.0T to 2.0T is very advanced, and their fuel consumption is lower than ours."
“Even in terms of cost, it is not far behind our engines of the same level.”
"Under such circumstances, it is very difficult for them to increase the purchase of engines from our company."
Lu Bin naturally knows what situation the company is currently facing.
He deals with customers such as Great Wall, Chery, Geely, and Xifeng Motors every day, and he is relatively clear about the various actions of customers.
In his opinion, Aerospace Mitsubishi has been able to stabilize its sales in recent years, which is already good.
In a few years, there may be a sharp decline.
So during this period, he began to think about running connections to see if he could be transferred back to the group.
"Of course I know what you are talking about, but we have to find a way to let customers know that important parts like the engine are actually quite risky if they are purchased from Nanshan Group."
"Especially their gearbox is also purchased from Nanshan Group. The hard work of producing this car actually makes money for Nanshan Group."
"In the past two years, while introducing a new generation of products, we have also done a lot of cost reduction work."
"As long as they expand their engine purchases, we can provide more favorable prices."
At this time, sales volume is more important than profit for Yonekawa.
The profit is one point more or one point less. In many cases, the results are not so obvious.
But the sales volume is more and less, but it is very intuitive data.
"What you said makes sense. If you keep purchasing such an important part of the engine from one manufacturer, it will be very risky."
"So now companies such as Great Wall Motors, Chery Automobile and BYD have increased their efforts in independent research and development."
"According to the information I heard, starting from the end of next year, they will gradually increase the proportion of self-produced engines."
When Lu Bin said this, Taro Yonekawa fell silent.
Each car company has already developed its own engines. Doesn't that mean that the possibility of purchasing engines from Aerospace Mitsubishi in the future is even lower?
"Yonekawa, Mitsubishi's engine technology is very good. I think if you really want to expand your business, you must find a way to convince Mitsubishi headquarters to introduce the most advanced engine technology to our factory."
"Then we can discuss cooperation with some manufacturers through technical cooperation."
"At that time, we will produce part of the engines, and we will earn licensing fees after licensing the technology for part of the engines."
Lu Bin very boldly put forward a new suggestion.
I have to say that this suggestion is still very feasible in theory.
But after hearing this, Taro Yonekawa had no confidence in this operation.
As a Japanese company, Mitsubishi has always been unwilling to bring the most advanced technology to China.
Even many Japanese companies are like this.
The products produced in Huaxia factories are all products with backward technology.
No matter how fierce the competition is, at most they can only produce products of the same level as Japan.
Introducing the latest technology that is still under research and development is even more difficult than going to heaven.
After thinking about the words, Mi Chuan told Lu Bin his opinions.
"China already has a company like Nanshan Engine that masters the world's most advanced engine technology. If our company doesn't want to start going downhill so quickly, we must either introduce the latest technology or drastically reduce prices and rely on cost advantages to win some orders. "
Yonekawa:……
(End of chapter)
