Reborn Entrepreneurial Giant.

Chapter 524 Trip to Germany

Qu Li's trip to Sweden was not perfect. The lion and crown of the Saab brand can no longer be used. From now on, there will only be the letter logo.Of course, a small tail is left, and if certain conditions are met, Saab can automatically restart the original Logo.

Therefore, Qu Li kept the R&D center in Frankfurt, and Fang Haohan went to Germany to take charge of the work. Sweden was left with an empty shell factory with a R&D team of dozens of people, and there was still hope for revival.

Qu Li visited the Opel headquarters and German factory, which aroused many speculations from the outside world. Is Qiancheng Motor going to acquire Opel?Fortunately, Qiancheng Motors has applied to suspend its license due to the acquisition of Saab.

After visiting Opel, Qu Li went to visit Infineon, Bosch and other major German manufacturers. This time it didn't arouse much reverie. Well, Qu Li didn't disclose his schedule.He also wants to visit companies such as FEV engines and Getrag gearboxes to discuss cooperation.The appearance will be left to Honor. He will take time to go to the Honor flagship store in Berlin to interact with consumers.

The emphasis on German industry is visible to the naked eye, but there are many problems. Costs are too high, companies are overburdened, and in the context of the technological revolution, it is difficult to compete with emerging market companies. If it were not for the Chinese market, they may not be popular in the next ten years. Drink spicy.

But the EU is not without solutions. "Carbon emissions" is not a simple environmental issue. They creatively combine environmental protection, industry and social issues and come up with the "carbon tariff", which is a great initiative. If it can really be implemented , may change the global industrial division of labor and historical process.

It is true that carbon emissions are environmentally friendly, but it is more about maintaining industrial balance among regions. Well, it will increase the cost for enterprises in less developed countries and regions, such as China, to enter the EU market. Without price advantages, they can only rely on hard power and European Enterprises fought hard.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for a loose alliance to have the courage to promote such a complex plan. The EU's plan to impose "carbon tariffs" on airlines around the world this year later fell through.

The EU's idea is good, but unfortunately it is too difficult and takes time. They miscalculated the development of less developed countries and regions. Who knew that domestic manufacturing companies were growing so fast.

We also need to take into account China's industrial upgrading and global technological progress. If generative AI such as Chatgpt completely subverts existing industries, robots become popular in large numbers, and modern enterprises' demand for labor drops sharply, then how should they change?

No matter how powerful the carbon tariff is, how can this crude "artifact" withstand the laws of the market? In the future, will it be through physical "downsizing" or decentralized employment?

The CEO of BMW Motors of the BMW family invited Qu Li to visit BMW, but Qu Li did not refuse. BMW also had plans for electric vehicles, and later approached CATL to develop power batteries. Unfortunately, their electric vehicles were not even as good as BYD at the time, and their sales volume was ludicrous.

The German BBA is very concerned about electric vehicles. Mercedes-Benz invested in Tesla and established a joint venture with BYD. This can be seen from the precise observation.As for Audi, or the Volkswagen Group, they are entangled with Porsche. You acquire me, and I counter-acquire you. The management may be busy fighting among themselves and forget about the long-term layout.

The family behind BMW has a controlling stake and the management is basically stable, so it is able to invest for the long term. Later, it cooperated with Great Wall Motors to establish Guangguang Enterprise.Mercedes-Benz and BMW’s efforts towards electric vehicles are not bad at all.

BMW bought two of the best electric cars in the world, Tesla and Qiancheng Geometry. Both cars are excellent and radical, but Qiancheng Geometry has gone to more extremes in software-defined cars.That's not important, the key is that BMW can't make such a car.

In the eyes of BMW CEO, both Tesla and Qiancheng Geometry are excellent, but they also have many shortcomings. Battery life and safety are major issues.This does not prevent him from recognizing Qiancheng Motors and being ahead of BBA in a certain field.

"Both batteries and motors can be sold to the outside world, but the current battery production capacity is limited. We still have many problems that have not been overcome and we cannot achieve large-scale mass production." Qu Li frankly said that the biggest problem of Future Geometry is that they have a short-term It is almost impossible to reduce the cost of power batteries.

"The high cost is not a problem." BMW sells high-end cars, so there is room for a premium.They tested Qiancheng Geometry, and it was good in all aspects. It is normal that power batteries cannot be mass-produced. As for why Tesla's 18650 batteries are not used, it is no nonsense. More than 7000 batteries combined together are better than the electronic control of hundreds of batteries combined. The difficulty will be increased ten times.

As for motors, big manufacturers generally develop their own products, or they can jointly develop them. (Great Wall) Huaguan doesn't care about reputation, just profitability. After all, it costs money to maintain a team of people.However, we cannot expect BMW and GM to have much courage.

Qu Li took the opportunity to ask experts from BMW whether the integrated die-casting he wanted to do was feasible and whether it could reduce the cost of vehicle production.

Don't think that Qu Li is irrational and tells others his unique skills. Musk told the public what he was going to do ten years ago. Buffett has bought BYD stocks for more than ten years without knowing how many people are doing it. But what's the use?Whoever listens to you will follow your ideas.

Of course Qu Li didn't say this just to show off. He wanted to attract high-end talents to join him. In addition to money, he also wanted people to see his vision and courage, that is, to show his charisma.He is not a perfect person, as long as his advantages are outstanding enough.

"It's difficult, but it can be done. It requires a large-tonnage die-casting machine..."

"The maintenance cost will be very high." Someone at BMW understood immediately. They may not have considered it, but the luxury car brand has less cost pressure and the motivation for change is not strong enough.

"The safety will be greatly improved, and the weight can be reduced." Qu Li has thought about it a lot, and has already started making changes by improving the performance of aluminum alloys.

The subsequent discussion was fruitless, but I think Qu Li left a deep impression on BMW. He was not a "capitalist" who didn't understand anything.

After leaving BMW, Qu Li came to Qiancheng Motor's R&D center in Frankfurt, where Fang Haohan (later a core member of Geely's CMA architecture) was the person in charge.Although he understands technology, Qu Li needs to decide the market direction: Qiancheng currently mainly produces A and B-class vehicles, and mainly focuses on fuel vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and does not need to consider electric vehicles.

In addition to the general direction, various intelligent devices should also be considered, such as active suspension, on-board chips, sensors, cameras, lidar, etc.

The Volkswagen Group released the MQB modular platform this year, and Toyota disclosed its TNGA architecture plan. Qiancheng, which combines Opel and Saab technologies, will be called the CMA architecture. He is too lazy to choose another name.

If you go in the right direction and find the right people, all you have left is money, so Qiancheng Motors will soon be listed in Xiangjiang.