Rebirth 99 to become a car giant.

Chapter 493 General Motors and Ford join forces to refresh the history of the automotive industry
There is a lot of commotion here in China due to various things related to Nanshan gearbox. Naturally, there will be no movement at all in the international automobile market.

2009 was a rather sad year for the American auto market.

As we wait to see how the U.S. markets will fare in 2009, there is little optimistic news.

Since the U.S. auto market reached a peak of 2007 million vehicles in 1600, the world's largest auto market has begun to decline.

In the 2008 months of 12, the market shrank by 300 million units, an average of 25 units per month.

In early January 2009, when various companies producing and selling automobiles in the United States announced their production and sales data for December 1 and the full year, concerns about this market further intensified.

Most opinions believe that the total volume of the American automobile market in 2009 was around 1200 million.

However, Cao Yang knows very well that this year's American auto market will be much worse than this figure.

In 2009, the American auto market was in a bleak state.Car sales that year were 1043.15 million units, the lowest level since 1982.

In 2009, new car sales fell by 21.16% year-on-year, hitting a record low. This was also the fourth consecutive year of year-on-year sales decline.

In 2009, the per capita car purchasing level in the United States also hit its lowest level since 1950.

Under this environment, it is naturally impossible for General Motors and Ford, as the three largest domestic giants in the United States, to do nothing.

Each of them has launched a series of new models and hopes to achieve positive growth in 2009.

Even General Motors and Ford Motor began to establish more communication and discuss some cooperation that was completely unimaginable before.

"Exxon, Nanbian Transmission in China has launched a 10AT automatic transmission product. We have arranged for people to contact the other party to discuss the possibility of Cadillac using 10AT in the future."

"I wonder what's going on at Ford?"

Historically, Daniel Exxon only became a member of the General Motors board of directors in the seventh year of this year and became president next year. However, due to considerable changes in the entire global automobile industry, Exxon became a member of the General Motors board of directors in March this year. , in charge of R&D and sales.

Since Exxon is not from the automotive industry, its thinking is more open-minded.

In his view, although General Motors and Ford Motor Company are in competition, they can also be like McDonald's and KFC, like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, developing each other through competition.

So when it took office, it took the initiative to contact Ford CEO Nasser.

They met a few years ago and were considered half-friends.

"The 10AT automatic transmission is the most advanced product in the world. No matter whether it is ZF, Aisin or BorgWarner, there is no product in this area."

"So our Lincoln is naturally considering using the 10AT from Nanshan transmission."

"But now many of our models are already using Nanshan Transmission's 8AT products. If all 10ATs are purchased from Nanshan Transmission in the future, I am actually a little worried."

"In particular, Ford Motor has cooperated with Xingchen Motors to help each other sell new models of the Xingchen brand in the United States."

"The sales have been relatively successful in the past two years, but the more successful the sales are, the more worried I am about this cooperation."

Regarding the gearbox, General Motors and Ford faced similar situations, so Nasser didn't mind communicating directly with Exxon about this aspect.

"You are right. If we all purchase 10AT from Nanshan Transmission in the future, the risk will definitely be a bit high, and it will not be conducive to price negotiations."

"The most important thing is that this will make everyone feel that China's cars are no worse than ours in terms of quality and technology. After all, they can produce high-tech products like the 10AT."

"So I don't really want to keep buying 10AT from Nanshan Transmission."

When Exxon said this, Nasser immediately couldn't help but nodded and said: "That's true. Our 8AT already relies on Nanshan gearbox to a certain extent."

"Even if it does not rely on Nanshan gearbox, 8AT still has to rely on Aisin and ZF. The company's own initiative is not very strong."

"We must find ways to change this situation."

"But frankly speaking, our own gearbox department has mastered the 6AT technology so far, and we have not yet produced our own 8AT. It is still very challenging to directly develop 10AT."

When Exxon exposed his family scandal, not only was he not laughed at by Nasser, but he was further recognized by him.

"It is true. Apart from Nanshan gearbox, 8AT is already the most advanced product in the industry."

"I heard that ZF is developing 9AT, and Aisin should also have officially established a project to develop 10AT."

"In this way, if we want to develop our own new gearbox, it will be either 9AT or 10AT. It is best to do it together."

"But this kind of research and development task will be very heavy, and the investment in research and development will also be relatively large."

"In the case of a financial crisis, the pressure is definitely relatively high."

Nasser took the initiative and expressed a desire to cooperate with General Motors.

The smart Exxon immediately understood what the other party meant, and then proactively said: "Nasser, I propose that General Motors and Ford Motor Co., Ltd. cooperate to develop a 9AT and a 10AT gearbox. In the future, these two gearboxes will They can freely produce them in their respective factories and install them on their respective models."

"In this way, our American automobile industry will not always lag behind its competitors in transmissions."

For Ford and General Motors, both are in a weak period of historical development.

This is when you need to find someone to work with.

So after Exxon expressed the idea of ​​cooperation so directly, Nasser naturally had no objection.

Soon, the two of them arranged for the following teams to start working on the project.

The fact that General Motors and Ford Motors jointly developed gearboxes was quickly exposed by the American media.

This has had a considerable impact on the entire global automotive industry.

After all, General Motors and Ford Motor Company are established automobile giants, and even now, their strength cannot be underestimated.

……

"Mr. Cao, Ford and General Motors are in contact with us to learn about the 10AT, and at the same time they want to develop their own transmissions. Are they trying to steal our technology?"

Ji Hua came to Cao Yang's office as soon as he saw the news.

Obviously, this news is definitely a big news for Nanshan Gearbox!
And it’s still bad news!
Basically, this means that there is no hope that the 10AT of Nanshan transmission will be used on General Motors and Ford in the future.

Moreover, Ji Hua is also worried that Ford Motor and General Motors will develop their own 10AT. Will other OEMs also want to develop their own 10AT?
Although the threshold for 10AT is relatively high and you can't succeed if you want to, but if you don't pay attention to performance and just produce 10AT, the difficulty is actually not that high.

"Even if General Motors and Ford cooperate to develop 10AT now, it will take at least three years to successfully develop it. By the time it is mass-produced, it will probably be after 3."

"In the past few years, as long as their models want to be equipped with 10AT automatic transmissions, they can only come to us for cooperation."

"So I think they came to us to understand the situation of 10AT. Although they wanted to get information, their sincerity in cooperation should also be genuine."

“As long as it’s not particularly sensitive technical content and they want to know, we can tell them boldly.”

Cao Yang knew that there was no way to stop this trend.

If you give up cooperating with the other party because of this, you are giving up the money you have received and not earning it.

Nowadays, 10AT is only available in Nanshan gearbox. If you don’t take advantage of this opportunity to make a fortune, when will you wait?

A few years later, GM Ford launched the 10AT. By that time, the cost of Nanshan Transmission's 10AT had dropped several rounds, making it more competitive.

"Okay, then I will arrange for personnel to connect with them normally."

"But they have also sent a formal RFQ. Should we still quote according to the normal quotation logic in the past?"

Ji Hua asked a more critical question.

However, Cao Yang already had the answer to this question in his mind and said directly: "For fully competitive parts, we must give the most competitive quotation based on cost and taking into account the degree of market competition."

"But 10AT has no opponents now. As long as the other party wants to use it, they can only buy it from us."

"And the models that can use 10AT are all relatively expensive models, and their cost tolerance for parts is relatively high."

"Our 10AT does not need to be sold simply by adding a 15% management fee to the cost."

"That's a cheap sale, and people won't thank you."

"Directly double the cost price as the selling price. You can even test the other party's tone first and tell them how difficult it is to develop 10AT, how big the investment is, how high the production requirements are, and try your best to The selling price is a little higher.”

Obviously, Cao Yang is planning to make a lot of money while General Motors and Ford Motors use 10AT in the first few years.

The best thing is to amortize the R&D investment and factory equipment of 10AT within this period of time.

In the future, the pressure of competition will be much reduced.

Even if ZF or Aisin have to compete with Nanshan Transmission in other OEMs, Nanshan Transmission can maintain full competitiveness.

"No problem, I'll arrange for someone to prepare it right away."

"I will report to you before the official quotation is sent out."

Ji Hua quickly understood what Cao Yang meant and had an idea in his mind.

However, Nanshan Transmission itself is not panicked, but some other people are a little worried about this action of General Motors and Ford.

Liu Tianwu made a special call.

"Mr. Cao, I just saw the news on Autohome. General Motors and Ford are going to jointly develop 9AT and 10AT. Will this matter have a big impact on you?"

A lot of people came to Nanshan Transmission's new product launch conference some time ago.

Liu Tianwu is naturally looking forward to Nanshan Transmission's 10AT automatic transmission being able to shine globally.

In this way, Yangcheng's achievements in high and new technologies are even more remarkable.

After all, no matter which city it is, it hopes to have a number of high-tech manufacturing enterprises in its jurisdiction.

"It's big if you say it's big, and it's not big if you say it's not big."

"Original manufacturers such as General Motors, Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen that aspire to become the world's largest car companies will definitely not completely hand over important components such as gearboxes to outsiders."

"So these companies all have technicians who develop gearboxes, and they have even developed their own gearboxes."

"Previously, some of the transmissions of Ford and General Motors were produced in-house."

"It's just that after entering the 8AT era, they didn't keep up."

"Especially in the past few years, Ford and General Motors have had various internal problems, and there have not been so many manpower and material resources invested in the research and development of new technologies."

"Now we have even developed 10AT. ZF and Aisin are also developing 9AT and 10AT. Even some unknown companies are publicizing that they are developing 10AT."

"Under this situation, General Motors and Ford are naturally a little anxious." "They all have their own luxury brands that need to use 10AT, and even some models of the Buick and Ford brands also have 10AT requirements."

"So it is inevitable for them to develop 10AT themselves."

"The only surprising thing is that they will join forces to develop 9AT and 10AT."

"As far as I know, General Motors is leading the development of 9AT, and Ford is leading the development of 10AT. They have close technical contact with each other, and even found a building in Michigan to house these R&D personnel."

Cao Yang shared all the information he knew with Liu Tianwu.

If people care about you well, Cao Yang can't be so ignorant.

"At this pace, when do you think General Motors and Ford will develop their products?"

"At least three years from now. If it doesn't go so smoothly, it may take four to five years."

Hearing what Cao Yang said, Liu Tianwu breathed a sigh of relief.

In a short period of time, the technical advantages of Nanshan gearbox are still there.

"Nanshan Transmission's 10AT will be installed on new cars as soon as this year, right?"

"Yes, we have a new model to be launched in the first half of this year, which will be equipped with 10AT."

Cao Yang chatted with Liu Tianwu for a long time before hanging up the phone.

However, Aisin is not so calm about GM and Ford's actions.

"President, I am applying for the company to recruit an additional hundred technical personnel to specifically enrich the 10AT R&D team."

"The best thing would be to recruit a few technicians from Nanshan Transmission to provide us with some design ideas."

Nakazawa Hiroyuki is also under a lot of pressure now.

In the past, Nanshan transmissions had 10AT, but now Ford and General Motors are also jointly developing 10AT and 9AT.

In this case, if Aisin's 10AT is launched later, the day lily will be cold.

"I made a special trip to Toyota yesterday. They will support us with a group of technical personnel to help us develop 10AT as soon as possible."

Obviously, Toyota is feeling the pressure now.

They are bent on becoming the world's number one automotive company.

But now Aisin is lagging behind in gearbox research and development.

Toyota is naturally very anxious.

When 8AT was being developed, Aisin was overtaken by Nanshan Transmission, but it quickly caught up, and Lexus soon launched models equipped with 8AT.

Among all luxury car brands, the speed is considered fast.

But when it comes to 10AT, Toyota absolutely does not want to buy 10AT from Nanshan Transmission.

No one would dare to do such a slap in the face.

Therefore, it is necessary for Aisin to speed up the research and development of 10AT.

Anyway, Japanese people like to work overtime, so just work as hard as you can to do it.

"Will Toyota help?"

"that would be great!"

"The design of many parts in 10AT is different from that of 8AT. If Denso can arrange some people who are proficient in electric oil pump design to come and assist, it should be of greater help."

Nakazawa Hiroyuki couldn't help but put forward an idea further.

No R&D director would dislike having too many technical personnel under his command.

Especially when the R&D schedule is tight and the tasks are arduous.

The more people, the more hope of success.

"This shouldn't be a big problem. We can just communicate directly with Denso when the time comes."

Yoshikawa thought for a moment and agreed to Nakazawa's proposal.

As brother companies of the same group, Yoshikawa and the president of Denso are relatively familiar with each other.

It is obviously not a big problem to find them to support a few technical personnel.

However, Aisin can speed up the development of 10AT by asking Toyota to support it, but the situation at ZF is different.

"Schneider, we are only developing 9AT and not investing resources in developing 10AT. Is there really no problem?"

As the president of ZF, Walvin is a professional manager, not a professional transmission developer.

And ZF’s products are not just gearboxes.

Now we see that General Motors and Ford are going to install 10AT, and China's Xingchen Motors and Jaguar Land Rover are also going to install 10AT. It must be a lie to say that Walwin is not nervous at all.

He is also worried that if there is a problem with the company's technological development direction, it will be passive in future competition.

This is certainly not a situation he wants to see.

"No problem. In fact, to a certain extent, our 8AT can already meet the needs of this era."

"In the next ten years, the competitiveness of our 8AT will be very sufficient."

"It is just to continuously highlight our technical strength that we are studying 9AT, which will allow customers to make a certain degree of differentiation when choosing models."

"As for further engaging in 10AT, that is completely unnecessary."

"With this time, we might as well spend some energy on publicity and let more people know that the necessity of 10AT is actually far from that high."

"Our ZF 8AT is good enough, and with the icing on the cake, the 9AT is completely sufficient."

Schneider was very certain and had to give his reply.

As ZF's R&D director, Schneider is very confident in the company's products.

In his opinion, ZF's transmission technology is the best in the world.

Even now that Nanshan Transmission has developed a 10AT, he does not feel that ZF is inferior to others.

"During this period, many customers are asking us, especially from BMW. Several groups of people have already asked me."

"I even heard that Mercedes-Benz is planning to speed up the promotion of their own 9AT products, and is even considering whether to research 10AT themselves."

"In this case, once we make a decision, we will be in a very passive position in the competition in the future."

Walvin revealed more information to Schneider, which can be regarded as putting pressure on Schneider.

"I understand that what we need to do now is to bring out the 9AT products as soon as possible, and then let everyone know that ZF's 9AT is worse than the 10AT from other manufacturers."

"Even our 9AT is better than the 10AT in some aspects of performance."

"I believe that customers will understand this sooner or later, and we have an obligation to let customers understand this."

Walvin was also a little helpless towards the confident Schneider.

But in the end he chose to believe Schneider.

if not?
Will you forcefully promote the launch of 10AT?
At that time, a lot of manpower and material resources have been spent, but no good products have been produced, so his position as president may not be stable!

……

"Mr. Cao, Austin, General Manager of GM, will come to visit our 10AT production line next week. They intend to first equip domestic Cadillac models with 10AT."

GM's response this time was obviously very fast.

10AT first appeared in China, so Chinese consumers must be the most concerned about it.

If Cadillac wants to consider using 10AT, it is undoubtedly more appropriate to first test the water on domestically produced models in China.

"General Motors now attaches great importance to the Chinese market, especially the Cadillac brand. In the future, it should want to compete with ABB and Xingchen Motors in China."

"Austin will personally lead the team this time. I think Cadillac's decision to use 10AT should be relatively reliable."

"Anyway, the 8AT they are using now is also provided by us. After switching to 10AT, very few adjustments to the matching parts are required, and almost no adjustments are needed to install it."

"At that time, we only need to further update the control logic of the ECU and TCU, and it will be successfully installed."

Cao Yang and Austin are old acquaintances.

Cadillac is willing to use 10AT, and Cao Yang naturally supports it.

As long as a luxury brand wants to buy 10AT, Cao Yang has no reason to object.

Of course, if you want to buy Huaxia's own brand, it's not impossible, but the price can scare you away.

The price of a gearbox may be higher than the price of your entire vehicle. How do you ask Geely and Chery to buy it?

This also avoids the embarrassment of direct rejection.

"After they have completed their inspection, I will arrange for a group of technical staff to go to Magic City to cooperate with them in development and strive to complete relevant adjustments within this year."

10AT has been developed, and naturally it needs to be installed on more models as soon as possible. This is a more important thing.

Similarly, 8AT also needs to find more cooperative customers.

Only in this way can Nanshan Gearbox usher in further development.

Otherwise, if you are completely competing with yourself, it won't be very meaningful.

Ji Hua is fully aware of this.

However, at this moment, Mi Ying came over quickly and said to Cao Yang: "Mr. Cao, the ministry has just released a major policy, this is it."

(End of this chapter)