Reborn Entrepreneurial Giant.

Chapter 524 The 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, and only the letter Logo will be used in the future.Of course, a small tail is left, and Saab can automatically restart the original Logo when certain conditions are met.

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

Qu Li's visit to Opel's headquarters and German factory has aroused many speculations from the outside world. Is Qiancheng Automobile going to acquire Opel?Fortunately, due to the acquisition of Saab, Qiancheng Motors has applied for suspension of the license.

After visiting Opel, Qu Li went to Infineon, Bosch and other major German manufacturers to have a look. This time, it did not arouse too much imagination. Well, Qu Li did not disclose the itinerary.He will also visit enterprises such as FEV engine and GETRAG gearbox to discuss cooperation.The appearances are reserved for Honor, and 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, such as high costs, heavy burdens on enterprises, and under the background of technological revolution, it is difficult to compete with enterprises in emerging markets. If it is not for the Chinese market, they may not be popular in the next ten years Drink spicy.

But the EU is not helpless. "Carbon emission" is not a simple environmental protection issue. They creatively combined environmental protection, industrial and social issues, and came up with the "carbon tariff", which is a great initiative. If it can be implemented , may change the global industrial division of labor and the course of history.

Carbon emission and environmental protection is true, but it is more to maintain the industrial balance between regions. Well, it will increase the cost for enterprises in underdeveloped countries and regions, such as China, to enter the EU market. Without price advantages, they can only rely on hard power and Europe. Enterprises are fighting.

It is a pity that it is difficult for a loose alliance to have the courage to promote such a complicated plan. The European Union's plan to impose "carbon tariffs" on airlines around the world this year has since come to nothing.

The idea of ​​the EU is good, but unfortunately it is too difficult and it will take time. They have wrongly estimated the development of underdeveloped countries and regions. Who knew that domestic manufacturing companies would grow so fast.

We must also consider China's industrial upgrading and global technological progress. For example, if generative AI such as Chatgpt completely subverts existing industries, robots are widely popularized, and modern enterprises' demand for labor is sharply reduced, how should they change?
No matter how powerful the carbon tariff is, how can this rough "man-made thing" be able to withstand the laws of the market? Will the future be through physical "reduction of staff" or decentralization of employment?
The CEO of the BMW family BMW invited Qu Li to visit BMW. Qu Li did not refuse. BMW also has an electric car plan. Later, they approached Ningde Times to develop power batteries. Unfortunately, their electric cars were not as good as BYD at that time, and their sales volume was a fart.

The German BBA is very concerned about electric vehicles. Mercedes-Benz invested in Tesla and established a joint venture with BYD. The accuracy of its vision can be seen.As for Audi, or the Volkswagen Group, it is entangled with Porsche. If you buy me, I will buy you back. The management may be busy fighting internally and forget the long-term layout.

The family behind BMW has a controlling stake, and the management is basically stable, so it can invest for the long-term. Later, it cooperated with Great Wall Motors to establish the beam enterprise.The efforts of Mercedes-Benz and BMW for 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 even more extreme in software-defined cars.It doesn't matter, the key is that BMW can't make such a car.

In the eyes of the BMW CEO, Tesla and Future Geometry are excellent, but they also have many shortcomings, such as battery life and safety.These did not prevent him from approving Qiancheng Automobile and getting ahead of the BBA in a certain field.

"Both batteries and motors can be sold externally, but the production capacity of batteries is currently limited, and we still have many problems to overcome, and we cannot achieve large-scale mass production." Qu Li frankly stated the biggest problem of Future Geometry now. Their 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, and there is room for a premium.They tested the future geometry, and all aspects are good. It is normal that the power battery cannot be mass-produced. As for why Tesla’s 18650 battery is not used, this is no nonsense. More than 7000 batteries are combined, which is better than the electronic control of hundreds of batteries. The difficulty will increase ten times.

As for motors, major manufacturers generally do their own research, and they can also jointly develop them. (Great Wall) Huaguan doesn’t care about fame, as long as it is profitable. After all, it is expensive to support a group of people.But we can't count on how aggressive BMW and GM are.

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

Don't think that Qu Li is irrational and tells others his unique secret skills. Musk told the public what he was going to do ten years ago. How many people did not know that Buffett bought BYD stock for more than ten years, but what's the use?Whoever listens to you will execute according to your ideas.

Of course, Qu Li said this not to show off. He wanted to attract high-end talents to join him. Apart from money, he also wanted to let people see his foresight and courage, that is, to show his charisma.He is not a perfect person, as long as his advantages are prominent enough.

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

"The maintenance cost will be very high." Some people at BMW understood that they might not have considered it. It's just that the cost pressure of luxury car brands is relatively small, and the motivation for change is not strong enough.

"The safety will be greatly improved, and the weight will be reduced." Qu Li has considered a lot, and has started to make changes from improving the performance of aluminum alloy.

The discussion afterward was fruitless, but I think Qu Li left a deep impression on BMW. He is not a "capitalist" who knows nothing.

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

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

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

With the right direction and the right people, there is only money left, so Qiancheng Motors will be listed in Xiangjiang soon.

(End of this chapter)