State owned automobile companies are building intelligent electric vehicles through incubation outside the system. Judging from the current operating results, this approach does not seem to be very smooth.
Within the state-owned automobile enterprises, the original organizational structure and business model of fuel vehicles can not support the future of intelligent electric vehicle business. Incubating a project outside the system can not only give consideration to the flexibility of entrepreneurship, but also reduce the systematic risk of the parent company. The state-owned automobile enterprises represented by BAIC Jihu, Dongfeng lantu, SAIC Zhiji, SAIC Feifan and Chang’an avita want to break through the constraints of state-owned system and mechanism, integrate with the market in terms of salary, stock option and equity, improve the absorption ability of talents, and stimulate the vitality and creativity of employees to a greater extent.
Judging from the current situation, under the background of such incubation, the sales volume of electric vehicles is low, there are many problems with product software, and there is also instability in personnel. However, it is too early to make a conclusion on the success of the transformation of these state-owned car enterprises. “Wei Xiaoli” also had similar or even more severe challenges in the early stage of entrepreneurship. The problems, solutions and future development paths in the transformation process of these enterprises are really worthy of the attention and reference of the whole industry.
practical first or interesting first
Liu he summarized his work experience as “from micro to macro, from downstream to upstream”.
Before 2018, he worked successively in Japanese funded and French funded auto parts companies, first in sensor development, and then in assembly level controller development. In 2018, Liu he joined an independent car company and engaged in the system design and development of platform electrical architecture. In April 2020, Liu he joined Dongfeng lantu and engaged in the development of vehicle functions.
The centralized electronic and electrical architecture is a new vehicle electrical architecture first adopted by Tesla, which is different from the distributed electronic and electrical architecture of fuel vehicles. The centralized electronic and electrical architecture realizes the control of the vehicle through 3 ~ 5 high-performance ECUs, and has stronger computing power, higher data bandwidth and the ability of continuous optimization and iteration. When traditional automobile companies transform intelligent electric vehicles, they also follow Tesla‘s example to develop a complete vehicle platform based on centralized electronic and electrical architecture.
In the process of developing intelligent electric vehicles, traditional car enterprises usually have differences in thinking concepts and behavior habits.
Liu he believes that with the maturity of tri electric technology, the threshold for building a good car has been reduced. Compared with the previous era of fuel vehicles, Chinese automobile companies and foreign automobile companies are basically at the same starting line in terms of supply chain. Simply speaking from the aspects of equipment and performance, domestic and foreign automobile enterprises will not make much difference in new energy products. To form product differentiation and competitive advantage, we should pay more attention to the level of software, tap the known or unknown product needs of users, and realize a new car owning experience beyond the basic vehicle attributes through software.
“For example, Tesla‘s Christmas light show, or those equipment, uses the same hardware to realize new functions and user experience. But traditional enterprises basically don’t think in this direction – why do you want a show? It has nothing to do with my car making.” Liu he said.
“I want to go to a new energy company with innovative consciousness. Lantu attracts me. In addition, after the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan, I also increase my desire to return to my hometown.” Liu he said that when his friend invited him to join Dongfeng lantu, he said that although lantu has a state-owned background, it hopes to completely build itself into a technology company and cut into the competition of new energy vehicle tracks from the perspective of scientific and technological innovation.
In lantu, Liu He’s job responsibility is to translate the product requirements from the market side, operation side and product planning side based on the user’s perspective into the definition of functional requirements at the technical level, then decompose them to various technical departments for development and implementation, and control the subsequent delivery process and acceptance.
This job involves many communication objects, including almost all business departments upward, including marketing, planning, marketing and user operation, and all R & D departments downward. Different from the companies that have worked before, lantu has a relatively rich staff composition, from all over the world and from all walks of life.
new exploration of “keeping the word first”
Fu Bin was one of the early employees of Dongfeng lantu, responsible for the chassis and intelligent driving department. He told reporters that most of lantu executives, middle managers and staff are recruited externally. Generally speaking, it is difficult for state-owned automobile companies to make a breakthrough in talent incentive. Dongfeng lantu salary follows the principles of the market and implements employee stock ownership. Employees hold a total of 10.3448% equity through the stock ownership platform.
In Liu He’s opinion, the new forces have a strong pioneering spirit. They enter the game as subversives, and have strong advantages in software. However, we should also see that many new forces of car manufacturing established a high “flag” in the early stage of entrepreneurship, and the company ended in the PPT stage. In contrast, the Dongfeng Automobile Co.Ltd(600006) car manufacturing resources with the background of central enterprises are more abundant, and the possibility of product “ticket skipping” is very small.
However, when he joined lantu, the first challenge he encountered was that there were many differences in perspectives on how to carry out the same thing within the company. Internal disputes and even fierce conflicts were common, and one thing was repeatedly discussed and corrected. I don’t have the impression that the leaders of Chinese enterprises speak in one voice, but I also lack the characteristics of efficient implementation of private enterprises.
In terms of the company’s operation, Lan Tu can also see the posture of moving closer to “Wei Xiaoli”. Lantu has set up user strategy, user operation, digital operation and other departments. These departments directly face users, deal with users, obtain users’ voice, and guide product definition and product development based on users’ needs. Within the company, superiors and subordinates usually call each other “teachers”. Some foreign enterprises and technology companies feel that they weaken their ranks and advocate equality.
“Generally speaking, it is not as voluminous as private enterprises. Here, everyone has a strong desire to rush forward and achieve a career on a new platform. In this regard, it is very interesting that lantu is separated from the Dongfeng system and has its own culture.” Liu he said.
As a new company, brands, products, services, channels and user operations are moving forward in parallel. The responsibilities of many posts are still vague. How many personnel are needed, what kind of people are needed, what to do and how to do it are still in the process of exploration. Compared with “Wei Xiaoli”, which has just been born for more than a year, Lan Tu is a little slow. Liu he believes that this result is mainly a necessary chaotic period in the process from 0 to 1, but the risk of operation is relatively small and has more resources. As another independent auto company executive said, traditional auto companies seem to be backward on the new energy track, but they have abundant cash flow and stable profits.
Last December, lantu delivered more than 3000 cars; On January 21 this year, the 10000th product of lantu went offline. As a new brand with a short delivery time, this achievement is fairly good, ranking high compared with several other intelligent electric vehicle companies with state-owned enterprise background.
Liu he believes that lantu can achieve phased results mainly because the track is selected correctly. Lantu has two technical routes: increasing program and pure electric. If it starts with pure electric route, it may not have today’s business results.
“Due to limited resources, the new forces have less support in the supply chain. They will throw all their resources in one direction. This is a great risk. In the past few years, only two or three of the hundreds of new forces that have built cars have really run out.
The advantage of lantu is that relying on the background of Dongfeng, the problems of resources and supply chain are solved. ” Liu he said.
Within Dongfeng Automobile Co.Ltd(600006) , Landu is defined as the vanguard, actively exploring the system, mechanism and intelligent electric vehicle track. According to Liu He, lantu is still in the middle of technology companies and traditional car enterprises. At present, lantu cannot freely define its own track like private enterprises. It must move forward under the constraints of the overall career goal of state-owned assets, “stability first”.
subsidiary under wing shelter
At the end of last year, Zhang Shan left a large automobile group that had worked for nine years. In the interview, he repeatedly stressed that salary is not the primary reason for his departure, but a sense of value and growth.
He is responsible for the development of chassis system in the technical center of the group. With the development of automotive intelligence, Ota, automatic driving and other technologies, more and more mechanical control institutions have to turn to wire control. Braking by wire and steering by wire are considered to be the only way for unmanned driving. However, when promoting the chassis by wire technology within the company, he encountered obstacles from the traditional hardware department and the distribution of interests within the group.
\u3000\u3000 “The earliest electronic and electrical department was used in the powertrain department. Later, after the electronic and electrical equipment became more and more important, the electronic and electrical department was established. The electronic and electrical equipment is a new Department, and its positioning is to serve the chassis, powertrain and interior decoration. It is difficult for a new Department to propose new solutions with the chassis department with older qualifications. Moreover, it is difficult to control the bottom by wire If the technology of the sector falls to the ground, it means that the traditional oil circuit people have nothing to do. There will be great internal resistance to innovation, and various departments restrict each other. ” Zhang Shan said.
Another feature of the group’s technology center is that it pays more attention to scientific research than business. The technology center has scientific research projects every year, but most of them are not commercially implemented, and a few are only used for marginal models with small output. The reason is that there are many parts subsidiaries under the group, and the self-developed projects of the technology center will affect the interests of the subsidiaries.
In such an ecosystem, he believes that “innovation” is only the reporting needs of leaders. The norm is that engineers engaged in technology development will do new scientific research projects every time they finish a project, so as to meet the reporting needs of leaders for the next year. However, for a new technology, large-scale mass production can provide the ability of continuous optimization and iteration, and can effectively produce value to products and industries.
Last year, the auto e-commerce company incubated by the group for many years went bankrupt. A management person in the service trade sector told reporters that there are many dead service trade companies within the group. The root of the problem is that these internally incubated companies are not market-oriented products since their birth. Their behavioral logic is how to use the group’s resources, rely on the joint venture, erode some marginal profits, and produce no new value, Nor did they jump out of the shelter of the group and fight with real weapons in the market.
In the intelligent electric vehicle sector, in the past four years, in order to comply with the market development, the intelligent electric vehicle has gradually evolved from an independent model attached to the traditional fuel vehicle brand to an independent vehicle series and independent vehicle brand, and was upgraded to an independent company last year. The original intention of the group is to rejuvenate after breaking away from the old system. However, similar to the situation of the technology center, the strategic direction has been adjusted for many times, and the senior personnel have changed frequently. The dependence on the online car Hailing market and the procurement of large customers far exceeds the demand for civilian vehicles. At present, the proportion of open social recruitment of the new company is small, and the open posts are relatively low.
the traditional gene of the pioneer of hybrid transformation
BAIC New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “BAIC new energy”), a subsidiary of BAIC group, was founded in 2009. It is the first new energy automobile enterprise in China to obtain the production qualification of new energy vehicles, operate independently, carry out the mixed ownership reform and the employee stock ownership reform of the first batch of pilot state-owned enterprises.
As the “first enterprise to eat crabs”, BAIC new energy is very radical and forward-looking. In 2016, BAIC new energy launched the high-end electric vehicle brand arcfox (the Chinese name “Jihu” was released in 2020). In 2017, the concept version of the first model arcfox-1 appeared at the Beijing auto show and opened a brand store in Sanlitun Tongying center. In 2018, BAIC new energy released the electric sports car arcfox-7 at the Geneva auto show. The acceleration time from zero to 100 kilometers is 2.9 seconds.
In 2017, the development of China’s electric vehicle market was not mature. Even though the wave of new forces in car manufacturing surged, Weilai automobile had just begun to be delivered, and Xiaopeng automobile and ideal automobile had not yet achieved mass production.
In the development path of the brand, BAIC Jihu and Weilai automobile have high similarities: opening a brand experience center in the supermarket, establishing the height of the brand with performance sports cars, and establishing an ecological marketing model based on user experience. However, at the end of product research and development, “Wei Xiaoli” has turned to self research after stepping out of the initial stage. BAIC Jihu is “left-handed magna and right-handed Huawei”, which is very dependent on suppliers.
On April 14, 2019, arcfox released the IMC intelligent module standard architecture, the world’s first commercial platform equipped with 5g technology. According to the official statement, the birth of arcfox is based on BAIC group’s ten-year accumulation of new energy vehicle manufacturing technology and experience, and is built by aggregating Daimler, Magna, Huawei and other global top resources.
Specifically, BAIC new energy cooperated deeply with Mercedes Benz vehicle technology group to jointly carry out the development, testing, project management and quality control of complete vehicles and core components; Carry out high-end intelligent manufacturing cooperation with Magna. In July 2019, BAIC group established a joint venture with Magna to jointly build arcfox. The two sides jointly built BAIC Magna high-end new energy vehicle manufacturing base.
At the same time, BAIC new energy also established 1873 Davidson innovation laboratory with Huawei to deeply cultivate intelligent networking technology, create the “strongest brain” and bring cross scene integration experience of people, cars and homes. At last year’s Shanghai auto show, BAIC new energy and Huawei launched a joint model arcfox α S HBT, this car will adopt Huawei’s three lidar technology solutions, equipped with 6 millimeter wave radars, 12 cameras and 13 ultrasonic radars. The automatic driving function has reached L3 level.
This luxury configuration is not specially made for BAIC. On the contrary, “Huawei talked with BAIC not too early, but with FAW and Chang’an. However, BAIC has given better conditions and is willing to open up to a higher degree, and not all car enterprises are willing to do so.” Li Si, an insider of BAIC new energy, said.
However, the allocation of top-level resources did not create the expected explosion. From the sales results, the performance of BAIC Jihu is not ideal. According to the data of the passenger Association, BAIC Jihu in December last year α S and α T sales were only 692 and 381 respectively, and the cumulative sales of last year were 2816 and 3190 respectively. Among the new smart electric vehicle brands incubated by traditional car enterprises, this ranking is relatively low.
In the same period, BAIC new energy also fell from the champion of China’s pure electric vehicle sales for seven consecutive years. In 2020, BAIC new energy’s sales fell by 83% to 25900 vehicles, and its market share fell from 23% at the peak to less than 1%; The revenue was only 5.272 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 77.65% and a net loss of 6.482 billion yuan.
As a pioneer of mixed reform and a luxurious “circle of friends”, why is BAIC new energy’s business performance unsatisfactory at this stage? LISS believes that on the surface, the shrinkage of the b-end market caused by the epidemic still lies in the corporate culture.
He believes that the culture of BAIC new energy is very traditional. Employees are used to reporting everything. They don’t make decisions on things that can be made by profession and experience, and spend a lot of time on repeated demonstration. In addition, the top management of the company has changed frequently in the past three years, which has brought the problem of insufficient strategic continuity.
\u3000\u3000 “In 2018, we said we wanted to be a high-end brand, starting with the release of Geneva auto show, starting with electric sports cars and sponsoring China GT events. These are all the ways for high-end brands to tell stories. Later, we changed the leadership, but did not say to give up the high-end, but began to take the cost-effective route, and repeatedly pushed magna, Huawei and other partners to the stage. The real high-end brands will not stand out The partners will not rely on the partners to elevate themselves. ” Said LISS.
Zhao Li, a management of an independent car enterprise, told reporters that it is not uncommon for employees to “hide things”. One of the solutions is to clarify the objectives of the company, the team and individuals, the measurable results achieved by each goal, and the binding of interests.
“The company’s culture is not formed at the grass-roots level, but from top to bottom. What kind of boss and organizational culture will make what kind of company.” Zhao Li said.
(at the request of the interviewee, Liu He, Li Si, Zhang Shan and Zhao Li are pseudonyms)
