For Li Mu, if he wants to be in the automotive industry, it is absolutely impossible to just be a Tesla.
Even if new energy vehicles are a general trend, there is still a long way to go before this trend can be spread globally.
Even in China, if we want to achieve a 50/50 ratio of new energy vehicles to fuel vehicles in car sales, it is estimated that it will take at least 2020 or even after 2030.
Until then, most of the automobile market will still be dominated by traditional fuel vehicles.
Moreover, what Li Mu likes to do most is the deep integration of resources. This kind of integration is not to integrate Jaguar, Land Rover or Volvo into Tesla to become a more powerful Tesla, but to integrate Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and Tesla. Tesla integrated each other into a better Tesla, a better Jaguar, a better Land Rover and a better Volvo.
Take out Tesla’s advantages in electric transmission, take out Jaguar’s advantages in luxury cars and sports cars, and of course, before they decline too seriously; take out Volvo’s advantages in household passenger cars and Bring out its advantages in safe driving, and then bring out Land Rover's capabilities in four-wheel drive and all-terrain adaptability.
Although Volvo's product line is very comprehensive, it has always been relatively niche. It is impossible for Volvo to outsell Toyota on its own. However, if Volvo cooperates with Tesla and takes the hybrid route, it may be able to achieve success in hybridization. Overtaking in corners, it directly overtakes Toyota, which is currently the most powerful hybrid.
Although the sales of hybrid cars and new energy vehicles were not large in the early stage, they still have a strong influence among the social elite. In the United States, a special sense of moral superiority prevails in elite gathering places like Silicon Valley.
For example, those Internet company bosses have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars and live in mansions worth tens of millions of dollars, but they insist on driving a Toyota Prius worth tens of thousands of dollars. Why? It is because they need this sense of moral superiority.
When they go out in a Prius worth tens of thousands of dollars, they have a strong sense of superiority, "I am protecting the earth." Then they can stand from a high place and look critically at those who drive regular fuel vehicles. Ordinary people in cars, even large-displacement fuel cars.
That’s why the Toyota Prius is so popular among the elite in North America. Almost everyone, including corporate CEOs, executives, university professors, and fund founders, owns a Prius.
In the future, pure electric Tesla and hybrid Volvo may become the new favorites of these elites.
Immediately, Li Mu asked Davidson: "There is something I want to ask you for help. Can you make an appointment for me to talk to Ford executives? I am interested in the Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover they have. If they are interested in taking action, I can consider taking it down.”
After saying that, Li Mu added: "By the way, if you have other automotive resources, please introduce them to me."
Davidson asked in surprise: "You want to buy Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover?"
Li Mu hummed and said, "If the price is right, it's not impossible to buy them all."
Davidson said: "But these three brands are now losing money, and the losses are quite serious. With all due respect, you have no relevant experience in the automotive field, and you do not have a professional team to help you deal with global suppliers and sales. Internet, it is impossible to make a profit in the short term, and it is likely to be a huge loss in the end.”
Li Mu smiled and said: "It doesn't matter, IPO related work will start in a while. Once listed successfully, at least tens of billions of dollars will be raised. Just one-tenth of it will be enough to win over these brands." , As for the loss, it doesn’t matter, just treat it as playing.”
After that, Li Mu added: "Maybe next year I will set up a rally team, and in two years I will set up an F1 team."
Chen Ze dreams of setting up a racing team, but he doesn’t dare to dream of starting an F1 team. Now he is building a group of kart drivers and training every day at the Shunyi racing track. In his plan, he can set up a Formula 3 team in the future. It's already his biggest dream.
As for cultivating a real F1 racing driver for China, this is basically something Chen Ze never dared to dream about. The requirements for Formula One racing drivers are extremely demanding. Most of them have received systematic training since childhood. Ever since I got into a go-kart at the age of 20, I have been burning money, burning money, and burning money all the way up to the age of 20. Not only do I have to have enough money to keep going, I also have to have enough talent, otherwise I will not be able to survive.
To a certain extent, cultivating F1 racing drivers is more difficult than cultivating a first-line player. At least football is not a money-burning sport. If you have enough talent, a football is enough.
There are so many teenagers in Brazil who play football on the dirt streets, and many of them eventually become first-line players or even top players in the world, but I have never heard of anyone who pedaled a front-wheel drive three-wheeler in the slums and turned himself into an F1 racing driver.
Therefore, Li Mu's thoughts are different from Chen Ze's.
Chen Ze wants to train a Chinese F1 driver, and Li Mu even wants to build a Chinese F1 team.
For example, this year I bought Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover, and then went to China to create a new brand. The new brand is very simple. Just integrate the technologies of these three brands together. It doesn’t matter if the domestic team cannot integrate well. Spending a lot of money to recruit the top teams, Germans, Japanese, Swedes, and Italians, isn't it just money? Makino Technology has plenty of money.
Once the new brand is established, just spend money to build a team. Whether it is rally racing, British Touring Car racing, or formula, as long as it can be done with money, do it.
First spend money to buy ready-made chassis and engine suppliers from Formula 3, build a Formula 3 team, then spend money to buy top F1 technology and team talents in Europe, hire overseas drivers, even if the entire team includes drivers It doesn’t matter that the logistics team is all foreigners, because its headquarters is in China, and the team and brand belong to China.
Only in this way can we introduce the true essence of this sport to China and make the Chinese people realize that we have this thing ourselves, and it is in our own homes. This is far better than using the whole country to cultivate one or two talents. It's much better then to send it overseas.
In other words, if there can be a high-level football league in the country, then it is more appropriate to send domestic players to the five major leagues than to put them in the domestic league, because the improvement of the overall environment is always much stronger than the improvement of individuals.
If China really trains an F1 racing driver, but there is no domestic team, the racing driver will have to compete in F1 in other countries’ teams and wearing jerseys from other countries. If the technical strength reaches If he is not absolutely outstanding, he is always lagging behind. His presence is so weak that it is difficult to arouse the real enthusiasm of the domestic people for this sport.
However, if you introduce a team to China, it is equivalent to bringing in a whole system. It doesn't matter if you don't know it yet, you can first spend money to hire foreigners to do it. As long as this system is brought in, one day it will be possible to bring in Chinese drivers. Once Huaxia's engineering team is cultivated, by that time, the entire domestic automobile industry will have improved.
Once the system is in place and the overall strength improves, good drivers will inevitably be discovered and trained one after another.
Davidson was a little confused about Li Mu's interest.
If it's a hobby, then just start a football club. After all, a football club doesn't cost much money, and it doesn't involve any industrial chain, supply chain, or sales chain issues.
There is a big difference between a car and a football club. It may seem like a car brand is very prosperous, but except for the top brands that can make money, the rest are basically miserable.
More than half of the car brands are losing money or making a small profit. It is normal to invest hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in such a company to lose tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year. There are also billion-dollar cars. The net profit of a brand is only a few hundred thousand dollars after a year of hard work. Regardless of the former or the latter, it is a hot potato for the holder, a huge asset that cannot be revived.
Ford is a standard example. During difficult times, several of its brands suffered huge losses. Jaguar could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in a quarter and hundreds of millions a year.
Volvo and Land Rover, on the other hand, have good times and bad times. Bad times mean they lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and good times mean they lose tens of millions a year.
Moreover, the loss of large-scale industries is similar to that of an airplane that has lost power. A weight of hundreds of tons fell from an altitude of tens of thousands of meters. It is not easy to save it.
The production line of any automobile brand cannot occupy a small area. The cost of land, construction and maintenance of factory buildings, equipment maintenance, updates, and depreciation costs are all huge.
To operate a production line, there must be at least thousands of workers, and the labor cost alone is an astronomical sum;
It also requires a high-cost R&D team, management team, and sales team, which are no less expensive than production line workers;
Not only that, if you want to build a car, you have to purchase various parts and components from hundreds of suppliers around the world. The US dollar is like having wings, flying from the factory to all over the world.
Once the huge production line is opened, it is equivalent to throwing bundles of dollars into it all the time. What is thrown in is money, and what is built is a car. The car is shipped to all over the world, and then the money is exchanged and put into the production line. This is a big cycle that spans the world.
But what should I do if the car can’t be sold? Costs have been invested, but the products produced cannot be exchanged for money, or cannot be exchanged for enough money. One month, 100 million U.S. dollars have been continuously invested, and only 50 million U.S. dollars have been returned, except for a pile of inventory cars. This is 50 million U.S. dollars. There is a gap of tens of millions of dollars. If you want to keep the production line running, you can only invest another fifty million dollars in it.
At this time, cars cannot be sold. Whether it is in the hands of manufacturers or dealers, there are more and more cars in stock and increasing financial pressure. In the end, they have no choice but to sell at lower prices, otherwise dealers may not be able to bear it first. Going to withdraw from the network.
As an automobile company with a valuation of more than one billion or even billions of dollars, it is almost helpless to face losses of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. However, the production line cannot be stopped. Once the production line is stopped, dealers and workers will immediately If the birds and beasts disperse, the entire brand will be paralyzed in an instant, and this car company with a valuation of billions or even billions of dollars will immediately become worthless.
At this time, the only way for car companies that cannot survive is to find a large automobile group to sell themselves before the weather is cool. Large automobile groups often feel that they are large, have wide channels, and have relatively strong ability to make money. Qiang, thought he could bring this brand back to life, so he decided to buy it at the bottom.
It's just that Ford was unlucky, and he ended up on the mountainside several times.
However, Davis did not know that Ford had not only copied the bottom halfway up the mountain, but also cut meat at the bottom of the mountain.
Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover were all Ford's "buying the bargains." In the end, they suffered huge losses and had no choice but to sell them at low prices. As a result, others took advantage of the real bargains.
Now, what Li Mu wants to do is to copy Ford's bottom line in advance.
(End of chapter)