Davidson couldn't understand why Li Mu was so interested in cars, but he knew very well about Li Mu's financial resources that it was no problem for Makino Technology to acquire several poorly managed car brands.
He only thought that this was an expensive hobby for Li Mu as a rich man. Even if he lost money, it would not have a huge impact on Li Mu, so he did not persuade him any more and immediately agreed to him, willing to help him connect with Ford and help Li Mu. Facilitating an interview with Ford.
Although he hasn't even met anyone from Ford yet, a majestic blueprint for the automobile industry has already emerged in Li Mu's mind.
Li Mu even thought of the name of the automobile industry group. The full name is Muye Motor Group, and its English name is Muye Motor Group.
Since it is an automobile group, it cannot be put into the structure of Makino Technology. Makino Technology invests, the shareholding ratio of existing shareholders is shifted, and then it is registered as a new group.
In the future, Makino Automobile Group will have at least five sub-brands, one is Tesla, which has already been acquired, and Ford has these three sub-brands that are profitable when purchased. By then, it will build a "Makino" brand in the country. "Automobile" brand, the strategic deployment of the five brands is completed.
By then, Tesla will be responsible for the R&D and manufacturing of pure electric vehicles, as well as the R&D and training of electric drive-related technologies, and will be responsible for exporting electric drive-related technologies to other sub-brands to help other brands develop hybrid models and even future pure electric vehicles. electric car type;
The other four sub-brands, Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover, in addition to being responsible for the production and research and development of their own product lines, are also responsible for exporting the body technology required by Tesla to Tesla, helping Tesla develop more pure electric models, and even help Tesla produces all-electric vehicles;
As for Makino Motors, in the future, it will be mainly responsible for digesting the technologies of the other four sub-brands and fully developing itself. It will first become a well-known domestic brand and occupy a sufficient market share among domestically produced cars, and then consider entering overseas markets.
In terms of the overall structure setting, the five sub-brands are all classified into the "automobile R&D and production" section. In addition, Li Mu is also preparing to invest in an "automobile sales" section, which is not only the construction and development of automobile sales networks. Maintenance requires the establishment of a direct sales network, or even an online sales network.
Although each sub-brand will have its own R&D department, Li Mu is still planning to invest in building a group-type R&D center to integrate the technologies of all brands and also conduct research and development of higher adaptability technologies, such as human Computer interaction, Internet of Vehicles and other important technical fields in the future automotive industry.
If such a scale structure is followed, the amount of funds required by the entire Makino Auto Group may exceed US$50 billion or even higher.
Fortunately, there are still banks and investment banks around. Before the financial crisis, Li Mu still has three or four years to obtain huge amounts of funds from banks and venture capital investors around the world.
The automobile manufacturing industry is not an industry with a long profit cycle. If it is operated properly, it is not difficult to make profits.
Porsche can make a lot of money with just one Cayenne, Land Rover has made a lot of money with two models, Range Rover and Evoque, and even Geely can make more than a billion dollars in profits a year. Li Mu has the experience of later generations. With strong capital and publicity capabilities, he has no worries about the future profitability of Makino Automobile Group.
After communicating with Davidson, Li Mu immediately called Elon Musk.
Li Mu told Elon Musk about his idea of acquiring Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo. Even Elon Musk couldn't understand why Li Mu wanted to acquire so many car brands at once.
However, he knew Li Mu better than Davidson Goldberg. He knew that Li Mu would never do something with great fanfare just for his hobby, especially if it required a lot of money. This time he wanted to win three Ford sub-brands in one go. I believe that Li Mu must have complete plans and plans.
Moreover, he also knew that Li Mu's call to him was definitely not just to tell him the news, so he immediately asked: "Mr. Li, do you need my cooperation to do anything?"
Li Mu said: "I want you to help me form an elite team in the automotive and financial fields in the United States. When the time comes to negotiate with Ford, I need a mature team to participate."
Elon Musk said: "Tesla has some automotive talents, and it should be enough to add a few more in finance, right?"
Li Mu said: "Try not to affect Tesla's own work progress as much as possible. This team is not only responsible for negotiating with Ford, but also responsible for the assessment of assets, including related intellectual property assessments. When the negotiations are completed, I hope this team can Directly become the core management team of the group and help me complete the reorganization and optimization of the entire group."
Elon Musk exclaimed and said: "Mr. Li, are you planning to form an automobile group?"
"That's right." Li Mu said with a smile: "I want to form an automobile group like Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford and Toyota, and it will be a super large passenger car group spanning fuel power, hybrid power and new energy power!"
Elon Musk was shocked by Li Mu's ambition. Li Mu may be the only Internet person who can invest so crazily in the real industry, especially traditional manufacturing.
Throughout Silicon Valley, and even Internet companies around the world, there is a unique ethos. All people working on the Internet feel that they are engaged in high-tech industries, so they are very dismissive of traditional industries and even have strong discrimination.
They have labeled themselves as high-tech talents in their bones, so no matter what they do, they like to move closer to the concept of high-tech. Therefore, no one is too lazy to do anything that has nothing to do with high-tech.
Once an Internet person goes into a traditional industry, there is no doubt that he will transplant high-tech concepts into the traditional industry. He will definitely want to subvert the traditional industry. If he just uses the traditional method to do the traditional industry, he will definitely not would be interested.
This is like why Elon Musk would build Tesla instead of buying a brand owned by Ford or General Motors.
What Elon Musk wants is not to enter the traditional automobile industry, but to subvert the traditional automobile industry, so he invested in the new energy automobile industry such as Tesla.
For someone like Elon Musk, if he were asked to start a traditional car brand, he would feel that it was a slap in the face.
Even in the aerospace industry, this guy has to incorporate new concepts.
Therefore, Elon Musk cannot imagine why Li Mu would engage in traditional cars with such great fanfare and buy three traditional car brands at once.
Moreover, he is not optimistic about the future of the traditional car manufacturing industry. At this stage, many established car companies cannot survive, and new car brands are even unheard of.
So Elon Musk advised Li Mu: "Mr. Li, I have been in contact with some professionals on Wall Street, and they told me that the automobile manufacturing industry will not do well in the next few years. On the one hand, the global economic situation is not optimistic. On the other hand, the profit margins of traditional car companies will gradually decline."
As he spoke, he added: "General Motors Group and Ford Motor Group are the two largest groups in the U.S. automobile manufacturing industry. However, the annual financial reports of these two groups show that both companies are close to the loss line. Fiat last year With a loss of more than one billion US dollars, the main profits of the traditional automobile industry have now been taken away by several Japanese and German automobile companies, and other brands basically have no competitiveness in front of them."
Li Mu hummed and said, "In terms of profit, Toyota should do the best, right?"
"That's right." Elon Musk said: "The Japanese are more economical and do a very good job in cost control. What's even more powerful is that their products are highly competitive. In the North American market, Japanese cars account for the largest share of ordinary family cars. "
Having said this, Elon Musk said: "If I remember correctly, Toyota's profit in 2003 should be around 10 billion US dollars."
Li Mu asked him: "Who do you think Toyota's biggest rival is?"
Elon Musk thought for a while and said: "I don't think Toyota has any rivals."
Li Mu asked: "Why do you say that?"
Elon Musk said: "When I was preparing to start Tesla, I studied the general situation of global automobile companies. In my opinion, Toyota is the one with the strongest foundation, and its product line is really too broad. , basically covering all passenger models, and each type has very competitive products, family cars, luxury cars, SUVs, pickups, MPVs, any type of car you can think of, they have at least It’s a best-seller, and their Prius is considered an epoch-making product, so powerful that strictly speaking, the public is no match for it.”
Li Mu said with a smile: "I think Toyota's biggest rival in the future may be Makino Automobile Group."
Elon Musk was ashamed and said: "Mr. Li, it is really not easy to overtake the automobile industry. Even a new concept of new energy vehicles like Tesla can only be said to have subverted the traditional industry in concept, but From an industrial point of view, it is far from possible.”
Li Mu said with a smile: "In my opinion, the automobile industry is about making a single hot model. If you make one hot model, you can become a small car brand; if you make two hot models, you can become a medium-sized car brand; if you make three hot models, you can become a medium-sized car brand." Hot models are major car brands. If we can make five hot models, we can become a first-class corporate brand. In the future, as long as we can continue to create hot models, catching up with Toyota will not be a pipe dream."
Toyota does have many popular models, such as the Corolla, Camry, and Rav4. These three are all popular models that can enter the top 10 in global sales. In addition, Toyota also has the Highlander, Prado, Land Cruiser, Crown, and Escape. Alfa and Lexus, most of the models are sold in China at increased prices all year round, especially Alfa. If you call the dealer and ask if you can pick up the car for an additional price of 300,000, the dealer will tell you, sorry, there is not such a big discount.
Li Mu has a car aesthetic that is more than ten years ahead of the world. He has the advantage of killing the entire market in terms of current car exteriors and interiors. Relying on this, he can cut down on many popular models.
Is Kumamon a hit? What now? It belongs to Li Mu.
Then why can't I cut off the Corolla, Camry, Rav4, and even Honda CRV, Volkswagen Golf and other popular models in the future
(End of chapter)