As the plan to colonize Mars continues to ferment, more and more wealthy people in the world are becoming interested in this project.
Li Mu then asked people to build a website, which was only open to users with personal assets of more than 100 million US dollars.
Once you are interested in participating in this project, you can register for a website account and get more details about the plan to colonize Mars.
At the same time, Li Mu also fulfilled his promise and invested US$500 million in SpaceX for further research on recyclable launch vehicles.
Because he knew that this was an extremely long project, Li Mu stopped paying attention to the company after finishing the publicity and investing funds.
Right now, he has a more important thing, which is the overall relocation of Volvo.
China's infrastructure construction speed is world-famous. On the land granted to Makino Automobile Group by Yanjing City, the construction of factories, office buildings and dormitories for the first phase of the project has already started.
The first thing to be completed was the factory building. The factory buildings here are being built one after another. Volvo's team in Sweden has also begun to dismantle part of the production line and transport it to China.
When the first batch of production lines arrived at Tianjin Port, hundreds of container trucks were used to transport them back and forth.
At the same time, installation technicians and engineers from Volvo, production equipment manufacturers and domestic outsourcing teams also gathered in Yanjing to start assembling Volvo's first production line in China.
Volvo has several production lines, each of which basically corresponds to a different platform. What Li Mu wants first is the P24 platform, which mainly produces XC series SUVs.
However, Li Mu is not ready to leave this production line to Volvo.
His idea is to take this production line over and use it directly for Makino Motors' own brand, and then use it to produce Makino Motors' first independent SUV, Makino Aurora.
Naturally, he was unwilling to let go of the Aurora, a popular model of the year.
He planned to describe it himself and work with the designer's drawings to first figure out the shape of the Evoque, and then put the Evoque's shell on the chassis of the Volvo XC60.
To put it bluntly, it is an XC60 wrapped in an Aurora shell and wearing the Makino Motors logo.
Of course, there is another problem. The XC60 is considered a mid-to-high-end mid-level SUV with a market price ranging from 400,000 to 600,000. If it is sold in China, it will definitely only serve a niche group.
Before the rise of Harvard, the best-selling SUVs in China were actually Honda's CRV and Hyundai's Tucson, joint venture SUVs in the 200,000-300,000 range.
Therefore, it is necessary to make certain reductions on the basis of XC60 to reduce costs and terminal selling prices.
For example, the engine should not be a high-power one. The 2.0-liter naturally aspirated engine is the main power configuration and is specially designed for volume; the 2.0T and 2.5 naturally aspirated engines are high-end power configurations and are used for luxury models;
Moreover, the gearbox should not be too high-end. Ordinary automatic gearboxes are mainly 4-speed, and high-end models are 5-speed;
As for the four-wheel drive system, it is not available in mid-range and low-end models, but only in high-end models.
This means that the overall configuration is reduced based on the XC60, and finally a set of models can span the range of 200,000-400,000;
The appearance of the Evoque can be said to be everlasting, so once the Evoque is finalized, make an enlarged version based on it, and then upgrade all the configurations, and that will be the sports version of the Range Rover.
When the production line was being assembled, Chen Ze, who has always liked racing, and Elon Musk, who was working on Tesla, both came to the scene to observe.
Elon Musk is also now preparing to build Tesla's own new production line in Yanjing. For him, it is natural for him to cling to Li Mu's lap in the future, and Tesla and Makino Automobile Group will advance and retreat together.
The assembly of the production line is a complicated and tedious process, but because of men's natural love for industrial products, Li Mu goes to the site almost every day to stare at it and enjoys it.
At the same time, Volvo's car design team has also arrived in Yanjing and started officially working in Yanjing.
In the first week after they arrived, Li Mu took them with him and prepared them to make the design drawings and renderings of the Aurora model.
Li Mu doesn't understand car design, but he knows what the Evoque looks like, what its overall shape is, and what it looks like front, back, and side.
Describe all these to the designer, let the designer make a sketch first, and then polish it bit by bit according to his requirements.
At first, this group of car designers from Sweden and other European countries scorned Li Mu's request.
They think that as the boss of the company, you should focus on doing what the boss has to do well. Why should you compete with us for jobs or even direct our specific work
But what they didn't know was that although Li Mu didn't understand car design, he had a lot of good things in his mind.
Evoque is just one of them, and there are many other classic models, ranging from Focus to Rolls-Royce. He knows exactly what each popular model looks like in his mind.
The head of Volvo's car design team, the Swedish Alexander Vikander, was very dissatisfied with Li Mu's request. He even proposed on the spot that if Li Mu insisted on interfering with the design team's creative work, he would be the first to resign to Li Mu.
Li Mu said directly: "I will not approve your resignation. Don't forget that I signed a labor contract with you with double the salary, and you also signed with me double the liquidated damages. If you let me go at this time, then Just take out the liquidated damages, and because you have worked for me for less than three years, you will also be subject to a three-year non-compete restriction in this industry. In the next three years, you are not allowed to engage in automobile-related industries."
The other party just wanted to frighten Li Mu and make him self-aware and not to interfere in the work of the design team, but unexpectedly, this guy actually moved out of the breach of contract clause with him.
It is true that these Europeans who originally worked in Sweden were very resistant to coming to work so far away from home. They came because of the excellent salary and benefits.
If they do not come to China, they will face being dismissed on the spot in Sweden. After being dismissed, they will have to find new jobs.
First of all, there are no ordinary passenger car companies in Sweden anymore. If they want to find a job, they must leave Sweden and develop in the four countries of Britain, France, Germany and Italy. However, the car design level of these four countries is actually lower than that of Sweden. superior.
Swedish-designed models are very average in terms of appearance design, with nothing particularly outstanding. Most of Volvo’s models will make you think, “Oh, they’re pretty solid,” but there are very few models that can make people’s eyes shine. I think it looks so damn good if I go.
On the contrary, German and Italian classic designs appear frequently.
BMW's main models are basically very good-looking. The later X6 even led the design trend of fastbacks. Not only did domestic manufacturers imitate it, but even several subsequent SUV coupe models of Mercedes-Benz also had shadows of the BMW X6;
Mercedes-Benz's new C, E, S and GLA, GLC, GLE and GLS series are almost all good designs both internally and externally. They are infinitely better than Volvo, and the interior design is even better.
In fact, Audi is also very good in styling design. Most of the A series and Q series are long-lasting classic models, but this guy drove low and went high and went low. In the intervening years, it really blossomed, with A4, A6, Q5, The Q7 was every bit as beautiful as every other, but 10 years later, it became uglier and more awkward. The Q7 used to be a very domineering large SUV, but then it became more and more ugly as it changed, and in the end it was basically reduced to nothing. The point where people buy it.
Not to mention Italy, there are a lot of classic supercar brands, and the appearance of any car is a classic of automotive industry design.
Even though France has produced a series of weird models, it has to be said that their cars are generally pretty good-looking.
Only Volvo has nothing to do with good looks.
Especially for Volvo these days, the styling is simply hard to describe.
Therefore, based on the level of Alexander Vikander and his team, if he hadn't been confused about where to recruit the design team for a while, he would have killed them all.
Based on Li Mu's understanding of the aesthetics of later generations of vehicles, the overall level of this team is no better than the team that designed the Geely Beauty Leopard.
Alexander Vikander was shocked by his ruthless and business-like attitude. He finally came to China. He didn't want to make no money, pay a lot of liquidated damages, and carry a three-year non-compete agreement. go back.
So he could only put away his previous arrogance, immediately changed his face, and said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, if you have any personal ideas that you want to realize, please tell us, and we will help you present it perfectly."
Li Mu didn't look good at his concession and kneeling down, and said coldly: "If you can present 80% of what I have in mind, I will consider you successful."
Alexander Vikander was furious, you are really insulting, what's wrong? I have been designing cars for so many years, but I can’t compare to you? Don’t you just drive a Mercedes-Benz G Series? That car looks like a large cardboard box. I chose this car because I knew your aesthetic taste in cars was limited to that.
However, the God of Wealth did not dare to offend anyone, so he could only say: "Mr. Li, you are right. Compared with you, we are still far behind."
After saying that, he also waited to see Li Mu's joke and said, "Mr. Li, tell us what kind of car model you want to design."
Li Mu nodded and said, "First of all, I want to make it clear to you that this is an SUV. As for its shape, it should be... "
Li Mu roughly described an outline. After listening to Alexander Vikander, he felt that it was really a mess.
Today's car design language is mostly a combination of three-dimensional lines and rounded arcs, but the SUV Li Mu wants to build is actually a fastback SUV with a large nose and a short body with sharp edges...
Who has ever seen a car with a sloping shape that is high in the front and low in the back when viewed from the side? I feel like vomiting when I take out this line, okay
He tried to make suggestions to Li Mu and said, "Mr. Li, I think your car's sketch should raise the butt a little higher, raise the whole car a little higher, lower the hood a little higher, and then add some rounded... The arcs are connected and neutralized to make the car look better.”
After hearing this, Li Mu really wanted to scold him. Didn't you design another old model XC90 for me? Where are you fooling two idiots
(End of chapter)