Written | Leng Zelin Zhang Jin
Edit the | Wang Pan
Historically, the confluence of the Han River and the Yangtze River formed three important towns, Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang, which were merged in the process of evolution and eventually named "Wuhan". As the Han River goes upstream, passing through Jingmen and Xiangyang, the place surrounded by mountains is Shiyan.
These two places occupy a pivotal position in the development of Hubei's automobile industry, and the Dongfeng system is the protagonist of the whole story.
In 1969, the Second Automobile And Shiyan came together under the policy of "third-line construction", and the talents and funds from the north and south of the world gathered here, making this town deep in the mountains quickly grow into a modern automobile city. However, limited by geographical location and transportation, Dongfeng Motor's development urgently needs to be expanded.
In order to seek change, Dongfeng set up automobile bases in Xiangfan (now Xiangyang) and Wuhan in 1983 and 1992. Among them, the Wuhan base is not operated independently by Dongfeng Motor, but is responsible for the DPCA joint venture between Dongfeng Motor and Citroen Automobile of France, and the Wuhan Economic Development Zone has also been established.
It can be said that the two complement each other and sound the clarion call for the development of Wuhan's passenger car industry. Among the major cities in the national automobile industry in 2016, the output value of Wuhan's automobile industry ranked sixth.
However, the changes of the times will never tell anyone in advance, just as the Byzantine Empire, which once spanned the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, and stood in the Mediterranean for thousands of years, will not be able to defend the "holy city" one day.
There were car companies that produced more than 700,000 vehicles per year to 50,000 vehicles, which took only five years. Wuhan's automobile production also declined after 2017, and the emergence of the epidemic has regressed its production that year to the level of 5 years ago.
Source: Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Statistics
However, there are always two sides to things, the epidemic is both a wound in Wuhan's automobile industry and a catalyst for transformation.
An engineer from a car company in Wuhan told Photon Planet that the development of Wuhan's automobile industry in recent years has been somewhat lifeless, and after the epidemic, with the rapid growth of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the country, the Wuhan automobile industry is also beginning to be revitalized. The most obvious thing is that the engineer began to receive a large number of headhunting calls this year, and job hopping and transformation have become a common topic for car people to get together.
What changes have taken place in Wuhan's auto industry in the past two years? And how to lay out new energy vehicles? To this end, we found a number of auto industry practitioners in Wuhan to talk about the changes that the city is experiencing.
New energy wind up Wuhan
Lu Wei, who has been engaged in research and development in Wuhan OEMs and automotive supply chains, jumped to Lotus in the fall of 2021 and began to enter the field of new energy. Lotus also just arrived in Wuhan this summer.
Since the summer of 2021, Lu Wei has successively received headhunting calls several times more frequently than before, and companies with names in the basic industry have extended an "olive branch" to him.
Among them, what impressed him particularly was that car companies did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to "rob people across provinces".
The penetration rate of new energy continues to rise, and the talents in the automobile industry have also become "fragrant", and Wuhan, a famous automobile city, is the "back garden" for car companies to recruit talents. Weilai and Xiaopeng asked Reed to work in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and BYD invited him to Shenzhen.
Reed explained to photon planet that although the "three electricity" of new energy vehicles has replaced the three major parts of traditional fuel vehicles, new energy vehicle companies still need to poach a large number of talents from traditional car companies, and many engineers who have worked with them have gone to new power enterprises.
Not only is the salary problem, for most people, state-owned enterprises, central enterprises, and traditional car companies are also synonymous with bloated organizations and slow decision-making.
The import and outflow of talents determines the survival of enterprises and the rise and fall of cities.
In fact, as early as 2009, Wuhan had put forward the slogan of building a "new energy capital", which was also one of the first cities to propose the transformation of new energy. As an important car company in Wuhan, Dongfeng also began to launch pure electric buses and hybrid cars in 2011 and 2012 respectively.
However, the problem in Wuhan is that there have never been explosive products or brands in the field of new energy vehicles. For example, Weilai is in Hefei, Xiaopeng is in Guangzhou, and Hongguang MINI EV is in Liuzhou.
At the beginning of 2020, Hefei pulled NIO out of the aquatic heat with a strategic investment of 7 billion yuan, and a year later, NIO's delivery volume climbed one after another, and the Xinqiao Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industrial Park jointly planned and built by Hefei and NIO also officially started.
The optimization of talents, funds, costs, efficiency and the development of the local economy in the Xinqiao Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industrial Park have made Weilai and Hefei form a win-win situation.
In fact, as early as 2016, NIO had announced a strategic cooperation with Hubei to build the Yangtze River NIO Intelligent New Energy Automobile Industrial Park in Wuhan East Lake Development Zone, when the park planned to invest no less than 20-30 billion yuan, including an annual output of 200,000 vehicle projects, research and development and standard testing centers. However, the follow-up action is not large.
In the end, Weilai settled in Hefei, and Wuhan also lost a "catfish" that stirred up the local automobile industry.
But is Wuhan really lagging behind too much?
In the economic development zone in the southwest of Wuhan, there is a 13-kilometer-long Dongfeng Avenue, along which more than 20,000 enterprises are distributed, which is one of the most intensive axes in the world, in addition to vehicle companies and automobile assembly plants, there are more than 500 parts and components enterprises.
The automobile industry is an important pillar of the city and even the country, and it is not possible to establish a complete system in three or five years of development, and the foundation laid by the efforts of Wuhan auto people for decades is the confidence of Wuhan's rise.
Under the background of the development of new energy industries in various places, Wuhan is not willing to become the "pearl" of the times, and is actively attracting investment to revitalize the entire automobile industry.
In the past two years, new brands such as Lotus, Xiaopeng and Weilai have laid out OEMs or supply chain enterprises here. But at the same time, the new forces that have fallen, such as Bo County, Ranger, Sailin, and Byton, are also enterprises that have been pinned on by many cities. Therefore, in addition to "external introduction", "internal excavation" is also one of the strategies of the Wuhan government.
In the summer of 2021, the Wuhan Economic Development Zone shouted out the slogan of "borrowing Dongfeng, Dingjun Mountain, starting a business again", of which Junshan refers to the large and small junshan between the Economic Development Zone and Hannan District, and Dongfeng refers to the Dongfeng Group.
Autobots' autonomous high-end dreams
Just as it made up its mind to move from Shiyan to Wuhan 20 years ago, as the most important automobile enterprise in Wuhan, Dongfeng has already started its own "secondary entrepreneurship", and Lantu is an important part of it. It is not only the need for new energy transformation, but also its breakthrough in high-end sharp edge.
A senior director of Lantu Automobile told Photon Planet that due to the desire of the entire Dongfeng Group to innovate and change and independently high-end, Dongfeng is planning to do such a high-end brand as Lantu in 2018. Two years later, in July, the Lantu brand was released in Wuhan, the base camp of Dongfeng, the product was released in Shenzhen in December of the same year, and the delivery of Lantu was officially opened in August 2021.
Thanks to Dongfeng's more than 50 years of experience in car manufacturing, Landu is one of the few new energy vehicle companies with high parallel R&D efficiency, while simultaneously developing SOA architecture, 800-volt charging, SUVs, MPVs, and cars. Just 3 months after Lando FREE started delivery, Lando released its second car again, the Dreamer.
From decision-making to the first delivery, Lantu only took 3 years, and if it is only one year from the brand release, parallel research and development makes the listing of the second product particularly fast, which is not only difficult for central enterprises and state-owned enterprises to achieve, but also difficult for many private car companies.
In addition to the main engine factory, auto parts companies in the supply chain have also joined the robbery war. The first few, BorgWarner, Valeo, Cummins, etc. all hoped to sit down and chat with Wang Yuan, who once worked for an engine company in Wuhan, but for Wang Yuan, it is obviously more attractive to build an independent high-end brand from scratch than to work in a more mature upstream supply chain enterprise.
Independent high-end has always been the dream of many domestic auto people.
In this round of new energy transformation, Hefei has not only laid the foundation for the automobile industry, but also established the image of a high-end brand. In the past three years, the average selling price of NIO has exceeded 430,000 yuan, which is higher than the average selling price of BMW and Audi.
If Weilai is the benchmark enterprise for the layout of new energy in Hefei, then the benchmark for the layout of new energy in Wuhan falls on Lantu, an independent high-end brand of central enterprises.
Wang Yuan chose Lantu in this round of changes, for Wuhan auto people, compared with the "imported" brand, the impact of Dongfeng's decades of development in Wuhan has been engraved into the bones of many auto people.
Dongfeng Group's attempt at the high-end independent model Fengshen A9 is a exploration of upstream and downstream high-quality resources, which has laid a large number of industrial research and development foundations and brand upward deep shaping for the emergence of Lantu, giving Wuhan auto people continuous confidence in independent high-end.
Before Lantu FREE opened delivery last year, Photon Planet was invited to Wuhan to communicate with Lantu executives, unlike the leaders in the impression, Lu Puti would be ready to appear at the workshop site every day at about 1:30 noon to check the situation of the off-line car. The personal experience of the leader can stimulate the morale of employees.
And Lantu is not only a sub-brand, but also an entrepreneurial company. Lu Fang told us that since the beginning of its establishment, they want to do something innovative, institutional innovation, to stimulate people's vitality and human creativity.
In fact, Lan Tu also successfully broke through himself.
In December 2021, Landu Auto deliveries hit a record high of 3,330 vehicles, nearly three times the previous month's deliveries and eight times as many as four months ago. LanTu has pressed its own acceleration button, to some extent, which is the epitome of the entire Wuhan automobile industry is accelerating.
Among them, in the sales of the first SUV Landu FREE, its statistical average transaction price was 338,600, and only Weilai was the number of car companies that reached or exceeded this price in the new power brands. If WEIlai provides a model for private enterprises, then Lantu provides a feasible route for the exploration of independent high-end brands of traditional car companies and central enterprises.
A senior wuhan auto practitioner shared some views on the local OEMs to Photon Planet, Lotus hopes to one day become "Geely's Porsche", Xiaopeng Motors is in the front of the hard steel Tesla, ZhongxinHang hopes to become the next Ningde era, and Lantu is different, it is in the traditional BBA mouth to grab food.
It is reported that at present, 80% of Lantu's users come from the increase and exchange conversion of luxury car users, of which the original BBA users account for up to 61%.
"SUV is a big cake, Lantu as long as it occupies a certain share is enough, the traditional BBA field in the six or seven seats of the user population is relatively small, but in the car, BMW three series, five series, or X3, Q5 These groups of these people are relatively large, we core grab this part of the population." The above-mentioned senior director of Lantu told the Photon Planet.
In the two years after the epidemic, capital, policies, technology and other factors have continuously promoted the conversion of fuel vehicles to new energy, stirring up this automobile manufacturing industry that has remained unchanged for many years, and the entire Wuhan automobile industry has also pressed the acceleration button.
The determination of central enterprises to change
After the epidemic in 2020, China's new energy vehicles began to break out, and Wang Yuan also saw this trend and chose to take the initiative to change.
According to Wang Yuan's story to the Photon Planet, many engineers who have made traditional fuel vehicles in the past two years have felt the impact of the times. "Many years later, it is the world of electric vehicles, we are all unemployed, and those who do engine research and development are estimated to be unemployed."
The original corporate organizational structure and thinking have been solidified, and it is impossible to transform like a startup. "The engineers around me are more anxious, so everyone is seeking transformation, except for those who can't go, they are basically moving closer to the new energy industry."
Wang Yuan chose to jump to Lantu Automobile, not only because the Dongfeng system is the main backbone of Wuhan's automobile industry, but also because Lantu is different from the previous impression of central enterprises, and there is a top-down entrepreneurial spirit.
Just like in ByteDance, everyone calls each other classmates, in order to eliminate the barrier between superiors and subordinates to achieve flat management, Lantu also has its own unique title - teacher.
With the help of the "teachers" around him, it took a few months for Wang Yuan to master some changes in work skills. For him, who has never wanted to stick to the rules, he can get more of what he wants here.
"You can't use a technology for a lifetime, always have to continue to learn and adapt to the development of this society." From graduation to the present, Wang Yuan is constantly changing, learning, adapting to new jobs, the same set that has remained unchanged for decades before, in this era of drastic changes will eventually be abandoned.
In his opinion, this is a good thing. Electrification accelerates the transformation of the industry, whether for OEMs or practitioners, it is a new opportunity, once seized, it may rewrite the fate.
"Whether it is a traditional car company or a new force, everyone is speeding up the launch of new models, than speed."
In the short term, new models in the new energy market are the main driving force driving delivery growth. The intensification of competition in OEMs has led to a continuous acceleration of upstream suppliers.
"Because of the emergence of new forces, the competition in the entire automotive industry has become more intense, and our project cycle has been continuously compressed." Zhang Fan did engine design in a traditional automobile main engine factory in Wuhan, and the workload in one year was obviously different from the past.
Of course, no matter how to shorten the R & D cycle, there is always an upper limit, in the case of ensuring the speed of product launch, Lantu is also ensuring the investment in research and development.
Based on the original electric architecture of ESSA developed independently and forward, Landu FREE did not choose the "oil to electricity" route of many traditional car companies to save time and money for itself. In fact, in the first round of the BBA's "oil to electricity", consumers voted with their feet, showing a lack of interest in such products.
In addition, considering the user's acceptance of pure electricity, the ESSA architecture can match two power modes at the beginning of the design, so Landu FREE has two versions of extended range and pure electricity. Lantu also became the first car company to adopt a dual-power layout.
Of course, the changes brought about by the new forces are not just the acceleration of the research and development cycle.
Many traditional car companies in the face of new energy transformation, there are some constraints, the most intuitive feeling is not willing to break the original dealer system. The transformation of traditional luxury brands such as BBA still cannot make up its mind to revolutionize the "life" of OEMs and dealers.
Nowadays, the definition of luxury brands is changing, price, interior is no longer the first priority, offline system and after-sales service will be one of the factors of user definition of high-end. After all, spending 500,000 yuan to buy a BBA but not getting the treatment of 300,000 yuan next door, the user's previous concept will inevitably be shaken.
As a traditional car company, Lantu resolutely became the first central enterprise to carry out a direct sales system.
Of course, direct operation is not so easy to do, in the experience of the new forces, a large amount of capital and manpower investment is difficult to exchange for the rapid expansion of the offline system, but for Lantu this is a "difficult but correct" thing to build a high-end brand.
By the end of 2021, Landu Automobile has opened 43 Landu spaces, 96 city exhibition halls, and 20 delivery service centers across the country, covering 24 cities.
Wu Qing, who once worked for an auto supply chain company in Wuhan, told Photon Planet that from his personal experience, "the transformation of traditional car companies to new energy is very painful, after all, it has been lying on the merit book for decades."
In the company, you can see what it looks like after retirement at a glance, and every day is not shocking and unchanged, without any surprises and surprises. Thinking that there would be no chance if he didn't fight anymore, Wu Qing chose to go to Jili halfway, and finally chose to return to his hometown Wuhan, and also plunged into Lantu. He saw Lan Tu's determination and boldness, and felt that he could not miss the opportunity to grow with the company.
Lantu is using its own step-by-step actions to change the public's impression of traditional car companies and central enterprises.
Although they joined Lantu with different backgrounds, Wang Yuan and Wu Qing were surprised by one thing, that is, the company's emphasis on users from top to bottom.
Lei Xin, chief brand officer of Lantu, once directly said, "The purpose of choosing a direct operation model is to connect directly with users. ”
In Lantu, almost all members maintain users in the group and on the App, paying attention to the user's use experience at any time, and many middle and senior executives often call users to ask about their feelings after picking up the car, in order to improve the product.
The above-mentioned director of Lantu told Photon Planet that jiang Tao, coo of the company, will also contact users one by one, which is a very rare thing, and it is even more difficult for organizations born from central enterprises.
It's not as simple as it seems when executives call users, and many people may think that it's more like doing superficial work.
In this regard, Jiang Tao once told colleagues internally that asking executives to call is not to let them really do customer service, and it is not users who need to be educated in this round, but executives. Only after the individual leaders have really experienced the pain can they realize what a user-oriented enterprise really is.
In addition, Lantu has made no small effort to change the organization, "Lantu is a company that operates independently to do comprehensive marketization, Dongfeng only plays a coaching role, even if some managers come from Dongfeng Group, they will also resign from the positions of the original unit." ”
All this time, Lantu is striving to be a real user-oriented enterprise.
Last year, a Chongqing user encountered the problem of stepping on the brakes when going downhill for a long distance, and the vehicle had a sense of forward channeling, which did not affect the safety, but brought a bad driving experience, so the user reacted to this problem to Lantu.
At this time, the results of Lantu's organizational reform and ideological reform were reflected, and the engineers responded quickly after receiving the task after work, immediately flew to Chongqing, from 12:00 a.m. to more than 3:00 a.m., constantly restored the user's car scene, repeatedly restored, tested, and after solving the problem, they also ate supper with the user.
On the second day of the spin, several engineers were still excited, and they did not bother to sort out the data, submit an analysis report, and then went to the airport with the satisfaction that the problem was solved. When I boarded the plane back to Wuhan, it was already twelve o'clock in the afternoon.
epilogue
The Wuhan auto companies that are accelerating include not only Lantu, but also OEMs such as Lotus and Xiaopeng Automobile, as well as supply chain enterprises such as Zhongxin Airlines.
According to photon planet, Lotus has begun to recruit a large number of people in Wuhan since the fourth quarter of 2021, and the current Wuhan office has rented a floor to resettle finance, sales, accounting and other positions, and some personnel have been placed from Wuhan to the Ningbo headquarters, waiting for the wuhan building to be built before returning to Han to work.
Not only are the OEMs and supply chains themselves accelerating, but the Wuhan Municipal Government is also accelerating the iteration of the automotive industry.
On December 14, 2021, the first session of the 10th People's Congress of Hannan District of Wuhan City opened, and the "second entrepreneurship" was pressed and the "fast forward button" was started. In the next five years, Wuhan Economic Development Zone will focus on the central goal of "China Car Valley", "borrow the East Wind, Dingjun Mountain, and start again for the second time", and make every effort to build a trillion-level car valley industry innovation corridor.
For example, in order to make the new energy projects effective as soon as possible, the Wuhan Economic Development Zone has joined hands with multiple departments to optimize the business environment and provide enterprises with "shop small two" type personal services to help the project advance rapidly.
Among them, the new energy battery enterprise Zhongxinhang landed in Wuhan, and the project took only 2 months from signing the contract to starting construction. On the other hand, at the beginning of the year, Lei Jun just appealed at the spring press conference to say his "car-making dream", and the Wuhan Economic Development Zone announced that it had begun to take the initiative to dock millet.
Under the mighty wave of new energy, Wuhan, from the competent authorities to the main engine factories or suppliers, is breaking its own inherent mechanism to seek change.
This generation of Wuhan Auto people has greater ambitions and faster actions.