Great Counteroffensive! The most suspenseful battle between the old and the new in the history of industry is in full swing

　　The new king ascends the throne, and the old king fights back.

　　Wen 丨 Hua Shang Tao Li Zhang Xiangxue

　　At the 2021 Shanghai International Auto Show, Bentley, one of the last bastions of the belief in "large-displacement engines", released a new Bentayga plug-in hybrid model at the Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Center, and hit the weChat circle of friends.

　　Behind it, the world's traditional cars are frantically fighting back in the new battlefield of new energy.

　　[Crazy masses, "open the knife" to themselves]

　　The first shot of the "counterattack" was fired by the Volkswagen Group, and it was "crazy" to the point of scraping its own bones to cure poison.

　　September 23, 2015, the darkest day in Volkswagen's history, plunged Volkswagen into an unprecedented crisis around the world because of an emissions fraud scandal.

　　Until now, the lawsuit related to the scandal has not been completely completed, and Volkswagen has paid more than 30 billion euros for it.

　　But it was a turning point in Volkswagen's fortunes.

　　Subsequently, then-Volkswagen CEO Martin Wendern resigned, and Volkswagen soon announced a huge plan called "2025", in which electric vehicles will play a key role.

　　Six years later, in October 2021, up to 200 Volkswagen Group executives appeared at a training site in Austria to attend a training organized by CEO Herbert Diess.

　　Executives are no strangers to the theme of the conference — who is the enemy in this day and age?

　　In the end, the "enemy" was located in Tesla, as well as the "new car-making forces" from China.

　　"We're selling [our car] too expensive." Diess said Volkswagen's productivity is too low and it is not competitive in the market.

　　For executives, it's a euphemistic but stern warning — Herbert Dies is a man who "never gives a chance to make mistakes, and he doesn't waste even a minute for that.

　　He didn't criticize anything specifically, but he certainly couldn't get around the embarrassment of a software glitch.

　　At the end of 2019, Volkswagen's first electric model ID.3 had a "major software problem", resulting in inventory cars placed in the factory having to be solved by "manual repair" one by one.

　　Since the concept of smart cars emerged, it has been a consensus that new versions and new features will be pushed every once in a while like smartphones, and the manual repair method adopted by volkswagens has suddenly returned to the Stone Age.

　　For Volkswagen's electrification, this is a tortuous start.

　　So there was this training session in Austria.

　　But no one expected that their enemy, Tesla boss Elon Musk, would appear at the meeting as a "mysterious guest" in the form of a video link.

　　This crazy move is unheard of in the entire automotive world.

　　But Dees disagreed.

　　Through this unusual training, he reminded his executives once again that electrification is urgent and that tesla needs to be learned.

　　However, he is not presumptuous, "the Volkswagen Group already has all the factors to deal with the challenge, including the right strategy, capabilities and team".

　　For now, the strategy of stealing from the opponent has worked.

　　In 2021, Volkswagen (China) sold more than 119,000 new energy vehicles, an increase of 128% year-on-year, of which the pure electric ID. brand contributed about 70,000 units.

　　In the global market, volkswagen group sales of electric vehicles also exceeded 450,000 units, an increase of 96% year-on-year, and the proportion of sales increased from 2.5% in 2020 to 5.1%.

　　In the NEW AUTO plan announced by Volkswagen in 2021, the investment in 2021-2025 alone will reach 73 billion euros, and the main direction is electrification.

　　It seems that after a nightmarish emissions scandal, Volkswagen has taken its first steps in electrification.

　　Another "crazy" in electrification is Toyota, and it is so "crazy" that even the boss reneges on his word.

　　【Akio Toyoda: Reneging on his promise to engage in electric vehicles】

　　On December 14, 2021, Toyota Motor's head, Akio Toyoda, held a strategy briefing on electrified products that achieve carbon neutrality at the Mega Web Toyota Theme Park in Tokyo, revealing the intention of all in pure electric vehicles.

　　With open arms, he announced a huge electric vehicle plan – 30 electric vehicles by 2030 and 3.5 million electric vehicles sold annually.

　　But just a year ago, he was unhappy with electric cars.

　　The Japanese government plans to "ban" the sale of fuel vehicles in 2035 to solve environmental protection problems, when Akio Toyoda publicly said that electric vehicles were over-hyped.

　　His reasons include that if all of Japan's cars are replaced with electric, there will be a "power shortage" in the summer, and that infrastructure investments in the transition to electric vehicles can reach up to 37 trillion yen (about 2.3 trillion yuan).

　　He said bluntly that banning the sale of fuel vehicles will cause the business model of the automotive industry to collapse, and many companies will die.

　　As for Tesla, he sees it as just a "restaurant that is still promoting novel recipes," while Toyota is a "mature restaurant with a large number of customers."

　　Because of these views, Akio Toyoda was labeled as opposed to electrification, and some even thought that Toyota would become the second Nokia under his leadership.

　　But now, as the fourth generation of the Toyota family, he has rarely "reneged on his word".

　　His reasoning was that he was not interested in the former Toyota electric vehicles, but he was interested in the future electric vehicles.

　　One thing that may be overlooked is that Toyota was one of the first car companies in the world to explore electric vehicles.

　　As early as the early 1980s, Toyota had engaged in electric vehicles, and also launched models including EV10, EV20, AND EV30, but then Toyota abandoned this technical route, taking hydrogen energy as the ultimate solution to the environmental protection problems of the automotive industry, and using hybrid technology as a transition solution.

　　Since the first launch of the hybrid Prius in 1997, Toyota has sold more than 17 million hybrids worldwide, validating the business model.

　　In view of these accumulations, Toyota turned to pure electric water.

　　In 2020-2021, Toyota has suppressed its old rival Volkswagen Group for two consecutive years to become the world's largest-selling car company – and now as Toyota begins to embrace electric vehicles, this two-power competition is expected to continue on the new track.

　　In order to maintain its leading position, Toyota continues to deeply bind to the Chinese market. In 2021, Toyota sold more than 1.94 million new vehicles in China, another record high and a year-on-year increase for nine consecutive years.

　　Among them, the sales volume of hybrid models reached 475,000 units, an increase of 50% year-on-year.

　　It is worth mentioning that this is still the performance of Akio Toyoda before he did not "go crazy".

　　This means that the shift to pure electric in the world's largest automotive market is indeed, as Akio Toyoda puts it, a matter of "interest", not a question of strength.

　　But not all car companies have this strength.

　　For GM, which was once bankrupt, what needs to be counted on cannot only be "technical reserves", but also accurate judgment of the trend.

　　【General Motors, kill and not be a negative teaching material】

　　In 2013, GM was shocked when the $69,900 Tesla Model S surpassed the $39,100-priced Volta (one of GM's electric vehicles).

　　In response, GM immediately decided to set up a panel to study Tesla, lest it be overtaken by the latter at some point in the future and become a "negative teaching material in automobile history."

　　This is the first time that a major traditional car manufacturer has seen Tesla as a real threat.

　　It was a crazy move, and Tesla was still mired in losses at the time.

　　Under then-CEO Dan Akerson, research on Tesla reflected the biggest change in GM's corporate culture, which was to no longer be as complacent as ever — the bankruptcy experience of the 2008 financial crisis that destroyed all of GM's decency.

　　Axon said that in the future, the automotive industry will be more high-tech. "If you don't respond to new trends in a timely manner, other companies will take the lead."

　　In early 2015, GM released the Chevrolet Bolt concept car, which has a range of more than 200 miles (about 320 kilometers), but is priced at only $30,000.

　　The car was deemed enough to beat Tesla, and GM was ecstatic.

　　Because that means GM, as a clumsy elephant, is about to defeat Tesla, known for its innovation and flexibility.

　　Pam Fletcher, a principal engineer, said, "Nobody wants to be second [in the race for electric cars]. ”

　　GM did not become second, but it did not become number one.

　　In 2017, Tesla's market value first surpassed Ford Motor, and then easily surpassed General Motors to become the largest car company in the United States by market capitalization.

　　GM's pain is well known — as a century-old store with tens of millions of annual sales, it lost to Tesla, which sold less than 100,000 units a year at the time and was financially shaky.

　　In the middle of the rounds, GM played its most hated role.

　　Tesla, on the other hand, has become a "revolutionary" against traditional cars, and has also inspired a large number of "new car-making forces".

　　But there is also luck in the unfortunate, and GM has not lost because of the loss of market value.

　　The most valuable part of Axon's legacy is the early start of a real emphasis on electric cars, including learning from Tesla.

　　In 2014, GM welcomed a strong female CEO, Mary Barra. The female leader who succeeded Axon at the helm of the GM empire had already led GM's electrification strategy before taking office, driving the development of bolt electric vehicles.

　　In 2016, under the leadership of Mary Bora, GM spent $1 billion to acquire Cruise Automation, a driverless technology startup, which is considered to be GM's most successful acquisition of intelligent networking to date.

　　After receiving a round of investment joined by Microsoft and Honda at the beginning of last year, Cruise's latest valuation was as high as $30 billion.

　　In Marie Bora's view, GM already has all the core competencies related to electrification — in addition to self-driving subsidiary Cruise, it also includes the new electric vehicle platform architecture Ultium.

　　This gave her enough confidence to fight back against Tesla.

　　At an investor briefing late October last year, Mary Bora said GM would "absolutely" catch up with Tesla in 2025.

　　At the end of the year, she also said that GM's revenue will double in 2030 and become a leader in electric vehicles. "GM will not give up its leadership to anyone."

　　As someone who rewrote the GM development script, she qualifies to say so.

　　[Counterattack, not just from Detroit]

　　Another traditional car giant, Ford, is also launching a counterattack against Tesla.

　　Since 2017, Darren Palmer has been in charge of Ford's electric vehicle business.

　　In an interview, he spoke about an electric version of Ford's Mustang, saying the new car "has tightly sewn doors, matched colors, bumpers don't fall off, and sunroofs don't fall off."

　　His ridicule is believed to be related to the meme that the Tesla skylight was "blown away" by the wind.

　　Another widely circulated story is that Tesla once used electrical tape to deal with some vehicle defects in the famous "tent factory".

　　Palmer says this because he believes that quality is Ford's advantage, but Tesla's shortcoming.

　　This represents the prevailing view of most traditional car companies — that while Tesla and its followers have repeatedly dominated automotive headlines over the past decade, they are not invincible.

　　The accumulation of more than 100 years of history in the automotive industry has not become useless with the emergence of Tesla.

　　For another way of saying that the success of the "subversive" Tesla has become a nightmare for traditional automakers, meaning the death of "Nokia-esque" – these traditional car giants also scoffed.

　　Because with the "awakening" of traditional car companies such as Volkswagen, Toyota, and GM in the electric vehicle track, Tesla is no longer the only key player.

　　It also changed the stereotype that Silicon Valley has always played a role in changing the world, and now these traditional car companies are doing the same thing.

　　Simply put, these car companies refuse to live in a world dominated by Tesla.

　　The same thing is happening in China, the world's largest auto market.

　　Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, publicly stated as early as 2013 that "Tesla can be built in minutes" — which was considered a joke at the time.

　　But now that people know, he doesn't have a word to joke about — BYD is a rare Chinese new energy vehicle brand where users need to queue up to pick up a car.

　　In 2021, BYD's new energy vehicle sales will be close to 600,000 units, a year-on-year surge of 231.6%. Compared with the more than 480,000 vehicles that Tesla delivered in China in 2021, the gap is not small.

　　In the first camp of central automobile enterprises, FAW, the "eldest son of the Republic of Automobile", is accelerating the promotion of electrification, and Dongfeng and Changan have also established high-end electric vehicle brands Lantu and Avita respectively.

　　Saic, GAC and BAIC, three local state-owned enterprises, have also launched electric vehicle brands, namely Zhiji, E-An and Jihu, of which Aeon's annual sales have exceeded 130,000 vehicles.

　　The showdown between these companies and the "new car-making forces" led by Tesla has just begun.

　　Both overseas traditional car companies and domestic traditional car companies no longer regard Tesla as a clumsy joke, but bet on electric vehicles with a stronger sense of urgency – so that they can continue to stay on the table.

　　Just like a clumsy giant plane, after completing the attitude correction, there is still enough opportunity to fly in front of it.

　　Back a few years ago, GM CEO Mary Bora made a prediction on the cover of Wired magazine that Detroit would fight back.

　　It's not just Detroit, but players labeled "traditional car companies" are fighting back.

　　【References】

　　[1] Reliable News! GM is seeing Tesla as a real threat to Yuetong Tencent Technology

　　[2] GM Defeats Tesla, Yang Xueyi, World Science

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