On February 10, the National Academy of Engineering announced the list of new academicians, including Tesla founder Musk. But in fact, in the eyes of Volkswagen, many of the behaviors of Musk and Tesla Motors are confusing. For example, Musk did not set up a public relations department for Tesla, not even normal media advertising; he always used all kinds of news about the construction of car factories to win people's attention; he was very keen to add some high-tech configuration to the car to make Tesla look different...
However, these practices are not Musk's original creation, but intentionally or unintentionally imitate an early figure in the auto industry, who is william Durant, the founder of General Motors. It can be said that many of William Durant's practices in the process of founding General Motors are the same as Musk's behavior, except that he did these things more than a hundred years earlier than Musk.
Written by | Fan Miyan is the director of the "Memes Radio Wave" column
Responsible for the | Shi Yang
The "king of the car" Henry Ford famously said. "If you ask users what they want, they'll just ask for a faster carriage, not a car," Ford said.
But what Ford doesn't tell you is that the Ford Model T he was proud of was defeated by a car brand founded by a carriage dealer.
Today's story begins with the horse dealer who defeated Ford. This carriage merchant once established the largest carriage company in the United States, and he took the lead in adopting vertical integration, assembly line production and dealer system in the carriage industry, and was known as the "king of carriages". And when the automobile era came, the carriage merchant founded the largest automobile company in the United States. And it was this company that later beat Ford's Model T in the market.
The coachman was william Durant, and the company he founded was GM.
William Durant and General Motors
In China, Durant is not as well-known as Ford or Edison, but his impact on the auto industry can be said to be earth-shaking.
After 1900, Durant founded the Buick and Chevrolet brands and established General Motors, the largest American automaker of the 20th century. He spanned both the automobile and the horse-drawn carriage era, and the major American car brands were almost all related to him: Cadillac was once in his pocket, Chrysler used to work for him, and he single-handedly reshaped the American carriage industry, and he single-handedly reshaped the American automobile industry.
Today, what Tesla founder Musk has done, in fact, has a lot of Durant's shadow. Musk's seemingly absurd practices were actually played by Durant a hundred years ago. It can be said that Musk is in many ways imitating William Durant consciously or unconsciously.
Legendary businessmen have legendary stories, such as being fired from a company they created. And this, William Durant also experienced a century ago: he was once expelled by GM, but he regained the power of GM through a series of wonderful schemes, and this "return of the king" story is far more exciting than Jobs's return to Apple.
In our podcast, we've covered all of these topics. In addition, the reason why this issue is divided into two episodes is because we show you a vast picture of the early days of the development of the American automotive industry. These stories, in today's vigorous development of electric vehicles, in China's pursuit of industrialization and branding today, have a more in line with the reference significance of the times.
After listening, you will find that all contemporary stories have been written in history.
Why does Tesla never advertise and PR?
Musk has said that Tesla not only does not advertise, but also does not even have a public relations department. Musk said Tesla pays more attention to product quality and word-of-mouth communication, which has received a lot of praise on social media.
Tesla and Musk
However, this practice is really not Musk's original.
In the early 1900s, when car brands were competing for the best, William Durant had already used this to the fullest, and Musk's "no advertising" approach was, in a sense, just an imitation.
In fact, many of Musk's operations are replicating the early practices of the automotive industry.
Initiatives such as building car factories are used to attract public attention, such as free media promotion through controversial remarks. GM founder William Durant began to use these methods when he founded Buick and Chevrolet, and Durant is more rebellious and more effective than Musk.
The "use of the media for free publicity" actually ran through William Durant's lifelong career. He initially operated the Buick brand in this way, becoming the largest automobile manufacturer in the United States. And when he was fired, he has been quietly accumulating strength, and finally achieved a reversal in his life in a Hollywood superhero movie climax.
Why does Musk keep cutting Tesla's prices?
Musk's constant price cuts for Tesla have made many people not understand.
The reason why people are puzzled is because in the general view, the price can distinguish the product grade, and raising the price and grade is the routine operation of the enterprise. In today's world, where the concept of brand has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, how to increase the price of products as much as possible is the focus of many companies. Improving product grades through advertising and marketing, through packaging and positioning, is the basic skill of modern consumer society.
This is certainly no exception in the automotive world. For example, BYD invited well-known German designers to do car styling design, and Weilai has repeatedly benchmarked its own cars against BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. These practices are all aimed at upgrading the brand and ultimately raising the price of the product.
Tesla, however, did the exact opposite.
Musk keeps lowering the price of cars. Taking the Model 3 as an example, the price of this car has been reduced nearly 10 times since its launch, and the price has dropped from the initial 350,000 yuan to about 250,000 yuan now.
Why does Musk always have to cut the price of cars? What is the logic behind this?
In fact, Musk's approach is not new at all, let alone strange, he is imitating the approach of the auto industry 100 years ago: In this regard, he is learning about the Ford Model T.
The history of the Ford Model T is a history of price reduction. Making a Volkswagen model that everyone loves has always been Henry Ford's dream, and he has been working hard for this dream. Ford continued to improve the efficiency of assembly line production, and the price of the Model T also changed from more than $800 to $600, $500, and finally to $260. This allowed the Model T to gain nearly 60 percent of the market share in the U.S. market at that time, making it the highest-selling car at the time.
Ford Model T
Why do electric vehicle companies like to advertise 100 km/s acceleration?
We know that in the traditional automotive sector, only very expensive luxury cars and supercars advertise their acceleration data, such as Ferrari and Porsche. But in the field of electric vehicles, even those low-end brands and models like to promote their own acceleration data.
Why? Is it because electric vehicles are forcibly moving closer to the brand range of luxury cars?
Not really. A low-end car priced at 80,000 yuan will not become a high-end car no matter how fast it is advertised. As for why electric vehicles do this, we can only fully understand it after understanding the situation in the early days of automobile development. In fact, the grand situation of the new forces of electric vehicles competing for speed is the same as the situation of various low-end models addicted to racing a hundred years ago.
In the early days of the development of the automobile industry, the speed of the car was the standard of the automobile enterprise. For this reason, many companies have their own racing teams, such as Chevrolet's founder Louis Chevrolet himself, a legendary racing driver, and Henry Ford opened his reputation in the beginning by personally competing.
Louis Chevrolet (right) and his car
Do foreign brands use personal names like "Xiaopeng"?
The name "Xiaopeng Motors" has been controversial since its inception. Those who don't like the name think it's a very "vulgar" personal name; those who support it say that using a common name is more culturally confident. On this point, He Xiaopeng himself said that many European and American car brands use personal names, which is not vulgar at all.
He Xiaopeng discusses the logic of naming
Ford's name comes from founder Henry Ford; Buick's name comes from founder David Buick; Chevrolet's name comes from racing driver Louis Chevrolet. These car names are not their "first names", but "surnames", and, moreover, their surnames are not ordinary surnames: all three of them have a certain immigrant background, so their surnames themselves have some European flavor, rather than the kind of personal names that are all over the streets of the United States.
We also mentioned the Cadillac and Lincoln in our podcast, two high-end models, and we described the development of these two cars as a story of "three family slaves". The name Cadillac is actually the surname of the French explorer Antoni Cadillac, which is also a european-style name, and this explorer is the city hero of Detroit. Not to mention the name of the Lincoln car, borrowed from the name of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. If the names of these high-end models were "John Motors", "Smith Cars", "Bill Cars", the effect should be greatly reduced.
In fact, China has its own set of naming cultures, such as Quanjude, Ruifengxiang and Gongdelin, which have both profound meaning and elegance. Among the brands that use the founder's surname or name, there are also many successful cases, such as sports brand Li Ning, marketing agency Hua and Hua, and design agency Jin Liugao, these names will not sound cheesy.
As for the name "Xiaopeng Motors", I think everyone has their own opinion, but it is important to understand the basic facts.
Or that sentence: Today's seemingly incomprehensible plots have long been written in history.