Author | Jia Weizhong
Source | Car selection network
Volkswagen, once the global car sales champion; Geely, the Chinese brand car sales champion. In the early stage of development, Geely's global expansion methods and product planning strategies were very similar to Volkswagen, and some people called it Volkswagen's "disciples" of China.
However, in the electrification transformation - the automobile industry has not been in a hundred years of major changes, Volkswagen, Geely has chosen different paths. Why?
Cash is king
In 2021, despite the decline in sales of Volkswagen and Geely, a number of financial indicators increased.
In mid-March, volkswagen group released its 2021 financial report. According to the financial report, "Volkswagen Group's global sales in 2021 fell 6% year-on-year to 8.576 million units, down about 600,000 units from 2020 and 2.4 million units from 2019. Some media analysis said: "Last year, Volkswagen ranked second, and the sales gap with the first place Toyota was about 2 million vehicles." ”
In late March, Geely Group released its 2021 financial report. According to the financial report, "In the past year, Geely achieved sales of 1.328 million units, winning the annual sales volume of Chinese brand passenger cars for five consecutive years, and its market share increased to 6.4%. According to media reports, "Geely's actual sales last year accounted for 86.8% of the sales target of 1.53 million vehicles at the beginning of the year." ”
In stark contrast to declining volumes, Volkswagen and Geely saw significant increases in revenue and cash holdings.
Volkswagen's financial report shows: "Volkswagen's full-year revenue in 2021 was 250.2 billion euros, an increase of 12% year-on-year." The net cash flow of Volkswagen's business increased to EUR 8.6 billion from EUR 6.4 billion in 2020. ”
Geely's financial report shows: "In 2021, Geely achieved revenue of 101.6 billion yuan, an increase of 10.3% year-on-year, and total cash reached 28 billion yuan, the highest level in history, and net cash reached 20.8 billion yuan." ”
To do business is to make cash. In the face of many challenges such as the impact of the epidemic, chip shortage, rising raw material costs, and international tensions, whether it is Volkswagen, as the global auto head group, or Geely, the representative brand of Chinese automobiles, this pair of "mentors and apprentices" have maintained sufficient cash flow to cope with complex environmental tests.
Part company with?
The reason why some media call Geely a Chinese "disciple" of volkswagen is that from the perspective of corporate development strategy, Geely development is the path of introduction, digestion and absorption; from the product planning, Geely strives to dominate in various segments of cars, SUVs and MPVs, Geely's development concept is very similar to Volkswagen, and through the practice of the above concept, Geely has firmly held the position of The champion of Chinese brand passenger car sales.
However, judging from the plans recently released by the two companies, Volkswagen and Geely seem to have shown signs of parting ways.
In terms of Volkswagen, the belief in the transformation to pure electric vehicles is very firm. At a recent media briefing, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess said: "The Group has made a major decision at its headquarters in Wolfsburg to invest 2 billion euros to build a new plant with optimized processes in the vicinity of the main plant in Wolfsburg to produce trinity, the first Volkswagen brand model based on the SSP (Scalable System Platform). In addition, the Group will invest 800 million euros in the construction of an R&D center focused on the development of the SSP platform. In the future, the SSP platform will be the Group's only production platform for the production of pure electric vehicles and the realization of autonomous driving functions. ”
Geely's side, the deep layout of hybrid and pure electric is the direction of the group's efforts this year. Gan Jiayue, CEO of Geely Automobile Group, said on the earnings conference call: "In 2022, Geely will continue to make full efforts in pure electricity, super mixing, alcohol-electric hybridization, power exchange and other tracks." At the same time, Geely Automobile's 2021 financial report shows that in 2022, Geely plans to put more than 8 models of Thor Hi · X-oil hybrid and super hybrid products are launched on the market. According to reports, compared with the minimum fuel consumption of 3.8L/100km of BYD's DM-i hybrid technology, Ray's He· X-powered NEDC consumes slightly better fuel at 3.6L/100km.
Overall, the public did not mention the scubble of the mixture at all at the media communication meeting, but went straight to the theme of pure electricity. Although Geely also put pure electricity at the top of this year's work, two of the four tasks involve hybridization. On the path to electrification, is Volkswagen and Geely really going their separate ways?
The same end
In the process of electrification transformation, why did Volkswagen and Geely choose different development paths?
From the perspective of the market environment, although China's sales account for about 60% of the total sales of Volkswagen Group, Volkswagen must also take into account the European and American markets. Looking at the world, Volkswagen's most important competitor is Toyota. From the perspective of technology path, Toyota Motor launched hybrid products as early as the 1990s, which not only has a very deep technical foundation, but also has quite a lot of patents. Volkswagen can only be a follower in the process of automobile electrification transformation, and if it wants to surpass Toyota in the process of automobile electrification, it must be intelligent and electrified at the same time. Therefore, after Volkswagen achieved profitability last year, this year it has strengthened the belief that the upstream battery raw material supplier + battery manufacturer + automotive hardware + system software + charging business is simultaneously exerted in the whole value chain, and its purpose is to grasp the right to speak in the field of pure electrification through intelligent blessing.
In contrast, the reason why Geely adopts the practice of gradually using mixed electricity is that from a policy point of view, this practice is in line with the "2.0 version of the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap" released in 2020, and the market share of new energy vehicles will reach 50% in 2035, and the rest of the cars will all be converted to energy-saving vehicles, and mainly hybrid vehicles. '' policy points. From the market level, Geely's absolute main battlefield in China, affected by the decline of state subsidies, the rise in the price of battery raw materials and other factors, pure electric vehicle profitability is becoming more and more difficult, enterprises must rely on fuel vehicles, hybrids and other support for the development of electric vehicles.
Therefore, Volkswagen and Geely ostensibly seem to be parting ways, but in fact, in the process of electrification transformation, different development paths have been adopted according to the different stages of development in which the company is located. Objectively speaking, Geely's approach is more secure, and the challenges facing the public are greater.
Overall, although the current electric vehicle is the main force of new energy vehicles, but intelligent electrification is an important direction for the development of the automobile industry, in the invisible end of the car-making "marathon" schedule, if the geopolitical storm and raw material price fluctuations are short-term challenges, then the investment in intelligent research and development of automobiles is the key to test the endurance of enterprises. The long-term continuous increase in cash flow is undoubtedly an adequate physical energy to push the enterprise forward. Although the development paths of volkswagen and geely are different at this stage, the abundant cash holdings of both groups should be based on this consideration.
(Image source: Internet)