Per reporter: Cong Gang Sun Tongtong Per editor: Pei Jianru
"The cooperation between Polestar and Xingji Meizu must mark a new era in the cooperation model of China's automobile joint ventures. If in the past Sino-foreign joint ventures were the automobile joint venture 2.0 era, now at least we have entered the 3.0 era. A few days ago, Li Donghui, CEO of Geely Holding Group, said in an interview with the "Daily Economic News" reporter.
Polestar has announced that it will establish a joint venture with Xingji Meizu Group for the Chinese market. Polestar will own 49% of the joint venture, while Xingji Meizu will hold 51% and will be responsible for arranging future financing for the joint venture.
The joint venture will develop Polestar automotive operating systems for sale in China, including in-vehicle applications, streaming services and smart vehicle software, based on Flyme Auto, Meizu's existing technology platform. In addition, Polestar expects to transfer approximately 130 commercial personnel in China to the new company, which will be Polestar's sole authorized sales and service entity in China.
There is no doubt that this joint venture between mobile phones and automobiles will be Geely's in-depth exploration in the field of software-defined vehicles, and it is also another important form of Geely Holding's continuous layout in the global mobility field. From the acquisition of Volvo 13 years ago, to the increase in Aston Martin shares at the beginning of this month, and the future IPO plan for sub-brands such as Zeekr and Lotus, Geely Holding has gradually become clear with capital to leverage cooperation, empower sub-brands, and build a synergy system, so as to create a global ecosystem.
"Our five-year strategic plan will continue to be updated as the market, technology and competitive environment change." Li Donghui said, "The current strategic plan for 2025 is: transform into an electric intelligent mobility and energy service technology company, and enter the top ten in the world's automotive industry. ”
Create a new era of "Hezhi Company"
"In the past, the joint venture of automobile companies was a foreign party to give out the brand and technology, and the Chinese side exchanged the market for technology, and in terms of technology, operation and brand, it was still dominated by a foreign party. The cooperation between Polestar and Xingji Meizu fully reflects the concept of collaboration, integration and equal cooperation, which can be said to be from the joint venture company to an era of 'Hop Chi Company', and the two sides jointly help this joint venture company through intelligence, IQ, wisdom and wealth. Li Donghui said that Polestar's design, control and sustainability are the "wisdom" in this strategic joint venture, and Xingji Meizu has advantages in ecology, software intelligent technology, ecological products and software technology required for automotive or intelligent ecological development.
As a luxury electric vehicle brand jointly created by Geely and Volvo, Polestar has achieved good results in the European and American markets, but needs to be improved in the Chinese market. According to the data, Polestar will sell 51,500 vehicles worldwide in 2022, an increase of about 80% from 29,000 units in 2021. In the first quarter of this year, Polestar delivered 12,100 new vehicles worldwide, up 26% year-on-year.
In comparison, Polestar sold 2,048 vehicles in China in 2021, accounting for 7% of global sales; In 2022, Polestar sales in China have not yet been announced, but the industry believes that there is still much room for improvement.
Photo source: Photo by Sun Tongtong, reporter (data map)
"There are certain reasons why Polestar is experiencing difficulties in the Chinese market, where competition for electric vehicles is more intense, consumers have stronger demand for technology and digitalization, and foreign brands are struggling to keep up with these changes. As a result, Polestar will focus more on enhancing its competitiveness in the Chinese market, where there is a gap between Polestar's recognition in the global market and what it has done in the Chinese market, and the joint venture will provide a larger and broader space to deliver more satisfactory products and services to users. Polestar CEO Thomas Ingratt told reporters.
It is understood that the software team of the joint venture company will combine Polestar products, research and development of Polestar OS, Polestar brand mobile phones supported by Polestar OS, Polestar brand smart terminals and other wearable devices in the future, making it a real intelligent multi-terminal technology company with Polestar OS as the core.
Polestar will gather global resources to empower and integrate synergistic development. The new structure of Polestar is that the structure of capital and management has been adjusted. Li Shufu said at the press conference on the same day that the new Polestar will undertake cutting-edge technologies in the field of technology electronics and the automotive industry, and truly enter the new era of software-defined vehicles.
Focus on strategic management and control models
As two companies in the Geely holding ecosystem, the combination of Polestar and Xingji Meizu can be said to be a natural fit. During this year's Shanghai Auto Show, Polestar announced that it will build a new coupe SUV based on the Flyme Auto Core, the Polestar 4, which is based on Geely Holding's SEA architecture and is expected to start deliveries as soon as this year.
According to the official introduction, Flyme Auto Core is jointly built by Xingji Meizu and ECARCOM Technology, and is the core component of FlymeAuto's automotive intelligent system, responsible for providing the basic framework to support various functions of FlymeAuto and bring it to the car cockpit.
"Polestar must adhere to globalization, such as its brand, design genes, sustainability concepts, and control, all of which are global. But we must also do a good job of localization, especially in terms of intelligence. Therefore, the strategic cooperation between Polestar Motors and Xingji Meizu is an inevitable result of deepening understanding from shallow to deep, and it is also to meet the comprehensive needs of Chinese consumers for intelligent networked vehicles. Li Donghui thought.
In Li Donghui's view, in order to create a multi-terminal, immersive and full-scenario experience for future users, the future car, as the largest mobile terminal, needs technology not only for the integration of mobile phones and cars, but also for more diversified technical collaboration such as interstellar interconnection and satellite communication.
Image source: Star Age Official Wei
In recent years, Geely Holding has carried out a large number of cross-border layouts in automobiles, satellites, mobile phones, mobility, chips, education, etc. around the technology ecosystem, while some companies in the Geely ecosystem have completed independent development through direct financing through IPOs, which has also brought new issues to the positioning and coordination of Geely Holding.
"Geely Holding Group mainly does three aspects of work, generally speaking, the first is strategic control, the second is collaborative empowerment, and the third is bottom-line management." Li Donghui said.
Specifically, from the perspective of strategic control, it is necessary to determine the positioning of each business group in the entire strategic system based on the group's strategic vision and strategic objectives, and on the basis of strategic positioning, each business group is free to develop, and Geely Holding does not interfere in their daily operations.
At the strategic level, Geely Holding ensures that the strategic positioning of each business group must revolve around the overall ecological layout based on the holding.
In terms of synergy empowerment, Geely Holding has major core intellectual property rights, especially the platform architecture of basic technologies, promotes synergy with various brands inside and outside the group, and can share the intellectual property and technical capabilities of the whole group with partners, in fact, bringing benefits to each brand.
In addition, bottom-line management involves whether the enterprise is compliant with laws and regulations globally, and is also closely related to strategic control and collaborative empowerment, such as unified planning and coordination of incentive mechanisms. Li Donghui stressed that Geely Holding's companies will not blindly pursue listing for the sake of listing, including the design and approval of product incentive mechanisms, the bottom line of cadre employment, training mechanisms, audit compliance, etc., which are all important bottom-line management.
"Our control model is mainly positioned as strategic control, rather than operational control and pure investment control." Li Donghui said.
In the future, ESG will continue to be promoted for a long time, with the goal of "reducing carbon emissions by 25% by 2025 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2045".
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