NIO Li Bin Harvard speech: The Chinese market is the most open in the world, and good products are popular

DoNews reported on April 14 that on April 13, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, was invited to deliver a speech at the 27th Harvard China Forum at Harvard University. In his speech, Li Bin elaborated his views on the highly competitive global automotive market. He said that although competition will lead to greater investment and less room for mistakes, in the face of competition, we should not expect a closed policy to protect local enterprises, and openness and competition can ultimately benefit consumers, industry and society. "The world's best automotive products can be sold in China, and they are not targeted because of which country they come from. ”

In addition, Li Bin explained to Harvard students the meaning of "humming their voices and seeking their friends" in the Book of Songs, and believed that in the face of a more polarized and divided world, efforts should still be made to promote exchanges. "Today's world has become more polarized and fragmented. But we can still make choices, take actions, and try to build connections and drive communication and understanding. At the end of the day, we should have basic wisdom and judgment: cooperation is always a better option. Li Bin said.

The following is the full text of the speech:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am Li Bin from NIO.

Thank you very much for the invitation. The Harvard China Forum is an important platform for U.S.-China exchanges, and I'm glad to be here today. Harvard is a university I admire, and I visited the Harvard campus 18 years ago. NIO's co-founder, Lihong Qin, who received his master's degree from Harvard in 2001, often tells me about his interesting experiences studying at Harvard. Professor William Kirby of Harvard Business School has written a case study of NIO's internationalization. For these reasons, I didn't hesitate to say yes when I received the invitation.

最近，我看了一部纪录片《The Greatest Night in Pop》。 这部影片讲述了45位美国顶尖歌手共同创作演唱《We are the World》背后的故事。

We are the World was created in 1985. That year, when I was 11 years old, I was in primary school in a mountain village in central China, and I had to help my family with all kinds of farm work after school, doing homework at night and using kerosene lamps for lighting. As a happy, mischievous teenager, I have all kinds of hopes for the future. But considering that there was a dirt road in my hometown and electric lights only came a few years later, the teenager's dream at the time certainly didn't include starting a smart electric car business.

As a reward for my hard work on the farm, my father gave me a radio as a New Year's gift. This small radio has greatly stimulated my curiosity and imagination. Every evening, I would look at the mountains in a daze, hoping to see the wider world beyond the mountains. Later, I was admitted to Peking University. When I was in college, I first heard "We are the World," a song that influenced and inspired many of us.

In 1996, I founded my first company, Antarctic Technology, which was one of the earliest Internet Web Hosting companies in China. Later, I started several Internet companies.

In 2012, when I was faced with the severe air pollution at the time, I urged myself to do something. At the end of 2014, I founded NIO. NIO is pronounced the same as Future in Chinese, Chinese means Blue Sky Coming. We hope that through the innovation of technology and services, more and more users will choose smart electric vehicle products and contribute to solving global climate change. Achieving this vision requires a pool of resources from around the world. NIO was founded as a global start-up, and in 2015, when we were just founded in Shanghai, we set up R&D centers in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Oxford. At present, we are listed in New York, Singapore and Hong Kong, with investors from all over the world, employees from more than 40 countries, and have served users in 6 countries, and will soon enter more markets.

China is the world's largest auto market and the most open auto market in the world. As a young automotive company, we have to compete with global multinational groups, we have to compete with more than a dozen mature Chinese auto companies, and we have to compete with more than a dozen excellent start-ups.

Competition leads to greater investment, longer time to profit, less room for mistakes, and lower odds of success. Of course, we know all this. Still, we don't expect China to adopt a closed policy in order to protect local businesses, because I also understand the other side of the story, that opening up will ultimately benefit the industry and sustainable development and make the best companies better.

In March, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China exceeded 41 percent, up from 10.6 percent three years ago. Openness is one of the important reasons for the rapid increase in the penetration rate of smart electric vehicles in China, and the open market is crucial for the rapid growth of EVs in China. Good products, regardless of brand or origin, are popular.

Tesla has built a gigafactory in Shanghai. In the past three years, Tesla has sold a total of 1.364 million vehicles in the Chinese market. Last year, the Model Y became the annual best-selling model of all models in the Chinese market. Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory is undoubtedly significant to Tesla's commercial success, and at the same time, Tesla's presence has influenced consumers, increased the penetration of electric vehicles, and even breathed life into China's automotive industry.

NIO and other auto companies are competitors, but we are actually competing teammates in the journey to solve climate change. In Chinese, it is called a competitive teammate. I learned the word from my son. Once, I was on the phone at home and talked about our competitors, and my eldest son chimed in and said, Dad, competing teammates. He was right, but to be honest, he was only five or six years old. I couldn't tell if he was so clever at seeing the nature of competition, or if he was just confused by the similar pronunciation of "opponent" and "teammate" in Chinese. As a father, I hope to be the former.

NIO has been open and collaborating with its peers on technology and infrastructure. We have built the largest charging network of automobile manufacturers in China, deploying more than 20,000 (21,854) charging piles, 80% of which serve users of other brands. NIO's unique three-minute battery swap technology, with more than 1,600 patents, has established more than 2,400 battery swap stations in China and Europe, and provided more than 41 million battery swap services. In November last year, we opened up our battery swapping technology and network layout, and four automotive groups have already signed agreements with us, and more automotive companies are considering joining.

The spirit of openness is reflected not only in our technology and infrastructure, but also in NIO's community. From the very beginning, we wanted to build a community that starts with cars and allows users around the world to share joy and grow together. On September 30, 2022, I attended the first anniversary of the opening of NIO Cow House in Oslo, Norway, and after the official celebration at 9:30 p.m., the 160 riders who participated in the event did not disperse, and everyone sang and danced together on the street. At that moment, I was completely infected by everyone's emotions and danced a hip-hop dance that was even more lame than my English level. Although we come from different countries and have different cultural backgrounds, we share a common language of sincerity, love, respect and tolerance.

I particularly understand the theme of today's conference, "Seek the voice of friendship", seeking resonance and responding to friendship, which is exactly what the ancient Chinese pursued. Today, we need to face the reality that the world today is more polarized, more divided, and more difficult to bridge than it was a decade ago. But we can still make choices, take actions, and try to build connections and drive communication and understanding.

Just as inspired by Chinese poetry 2,500 years ago, as artists dedicated 39 years ago, and as the Harvard China Forum has been striving to promote today, that is, we should have basic wisdom and judgment:

Collaboration is always a better option.

Thank you.