"It's embarrassing to say hello to people if you don't lose money selling new energy vehicles. Zhuang Jingxiong, general manager of SAIC-GM, ridiculed at the Guangzhou Auto Show, which caught fire in the circle.
It's not just talking, SAIC-GM is also a combination of knowledge and action: the rear-wheel drive standard endurance luxury version of IQ Ruige launched at the Guangzhou Auto Show, 29Minimum sales are 770,000 yuan.
Combined with the previous 9The 980,000 yuan version of the Buick Micro Blue 6 and 16The 990,000 yuan Buick E5 Pioneer Edition, it can be seen that after the team renewed, SAIC-GM has a license and dares to play a card.
And SAIC-GM's new card game is not just a card on the table, but a set of cards.
Break and stand, both quickly
Zhuang Jingxiong said that SAIC-GM should do three things next. The essence is two things: "breaking the game" and "layout", and adding the word "fast". These two things have to go hand in hand, and they have to be "fast".
You can't simply tinker, you have to do a lot of things from the structure;But while doing the structure and investing resources, this market can't wait for us. This is Wang Chendong, deputy general manager of SAIC-GM, who is in charge of software, has a two-layer understanding of "fast".
The first move to break the game, everyone can see it clearly. Through the first adjustment and the rapid landing of recent products, to increase the market share, in the words of Zhuang Jingxiong, "open the opening of the market". From January to October, SAIC-GM sold a total of 66,237 new energy vehicles, and the annual target is to exceed 100,000 units.
At the product level, SAIC-GM should quickly come up with some "small and fast" things to improve the user experience, and "meet the horizontal benchmarking with competing products in the short term". The amount goes up, and the cost can come down. Zhuang Jingxiong hopes that next year's sales and market share will stop falling and rebound, and new energy vehicles will be able to achieve profitability and start hematopoiesis.
Joint venture car companies must solve their urgent needs at the moment and have a long-term plan.
At the level of layout, from the recent 2025 or even 2027 product plan, to the reshaping of the brand matrix, to the higher-dimensional company and investment level "structure", SAIC-GM has plans and actions.
In the next two years, SAIC-GM will launch eight new energy models, including the Autonen pure electric model and a new generation of PHEV plug-in hybrid models, of which the Buick GL8 PHEV model will be launched next year. In terms of brand, Cadillac will continue to remain a luxury brand;Buick will be fully electrified as a mainstream brand in 2025;Chevrolet has repositioned itself to be more personalized and focused on the SUV.
In the view of "Autocarmax", at the layout level, the most ambitious stroke at present is the establishment of SAIC-GM Software and Digital Center.
A team of 1,000 people, two-way empowerment
On November 8, SAIC-GM's Software and Digitalization Center was officially established in Jinqiao, Pudong, Shanghai.
The center will become an important organizational carrier for SAIC-GM's intelligent transformation, focusing on building an organizational structure for vehicle-cloud collaboration, accelerating the promotion of intelligence, and improving the functions and experience of intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving around user scenario-based needs.
The goal is to build a local software development team of more than 1,000 people. Therefore, a group of software and digital talents will soon join GM. Wang Chendong revealed that after completion, the center will have nearly 1,000 software and digital talents, more than 10 development laboratories, and nearly 1,000 test and verification benches.
It is reported that by 2025, SAIC-GM's total investment in the field of new technologies for electrification and intelligent networking will reach 70 billion yuan. The Software & Digitalization Center is an important part of the investment.
This move proves that automotive intelligence, as a sunrise track, has immeasurable investment value. It is foreseeable that more software and digital talents will join the automotive industry in the future, and a major change in the talent structure of mainstream car companies is inevitable. At a time when young people are experiencing a cold winter of employment, it also reflects the confidence of foreign investors in the Chinese market.
Wang Chendong said frankly that as early as August this year, SAIC-GM has made the decision to set up the center, and in the past three months, it has been making adjustments to the organizational structure, including the previous software research and development teams of Pan Asia and SAIC-GM, which have to be adjusted to the new organizational structure. "The previous departments are truly combined with the existing software system, from the vehicle end to the cloud. ”
The efficient integration of the company's advantageous resources in the whole business chain through one center will undoubtedly improve the efficiency of software development and promote the implementation of the strategy of data closed-loop.
As we all know, if the joint venture brand wants to solve the current dilemma, R&D localization is a step that must be taken, and it is also the most difficult step.
General Motors North America is also very determined and hopes to open up this business more to our Chinese market. In the past, when everyone talked about applications, it may be a few apps installed in the car, but now, everyone has not quenched their thirst. ”
According to Wang Chendong, at the business level, the software center will no longer be limited to APP localization based on the application layer, but will go deep from the UI and application layer to the middleware, vehicle electronic architecture and even the future execution layer, and give the Chinese team more room to play through openness and 'atomic-level' capability sharing, so as to make software and functions suitable for Chinese consumers.
We got a very clear commitment from GM North America to peel back layer by layer like a bamboo shoot. We need to rely on our own understanding of Chinese users to turn these things around. ”
The organization is there, the funding is there, and the shareholder empowerment is there, but it is still challenging. First of all, more new features are on the car, how to ensure reliability?Secondly, it is necessary to develop a long-term architecture, and to meet user requirements as soon as possible in the short term, and to meet the horizontal benchmarking with competing products mentioned above. Also, how to make the technology land at the user experience level.
"We also recognize that technology is not equal to the product, not to the user experience. We can no longer only emphasize how good the technology is and how strong the technical background is, but also see how the technology is transformed into user experience and services. ”
On the basis of the R&D organization and concept change, SAIC-GM is stepping up its visits to the end market to obtain more information from the perspective of the market and the user side. At the same time, it has formed a consensus with GM North America to provide China with dedicated team needs and share the ecological content within the SAIC system.
Create your own ecological circle of friends
With the deepening of software car manufacturing and intelligence, the localization ecology has become very important.
SAIC-GM has always attached great importance to building an intelligent and connected ecosystem. In fact, this matter is inseparable from the ecological circle of friends, and everyone needs to do it together. ”
Wang Chendong said that in the future, SAIC-GM will cooperate with more local software developers. "Because a lot of software and functions that are strong in overseas markets are brought to China to connect with some of our services, it is also unsuitable, and the development of many functions must be done by ourselves. ”
According to him, there are already many partners working together in the middle layer, software layer, and application layer. "Moreover, these partners can also bring us a lot of advanced ideas from new forces and other independent brands. There are many things that you can't build behind closed doors. ”
It can also be seen here that the shareholders really figured it out. "Our shareholder, General Motors, is willing to let SAIC-GM play with China's own circle of friends, under this premise, how can we do faster technology research and development?Wang Chendong said that he would combine the capabilities of his own software team and the help of the outside circle of friends to do things well.
When it comes to its own software strength, SAIC-GM is one of the earliest joint venture companies to invest in intelligent network technology.
In 2009, SAIC-GM launched OnStar's on-board service, creating a precedent for Internet of Vehicles services in ChinaIn 2017, SAIC-GM released the Enterprise Internet of Vehicles 2025 Strategy, which made a clear plan for the construction of enterprise Internet of Vehicles from 2017 to 2025In 2018, GM's Super Cruise system was introduced in China, which was the industry's first hands-free driving assistance technology on closed roads such as highways.
In recent years, SAIC-GM's new generation of VCS intelligent cockpit and new generation of Super Cruise super assisted driving system and other new technologies have been continuously developed and mass-produced.
Following the IQ Ruige and Buick Century Century, the VCS intelligent cockpit system has been successively applied to a number of new models launched by SAIC-GM in 2023, such as Buick Electra E5 and E4, Buick's new generation LaCrosse, Cadillac's new CT6, new XT4, new GT4, etc.
Starting in mid-2023, the VCS intelligent cockpit system will also bring continuous software and hardware upgrades. In 2024, it will successively launch a version equipped with Snapdragon 8195 chip, AR-HUD, rear seat entertainment, four-tone voice recognition, exterior audio and other hardware upgrades.
Based on the North American version, the new generation of Super Cruise super driver assistance system has been adjusted and optimized in nine major items for Chinese road scenarios and consumer driving habits. From March 2023, the system will be upgraded on the iQ Ruige and will be applied to the Buick Electra E5, and will be installed on more models in the future.
I believe that as Wang Chendong said, with SAIC-GM's software and digital center, SAIC-GM's intelligent transformation has begun, and the next step is to land quickly.
Conclusion
China's automobile joint venture has gone through decades, and now it has entered the joint venture of two-way empowerment "integration and co-creation".0 times.
Many people ask if there are any advantages to joint venturesZhuang Jingxiong thinks that there are still some.
He said, "Half of our joint ventures are connected to China and half to foreign countries. It is necessary to join forces and integrate the advantages of shareholders into joint ventures, so that China can take root and further provide services for the Chinese market. ”
For SAIC-GM, the newly established software and digitalization center is an important carrier for the new joint venture era to achieve strong alliances and complement each other's advantages.