In the Chinese corporate world, there are two Ding Lei in Ningbo, Zhejiang, one is the founder of the NetEase empire, and the other is the founder of Gaohe Automobile.
In terms of the height of life, the former is naturally superior; But when it comes to the abundance of life, the latter is not inferior.
The first luxury brand
When I looked around and couldn't find my dream car, I decided to build one myself."
In 2017, the 54-year-old Ding Lei decided to build a car himself, and when asked why he started his own business at this age, he quoted Ferdinand Porsche.
From the beginning, Ding Lei did not plan to build a car in a hurry. It is his original intention and philosophy not to make mediocre products, not to take the path taken by others, to completely get rid of the past, and to be the subversive of the "old world" and the guide of the "new world".
In 2018, the development team of Gaohe Automobile came up with clay models of 7 cars, and everyone did not have much objection during the internal discussion.
In order to take into account the handling and comfort of the chassis, Ding Lei asked the technical department to adjust more than 100 versions before and after. The shock absorber has forty or fifty valves, and each adjustment needs to be cut by a valve plate, each valve plate is a few tenths of a millimeter, stacked one by one, and there are different openings on the valve plate, and the size of each hole is accurate to the millimeter level.
Paranoid about details and fanatical about technology, Ding Lei's new world's No. 1 technology luxury brand is not a lie.
In 2020, Hiphi X, the first model of Gaohe, was launched, with a price of up to 800,000 yuan
The interior is Rolls-Royce; The sound is a British treasure; The carpets are made of imported wool; The leather chair is Dow Chemical; The lights are the same as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and there are NT rear wing doors that can be opened upwards, programmable headlights, and rear-wheel steering ......
Ding Lei, who was born in physics, is a typical science and engineering man, who is usually low-key, introverted, does not like to talk, and does not lose his temper. In order to cooperate with the brand promotion, he had to be uncharacteristically high-profile, and now some of the communication routines of the car company are actually many of his leftovers.
For example,"We use technology to define luxury, 800,000 **, I'm really still very unwilling." This kind of subtle and flamboyant expression is obviously more comfortable to listen to than "the best car within x 10,000".
is also rubbing the popularity of friends, compared with the current car companies abusing and attacking each other at every turn, Ding Lei's strategy is more civilized and smarter.
On September 4, 2020, Ding Lei shouted to Tesla, Porsche and Dyson through three huge advertising screens in Times Square in New York, Leicester Square in London and Shibuya Center in Tokyo
Hello Tesla, you said "if someone makes a better electric car, it's good for the world", so here we are.
Hello Porsche, you said "I couldn't find the car of my dreams, so I decided to build one myself", and we know how you feel.
Hello Dyson, you said that "only when you are persistent enough can you put your ideas into practice", and we proved you right.
Source: Auto Communication News Whether it is product design or brand positioning, Ding Lei's vision and pursuit are extremely high, and it can even be said that no one can stand out in the Chinese automobile industry, which has a lot to do with his early experience.
As the god and meritorious service of China's automobile industry, from the earliest Santana, there are more than 20 models made by Ding Lei in the past few decades, and it can be said that the world has seen it. Therefore, when he came out to start a business alone, it was difficult to be satisfied with building a conventional car.
Play the two worlds of politics and business
In the past few decades, there are not many people in China who can do a good job of both officials and businessmen at the same time, and even fewer can do a good job at the same time, Ding Lei is one.
Originally from Ningbo, born in 1963, the outside world's understanding of Ding Lei's family and life experience is limited to this. But from some public reports, it can still be vaguely inferred that Ding Lei is not from ordinary people's families.
Southern People Weekly once interviewed Ding Lei, and there is such a description of him in the article:
Since he was a child, he has followed his elders to "run" to write homework in the building on the Bund, and since the reform and opening up, Shanghai's Shanghai-style culture has become stronger and stronger.
There is another thing that can provide evidence for his life experience, on February 28, 1972, the prime minister accompanied Nixon from Beijing to Shanghai, and the crowd that greeted him at Hongqiao Airport that day was 9-year-old Ding Lei.
In 1988, Ding Lei graduated from the Department of Physics of Fudan University, and his first job was at Shanghai Volkswagen. Two years ago, China officially listed the first industry as a pillar industry and established a development path of introducing technology through joint ventures. At the same time, Shanghai promised to China that the localization rate of Santana would reach 60% within 3 years.
Shanghai is the forefront of reform and opening up, the public is the forefront of Shanghai, and the insight and experience that Ding Lei can gain are extremely precious and rare.
Source: Southern People Weekly.
In 1995, Ding Lei transferred to Shanghai General Motors and participated in the preparation of the Shanghai General Motors project. Over the next decade, he held key positions in quality, procurement, and own-brand departments, including the promotion to General Manager of Shanghai GM in 2005 and Vice President of SAIC in 2007.
During Ding Lei's tenure, Shanghai GM won the championship in China's automobile sales for five consecutive years, becoming the first automobile company in the history of China's automobile industry with an annual production and sales of more than one million, and creating an industry miracle of paying profits and taxes of more than 100 billion yuan.
Over the years, Ding Lei co-founded the Shanghai GM Pan Asia Automotive Technology Center, which has produced a large number of talents, like a starry sky scattered in all corners of China's automobile industry, so he is also regarded as the soul of China's automobile industry "Whampoa Military Academy".
For a while, Ding Lei's name began to resound in the global automobile industry, and even his counterparts in Detroit couldn't hide their surprise and excitement when they saw him: "Oh, it turns out that you are Mr.." ding！”
This recognition and appreciation is no longer even confined to the business world.
In 2011, Ding Lei was appointed as the chairman of Zhangjiang Hi-Tech, and the deputy secretary of the party group and executive deputy director of the Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park Management Committee.
From shopping malls to officialdom, from taking charge of a company to managing thousands of innovative high-tech enterprises, Ding Lei's identity has changed and his burden is heavy, but he is still at ease, and during his tenure, he also led the establishment of the country's first over-the-counter listed trading market - Equity Custody Trading Center.
In 2010, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech's revenue fell by 37%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company fell by 32%. Ding Lei's appointment has brought huge resources to the company, and he strongly recommended Shi Yuzhu and Yu Feng to the board of directors, and through the two of them, he established contacts with the bigwigs behind Yun Feng**, so as to promote business transformation, in Ding Lei's own words
If we want to invest in network enterprises, we can ask Shi Yuzhu, agricultural and sideline enterprises can ask Liu Yonghao, cultural and creative industries can ask Yu Feng, and real estate can ask Wang Shi. ”
The effect can be imaginedIn 2011 and 2012, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech's revenue increased by 31 percent8% and 261%。
In 2013, Ding Lei, who made achievements, was further used as the deputy head of Pudong New Area, Shanghai, with an official to the department level. During this period, Ding Lei participated in the construction of China's first free trade zone, and the "three-in-one" reform of market supervision in Pudong New Area led by him became an important achievement in the transformation of functions and the construction of the free trade zone in the future. During this period, Ding Lei also had full authority to negotiate cooperation with Musk on behalf of Pudong New Area, although the cooperation failed to take place at that time, this undoubtedly paved the way for Tesla to settle in Shanghai.
Flipping through Ding Lei's life file, the journey was smooth, full of flowers and applause, it seems that he can't see the ups and downs and ups and downs of their generation, this was his luck in the past, and now it is also his misfortune.
The price of growth
On February 18, 2024, the first day of resumption of work during the Spring Festival in the Year of the Dragon, Gaohe Automobile was revealed to be suspending work and production for 6 months. Although Gaohe Automobile denied the news, from the current business status of the company, it has basically lost its competitiveness and viability.
According to the statistics of the first car network, in 2022, Gaohe Automobile sold a total of 4,520 vehicles, with an average monthly sales of less than 400 vehicles. In order to expand market sales, in July last year, HiPhi Automobile launched its third model, the HiPhi Y (positioned as a mid-to-large SUV), priced at 3390,000-4490,000 yuan, but this strategy of saving oneself by sinking did not work. According to the latest data, in December 2023, the total delivery volume of the three models of Gaohe Automobile was only 564 units.
With the current level of deliveries, whether the shutdown or not, Gaohe Automobile has already failed. Looking back now, this ending is completely reasonable, because Ding Lei didn't really think about what to do from the beginningMany of his choices and decisions are even contrary to common sense and laws.
For example, he said that he wanted to create a work rather than a simple commodity, but this task of opening up the imagination of smart electric vehicles for mankind has been first completed by Tesla, and Gaohe, who only achieved the product launch in 2020, obviously no longer has such a mission and opportunity. If you miss the time, no matter how much effort you make, it will be half the effort, not to mention that Gaohe Automobile relies more on stacking materials to elevate itself, rather than disruptive technological innovation and revolution.
For another example, scale has always been the life-and-death line of the automobile industry, and the current recognized break-even point of electric vehicles is 500,000 units, and no one can avoid and bypass this test. As a person who has been in the industry for decades and has made significant achievements, Ding Lei will not fail to understand this, but he actually said that he will not compromise for scale, and he doesn't like the word "volume" very much, is this challenging the law?
**10,000 Fans Incentive Plan
Also, making a car is an extremely money-burning business, Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng These companies have successively financed tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions, Geely, Great Wall, and BYD also have traditional business blood transfusions, and Gaohe Automobile's current publicly available financing information is only a strategic investment of 5 billion yuan from the Shanghai branch of Bank of Communications in November 2021. What is particularly critical is that Gaohe Automobile does not seem to care about the reserve of cash, Ding Lei has repeatedly declared that he is not short of money, is this obviously a misjudgment of the industry and the situation?
Finally, in the absence of brand recognition in the domestic market, it is a bit of a rush to go directly to the international market to promote and challenge Tesla, Porsche, Dyson and other companies, or even too ambitious?
There are two root causes for all of these problems.
First, Ding Lei won too much in the past, and now he wants to win a big one, going farther and farther on the road of idealism, and the distance from reality is getting bigger and bigger.
Second, despite decades of brilliant achievements, Ding Lei in the past has always worked as a migrant worker and backed by a big tree. Entrepreneurship is another matter entirely, which is new to Ding Lei, he needs time to grow and experience to mature.
At the age of 50, he dared to step out of his comfort zone, give up the peaceful life in the system, and kill himself in the business sea of nine deaths, no matter what the result is, this spirit deserves to be affirmed. Success is not accidental, failure is not fate, I hope he can continue to uphold this perseverance and determination, and start anew.