Travel with 100 People Focuses on the Evolution of the Automotive Industry Chain

Author: Kuang Ji

Two days before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, the International Olympic Committee voted to add “Together” to the Olympic motto “Faster, Higher, Stronger”.

This is the first modification to the Olympic motto since 108 years, adding a new element to the Olympic spirit.

“Today, more than ever, the world needs solidarity,” said IOC President Bach, explaining that the challenges facing us cannot be solved by individuals alone because the world relies on each other. “Therefore, I proposed that in order to achieve faster, higher, stronger, we need to work together and be more united.”

However, during the Tokyo Olympics, several events occurred in the domestic and international automotive industry, some of which were in line with the new Olympic spirit, while others were completely different.

On August 3, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation issued a statement that it had launched an investigation into car chip dealers suspected of price gouging and hoarding based on price monitoring and reporting.

Next, the State Administration for Market Regulation will continue to monitor the market price of important commodities such as chips and increase law enforcement efforts to sternly crack down on hoarding, price gouging, and collusion to raise prices.

Since last year, the shortage of automotive chips has become a common problem faced by the global automotive industry. Many automakers have stopped production and sales due to chip shortages, leading to a sharp drop in sales. In such a predicament, the price gouging behavior of some car chip dealers not only fails to unite upstream and downstream enterprises, but also takes advantage of the opportunity to profit, undoubtedly exacerbating market panic.

It can be seen that the intervention of the State Administration for Market Regulation will undoubtedly have a deterrent effect on the illegal behavior of car chip dealers and to some extent restore market price order, but it will not play a big role in alleviating the reality of chip shortages. The problem of market supply and demand imbalance still needs to be solved at the source.

In fact, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is also actively addressing the shortage of automotive chips. It has set up a working group to promote the application of automotive semiconductors, organized several coordinating meetings, fully utilized the power of local governments, whole vehicle companies, and chip companies, strengthened supply and demand docking and work coordination, and formulated targeted measures to promote the supply capacity of automotive chips.On the evening of August 3rd, a screenshot of the WeChat group chat from the “NETA Brand Center Management Group” went viral on social media. In the screenshot, Peng expressed his interest in appointing Wu Yifan as the spokesperson and said that this could be resolved within five minutes, and at worst, the company could issue an apology and dismiss relevant personnel.

Within minutes, the screenshot appeared on multiple social media platforms and sparked heated discussions. Some criticized NETA Auto for blindly chasing hot topics and challenging social values; some commented on Peng’s values and exposed his similar past misdeeds; and some said that the leaking of the internal group chat was dangerous.

That evening, NETA Auto and its investor 360 company issued statements.

NETA Auto’s statement said that during the brand work group discussion, some employees’ comments seriously challenged social values, causing extremely negative effects, violating the company’s principles and purposes. The company immediately decided to dismiss the marketing director Peng Gang and all personnel who made inappropriate comments in the group.

360 company said that it firmly opposed this malicious hype, which seriously violated the values upheld by 360 and severely damaged NETA’s brand reputation. It demanded the dismissal of the marketing team and head in order to ensure that NETA Auto adheres to mainstream values.

Zhang Yong, the co-founder and CEO of NETA Auto, said that the marketing director who proposed this idea and all participants, and even half of the public relations team, will be dismissed.

Regarding this incident, the handling of the two companies can be described as rapid and resolute. There are two points that need to be questioned and reflected on:

First, Peng has been working in the automotive industry for many years and has planned several events that are considered absurd. He has brought negative impacts to the brand reputation of the companies he worked for. Whether he was recruited by NETA Auto or appointed by 360, why was such an obviously incompetent person allowed to enter the company and hold a high position?

Clearly, both companies’ HR systems have issues.

Second, when facing immoral words and deeds from colleagues, especially executives in the workplace, should one be accommodating and avoid conflict or express dissent, assert reason, and stand up for principles?

From the comments of several supporters in the screenshot, although the degree varies, all appear to be the former. “Unity” is achieved, but the principles are lost.

“When I say that electric cars are the future trend, I’m not joking. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s major news,” said U.S. President Biden on social media on August 4, Eastern Time.

The next day, Biden issued a new executive order on the White House lawn, stating that by 2030, half of all new cars sold in the US will have zero emissions, including pure electric, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell technologies.

He also announced other goals, such as building 500,000 new charging stations locally in the US by 2030 and investing up to $7.5 billion in the national charging network. Financial support will also be given for the development and research of the electric vehicle industry chain.

“A beautiful vision of the future will begin from this moment, and the future of the US automotive industry will surely be electrified,” Biden reminded. “There is no turning back. The question is whether we will be leading the way. Currently, China is leading.”

Biden was joined by several electric vehicles, including the Ford F-150 Lightning, the Chevrolet Bolt, the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4xE, the GMC Hummer EV, and the Ford E Transit Van.

CEO Mary Barra of General Motors, CEO Jim Farley of Ford, and Mark Stewart, the North American COO of Stellatis, the parent company of Fiat Chrysler, were invited to attend the signing ceremony.

Surprisingly, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the US, was not present. Prior to Biden’s announcement, Musk had tweeted, “Seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited” to the electric car summit.

Some believe that the support of the United Auto Workers (UAW) was key to Biden’s successful launch of the new industrial policy, and Tesla was not invited because it has not joined the UAW.

In any case, Biden, with the Big Three in Detroit, is taking practical action to electrify the automotive industry and practice the “more united” new Olympic spirit. Musk should seriously consider how best to be “in sync” with the Big Three in Detroit.

SAIC Motor Group is also practicing the new Olympic spirit.On August 5th, SAIC Motors and OPPO signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement, the two parties will fully leverage their leading advantages in the field of intelligent vehicles and smart terminal devices, jointly explore research and applications in SOA application services, ecological domain integration, vehicle connectivity, and other areas. Relevant technological achievements will be successively implemented on SAIC’s independent and joint venture brands’ products starting from the end of this year.

SAIC emphasized that the cooperation between the two parties further deepened the cooperation intention at the SAIC Zero-Shackle SOA Developers Conference.

In April of this year, during the first SAIC Zero-Shackle “SOA Developers Conference”, SAIC brought together many technology giants, including Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Microsoft, Huawei, JD.com, OPPO, Qualcomm, and others.

SAIC stated that they will forge the new “soul” of intelligent vehicles and control this new brain and soul in their own hands. To achieve this, SAIC pledged to invest 300 billion yuan in the intelligent electric field during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

Soon afterwards, Zero-Shackle released a full-stack technology solution focusing on building an intelligent car cloud management and end-to-end integrated technology solution, including a centralized electronic architecture, cloud management and end-to-end integrated SOA software platform, OTA + network security, intelligent car data workshop, and cross-domain integration end-to-end digital experience products.

In summary, the Zero-Shackle Galaxy Full-Stack 1.0 adopts a new generation of centralized electronic architecture, fully supporting L2.999 intelligent driving. The Zero-Shackle Galaxy Full-Stack 3.0 further centralizes the electronic architecture, integrates various domains and central computing units, forming two vehicle-mounted computers, fully supporting L4 and above intelligent driving.

On July 19th, some media reported that the SAIC Strategic Innovation Committee had approved the “Galaxy Full-Stack 3.0” plan. Before and after that, Zero-Shackle successively signed strategic cooperation memorandums with NXP Semiconductors, iFLYTEK, and Horizon Robotics to conduct in-depth cooperation on chip technology, intelligent network connectivity, and joint development and customization of chips.

This is the spirit of the new Olympic Games: make friends more and enemies less.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.