Words | No Fear

“In a high-end community, there can be no HiPhi. If there isn’t, it means the community isn’t upscale enough.”

This was the most unexpected car joke I heard at the end of 2021, six months after the first mass-produced car of Chinese automaker Huachen Motors Group’s HiPhi brand, the HiPhi X, was delivered. As of now, this car has delivered over 5,000 units with an average transaction price above 700,000 yuan, making it the top seller among luxury electric vehicles. Thus, a new Chinese luxury tech car brand has been accepted by the Chinese market.

Before this, many people viewed HiPhi X, with pre-sale prices of up to 680,000 and 800,000 yuan, as Ding Lei’s performance art. As the highest-priced HiPhi in the new energy vehicle market, it was not favored.

Even after HiPhi X’s performance far exceeded market expectations, Ding Lei appeared in a spacesuit, as a “non-typical” physicist, at the new product launch event of the “car that was supposed to be released 20 years from now,” HiPhi Z, which was interpreted by some as a show.

In the automotive industry, I am very willing to follow Ding Lei’s philosophy. In my opinion, the spiritual power he imbued Huachen Motors Group with can be summarized in two sentences: standing on the top of the mountain and looking into the future, and creating works with solid feet on the ground.

The former belongs to the “aim high” wing of the HiPhi brand, while the latter has become the other wing of the newly released “love to create” brand.

“Aim high” is the English equivalent of “想往更高.” If we look at the current wave of new car-making from a genuine perspective, we can see many excellent entrepreneurs and enthusiastic start-up teams. However, most companies seem not to aim high amidst the massive industry transformation they are all envisioning. Instead, we see many aiming big, aiming fast, or aiming to cheat.

“Aim to cheat” here does not refer to those who use cheap marketing tactics to take advantage of the market with the help of early internet concepts and relatively basic big data analytics capabilities. These companies may be commercially successful and are worthy of respect and recognition, but they are not necessary for the core value creation at the forefront of industry transformation.

Among all car brands, GAC Motor is the only one I have seen so far that practices the “aim high” philosophy from actual products to corporate values. You can clearly see their pursuit of excellence that surpasses their peers.

For example, GAC Motor implements dual redundant design for multiple system configurations. This idea does not mean that GAC Motor is going to raise prices and use the extra cost for stacking. In fact, even users of million-dollar products do not have much expectation for redundant systems in a wide range of automotive configurations.

This is the philosophy. GAC Motor believes that if the future intelligent transportation system is supported by the three wisdom systems of car, road, and city, then the redundant settings of the intelligent car system should be aerospace-level.

For another example, we have always been curious why GAC Motor can bring together experts and masters from multiple industries such as traditional car industry and internet, and show consistent quality on their platform. In fact, we have seen that in many enterprises, talents from technology companies and traditional car companies seem to despise each other across dimensions. Some new entrants into the automotive manufacturing industry even advertise that they do not require people with traditional automotive experience.

I believe that “aim high” advocated by DING Lei is the fundamental way to bridge the gap and give everyone a common perspective to look up to. What GAC Motor pursues is the key to bridging the gap between elite talents with different industry backgrounds, who need to understand, change, break through, innovate, climb, and persist from any industry.

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Aim high, reaching for the stars, is the starting point of basic thinking maps in physics and the fundamental principle that runs through the development of physics.

DING Lei, a physics major and an all-around tutor of all industrial chains in the automotive industry, is very aware that the deviation from this fundamental principle is the biggest problem of a century-old industrial giant and the cornerstone of the new era that the industry can achieve. This is the concept that GAC Motor and even GAC Group are determined to establish, and will not give up.

This kind of concept takes root in GAC Motor and echoes at the micro-level of the enterprise, which will inevitably lead to changes in the product philosophy of the enterprise. In an industry that has become mature and solidified, the product philosophy where commodities are prioritized over works has penetrated into the bone marrow, and the inertia is huge. This is also one of the most difficult chronic diseases to change in the traditional enterprise transformation that we often talk about today.For Gaohema, aiming high means putting works before commodities. In the language of the internet, tag-based expressions like this tend to be mocked as a hoax when used by any enterprise. But a simple observation of the industry easily leads to an objective conclusion.

A behemoth consisting of over 200,000 components, with a long industrial chain and a huge workforce, the basic consensus that works are better than commodities brings about enthusiasm for creating works among all work units. For Gaohema, this enthusiasm not only runs through the entire industry chain, but also gains sympathy and participation from users.

Within less than a year of delivery, Gaohema announced another wing of its brand spirit – the love for creation. In my opinion, this plain yet tenacious slogan is a description and enhancement of the main spiritual outlook of all participants, including users, in this brand, and a promotion of the works-oriented philosophy by the automobile brand that has the most complete understanding of the new era of travel.

Let us take user co-creation, which is most loved and talked about by all CEOs of car manufacturers nowadays, as an example. The user co-creation of Gaohema differs from the similarly named street brands in two main ways:

First, such co-creation is co-creation of software spirit.

Intelligent cars are software products. The characteristic of software products is that users have the right to operate and use them within a reasonable range. Facing the same software, users’ usage boundaries, methods and processes vary greatly, unlike hardware, where they can only complain about problems and wait for improvement in the next episode.

Users have the right to use software to complete personalized product design. Only when users exercise their own rights and enjoy the convenience of products to the fullest extent can they achieve the widest, most effective and most in-depth product co-creation. This is neither a logic of giving you four driving modes and letting you choose one, nor a logic of giving you benefits and asking for more opinions.

Without users’ self-definition, there is no real software product co-creation.

Second, such co-creation is based on users’ own needs.

It’s like when you’ve just switched from an ordinary phone to a smartphone. You don’t need the phone company to give you hundreds of virtual coins. You’ll examine carefully what this phone can do and spend a lot of time and effort exploring and trying it out.

The same goes for the tech-intelligent car, which is what Gaohema calls the love for creation, and this is the true value of co-creation. What is obtained by exchanging virtual coins is called the collection of user opinions, which is also valuable, but it can only be considered as doing something that was not done well in the past.The same goes for people in various industries within GAC. Even if they have outstanding achievements in their past careers, most of them have been within a framework that prioritizes products. Ding Lei personally recruited many industry leaders to join GAC. His feeling is that what truly moved them to join a little-known new company like GAC was that GAC ensured that they could put their creativity into practice, and wouldn’t let it remain just a passion without results.

This is also true for most elites in the tech industry, as they are most afraid of entering a traditional industry where they have to spend a lot of time and energy proving that what is already common practice in tech companies is correct. This would make real talent who pursue high achievements in life feel bored.

But at GAC, they quickly discover that people with different industry backgrounds are cooperating and innovating towards a higher vision for the future of transportation. Every work unit enjoys creating, and this creativity is based on a complete understanding of the future transformation of the transportation industry.

As Ding Lei puts it, at the design and manufacturing level of automobiles, the GAC team is immersed in the harmonious integration of the various contradictions that exist within the product of automobiles. Some of these contradictions are caused by the inherent problems of the traditional industry, and some are the result of the difference between the industry’s expectations of change and the reality of industrial capabilities. Based on their understanding of the ultimate technological landscape of transportation and relying on the industrial chain capabilities that have no industry barriers, which contain much more than the traditional automobile supply chain, the GAC people creatively integrate these contradictions.

One of the most interesting questions that many people like to ask is how can a new Chinese car brand be sold at such a high price? Is it because its door handles are made of diamonds?

This is precisely the most interesting part of it all. GAC not only doesn’t have door handles made of diamonds, but it doesn’t even have door handles at all. And this is the fundamental reason why GAC can stand for luxury. Because diamond door handles are cold to the touch in winter and inconvenient to open when your hands are full. The ultimate luxury is to have needs and style synchronized without actually having to touch anything to open or close the door.

Luxury accumulated with precious metals, rare materials, and handcrafts is destined to wane. In an industry that is undergoing a renewal and transformation, the most valuable luxury is created through innovation that stays ahead of the trend.

The tremendous change in the automotive industry is giving birth to various new things, new enterprises, and new idols. The new industry needs talent with an open mind to jointly create a new future. But in my opinion, GAC, with its wings of “aiming higher” and “loving creativity,” is the breed of participants most needed in the technological revolution of the industry.

Success or failure, bigness or smallness, speed or slowness, and luxury or economy are all irrelevant. As Ding Lei put it, it is related to whether we use the methodology of physics to think about knowing and doing. In the field of physics, people think about problems only in terms of the ultimate development of things, and have nothing to do with term of office, retirement age, IPO time, whether children are ambitious, or even their own physical lifespan. Otherwise, the physicist Musk would not be so obsessed with colonizing Mars in his lifetime.

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.