Ao Ao Hu

Due to well-known reasons, the bosses of car companies all over the country did not have a peaceful May Day holiday, except for Lei Jun who took the holiday to watch movies at home. It’s not that the hardworking veteran of the tech industry suddenly got a break and decided to fly away. To be precise, Mr. Lei spent three consecutive days catching up on three classic car movies. As we all know, Xiaomi is venturing into the car industry. During the May Day holiday, Mr. Lei indulged himself in some automotive culture and received a baptism of car culture and appreciation.

The Hustle and Bustle of the Car World

Watching movies was just the beginning. The three movies recommended by Mr. Lei were more and more exciting. From the Ford GT at Le Mans reversing Ferrari to the McLaren F1 Circuit overtaking Ferrari (so sad for Ferrari), and finally to the Shelby GT500 in Gone in 60 Seconds. According to the iron law that watching Fast and Furious will raise the car accident rate by 236.87% for normal people, Mr. Lei couldn’t resist getting a little carried away.

After the holiday, Mr. Lei, who still had a lingering desire, fell in love with the entrepreneurial legend of Pagani from scratch. Just on the first day of the May Day holiday, Mr. Lei excitedly showed off the Koenigsegg engine model that his friend gave him. Based on the fact that the readers of this article are likely to be the target users of such brands, brands like Pagani and Koenigsegg should need no introductions.

Sometimes, we have to admit that men like to see and love cars. Even famous honest people in the industry are no exception (not all).

Movies on the screen were not enough, and the poor man started playing with models. With Lei Jun’s wealth and status, how could he stop at the two-dimensional world of models and plastic models? In the past few days, there have been rumors that several tens of millions of rare supercars were seen at the Xiaomi campus. No matter how brilliant the names and the guests are, they still have to wait their turn. Although there is no news that this was intended for Lei Jun’s inspection, if we think about Mr. Lei’s enthusiasm during the May Day holiday, and who has such power in the Xiaomi campus…

Glancing over, the four most famous supercar brands in China, McLaren P1, Lamborghini Huracán STO, Ferrari LaFerrari, Ferrari Enzo, and Porsche 911 GT2 RS, are all present. Roughly estimated, the total price is approximately 30-40 million RMB (don’t take my word for it).

Based on Xiaomi’s market value of 270 billion HKD at the closing on May 10th, the total value of Xiaomi’s headquarters increased by only 0.02% (mistakenly calculated).

A First Look at the Park

Xiaomi announced its entry into the automotive industry over a year ago.

In the past year, in addition to one occasion where Lei Jun and Li Bin, He XPeng, Li Xiang, and Wang Chuanfu appeared together at an event, the four words “Xiaomi Auto” barely made an appearance in the public eye. Apart from a statement that a car would cost 100-300k RMB, we still knew nothing about Xiaomi’s auto business.

In April of this year, Xiaomi announced that they were entering the automotive industry, and Lei Jun could finally devote some time to his personal interests. First, he showed off a model of the Ford GT40 and learned the story of Ford at Le Mans for the first time. Then, he borrowed a Lamborghini Urus, learned the story of another Lamborghini at Le Mans, and somehow mentioned “cutting horses” twice.

The “horses” in both stories, of course, refer to Ferraris (2/2 insults to Ferrari). However, whether intentionally or unintentionally, Lei Jun’s two stories began with “cutting horses,” causing some to suspect that Lei was making fun of the other “horse” in California.

Gossip could not distract Lei Jun’s enthusiasm, and he continued to watch movies, show off models, tell stories, and (unnecessarily) admire luxury cars.

Lei Jun was like a hardworking entrepreneur who never had the chance to be extravagant and luxurious, and suddenly, because of his work, he had to force himself to indulge in delicacies, thus telling us stories that keyboard car enthusiasts have long been familiar with. Naive but sincere, uninitiated but sincere.

An unreasonable question comes to mind: Lei Jun, worth more than ten billion US dollars, at the top of the Chinese business world, how could he know so little about the world of luxury cars? When Xiaomi became the leader in national shipments and when ringing the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s bell, for years at Wuzhen and Boao, Lei Jun never had a chance to spend a little money and symbolically buy a Ferrari?

We do not know whether he had or not, but Lei Jun was truly ignorant of luxury cars. As the most accurate, perfect target customers of Ferraris, Lei Jun had long ignored those glamorous “cheap” goods, and focused solely on developing his own “1999 Befriend” business. Until Xiaomi reluctantly decided to enter the automotive industry, Lei Jun finally had no choice but to pay attention.

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It is truly admirable that Lei Jun’s occasional ignorance of supercars, which is similar to an elder lady’s, does not carry any derogatory meaning. If you were Lei Jun with his wealth and status, you could have played with all kinds of luxury cars from all over the world, afraid to miss out on any of them. A renowned entrepreneur who knows nothing about the luxury world is more worthy of beautiful things.

Beware of getting addicted

Although it is related to business, learning about supercars is not at all the same as learning about BYD or Nio cars. You can get some inspiration and ideas, but it is hard to adopt any specific model strategies just because Lei Jun inspected a supercar club, and that Xiaomi wants to make “the first Ferrari for young people.”

It is related to business, but not that relevant. This feels a bit like using the excuse of “learning computers” to buy a Famicom.

No matter how much enthusiasm a car enthusiast has, when recalling the time when they first became acquainted with cars, luxury cars, and knew them like the back of their hand, they probably have some embarrassing cognitive black history. Car enthusiasts may have temporary misunderstandings, but if entrepreneurs firmly believe in immature concepts they established when they first learned about this world, it may affect their own products and strategies.

For example, the founder of Lamborghini, Enzo Ferrari, was inspired by verbal insults and transformed from a tractor factory into a Ferrari competitor. Is this story inspiring and exciting enough? However, 18 years later, Lamborghini went bankrupt for the first time, and it was not the last time. Today, Ferrari has become an independent public company, and Lamborghini has joined the Audi Group.

Moreover, regardless of whether it is Enzo Ferrari or the Ferrari brand, whether it is telling stories or making movies, there are plenty of historical materials that are equally thrilling. When history is told as a story, it is easy to unconsciously define one side as the protagonist and narrate with bias from that side’s perspective.

For example, the Koenigsegg One:1. Marketing professionals always hype it as “a hundred-million-dollar supercar” to attract attention. However, its latest hammer price is only about 31 million yuan when converted to RMB. Regardless of exchange rate changes, time intervals or tax fees, it is difficult to equate it with “a hundred-million-yuan RMB”.

Don’t laugh. “Only 30 million, not up to 100 million,” is not nitpicking for the sake of it. It is not something that has deviated from one’s own class. Indeed, facts can be easily distorted. Since they are already using money numbers that are beyond their own class to attract attention, how can they use “billion” as a cover for “referring to millions as billions”? Even if it’s “worshipping money,” when taken seriously, it can become a subject of study or even a school of thought.> If distant mistakes are not seen as mistakes, then present correctness will no longer be necessary.

The automobile industry is a world that is too deep to fathom. Cars which have explored to the very core have already departed from the concept of “cars” held by the masses, and face an enormous logical gap in existence, with various dimensions that can be extended in different directions, from legends to human cultural derivatives, enough to give rise to all kinds of twisted theories.

These vehicles, which are so remote from ordinary people that they are rarely seen, are sometimes transformed into magical weapons, and sometimes are despised for being excessive; sometimes they are worshipped like a religion, and sometimes they are stripped down to their most basic elements. It is often the case that those who encounter them for the first time are not well-founded and are led astray or fall into obsession.

An entrepreneur who has successfully realized his dreams more than once began to seriously study the pearls on the crown of the automobile industry. As long as he can maintain a calm and humble attitude, and is not easily swayed by the many noises around him, not too enthusiastic, it will be a lucky thing for the entire industry.

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.