*This article is reproduced from the autocarweekly (official account on WeChat)

Author: Jiang Xiaohua

Today is the first day of 2022. According to family tradition, I got up early and will not slack off on the first day of the year.

The weather in Shanghai is sunny and cool. The air is just as fresh as it was in 2021, but it is a little warmer than the impression of the coldest period. I am enjoying the kindness of the sun while feeling the narrowness of the cold wind that always finds its way into my clothes. I am also pondering some boring questions that I cannot get rid of: is today better than yesterday? Is today worse than yesterday? Am I braver today than yesterday?

The first two questions are probably something that people living in an ever-changing era need to constantly ask themselves. According to philosophers, constantly asking these two questions will eventually lead people to rely less on the external world and return to the state of seeking balance within themselves, paving the way for new philosophy. The latter question is the pain that must be endured in order to achieve this.

This is not something that can be understood in one or two days, perhaps never. Fortunately, the results are not important. By daring to think about these questions, we can stimulate ourselves. I happened to read an annual report on Geely’s CEO, Li Donghui, entitled “Dare to be a Chinese Star of the Times”. In the report, Li issued the brave declaration of Geely Automotive.

I am impressed by the keenness of this company, which has become a leading enterprise in China’s automobile manufacturing industry. After a very painful 2021 for the entire automotive industry, and facing an even more uncertain 2022, for all car companies and car people who cannot choose to just get by, the meanings of courage and wisdom are at the highest level of coincidence.

Wasn’t it painful for Volkswagen to push its transformation into deep water this year? Wasn’t it painful for Akio Toyoda to stick to Toyota’s turtle-paced new energy rhythm? Is it not painful for General Motors to feel their way over the river at their joint venture company in Shanghai?

Wasn’t it painful for Wei Jianjun of Great Wall Motors to quickly push the entire company up to halfway up the mountain? Isn’t it painful for NIO and XPeng Motors to enter the real phase of large-scale development? Wasn’t it painful for Geely to be born in the year with the most severe shortage of chips?

Pain is the best nourishment for courage, and courage is the most accurate navigation towards dreams that are far beyond the horizon. This is not my saying; I just summarized the central idea of Li Shufu’s article “The Spring of Grazing Cattle” in one sentence.

Once again, Li Donghui shouted for courage today. At the stage where Geely Automotive and the industry, even the whole world have developed to a point where the future is clear but the road ahead is unclear, and at this stage where China’s auto industry has no point of comparison and must establish a benchmark, the timing could not be better.

The boldness of Geely is well-known in the corporate world, and was even once considered reckless and addicted to gambling. Looking back, this company always does the right thing at the most appropriate time in the most unlikely way.25 years ago, it was a choice to join the automobile manufacturing industry; more than ten years ago, it was a decision to acquire the expensive Volvo. Nowadays, as mobile phone companies rush into the automotive industry in a panic, in order to fully supplement their own internet and big data genes from the source, they are reversing the trend by making mobile phones.

Many people cannot understand why Geely has such good luck. Or, many people do not understand the logic of Geely’s development from making motorcycles to becoming the largest Chinese passenger car brand in terms of annual sales. They can only attribute such success to luck.

In fact, in a daring speech by Gan Jiaye, the development of Geely up to now has been outlined for us.

First of all, Geely’s starting point comes from love.

On the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up, Li Shufu wrote an article expressing the gratitude and humility of a successful entrepreneur in a lucky era. But the era is faced by everyone, and the choice is individual.

Gan Jiaye recalled that when Geely started, Li Shufu and the people of Geely had many choices, but the chairman did not choose a large number of easier and more profitable options, and even requested that the state give private enterprises a chance to realize the dream of making cars.

This is an entrepreneur who can stare at a set of ingeniously designed planetary gears or curved and beautiful cylinder walls for several hours, a car enthusiast who can wear a suit and examine the chassis structure of a car under the car, or a dreamer who stands on the streets of Detroit thinking that someday Hangzhou Bay will surpass Detroit.

Geely’s biggest luck may be the integration of the founder’s love, the company’s dreams, and the opportunities and expectations given by the times. This is the root of Geely’s daring.

Secondly, Geely’s dream is lofty enough.

Any company from scratch to success will not be smooth sailing. Those who can maintain the driving force of the enterprise’s dream are those who are not inflated when everything goes smoothly, not discouraged and confused when things are difficult, not hesitant to think about strategy, not eager to prove themselves when misunderstood by others, and always maintain the driving force of thinking from the opposite side. This is the enterprise’s dream.

This statement may seem a bit like a chicken soup for the soul, but this is the truth. Fortunately, Geely’s dream was lofty enough from the beginning. Li Shufu repeatedly said to his colleagues on the overgrown construction site of Ningbo Chunxiao that we want to make Chinese cars run throughout the world.

This sentence is believed by Li Shufu and everyone, and it is also what Geely has done to make everyone believe. From the beginning of the startup, the outside world mostly regarded it as a Chinese big-gun-style entrepreneur’s show; after going through the stage of surviving by all means, and releasing the Ningbo Declaration of not fighting the price war, everyone saw Geely’s long-distance running determination; now, with the inheritance of Geely’s native executives represented by Gan Jiaye, the technical and product-level obstacles of Geely cars running throughout the world have been swept away.

Looking closely at Geely’s history, the courage to explore, innovate, and persist through tough times has been the magic charm that has helped this Chinese automaker turn bad luck into good and difficulties into opportunities at every critical turning point. While some may attribute its success to luck, it is actually the daring spirit of Geely that has made its luck.

The most admirable feature of Geely’s daring spirit declaration, according to Gan Jiaye, is that the courage of Geely’s executives has been fully inherited and developed. If the daring spirit of Geely’s executives in the early days was the courage to start from scratch and blaze a new trail, today’s Geely Automotive requires a courage to move from strength to strength, from the known to the unknown.

Gan Jiaye’s “Ji Hu” is Forrest Gump, his favorite movie character, representing courage and long-termism. During his tenure as CEO of Geely Automotive Group, Geely Automotive formally submitted its battlefield for the new era of industries.

First, relying on the mature CMA architecture, Geely launched the China Star series.

Many people may think that launching such a series is just a marketing hype about its name and doesn’t really mean much. This, however, is a misunderstanding of the auto manufacturing industry.

For Geely Automotive, to launch such a series requires at least the following confidence and courage.

It is a series that cannot fail, nor can it disappear. It can only succeed and continuously lead upward. Otherwise, the name will become a disgraceful laughingstock affixed to the Geely pillory. Without the confidence in existing technology and long-term determination, no responsible enterprise manager would consider launching such a series. The boldest automakers could not have launched the China Star series solely from a marketing perspective. This expression is much more robust in Chinese culture than other similar expressions, such as Eastern Star and National Tide.

This indicates that after years of rapid development and accumulation in the 3.0 era, Geely has now prepared its business system strength and technical capabilities to continuously provide products representing the highest level of Chinese automobile manufacturing for a long time.

As can be seen in the China Star series, every product is presented under the banner of “subversion.” Gan Jiaye personally inquired about every key technical indicator of the China Star series products and communicated with core suppliers. If the project fails to achieve the main key indicators that subvert the level of the same class, it will be rejected, even if the product has already been developed.Even so, when China Star series, the most intelligent car system so far, was launched and received an overwhelming response beyond expectation, it also encountered a chip crisis. At its peak, China Star series had more than 100,000 orders to be delivered. This was a big test for Geely in 2021, and only when Geely made products that could not be surpassed by the short-term market, could it minimize the losses caused by unexpected external impacts. It should be noted that the new car effect now is much shorter than ten years ago, and there are few new car effects that last for more than a year.

At the same time, the launch of China Star series also declared Geely’s basic development strategy of adhering to the basics and being innovative in the colorful market. This year, Ganjiaye also faced many questions. Why did Geely, with such a powerful framework, not like some successful market brands, which mass-produced products with more designs and richer functions? Ganjiaye’s answer is that Geely is willing to learn from all good experiences and practices, but sticking to the basics is the main line that Geely must adhere to.

Geely must become the provider of products chosen by the most people, and conversely, Geely must first create products with high value for the most people.

This is the responsibility of a leading company to the market, and also the responsibility of an enterprise to synchronously develop the industrial chain.

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Immediately, in the fourth quarter, Geely launched the long-prepared power brand-Leishen Power.

In the field of fuel vehicles, hybrid technology represents the highest technological capability of automotive enterprises. Geely announced that Leishen has surpassed the strongest Japanese products in this field on several key indicators of performance and fuel economy.

The value of this power brand is not just to help the Geely system’s products maintain their advantages. Wang Ruiping, senior vice president of Geely Automobile Group, enthusiastically announced that Leishen Power is ready to supply globally. How many independent brands have not forgotten that they have had to grit their teeth to bear the past of importing power assemblies, even some very small parts, at prices ten or twenty times higher than reasonable prices. Nowadays, Chinese company’s powertrain, as an advanced rather than cheap option, is about to supply large international car companies in reverse.

In my opinion, in the next decade, the biggest theme of the automotive industry is certainly the theme of smart electrification, and in the still very large fuel vehicle market that optimizes emissions, the supply of powertrain by Chinese car companies is the most noteworthy change. This is not only the success of Geely Automobile but will also drive the upgrading of the entire Chinese automotive industry chain.

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If, based on the mature technology, Geely’s sword in the powertrain field was accumulated and erupted, the resolution to independently research and develop all critical technologies and designs in intelligent vehicles fully demonstrated the complete inheritance of Ganjiaye’s daring genes towards Geely.This is the area where traditional automobile manufacturers have the least confidence. However, the development path of intelligent systems, according to the mobile phone industry, is also very clear: it must go through a phase of multiple players going their own way, a flourishing of many ideas, and ultimately the survival of only a few players.

Therefore, on the road to intelligentization, many enterprises have learned from the experience of the mobile phone industry and abandoned their self-research on chipsets, operating systems, and other software. After all, choosing to self-research the whole stack is choosing a path with a lower chance of success.

However, automobiles and mobile phones are not exactly the same. Abandoning these intelligent underlying contents will also lead to the abandonment of new product possibilities that may arise from the intelligent mobility industry, and even the ability to analyze big data applications. The position of the intelligent partners of automobiles is clearly more advanced than that of the mobile phone industry.

Of course, this is a painful choice. It takes courage no matter which choice is made, while choosing to self-research the whole stack requires even more courage. The larger the scale of the enterprise, the greater the risk it faces when making such a choice. But Geely has almost no hesitation in this matter.

Many people may think that there is a big difference between the content at the level of artificial intelligence and the content at the level of mechanics, just like we are often restrained by high-tech contents such as semiconductors, which may not be solved in one or two days.

But on the other hand, we cannot accept being restrained forever just because we cannot break through in one or two days. Each company has a different positioning for itself. Geely’s dream is to make Chinese cars travel all over the world. This dream determines that Geely will definitely pursue the mastery of all core technologies.

In Gan Jiayue’s view, the full-stack self-research of the intelligent system is not only in line with Geely’s corporate philosophy and positioning, but also has a realistic path to follow. The key is to use the attempts, setbacks, and accumulation of two to three generations of intelligent personnel in the automotive industry to establish Geely’s human resource foundation for intelligence.

Therefore, at the “Geely Intelligent 2025” strategy release conference, Gan Jiayue presented the one more thing: a self-developed 7-nanometer car-grade high-performance SOC chip by Geely. This chip symbolizes a brave beginning. Geely is setting out again on the road to intelligent automobiles, just as it did when it filled in the gap in mechanical ability with everything it had, which was another Geely-style move of moving mountains and filling valleys.

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Li Shufu said in an internal communication that what made him most happy was seeing that Geely had cultivated talent at all levels and ages, with tight connections and solid inheritance.The most important thing is that these talents inherit the most precious and desirable dreams and temperament of Geely. Many rapidly growing enterprises, with the increase of scale and the accumulation of financial resources, disappeared their benchmark and fell into the disease of large enterprises after the stage of success. This has happened countless times in the forty years of China’s reform and opening up. Those who are slightly worse have lost heart and fallen apart, while those who are better have lost their initial pursuit and become slaves to financial reports, indulged in internal competition.

Only with lofty dreams can we live with daring courage. GJY, in the name of Chinese automobiles, released a declaration of daring courage, which not only reminds all Geely people to keep their initial aspirations and maintain their daring courage during the turbulent times, but also deeply summons the Chinese automobile industry to all Chinese automotive companies to make brave choices that are in line with the trend of the times and meet the overall needs of the development of the Chinese automotive industry.

Today will not be better or worse than yesterday. The only thing that changes is whether you have the courage to choose to continue towards your unfinished dreams.

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.