Rebirth 99 to become a car giant

The success of a car is definitely not just relying on the superposition of configurations.

Otherwise, you don't have to do anything, just superimpose various configurations.

But for a high-end luxury model, if you don't have enough configuration, it will definitely not work.

To give an extreme example, if you can't even meet the simple requirements of front and rear independent suspension, what high-end models are you talking about?

When have you seen which generation of Mercedes-Benz S-series or BMW 7-series and 5-series models have non-independent suspensions?

Looking at the development history of the car industry, there is only one special case like Tesla. The configuration of each model is very low, but the sales are very good.

That's because times have changed.

People are focusing on intelligent driving.

"Mr. Cao, for this large SUV model, we will re-adjust the explanatory materials for the kick-off meeting in the direction you mentioned."

"There is a sports car in the back, and I will also report the situation to you?"

If the two cars hold a kick-off meeting together, the sales department and the research institute will need to prepare more materials.

The key is that the positioning of these two cars is completely different, and the information has no reference significance except for the format.

"Let's talk about it first."

Cao Yang was a little curious about what the report materials Zeng Tingting and Yao Yongxiang would finally produce would look like.

The sports car market is very special.

There are hundreds of thousands of sports cars, millions of sports cars, and even tens of millions of sports cars.

Although Xingchen Motors is taking the high-end route, how to position a sports car is definitely very difficult.

"The world's famous sports cars are basically produced by European companies."

"Whether it's Koenigsegg or Bugatti, or Ferrari, Porsche, Pagani or Lamborghini, they all come from Europe."

"Although the United States and Dongying are also car powerhouses and have their own sports cars, there is still a big gap in luxury compared with European cars."

"So our sports car, the first benchmark is the European car companies."

"Especially some time ago, Volkswagen announced the situation of its Bugatti Veyron, which brought a very big impact to the sports car circle."

"The Bugatti Veyron is equipped with a W16 quad-turbocharged engine. The output horsepower of the engine can reach 1001 horsepower, and the speed can reach 407 kilometers per hour. It is the fastest sports car in history, even faster than an airplane. quick."

"Of course, its price is also very high, even in Europe, it costs 1 million euros."

"When it comes to China, it must be more than 10 million yuan, or even higher."

"Considering that sports cars are mainly used to enhance our brand positioning, sales volume is not the main consideration."

"So we boldly put forward the benchmark Bugatti Veyron and developed a W16 engine, so that our power can be comparable to that of the Bugatti Veyron."

"Then sell a limited number of 99 units throughout the year, fully enhancing the brand influence of our Xingchen Automobile."

For a sports car, the powertrain is definitely the most important.

As for the appearance, in fact, no matter which sports car it is, the appearance is not bad.

Even the sports cars of decades ago, their appearance is quite classic now.

Sports cars are not updated as frequently as sedans.

It is normal for a model to be sold for ten or eight years.

At most, some facelifts or limited editions will be launched in the middle.

So after discussing with Yongxiang, Zeng Tingting felt that Xingchen Motors definitely couldn't rely on sports cars to make money.

However, Cao Yang also asked to produce such a model to enhance the luxury of the brand, so he simply produced an "advertising car" with various data exaggerated.

Although a model will cost one billion eight hundred million, it is acceptable if it is spread over ten or eight years.

After all, it is an "advertising product".

However, Cao Yang's thinking is obviously not completely like this.

"The W16 engine used by Volkswagen on the Bugatti Veyron is actually based on the V8 engine, put the two together, and develop the W16 engine by sharing a camshaft."

"This is similar to the logic of using two V6 engines to develop the W12 engine."

"But until now, we have not developed a V8 engine, so the difficulty of developing the W16 engine must be more than one level higher than that of the W12."

Although Cao Yang also has a way to make the development of the W16 engine smoother, the model positioning that Zeng Tingting and the others are talking about now does not meet his requirements.

So it is natural to find some perfectly reasonable reasons to oppose it.

"We want to enhance the brand power of Xingchen Motors by producing sports cars, but I also hope that this sports car can be truly seen in some cities."

"So limited edition production is inevitable, but a limited edition of 99 units is definitely not enough."

"In the first stage, there must be a limited number of 999 units."

"We will continue to launch various other limited editions in the future to fully tap the market potential and make our sports cars profitable."

"In this way, a sports car like the Bugatti Veyron does not meet market demand."

When Cao Yang said this, Zeng Tingting had no way to refute it.

Even Yuan Yongxiang breathed a sigh of relief.

Bugatti Veyron ah.

This is the ultra-luxury sports car that Volkswagen has been tossing for several years before launching for the first time this year.

Xingchen Motors built such a sports car from the very beginning, and the pressure on him was absolutely enormous.

The key is that Cao Yang still thought that this car would be launched in 2007.

With all the calculations, they were left with two years of development time.

Although there are more than Ziweixing, the difficulty is completely different.

"Mr. Cao, in addition to the Bugatti Veyron, we actually also benchmarked the Lamborghini Gallardo."

"This sports car, which debuted at the 2003 Geneva Motor Show, is one of the most successful models in the sports car market today."

"In terms of power, the engines used by Gallardo are all from Audi. It is equipped with a 5.0L V10 engine with a maximum power of 493 horsepower. After different adjustments, the maximum power of this engine can reach 523 horsepower."

"Unlike the Bugatti Veyron, the Gallardo redefines the compact sports car market to which it belongs with the dual identity of a high-performance sports car and a car for everyday life."

"In addition to power, Lamborghini uses Audi's all-aluminum body technology."

"In the field of all-aluminum bodywork, Audi has always been in a leading position, and the Audi A8 has already adopted this technology."

Zhou Yongxiang took over the topic of Zeng Tingting and began to report to Cao Yang the positioning direction of another sports car.

After all, one is to take the ultra-high-end route to enhance the brand strength, and the other is a model that needs to be considered to a certain extent.

The sales department and research institute have made two-handed preparations.

"All aluminum body?"

"Do you think this direction is good?"

Cao Yang asked back.

Although later generations of Audi A8 and Range Rover have used all-aluminum body.

But in the end it proved that the all-aluminum body is not a good thing.

In terms of strength, that's it.

As far as the weight loss effect is concerned, although it looks good, there are also a lot of problems.

Cao Yang definitely didn't intend to touch this bad luck.

"Mr. Cao, although the all-aluminum body has various problems such as high welding difficulty."

"However, Gallardo finally achieved large-scale mass production through various processes such as aluminum extrusion, aluminum stamping, and aluminum casting, and through various methods such as welding, riveting, and bolting."

"Domestic industries related to aluminum still have competitive advantages internationally."

"In fact, we can also consider adopting the all-aluminum body technology, which will also be a good publicity selling point at that time."

Rao Yongxiang felt Cao Yang's objection, but he could only bite the bullet and finish speaking first.

What else?

"All aluminum body is not good!"

"Instead of using this technology, it is better to use a fully hot stamped body."

"Through the way of double door rings, the integrated use of hot stamping forming technology allows the entire cockpit to be surrounded by hot stamping forming parts."

"In the end, whether it is the collision effect or the publicity effect, it will not be worse than the all-aluminum body."

Cao Yang expressed his objection very directly.

"Mr. Cao, the strength of the all-aluminum body is high, and the aluminum alloy has excellent strength and toughness. After reasonable design and processing, the all-aluminum body can reach or even exceed the strength level of the steel body, thereby improving the safety and durability of the vehicle. .”

"Otherwise Audi and Lamborghini would not use such technology."

Rao Yongxiang couldn't help but argue with his own explanation.

However, Cao Yang was obviously not one of those easy-going fools, and said directly: "You have already said that the strength level of an all-aluminum body can reach or even exceed the strength of a steel body, which shows that it is just barely equal to an ordinary steel body."

"In fact, everyone is not stupid. As long as you think about it seriously, you can understand. Under normal circumstances, how can an aluminum body be stronger than a steel plate?"

"Unless you have to compare the strength of thick aluminum parts with ordinary steel stamped parts."

"Otherwise, from the perspective of material performance, the aluminum body cannot have any advantages."

"It's nothing more than the advantages of aluminum in terms of lightweight."

Cao Yang spread his hands together, apparently completely disapproving of the all-aluminum body.

"The weight of the all-aluminum body is light. Compared with the steel body of the same size, the weight can be reduced by more than 30%. This can not only improve the fuel economy of the vehicle, reduce energy consumption and environmental pollution, but also improve the handling and performance of the vehicle. Accelerate performance."

Yuan Yongxiang is making the last struggle.

But it looked so pale.

"Mr. Rao, you won't come to another high-end manufacturing process with an all-aluminum body?"

"In the promotion of the Audi A8, there is aluminum alloy processing technology that is more high-end than traditional steel processing technology, requiring high-precision processing equipment and complex manufacturing processes, so the manufacturing cost of the all-aluminum body is relatively high, but this also means If the all-aluminum body has high technical content and quality assurance."

Hearing what Cao Yang said, Rao Yongxiang himself felt embarrassed.

Fortunately, Zeng Tingting interjected in time, saying: "Mr. Cao, the parts near the passenger compartment of the car body have higher requirements on strength. It should be easier to meet this requirement by using hot stamping technology."

"In particular, the door knocker integrated hot stamping technology you just mentioned is the first in the industry, and it must be a good publicity point."

"However, in some parts of the front and rear of the car, aluminum parts have better energy absorption performance. This combination may allow our sports car to meet high strength and also have high energy absorption performance. .”

"So that when a collision occurs, the safety of passengers is fully guaranteed."

"Also, with the increase of the service life of the vehicle, there will be different degrees of corrosion."

"So the car body will use various coating processes for anti-rust treatment before assembly, but this can only delay the rusting time of the steel plate, and cannot completely prevent the steel plate from rusting."

"Especially in the north, the deicing agent sprinkled on the ground in snowy days is particularly corrosive to the chassis of the car body, so that the steel plate gradually loses its proper strength."

"Compared to steel plates, aluminum plates do not have this concern, because it can react with oxygen in the air to form a layer of aluminum oxide film, thereby isolating the aluminum alloy from chemical reactions with external substances."

"Therefore, aluminum alloy parts are more corrosion-resistant than steel plates, and it is not without advantages."

It has to be said that Zeng Tingting's ability to deal with mud is still very good.

The point is that logically speaking, there is absolutely no problem with this statement.

The parts on the car are not as strong as possible, nor as soft as possible.

Instead, the places that need to be hard should be designed to be harder, and the places that need to be soft should be designed to be soft.

At the same time, she changed her perspective and considered the advantages and disadvantages of aluminum and steel parts from the perspective of anti-corrosion, so that no one could refute.

"What Minister Zeng said makes sense, and we can try to move in this direction in the future."

"However, a car has aluminum parts and steel parts. The welding of aluminum and steel is a world-class problem."

Cao Yang is not the kind of person who does not understand technology.

Welding technology may seem simple, and welding scenes can be seen everywhere on construction sites outside.

Even self-employed people who install stainless steel anti-theft nets on the roadside can play welding very well.

However, when it comes to the welding of aluminum and steel plates, under the premise of ensuring the strength, it is definitely a technology that no car company has mastered until now.

At least for now the technology in this area is very immature.

The material properties of aluminum and steel are very different.

The welding between pure aluminum and aluminum is not so difficult.

The welding technology between pure steel and steel is very mature.

But mix the two and it's a completely different story.

"Mr. Cao, what direction should our sports car be designed in?"

Rao Yongxiang now feels that he has no confidence at all.

Originally, sports cars were not something domestic designers were good at, but now they also need performance and sales.

It is difficult to meet this necessary and necessary requirement.