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Chapter 2652 Swift

The development of China's automobile industry after 2000 can no longer be described as an "explosion"; it should be described as a "sweep".

The domestic market remains rock solid, with the three main models – Qinglong sedan, Zhuque SUV, and Baihu off-road vehicle – consistently ranking among the top in their respective segments on the monthly sales charts.

The production lines at the Shunyi and Pudong factories operate 24/7 in three shifts, with machines running non-stop even when people are resting. Finished cars are coming off the final assembly line at a rate of less than one every two minutes, yet dealers are still calling every day to urge delivery.

A large number of newly trained employees were sent to the factory area and then familiarized themselves with their respective workstations under the guidance of their mentors.

The dealer calls the sales department at headquarters every day, saying, "Director Fang, can your production line in China be any faster? All the display cars in my store have been taken away. When customers come, there aren't even any cars to test drive. They just stand there staring at me. If you don't send me the cars soon, my store will be vandalized."

Sales Director Fang Qingzhu replied with a wry smile, "Boss Zhou, it's not that we don't want to send it to you, it's just that the production line really can't keep up. We're working three shifts now, and the machines are practically smoking. Even if you urge us, I can't conjure up any more cars."

"I don't care, why don't you ask President Su to build another factory?"

"What you're saying is ridiculous. Factories aren't like building blocks. Factories in Pudong also operate on three shifts."

"Anyway, my customers who have put down deposits come to ask about it every day. Some have been waiting for two months and still haven't gotten their deposits back. When I offered to refund their deposits, they got angry with me, saying that even if they got their deposits back, they couldn't buy this car from another store. You guys figure it out yourselves."

"Alright! I'll try my best to help you with the transfer."

……

However, what truly suffocates the global automotive industry is the speed at which Chinese automakers are expanding in less developed overseas regions.

On the streets of Southeast Asia, the presence of Chinese cars is increasing at a visible rate.

In the past, taxi drivers in Bangkok only recognized Toyota Corollas. If anyone recommended another brand, they would laugh at them for not knowing cars.

Half of the taxis running on the streets of Bangkok now are Suzaku taxis, with orange bodies and Chinese car logos, weaving through the streets and alleys.

An experienced driver was recognized at a gas station for driving a Chinese car. The person knocked on his window and asked, "Hey sir, how's your car? I'm thinking of getting one too."

The experienced driver turned off the engine, got out, patted the hood, and said, "I've been driving this car for over a year and haven't been to a repair shop once. When I drove a Corolla, I had to change the brake pads every two months, but this car's brake pads haven't even worn down halfway after almost two years."

"So durable?" The other person was a little incredulous.

The experienced driver chuckled, "It's really durable! The repair money I saved is enough for me to take my wife on a trip to Chiang Mai. If you're thinking of replacing it, I suggest you do it as soon as possible; you won't regret it."

"If it breaks, are the replacement parts easy to find?"

"It's very easy to match! I specifically checked the prices of their accessories, and I don't know how they can offer such a low price."

A saying circulates among taxi drivers in Jakarta, Indonesia: "If you want to save money, buy from China; if you want peace of mind, buy from China too."

A new driver in the group asked a senior member, "What are cars like in China? I see more and more of them on the road, but I've never driven one before, so I'm not sure what to expect."

"Just buy it with confidence. There are dozens of people in our group who drive Chinese cars, and not one of them has a bad opinion. It has low fuel consumption, cool air conditioning, and a solid chassis that won't fall apart when going over a bump. The key is that the parts are cheap. Replacing brake pads only costs a few dozen yuan, while if you buy a Japanese car, it would cost twice as much. For us taxi drivers, what we save is what we earn."

Every month, roll-on/roll-off ships from Kunyu Shipping dock at the port of Manila in the Philippines.

The ship's hold was packed with export versions of the Azure Dragon and White Tiger. As soon as the gangplank was lowered, the local dealers waiting at the dock couldn't wait to go up and take the cars.

The dealer only brought a dozen or so employees to the dock to pick up the cars, but there were too many cars and too few people, and the dozen or so people couldn't drive them all.

The dealer stood on the dock, looking at the rows of new cars, and took out his phone to make a call: "Hey, cousin, hurry up and drive your minivan over here, yes, to the dock. And call Uncle too, have him drive his pickup truck. Why? To pick up the cars! The cars from China have arrived, and I don't have enough manpower."

A while later, his cousin arrived in a minivan, followed by his second uncle in a pickup truck.

My second uncle's eyes widened when he saw the dock packed with new cars as soon as he got out of the car. "How many cars did you pick up?"

The dealer said, "This batch has arrived in three hundred vehicles. I'll take fifty back today. Hurry up, one for each of you drive back to the store. I'll come back tomorrow for the rest."

"So many cars? Are they selling well?"

"China's cars are selling like hotcakes. They're durable, reliable, and fuel-efficient, and most importantly, they're affordable."

"I never imagined that Chinese cars had become so advanced."

The African market goes without saying.

The White Tiger off-road vehicle is selling like hotcakes in the sub-Saharan African market.

The local bad roads serve as a natural testing ground for car durability...

The bumpy dirt roads, the muddy paths during the rainy season, and the Gobi Desert that is as hard as stone slabs during the dry season all put a constant strain on the vehicle's chassis and suspension.

The fact that it can run on unpaved roads in Africa for a full year without any major problems is the best advertisement in itself, more effective than playing a hundred promotional videos in Times Square.

Abdullah, a dealer in Nigeria, remarked to the sales manager of the Chinese automaker's overseas team, "Selling your cars is so easy for me. I have a customer who owns a mine; he bought three White Tigers for his exploration team. They ran in the rainforest for six months, and apart from changing the tires once and doing regular maintenance, nothing else was changed."

The sales manager asked, "Is the customer satisfied?"

"Absolutely! They've ordered five more White Tiger SUVs."

"That's good! The quality of cars from our country is still very solid."

……

At the same time, Chongming Bird Trucks is also directly competing with Isuzu and Hino for orders on construction sites in the Middle East and North Africa.

At a procurement bidding meeting, a fleet manager from a Saudi construction company laid out comparative data on Chongming Bird and Isuzu on the table.

Pointing to the figures on the table, he said to the purchasing committee present, "Look, the Chongming Bird has 8% more horsepower than the Isuzu, 12% less fuel consumption, and its parts are only 60% of the price of the Isuzu."

Some people questioned, "Isuzu is a well-established brand, while Chongmingbird has only been around for a short time. Can its after-sales service keep up?"

The fleet manager said, "I've done my research. Isuzu parts, shipped from Japan, take at least two weeks to reach Saudi Arabia. Chongmingbird has a parts center in Riyadh, where common parts can be delivered on the same day, and urgent parts take at least three days. Construction vehicles are tools for work; leaving them parked in repair shops waiting for parts is just burning money. You do the math, how much is lost per vehicle parked for a day?"

"..." Everyone present fell silent.

The fleet manager pushed the comparative data to the center of the table: "Isuzu is a good car, I admit. But the Chongming Bird is not only good, it's also cheaper. The money I save by buying a Chongming Bird is enough to hire two more drivers. Anyone can do the math."

"Shall we give it a try?"

"Let's give it a try! We won't lose anything anyway."

Baize Bus is also competing with Mercedes-Benz and Volvo in terms of attendance rate on intercity passenger transport lines in South America.

A Chilean passenger transport company bought ten Bazi buses to run the Santiago-Valparaiso route.

After a year of operation, the team leader, in an interview with an industry magazine, said, "The Bai Ze has a higher uptime than the European cars in our fleet, lower maintenance costs, and fewer passenger complaints. Before, when we used the European cars, the air conditioning would occasionally malfunction. In Chilean summers, it's 40 degrees Celsius, and passengers felt like they were in a sauna. Complaints kept getting through to our customer service, and the young female customer service representative was brought to tears several times. Since we switched to the Bai Ze, the air conditioning has never had a problem, and even passengers say it's comfortable to ride in." The reporter asked him, "Does the Bai Ze have any drawbacks?"

The team leader thought for a moment, "The only drawback is that the brand isn't well-known enough. But brands become well-known over time. Two years ago, who knew about Chinese cars? Now, if you stand on the streets of San Diego for ten minutes, you'll see at least three Chinese cars."

Chinese automakers have won the trust of these markets in the simplest way.

They don't talk to you about brand premium or a century-old history; they only talk about whether the car can run smoothly, how expensive it is to repair if it breaks down, and whether spare parts are available.

Tianchao Auto's answers to these three questions were more satisfying to customers than those of all its competitors.

A car is driving in the Gobi Desert of Africa. After it breaks down, it takes two months to get parts. That car is a Mercedes.

The parts arrive in three days, and the price is only one-fifth of that of Mercedes-Benz—that's Chinese automobiles.

……

On Kunyu Shipping's global route network map, the schedule for car carriers is repeatedly modified in red pen.

The sailing schedule was increased from one sailing per month to two sailings, and then to three sailings, but it still wasn't enough.

Xiao Liu from the marketing department took the schedule to Lao Chen, the head of shipping scheduling. "Brother Chen, we've added eight more orders this month. They're pressing us hard in Africa. Can you help me figure out a solution?"

Old Chen took the schedule and looked at it for a while. He frowned and said, "It's not that I don't want to help you, but all three roll-on/roll-off ships are running right now, none of them are idle. How can I add more for you?"

Xiao Liu said, "Could we adjust the Southeast Asian routes? Let's hold off on the Philippines route for the next two weeks and ship out the African batch first?"

Old Chen shook his head. "They're urging us from the Philippines too. We just signed a big client last month, and if the first batch of cars doesn't arrive on time, their dealer will deduct a penalty according to the contract. How can I delay?"

Xiao Liu got anxious. "We can't just split the boat in two to use it, can we?"

Old Chen handed the schedule back to him. "The company has already applied to headquarters to buy two more ships, even second-hand ones. With the current shipping capacity, I can't possibly schedule them all."

"Will headquarters approve it? You know, President Su is the least interested in second-hand ships."

"I don't know! We can only apply."

……

On the slipways of Jiangnan Shipyard and Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, the keel of a new 100,000-ton roll-on/roll-off ship is being laid, and welding sparks are flashing day and night in the dock.

The workers worked in three shifts to meet the deadline, and the blue arc light from the welding torches in the welders' hands illuminated the dock as if it were daytime.

An old welder, after finishing his night shift, took off his mask. The red marks on his face from the mask hadn't faded yet. He said to his apprentice, "I've been in shipbuilding my whole life, and this is the first time I've seen the same shipowner order four roll-on/roll-off ships at once. Kunyu Shipping is really rich."

The apprentice asked, "Master, what will this boat haul once it's built?"

The old welder said, "We're hauling cars, Chinese cars. Haven't you seen the news? Chinese cars are selling like hotcakes overseas right now. The docks are piled high with cars, and there aren't enough ships to go around."

The apprentice said, "Then let's work harder and finish it as soon as possible so they can take it out."

The old welder laughed, patted his apprentice on the shoulder, and said, "You're the one who's got the sense to back down. Alright, time to go home and get some sleep."

……

At the docks of Tianjin Port, Shanghai Port, and Qingdao Port, Tianchao Automobile's export vehicles are lined up in neat squares, waiting to be loaded onto ships.

The white dust cover on the car body stretched as far as the eye could see, looking from a distance like a layer of snow newly laid on the harbor.

Dockworkers drove transfer trucks to deliver cars one by one onto the ship. The gangplank of the roll-on/roll-off ship creaked under the wheels. The ship's hold was filled with new cars, layer upon layer, like a giant multi-level parking garage.

A dock dispatcher in the control tower by the dock shouted into a walkie-talkie: "Ship number three, there are still twenty White Tiger SUVs left. Keep up the pace and finish loading within half an hour. There's another batch of Green Dragon sedans waiting to be loaded!"

The reply came through the walkie-talkie: "Received, received. Speed ​​up the process at position number three!"

Domestically, China's Tianchao Auto has become the fastest-growing emerging automaker thanks to its solid product strength.

In the 2000 domestic automobile sales rankings, Tianchao Automobile ranked among the top three in all three segments of the sedan, SUV and off-road vehicle market, and ranked first in total sales among domestic independent brands.

Major media outlets rushed to analyze its secrets to success, and a reporter from a financial magazine wrote a long article of five or six thousand words.

From supply chain management analysis to marketing strategy, from product positioning analysis to channel construction, the final conclusion is: Tianchao Auto's success has no secret formula. All its competitors know what it does, but only it has achieved it.

The employee compensation and benefits system is transparent and open, and the technical school training system is rigorous and pragmatic. Every worker knows how much money they can earn if they do a good job and what consequences they will have to bear if they do a bad job.

The three core components are self-developed and self-produced, the supply chain is independent and self-reliant, and every car leaving the factory undergoes strict quality testing. If a car fails to meet the standards, it will be recycled rather than released to deceive consumers.

Those so-called experts and public intellectuals who used to only smear others have long been proven wrong by the market.

Some busybodies edited together the comments of experts who said on TV back then that Chinese cars "absolutely could not be mass-produced," "were 100% a scam," and "would fall apart after three years" into a compilation video, then added footage of Chinese cars running all over the streets today and celebratory shots of a million cars rolling off the production line, and posted it online.

This video went viral on various forums, garnering over a million views within a few days.

One person commented under the video: "I suggest engraving these experts' names on the wall of the China Automobile Museum, with the title 'You said I couldn't do it, but thank you for inspiring me.'"

This comment was immediately liked and pinned to the top.

Another person commented: "To the expert who said it would fall apart after a year, I'd like to ask you on behalf of my Qinglong: Three years have passed, where are you now?"

Someone else said, "My white tiger has driven 100,000 kilometers. Apart from replacing the brake pads and tires, I haven't touched the engine, transmission, or chassis at all. Experts, tell me, how much longer will it take before it falls apart?"

China's automobile sales have maintained the top position among domestic independent brands for several consecutive quarters.

In a consumer satisfaction survey conducted by a third-party market research institution, Tianchao Auto ranked among the top three in several core market segments, and even surpassed joint venture brands in some indicators.

Tianchao Auto's supplier system covers thousands of auto parts companies across the country, driving the upgrading and transformation of the entire Chinese auto parts industry.

The technical workers trained by Tianchao Technical School are continuously supplied to the entire industry every year, earning it the nickname among its peers as the "Whampoa Military Academy" of China's private automobile industry.

At an industry forum, an executive from a joint venture brand privately remarked to his colleagues, "The speed at which China's automotive industry is developing is really too fast; we joint venture brands simply can't keep up."

His colleague asked him, "So where do you think the difference lies between the two sides?"

The executive thought for a moment and said, "It's not about capital or technology, it's about people and the industrial chain. They have a complete system for training their employees, from technical schools in China to pre-job training to on-the-job training, every link is a closed loop. The industrial chain is also completely dependent on China's industrial capacity. What about us? We rely on headhunters to recruit, outsource training, are unwilling to transfer core technologies to local companies, and people will jump ship if they want to move up, so the price of parts remains high. Their workers see themselves as masters, our workers see themselves as employees. This gap cannot be bridged by investing money."

...(End of this chapter)