Perhaps most people don't know: General Motors plays a pivotal role in the development of new energy vehicles.

>As early as 1912, General Motors manufactured a motor-driven truck equipped with lead-acid batteries and Edison nickel-iron batteries, and produced 682 vehicles in that year;

In 1996, GM EV1 was born. This is the first mass-produced pure electric vehicle in the true sense, and it is also a revolutionary product. Aluminum body structure, energy regenerative braking, aerodynamics, lightweight... Just as General Motors hopes, in this product, too many technologies and innovations that can change the DNA of the car have been assembled. The cruising range of 145 kilometers, the zero-to-hundred acceleration in less than 9 seconds, and the fast charging time of about three hours... Even in 2006, ten years later, this is a very beautiful parameter;

EV1

Even the "extended range technology" that Li Xiang regards as the best solution for electric vehicles today is the originator of General Motors. In January 2007, the Chevrolet Volt, the world's first extended-range electric vehicle, was born. This product, which shouldered more political tasks at the time, once became one of the best-selling plug-in hybrid models in the US market, and finally withdrew from the stage of history with a cumulative global sales of more than 150,000 units.

In the face of such a illustrious record, who sees General Motors and can't boast, "It's a strong car company"? But in this market once defined by him, the former leader is now a bit faded.

"Elephant" Concerns

Since the era of smart cars started, some traditional car companies have been uniformly labeled as "elephants".

It is not easy to become an "elephant" in people's mouth, because not every traditional car company is qualified to be a "giant".

But it is even more difficult to become the "elephant" in people's mouth, because in the matter of transformation and change, the reaction speed and action ability of behemoths are always extremely slow, even after a certain awareness, due to the strong inertia , it is also difficult to stop in time.

For example, in an academic forum called "A Century of Electricity, New Evolution" held at Beijing Institute of Technology some time ago, Yin Jianmin, executive director of the drive system of SAIC General Motors Pan Asia Automotive Technology Center, said frankly that he was working on electric vehicles a few years ago. At that time, (SAIC-GM) thought like most people, thinking that the essence of new energy vehicles is to replace the engines and gearboxes of traditional vehicles with motors and batteries.

I believe that the "a few years ago" that Yin Jianmin said was the time when the new energy vehicle market began to flip. Go back 5 years and everything is still the same.

In 2016, Tesla, which had just launched the Model X, was still a small car company with an annual output of only 50,000 units. According to the predictions of Wall Street analysts at that time, its stock price could rise to as high as $500;

That year, NIO was still a small company with little known name. It had just given itself an English name of "NIO". After two years of establishment, it had not yet produced a single product. Li Bin was able to work on "PPT Building Cars" and " The identity of "liar" jumps repeatedly;

Also in that year, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in my country reached 507,000, an increase of 53% compared with the previous year. In the sales rankings, BYD, Geely and BAIC New Energy still firmly occupy the top three.

On the one hand, the new energy vehicle market is soaring, and on the other hand, there is a wave of emerging forces that have sprung up like mushrooms. "To", and the time is even earlier than we imagined, otherwise, in 2015, the research and development of Uitium intelligent pure electric platform will not be fully launched.

Still the same sentence, General Motors is very strong, whether it is technology or market sensitivity and insight, but as a member of the "elephant", he also has too many obstacles and confinement. Among them, "safety" is the standard and criterion that he can't give up the most.

I remember that in 2016, when asked by the media why it could not provide the OTA function that Tesla had already implemented in 2012, GM executives gave a two-word answer: "safety".

Indeed, compared with the new forces who like to pile up "futures", the reliability of traditional car companies is no less than that of eating in restaurants-you can order as long as you dare to write, and each dish has to go through thousands of times before it is served. Tens of thousands of experiments ensure that Daodao is a high-quality product.

Such a steady approach is not surprising among traditional car companies. After all, for General Motors, which has more than 9 figures in the market, any mistake may cause tens of millions of people to pay for it. And that's why, for a platform that started research and development six years ago, its first landing product won't be available until next year. In other words, when it comes to safety and reliability, GM can't afford to lose.

26 years of "sharpening a sword"

No one will doubt that it is GM's insistence on "safety" that keeps the industry's bottom line. But what cannot be ignored is that, in an impetuous and ever-changing market, new forces of "Internet celebrities" are emerging.

They are small in size, but have a strong sense of presence, with few sales, but high traffic; With a sense of technology, while winning the favor of the capital market, they also gained a group of enthusiastic "die-hard fans" who haunted various communities and cheered for their favorite brands.

They changed the auto industry and set off a wave of great change. In this frenzied and anxious environment, "fast" seems to be the only way to win in the auto industry: R&D cycles are getting shorter and shorter, product updates are getting faster and faster, and cars, as bulk consumer goods, are also moving toward " Fast digestion" direction.

"Ten years of hard work" or "be famous early", we have no intention of judging these two practices, but in this ever-changing market environment, General Motors is indeed a step behind.

But fortunately, one step slower is not too late, and GM's technology is not late. This time, what he held in his hand was the Ultium smart pure electric platform and a new generation of VIP smart electronic architecture, which combined the electrification experience and forward-looking technological advantages of the past 26 years.

And more importantly, in this turning around, I also saw something different.

Compared with other joint venture brands, although SAIC-GM's revolutionary products are not the first to be launched on the market, they are undoubtedly the most advantageous in the Chinese market. Because on the point of "adapting measures to local conditions", no one has done as thoroughly as SAIC-GM.

I have come into contact with engineers from many different brands before, among which the "big guys" from joint venture brands all expressed the same point of view: although many joint venture brands have set up research institutes, design institutes and other institutions in China, the real core Chinese engineers rarely have access to technology and key parameters. For example, foreign parties often keep secrets about how some important parameters used in the design and production of automobiles come from.

This also explains why the same product can sell well overseas, but it still cannot open the door to the Chinese market. After all, outsiders with "exotic blood", no matter how they dress up on the surface, they always lack a little "human touch" in their bones. SAIC GM has fundamentally solved this problem, directly implanting the "Chinese market" into the foundation of GM products. During the birth of the new Ultium intelligent pure electric platform, SAIC General Motors and Pan Asia Automotive Technology Center directly participated in the simultaneous design and development of the underlying architecture, and more than 95% of the components launched in China will be locally sourced.

Pan Asia Automotive Technology Center

Wang Yongqing, general manager of SAIC General Motors, once said, "All the development standards and technical standards of the new Ultium intelligent pure electric platform are formulated by both Chinese and foreign parties. The verification process is entirely our own."

"Full participation" and "entirely done by ourselves", behind these words, SAIC-GM's pride and confidence are undoubtedly revealed.

Not only that, in terms of the safety that GM regards as life, SAIC-GM is also deeply involved in the design and performance development of the local battery chemical system. On the basis of global standards for new energy vehicles, SAIC-GM has specially developed an optimized formula for the Chinese market, and has also developed a series of battery thermal management technologies with patented design to suppress thermal diffusion, striving to further improve vehicle safety reliability and reliability, which also makes it a veritable leader in the field of electric technology safety.

Of course, implanting Chinese genes into products is only the first step, and SAIC-GM, which is committed to "bring customers a truly pleasant experience of electric vehicles", will never be satisfied with this. Therefore, by 2025, SAIC-GM is expected to invest more than 50 billion yuan in new technologies such as electrification and intelligent networking, and use "intelligent electric vehicles" that are truly suitable for Chinese people to conquer the Chinese market.

Soon, SAIC-GM will hand in the answer sheet. Its first intelligent pure electric model Cadillac LYRIQ will start pre-sale within this year, and it will be launched in China in the first half of next year. By 2025, SAIC-GM will launch more than 10 domestic electric models based on the new Ultium platform, covering the three major brands of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac.

Cadillac LYRIQ

If they don't "brag", then next year, when the product jointly built by Chinese and foreign engineers is launched, SAIC-GM will definitely become the first "elephant" to complete the turnaround among the joint venture brands.