The second Asia-Pacific Investment Summit 2006 and the award ceremony of top capital awards sponsored by Investment and Cooperation magazine were held in Beijing on May 24-25, 2006. The following is a wonderful speech by Lei Yucheng, Chairman of Tongji Tong Jie:
Lei Yucheng: Time is short, so we can't tell you our technology clearly, but I'm talking about our entrepreneurs and investors. We should care about our current manufacturing industry, because it is an important industry that accounts for 25% of the gross national product first. So what is our role? We are an automobile design company, the largest and earliest in China, with more than 600 people specializing in automobile design and automobile technology. Then we can predict that in the next five years, the annual average sales of10 million vehicles will definitely be in China.
Because cars in China have entered a comparative period, there will be a big increase in this comparative period, so it is predicted that 20 15 will reach the first place in the world, that is to say, China will become the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. And the manufacturing cost is 40% to 50% lower than that in Europe and America. The reason is that our labor cost is very low and raw materials are relatively low. Therefore, we can also predict a huge market, so that we will have unlimited business opportunities in automobile technology. So we use the best talents and resources to combine the automobile manufacturing industry with technology. Is to use our technology and our front end to contribute to China's manufacturing industry. Then our classmates really encountered many difficulties in the creative process. The biggest difficulty is the lack of talents in the design and development of automobiles in China. When it was founded seven years ago, we trained our own talents, established a team and established our own core foundation. So in terms of integrated development of automobiles, I can say that you can see 1 12 vehicles at this year's 10 auto show. Most of them are cars, which were developed by Tongji Tong Jie.
We have a complete set of systematic vehicle technology. Of course, the most important thing is that we have twelve important advantages. What I want to say is that we hope to contribute to China's first economic pillar industry through our technology, experience and accumulation. Then we plan to acquire some top design companies in developed countries. All these will be achieved through investment, introduction of investment and listing. We will integrate with foreign resources and capital, and then integrate China's manufacturing industry. China will definitely become the first automobile manufacturing country. But I believe that in terms of technology, we should also become one of the top automotive technology powers.
What I want to say is that vehicle design is a very complicated technology, but we have mastered it, and we can proudly tell you that Zhongmin is the first company to truly master automobile technology, namely Tongji Tong Jie. We have broken the monopoly of other countries on vehicle design, and I can say that we are proud of Zhongmin and China's automobile manufacturing industry. So we can say that in the future, you will see more and more China people designing high-level cars themselves, which means that with this technology, we can also drive the manufacturing industry. We want to integrate domestic and foreign resources in automobile design, and at the same time, we also want to improve the later service and technology-driven service of automobiles. We have more than 600 excellent experts and engineers, so we think that in this respect, just like aerospace, we can rank among the top in the world, and China will certainly rank among the top in automobile manufacturing and automobile technology. Thank you.
Title: "China Sports Car" enters the automobile design industry.
Content: Can China change from a big automobile manufacturing country to a powerful automobile design country? For six years, Lei Yucheng's answer has been: Yes.
This is an orange-red sports car called Thunder. The smooth lines of the whole vehicle fluctuate on the full outline, outlining the dynamic image of men. April 2, 20051,the first day of Shanghai Auto Show. When it first appeared in front of many professionals, they were surprised to find that this concept sports car had no pedigree of any giant, and it came from a strange China automobile design company: Tongji Tong Jie.
Lei Yucheng, founder and CEO of Tongji University Tong Jie Company, proudly said: "This car is the first sports car we have developed with independent intellectual property rights. Many people think that it was designed by foreign experts." .
Today, Tongji Tong Jie is not the 1 1 small company it was six years ago. The largest automobile design company in China has more than 400 designers, with a total of more than 600 people. Lei Yucheng aims to become the largest automobile design company in the Asia-Pacific region within five years.
In 2003, Tongji Tong Jie designed more than 0/0 vehicles a year, with an average design income of120,000 yuan. In 2003, the contract income was 654.38+35 million. However, because some projects are New Year's Eve dinners, the average annual income is over 80 million. "It is estimated that this year's income is also 80-90 million yuan," Lei Yucheng told reporters.
More importantly, their professional ability is increasingly recognized by mainstream automobile manufacturers. Now the company's main customers include Southeast Automobile, Futian, Great Wall, Jianghuai, Erqi, FAW and SAIC. "In the past, customers were biased against us, but now they are less and less biased and worried," Lei Yucheng said.
postal service
From 65438 to 0996, Lei Yucheng came to Tongji University as a professor. Three years later, Lei Yucheng, a doctoral supervisor, and another person 10 established today's Tongji Tong Jie Company. This 1 1 person, some are teachers in the department of automobile, and some are doctoral students brought by Lei himself. Everyone contributed a total of 654.38 yuan+200,000 yuan, and Lei Yucheng contributed more than 300,000 yuan as the major shareholder.
These entrepreneurs are all from technical backgrounds, but doing business and engaging in technology are still two different things. Before the start-up funds were opened, half of them were spent on renting houses, buying furniture and computers. In order to maintain the basic operation, on the one hand, the company develops automobile design module software for UGS, carries out three-dimensional modeling of automobile parts, and accepts some vehicle modification orders; On the other hand, we set up a marketing department and actively contacted customers, hoping to get the opportunity of vehicle design, but at that time, few automobile factories believed that Tongji Tong Jie could design cars.
In order to convince customers, salespeople have to tell customers earnestly that today's automobile design mainly relies on three-dimensional design software and analysis software, which is no longer the trial-and-error development in the past. At this point, China is in step with the world. But I still ate a lot of doors. "They trust foreign car design companies, but foreign companies are very expensive," Lei Yucheng said.
In 2000, the opportunity finally came. Changhe Automobile Company agreed to hand over a minivan project to Tongji Tong Jie for design, with a contract amount of150,000 RMB. However, Changhe did not fully trust Tongji Tong Jie. On the one hand, they are only willing to pay 5% down payment, that is, 750,000 yuan, depending on the progress. On the other hand, a Japanese design company was also found to cooperate with the same project, and the design fee required by the Japanese company was as high as 890 million.
The contract with Changhe Company was signed in February and March, 2000. In order to design new models, the company's staff suddenly rose from more than 40 to more than 80, and the cost rose rapidly, while Lei Yucheng needed 750,000 yuan to support it until the end of the year. As a result, by June, the company had only tens of thousands of yuan in working capital. This led to the company's most serious cash flow crisis so far. In order not to default on wages, Lei Yucheng even paid the workers himself.
But this is not a long-term solution after all. Because it is a private enterprise, the loan hope is very slim, so Lei Yucheng has to introduce strategic investors. Fortunately, as a professor of Tongji, he exchanged 18% equity for a strategic investment of 7 million yuan from the listed company Tongji Science and Technology Industry Co., Ltd.
Although the financial problem has been solved, many people are still at a loss about how to design a car. "At that time, the new employees were stupid and said that they had never designed a car." To this end, Lei Yucheng told everyone that the most effective way is to use benchmarks. This is how the automobile industry in Japan and South Korea rose. For example, if Toyota wants to build a car, it should first buy several general-purpose cars, several Mercedes-Benz cars and several cars of the same type, and then disassemble them for measurement and analysis. Collect data and see how people do it.
"We can't make any inventions from scratch. There should be some accumulation. 100 years of automobile manufacturing history, so where did it accumulate? Some of them are in books, but most of them are in products. Especially the latest products, "Lei Yucheng said.
Of course, this involves another important issue, that is, how to avoid patents. In this regard, Lei Yucheng's view is to learn, not to copy. For example, the arc height of other cars is 30mm and 200mm, so when Tongji Tong Jie designed it, the arc height was 25mm and the height was 150mm, which did not infringe the patent and imitated the advantages of competitors. Every feature should be different from others, but the essence is the same.
In 2002, the company completed the prototype design. Later, Changhe named this car "Dolphin", and now the annual sales volume of Dolphin exceeds 60,000. However, the design designed by the Japanese design company was later called "Walrus", and only 4,000 walruses were produced before production was stopped. Later, Changhe and senior executives once said to Lei Yucheng: It was lucky to find Tong Jie at that time, otherwise, after the failure of the Japanese walrus, we wouldn't have any good products in recent years.
In Lei Yucheng's view, Japanese design companies are not bad, but the design concept is not in line with China's national conditions. Before the design, the company specially investigated the market situation of minivan and found that its main market was in the urban-rural fringe or the central and western regions. The customer base is mainly farmers who have just become rich, and there is no culture. They also buy cars to show off their wealth to others, and they pay more attention to appearance and style. They want trucks to be like cars, so Tongji Tong Jie's products are slightly like cars. However, the design of Japanese companies is more like a truck with a square front, because according to the Japanese concept, this van should be strong, simple and generous. "They have culture, but they don't know what China people are thinking."
Know that you don't know.
The first car built by thunderstorm has still quietly stopped at Harbin FRP Research Institute in the northeast.
199 1 Lei Yucheng, who was a doctor when he was a teacher at Harbin Institute of Technology, registered a company in the name of the Automotive Technology Research Institute affiliated to Harbin Institute of Technology. At that time, Harbin FRP Research Institute and a modified car factory in Daqing each sponsored 1.5 million yuan to design cars for the Institute of Automotive Technology. The main purpose of the FRP Institute is to apply the FRP materials they developed to automobiles. Daqing, a modified car factory, mainly wants to see if a car can be designed in the end. If it is technically feasible, consider applying for production.
With this fund of 300,000 pounds, Lei Yucheng began to try with a group of students. By 1995, they have produced two prototypes of self-driving cars. However, the manufacture of automobiles needs the approval of the state, and anniversary, a company, cannot obtain a production license. At that time, there was no automobile factory in the north except FAW for post-manufacturing, but it was obviously impossible to convince FAW to manufacture, so these two prototypes were finally sent to the FRP Research Institute for collection.
Although the first attempt ended in failure, this failure taught Thunderstorm at least three things. First, designing a car is not as unattainable as expected; Second, professional design companies can't rely on students, one is because students are inexperienced, and the other is because students are unstable. "They just graduated with experience and left as soon as they graduated"; Third, the company should be enterprise-oriented and not have too much to do with the school.
From 65438 to 0999, Lei Yucheng thought that the time was ripe to set up a professional automobile design company. Because in foreign countries, 60% to 70% of automobile design tasks are completed by automobile design companies, and automobile factories are responsible for the post-design work, such as manufacturing, quality control, selection of supporting factories, engineering experiments and so on.
But the industry is unanimously opposed. Some people think that the mode of designing cars doesn't work in China, some people think that the speed of independent development can't keep up with that of foreign countries, and some people think that China has no ability to develop and design cars. "1999 basically surrendered on all fronts," Lei Yucheng said. Domestic automobile manufacturers obviously trust foreign design companies more. Brilliance asked an Italian company to design a Zhonghua brand car for $62 million. In Lei Yucheng's view, "this is a typical waste of money, cheated by foreigners, and three cars can be designed at European prices." In fact, automobile design is both technology-intensive and labor-intensive, and it takes 200,000-250,000 people/hour in the design stage alone. China's manpower is only one tenth of that of foreign countries, and it has an irreplaceable advantage in cost.
It can be said that the industry was a little too self-abased about China's automobile design ability, but Lei Yucheng underestimated the difficulty. In 200 1 year, the stylist of the company once made a model of the dashboard for a customer, but the surface was not bright. At that time, the customer lost his temper in front of Lei Yucheng and said many ugly words. At that time, the internal view was that "it was well done and the customers were too harsh". Now, even Lei Yucheng himself admits that "the things at that time were too bad to be used at all".
"In 2002, we found that the development of vehicle models was not as simple as we thought. We were a little embarrassed and some things needed to be improved. In 2003, I began to emphasize quality and quality, and soon I knew I understood. In 2004, I knew I didn't know. I found that I was not sure about some things, but I had to improve. I had to be modest and prudent. " Lei Yucheng turned to think.
In order to control the quality, Lei Yucheng has implemented some standardized quality standards and processes within the company. For example, the external surface design must meet the Japanese standard and reach the A-class surface. To this end, the company has been conducting internal training for a long time. Thunderstorm used to teach employees every day, but now it still keeps this habit. All employees train for three hours a week. Lei Yucheng has also set up a career development department, which is responsible for patent application and examination. Now there are more than a dozen patents in hand.
Tongji Tong Jie has basically passed the survival stage now, so brand becomes the key to the next step. To build a brand, on the one hand, we need to improve the quality, on the other hand, the company has begun to carefully select customers.
The company once designed Geely's Huapu car, but it didn't sell well in the end. Some people in the industry think that there is something wrong with the design of Tongji Tong Jie, but Lei Yucheng thinks that the main problem is that the manufacturing technology is not in place. "It has no money to invest in molds, and 300 million molds only invested 30 million." But in the end, Gua Tian inevitably chose Li Xia. Now the company's customers are slowly transitioning from ordinary private enterprises to mainstream car factories.
The most valuable thing in this industry is talent. Many backbones of Tongji Tong Jie are invited from Hafei, Beiqi Jeep and even FAW No.2 Automobile. The company also invited Greg Hunter from Mazda with 25 years' experience as the design director, and the modeling director is also a white executive from Audi with 65,438+05 years' experience. In addition, the company also employs two Japanese from China.
Of course, inviting these people here is not just to satisfy the vanity of customers. The annual salary of the company's design director and styling director is about100000 RMB, which is the same as that of their foreign-funded companies, and this money is obviously not a small figure for Tongji Tong Jie whose annual sales are less than 100 million RMB. However, Lei Yucheng thinks it is worthwhile. After their arrival, the company's original weak overall project management was immediately improved, and a series of improvements were made in details. For example, the concept car "Thunder" at the auto show was specially inspected by Hunter for two months before the exhibition. Among them, the warping design under the doors and windows of the car is too straight, lacking the dynamic feeling of the sports car, so it is changed to have certain waves, and there are more than a dozen such changes.
According to the number of people, Tongji Tong Jie can now rank among the top 30 in the world, but Lei Yucheng knows that there is still a certain distance in the level. "It takes five to ten years to train talents." Although the design software is the same, in the design industry, experience is the most important. "It's like the difference between an ordinary tailor and a fashion designer." . Foreign automobile designers need more than five years' experience to be called designers, but many designers in Tongji Tong Jie started designing as soon as they graduated.
In 2002, Lei Yucheng made a five-year development plan for the company, hoping that the company would become one of the top 20 global automobile design companies within five years. There are more than 2000 design and development talents; To realize that 90% of China's automobile design and development tasks are independently completed by China.
But now Lei Yucheng thinks that "it was too optimistic". Thunderstorm's new five-year plan is much more conservative than the five-year plan in 2002, and the basic goal is to become the first in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of number of people. But Lei also stressed, "I hope our quality can be synchronized in the past five years, and we can't just look at the scale."
Next year, the company plans to list in Japan or the United States, hoping to raise 230 million yuan. Lei Yucheng prefers Japanese. First of all, he has business in Japan. Second, the cost of listing in Japan is relatively low, which is half that of the United States. Lei Yucheng plans to use this money to buy a batch of latest equipment, which will surpass its foreign counterparts in hardware. Moreover, the company also plans to spend 65,438+0,000-20 million US dollars to acquire one or two foreign automobile design companies and enter the international market. (Assistant reporter Cao Li also contributed to this article. )
Topic: Lei Yucheng, a pioneer of independent automobile design.
Content: Reprinted from: China Hi-tech Industry Herald, July 2, 2002.
Pioneer of Independent Automobile Design —— Interview with Lei Yucheng, General Manager of Tongji Tong Jie Technology Co., Ltd.
The "Lu Mei" car just rolled off the production line, with its beautiful appearance and extremely lethal price, caused waves in the calm domestic auto market. At the same time, Shanghai Tongji Tong Jie Technology Co., Ltd. and its general manager, Mr. Lei Yucheng, who are responsible for the design of "Lu Mei" vehicles and chassis, have once again entered people's field of vision (the last time was because Tongji Tong Jie was "suddenly" found to be the first independent automobile design company in China two years after its establishment).
Ten years of birth
Lei Yucheng was originally a vocational high school student studying garment cutting, and later became a master of military engineering in Harbin, and completed three years of studies with high credits in two years. 1989 taught at Harbin Institute of Technology after graduation, 1994 graduated with a doctorate. 1995 transferred to the automobile department of Tongji university, a young college teacher, led his own research group and completed the development of three models in a few years. At the same time, he studied under two academicians of China Academy of Engineering: Huang Wenhu, a mechanical expert, and Guo Konghui, an automobile authority, and completed the on-the-job doctoral program. 1996, 33-year-old Lei has become a professor at Tongji University and served as a doctoral supervisor in the second year.
Since engaging in automobile education, Lei has formed an indissoluble bond with automobiles. 199 1 started to design automobile chassis and parts, 1992 engaged in automobile design, 1999 established Shanghai Tongji Tong Jie technology co., ltd with some colleagues, and completed the shareholding system reform in 2000. 10 For many years, Lei Yucheng devoted his whole life's enthusiasm to China Automobile.
"China badly needs one or more neutral professional automobile design companies," Lei Yucheng said. "The task of such companies is to recruit the best talents in China, use the best design methods and adopt the best business operation mode to complete the product development work that production enterprises cannot complete. In this way, enterprises can put more energy into actual production. "
Eliminating the "soft spot" and independent research and development
The design and development of automobiles has always been regarded as the "soft spot" of China automobile industry. Although it was proposed a long time ago that we should develop our own cars, in recent years, the so-called "domestic cars", especially those running on the street or being produced by enterprises, were mostly imported from abroad, that was a few years ago, more than ten years ago or even longer ago. Moreover, China automobile enterprises are still launching one model after another repeatedly, and the truly self-designed and developed models are still far away. Some people can't help wondering whether China people can design and develop their own cars.
"The people of China are fully capable of developing the most advanced cars in the world!" Lei Yucheng replied flatly. He emphasized that the most important factor restricting the progress of China's automobile design level is not the lack of technical ability or talents, but national nihilism. "The reform and opening up has greatly developed China's economy, but it has also made many people think that the moon in the West is brighter than that in China." Lei Yucheng said: "In fact, a large part of the technical backbone of automobile design in developed countries such as the United States comes from China!" Lei believes that talents in mathematics and mechanics in China are much better than those in some developed countries such as the United States. As long as the employment mechanism is improved, a large number of talents will stay in China. Lei said that since 1995, the international community began to get rid of the trial-and-error development mode before 1990, and used a large number of three-dimensional design software and analysis software, and we also carried out it simultaneously. From this point of view, we are not backward, we are catching up with a good opportunity for design technology innovation, which makes us stand on the same starting line with developed countries.
"Many of us always think that we have no experience. In fact, the developed countries in the world also refer to the structure of their own and others' mature models for design, and then make optimization analysis on this basis. Lei Yucheng said, "In fact, most of the experience and knowledge of automobile design accumulated by human beings over 65,438+000 years are kept in products. As long as we avoid patents, all structures and designs can be learned. Learning knowledge and design experience from products and standards, and then using large-scale analysis software to optimize, this is a common method adopted by countries all over the world. "
"You have the right to do this, because developed countries do the same. Don't worry, don't lose heart, "Ray continued.
Enter the top 20 in the world within five years.
According to Lei's analysis, there are 187 vehicle factories and tens of thousands of parts factories in China, all of which need technical support and new product development. Therefore, the market for design companies is huge. Moreover, compared with international counterparts, China's design industry has strong talent scale, low labor cost and high level. As long as domestic enterprises don't worship foreign things, we have the best cost performance. Lei also revealed that Tongji had undertaken international design analysis tasks many times before entering WTO, and it had good international competitiveness. Moreover, local design companies know the design norms and culture of China best, and can be more suitable for China than the designs of foreign companies.
Lei Yucheng made a five-year development plan for Tongji Tong Jie: within five years, it will become one of the top 20 global automobile design companies; Design and development talents reach 2000-2500; To achieve 90% of China's automobile design and development tasks, China will complete it independently. ...
"We are fully confident to achieve this goal," Lei concluded.
[Background]: It is natural for manufacturing enterprises to design their own cars. As a matter of fact, as early as two years ago, China not only started its own attempt to design cars and achieved a successful example, but also introduced a design model that was in line with international standards-automobile design company. From 65438 to 0999, Shanghai Tongji Tong Jie Technology Co., Ltd., the first independent automobile design company in China, was established, and the first self-developed mini-car in China was developed and designed. Founded less than two years ago, it has owned hundreds of technologies such as software products, complete vehicles, body parts, machinery and electronic products with independent intellectual property rights. This year, only a brand-new mini-car development project signed a design fee contract of 20 million yuan, thus becoming the first high-tech enterprise focusing on automobile design in China. Since last year, the company has successfully developed an MPV car, and is designing and developing another mini car, which can be officially put into production next year.
According to reports, Tongji Tong Jie currently has a design team composed of more than 200 outstanding talents. The chairman of the company is Professor Guo Konghui, the only academician of the Academy of Engineering in China automobile industry, and the general manager is Professor Lei Yucheng, professor of automobile department of Tongji University and deputy director of automobile modeling design center of Tongji University.
Different from the monopoly of automobile manufacturing, there is no monopoly obstacle in automobile design, but it has not developed. Lei Yucheng is a pioneer in the research direction of modern automobile design theory in China. Regarding the viewpoint of "lack of independent development and design ability", Lei Yucheng analyzed that the most important factor restricting the progress of China's automobile design level is not the lack of technical ability or talents, but the lack of ideas. The blind worship of foreign things is not conducive to the development of design companies in China. Most domestic models are imported and improved from abroad. But most people don't understand that in developed countries such as the United States, most of the talents who really play an important role in automobile design come from China, and a few are from India. China's car design didn't start from scratch. We have a group of excellent experts who design and develop cars themselves. They have trained and are training hundreds of design experts. Moreover, China has a very good spare parts production system and manufacturing supporting capacity, and it can also partially purchase international spare parts, which is a sufficient foundation for development.