Can traditional autobots really build smart cars?

At the Beijing Auto Show and the World New Energy Vehicle Conference, how to build new energy vehicles and how to build intelligent networked vehicles has become a question that all heads must answer.

Xu Heyi, former chairman of BAIC Group, lamented: "If we still use the traditional concept of building cars, we can't continue. With the era of software definition and the lack of Internet talents, we must break the inertia thinking of traditional manufacturing. "

How to break the inertia thinking depends on a diversified management team.

If science and technology are the primary productive forces, then talents who master many sciences and technologies are the source of power. Without these talents, traditional car companies will inevitably be subverted by new forces to build cars.

From Musk to Li Xiang, no one has really set foot in the field of automobile manufacturing, but they are all creating enterprises with market value far exceeding that of traditional automobile companies.

Without these young people, smart electric vehicles may have no future.

Digitalization ability, software design ability, ecological layout ability and iterative ability are the necessary abilities for the transformation of traditional automobile enterprises. Every leader of a traditional car company wants to acquire these capabilities. However, the traditional inertia thinking makes the transformation of traditional car companies difficult.

From the point of view of product design, traditional autobots are used to innovating on the original products, euphemistically called maintaining family design. In fact, from the perspective of cost, the adoption of universal platforms and modules can help car companies form scale effects, thus reducing costs.

However, this thinking of reducing costs restricts the innovation of car companies. Every bold idea will be approved layer by layer and may eventually be erased.

At the same time, the hardware department dominates the whole product design. They think that software is for hardware, and some software that needs iteration can be put as little as possible. This kind of thinking makes traditional car companies still pursue excellent car hardware, thus ignoring the product strength of software and hardware.

The shackles of transformation are not limited to these. Traditional car companies have mature processes and mechanisms. In the face of innovation, they just set up branches and use the original team to create innovative business.

The old manufacturing thinking is deeply rooted in the minds of team executives in the innovation department of traditional automobile enterprises. The long-term formation of the underlying thinking makes innovation superficial. For example, install a big screen for the car and add a small entertainment APP. People from traditional car companies can't quickly understand the deep meaning behind installing big screens and adding entertainment ecology, and still look at innovation with the thinking of selling cars.

The change of thinking didn't happen overnight. Nokia, the former mobile phone overlord, used the original team to make the innovation of adding physical buttons. It took six years from peak to decline.

From the second half of 20 19, the new car-making forces headed by Tesla began to recover and rise. Under the big waves, we have retained a strong team of innovative new forces to build cars.

This year may be the first year for new forces to catch up with traditional car companies. Traditional car companies have to make a last-ditch effort.

This is easy to say, but it is difficult for traditional car executives to take their chances.

The founders of old independent brands such as Geely Automobile, Great Wall Motor and BYD have great influence and function on enterprises. Will they let go?

This requires the courage of the person in charge of the car company. Innovation is risky and the path of innovation is not clear. Faced with these, young people should be allowed to rush and rush.

Judging from the senior management teams of several new forces making cars. Diversification and youthfulness are their common characteristics.

In 2004, elon musk participated in Tesla's Series A financing and began to lead the company. Musk was only 33 years old that year. Its top management team includes Zachary, 35. Kirkhorn (in charge of finance), Andrew, 39? Bagrino is in charge of energy business, Jerome? Guillen is in charge of sales and service business.

Except Jerome? Guillen has Daimler's experience. Jim, an executive of Tesla's autonomous driving team? Keller (resigned), Chris? The latter (resigned), Peter? Bannon and Andre? Capassi and others are mostly from Apple, Intel, AMD and Open? Technology companies such as AI.

The characteristics of the senior management team of the new domestic car-making forces are also diversified and young. Li Bin, chairman of Weilai Automobile, was only 40 years old when Weilai was founded. Director Qin has worked in real estate, Procter & Gamble and other companies. Feng Wei, the chief financial officer, was the general manager of China International Capital Corporation and the head of the research team of automobiles and auto parts, as well as an analyst of Everbright Securities and CICC. Ganes, CIO? V.Iyer worked as a VM? Ware senior information technology leader, Tesla vice president of information technology.

He, the chairman of Xpeng Motors, was 40 years old and was a full-time car driver when he joined Xpeng Motors. Its senior management team includes Gu, Chairman of JPMorgan Chase Asia-Pacific Investment Bank, Wu Xinzhou, who has worked for ten years, and Benny, former vice president of engineering. Katie Bianca, etc.

Li CEO Li wanted to start Li when he was only 34 years old, which is the closest age for Musk to start Tesla. Its senior management team includes Li Tie of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Shen Yanan of Lenovo Group and Ma Donghui of Sany Heavy Industry.

When traditional cars are transformed into smart electric vehicles, it is not difficult to find that these young people can only be relied on to promote change. They have experienced the baptism of the Internet and are all innovators of the mobile Internet.

As Peng Bo, a global partner of McKinsey, said, traditional car companies must boldly use young people with diverse backgrounds, especially in the senior management team. Most of the executives of existing car companies have more than 20 years of experience in the automobile industry. Usually, the top teams of technology companies have young leaders with different backgrounds.

Peng Bo raised a very good question. "From the perspective of talent sources, why don't the sales team recruit young people with clear ideas from FMCG or Internet companies? The R&D team can also supplement a large number of software professionals from technology companies or entrepreneurial teams. "

Of course, traditional autobots are not useless. Traditional supply chain, manufacturing and other links also need traditional autobots to check. After all, there are very few cross-border talents who know both software and hardware.

It is a real intelligent electric vehicle innovation team, bringing together a young and diversified team of soft and hard executives. The head of a traditional car company just needs to let go, let go, and then let go.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.