Toyota, which was robbed of the world's number one, was ready to fight back, but the opponent said such a thing.

Now we know several facts: First, the world's first car company is no longer Toyota or Volkswagen, but Tesla. Second, Tesla's current market value is almost equivalent to two Toyota, and it is unlikely that Toyota will regain this throne in a few years. Third, the CEO of Volkswagen, now the third in the world, has publicly stated that they have not caught up with Tesla's ability, and now only Toyota will not admit defeat.

Recently, however, this Japanese car company, which has mastered the world's strongest hybrid technology and has been the world's dominant position for more than a decade, has finally begun to realize its own problems.

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Where did Toyota, which has the strongest technical reserve in the world, lose?

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2020 is the 87th year of the establishment of Toyota Motor Corporation. At the recent Four Clean-ups Meeting held at Toyota headquarters in Japan, Akio Toyoda, the 64-year-old fourth-generation head of Toyota Motor Corporation, publicly expounded his understanding of being surpassed by Tesla.

Akio Toyoda believes that Toyota still has the strongest hybrid technology and hydrogen fuel cell technology in the world (it is true that more than half of the patents in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are held by Toyota). It also has the strongest fuel engine technology in the world (this is also true. At present, the thermal efficiency of mass production is above 40%, and there is only one Toyota in the world. Toyota's TNGA architecture is also more advanced than its main competitor Volkswagen's modular chassis.

It can be said that Toyota does have the world's top strength in the field of traditional automobile manufacturing, especially in the core hardware manufacturing level, which is recognized by Tesla in addition to its old rival Volkswagen. However, Akio Toyoda clearly pointed out that the fundamental reason why Toyota's market value was surpassed by Tesla in 2020 and was quickly abandoned was software. Toyota is seriously behind Tesla in software development and software level. At the same time, he issued instructions to Toyota executives under the stage to catch up with Toyota's huge gap in software and Tesla as soon as possible.

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Small car machine is so important?

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The software gap in Akio Toyoda's mouth is the same as what Dr. Diss, CEO of 20 19 Volkswagen, publicly clarified at the internal meeting: smart car machine. From 2065438 to 2009, Dr. Diss clearly pointed out that Volkswagen is intelligent at present, and there is a generation-to-generation difference with Tesla in terms of on-board machines and on-board software, which is also the reason why Volkswagen's strategy of promoting pure electrification has been repeatedly blocked. After half a year, the boss of Toyota on the other side of the world also expressed a similar view, that is, smart cars are the main reason why Toyota (including Volkswagen) is vulnerable to Tesla.

This smart car, to put it bluntly, is the gap between traditional cars (non-smart cars) represented by Toyota Volkswagen and smart cars represented by Tesla. These two forms of cars are completely different "species". Traditional cars follow the common sense of cars and large mobile machinery a century ago, such as chassis, engine, gearbox and so on. However, Tesla and a group of new domestic car-making forces represent the product of the complete combination of mobile Internet and mobile phones after human beings entered the era of mobile Internet.

Therefore, it is a fact that Toyota Volkswagen has better chassis adjustment, highly mature internal combustion engine and gearbox technology, lower fuel consumption and better sound insulation. These are the weaknesses of Tesla and the new forces. But what about smart cars? It is automatic driving, a variety of intelligent functions that are convenient to use and don't want to go back, and it is highly integrated with mobile phones. In today's era when this mobile phone has become everyone's "external organ", the advantages of smart cars in this respect are crushed compared with traditional cars.

So on the surface, the boss of Toyota Volkswagen just said that there is a gap between cars and machines, but in fact, what they really expressed is a more terrible reality: these old-fashioned overlords who have played in the automobile market for hundreds of years have fallen behind in today's information age. This is their top leadership's first public statement on the current situation of the automobile market. Even the top two giants in the world's traditional automobile industry have made public statements, and it is not difficult for us to determine the fact that the shape of automobiles has undergone earth-shaking changes.

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But Tesla, don't be too happy. You have to make up your homework.

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At this rate, isn't it a matter of time before Tesla and domestic pure tram companies kill traditional car companies? That's true, but we must know that there is still a big gap between the new forces, Tesla and other traditional giants in terms of core mechanical quality.

This gap refers to the mechanical details such as the response of the chassis brake throttle. At present, including the new forces and Tesla, there is still a big gap between the chassis and the traditional giants. Based on my years of experience in debugging and editing, it can basically be said that the overall chassis quality and adjustment level of these cars are at least five years behind the same level products of traditional automobile giants. This is a problem for all new car brands (including Tesla).

After horizontal comparison, this problem will directly affect the purchase decision of some consumers. Therefore, the core mechanical quality is still the biggest weakness of all new car brands at this stage and even in the next few years, and it is also the most vulnerable point to traditional brands. This gap is real, so we can only try our best to make up our lessons without detours.

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