Home Dialogue: Dialogue between Otani Mingjun and Baoneng Automobile Bureau.

[car home? High-end interview]? This conversation with Mingjun Otani took place in an office of Baoneng Automobile in Shenzhen Longhua Science and Technology Park, where land and gold are everywhere, and the word "Baoneng" can be seen everywhere. "Turn the place where we stand 360 degrees, and all the buildings you can see are Baoneng", an employee of Baoneng Automobile proudly introduced to us. Full of enthusiasm, it is with this impression that we met the executive vice president of Baoneng Automobile Group, Otani Mingjun.

From the end of 20 17, when Baoneng acquired Guanzhi and announced its presence, to the time when Baoneng acquired Chang 'an PSA factory and launched Guanzhi 7, and then to the time when 165438+ 10/8, when Baoneng put into operation its first self-built factory in Xi 'an, it seems that we finally realized that Baoneng is getting more and more serious about building cars. But for some doubts and curiosity, Baoneng has never really given an answer: Why did Baoneng build a car? Why build a good car? What services and values can consumers bring beyond traditional car companies? When Yao Zhenhua, chairman of Baoneng Group, shouted "10- 15 becomes a first-class domestic automobile manufacturer", should we believe this "dream of building a car"? For these questions, Otani Mingjun gave us some answers.

■ Toshimi Otani: This is my last job, in Baoneng and in China.

Otani Mingjun, perhaps many people are not familiar with this name, but he is already a well-known figure in Baoneng Automobile and even Baoneng Group. This Japanese, who has 40 years of experience in purchasing, producing and selling in R&D, is the actual leader of Baoneng's automobile business development. Since joining Baoneng in February 2020, he has been planning the future of Baoneng Automobile from all aspects: not only Qoros Automobile, but also his own brand to be launched soon.

Our first impression of Otani Mingjun is that although his hair is gray, the whole person looks very capable, polite and in place. The detail is that he wears Baoneng's LOGO on the neckline, which reflects the Japanese serious and rigorous style in the workplace. The opportunity of our communication this time is that the Xi 'an factory of Baoneng Automobile Group has been completed and put into production, and the first vehicle of the new energy xEV platform-Baoneng Extended Range Electric Vehicle (REV) has been off the assembly line. However, he stressed that we can introduce a more comprehensive Baoneng car to let people know the real idea of Baoneng car.

One question that the outside world is most concerned about is whether the "motive" of Baoneng Automobile is sincere and whether it is suspected of "circling money" or "enclosure". Because of the famous "Wanbao dispute", many people understand Baoneng as a real estate developer, but this is actually not accurate.

In fact, Baoneng Group has four major sectors: high-end manufacturing, international logistics, comprehensive development and people's livelihood services. For a long time, Baoneng Automobile Group's real estate business is not its main business, and Baoneng Automobile is an important part of Baoneng Group's layout of "high-end manufacturing". Before entering the company to build cars, Baoneng had some mature automobile industrial chain layouts at the manufacturing level, such as Shaoneng Co., Ltd., a listed company that produces automobile transmission parts and assemblies, Zhongju Gaoxin, which specializes in producing automobile precision forgings, and CSG's automobile glass business, all of which are the "bedding" for Baoneng to build cars.

On the other hand, Baoneng Group itself is not a listed company. Yao Zhenhua's style of doing things has always been hands-on and self-control, rather than being influenced by the market and capital. Therefore, from the announcement of building a car to now, Baoneng Automobile has not reported any financing or IPO plans, and still relies on the direct investment of Baoneng Group. From this perspective, there is no suspicion of "circling money".

Otani Mingjun directly questioned: After knowing Baoneng Group, you will find that it has a deep-rooted layout in many fields, and no business is trivial. Specifically, he mentioned these aspects: "For example, Baoneng's large-scale continuous investment in the automobile industry chain and the large-scale construction of direct stores, what surprised me most was that Chairman Yao studied the automobile industry very seriously. If he has other purposes, I won't continue, just because I know that Chairman Yao is sincere.

From February this year to now, Otani Mingjun has been working in Baoneng Automobile for 9 months. How does he feel about his job, from traditional cars to the new forces of cross-border car-making? Facing this problem in car home, Mingjun Otani admitted that he had worked in Japan, the United States, Europe and China. After seeing the mainstream car markets all over the world, he thinks that the most interesting car market will be in China: "I am not young, so I guess this is my last job. Since this is the last job, I must do something interesting. "

"Chairman Yao has accumulated such a big industry through his own efforts, and he is very powerful personally. Until now, he still has great dreams and we are deeply infected. " Otani Mingjun added: "Of course, we will inevitably have some conflicts in our work, but the whole is still very interesting. These nine months of work are very exciting and valuable. "

■ How to understand the matter of "Bao can build a car"?

Many people may not know that Baoneng Automobile Co., Ltd. was established in March 2065438+2007, which was earlier than the time when Baoneng strategically invested in Qoros Automobile. Therefore, it can be said that the layout of Baoneng Automobile has already begun. But for a long time, the positioning of Baoneng automobile in the automobile circle has been uncertain. It is neither a cross-border car enterprise like Weilai and Tucki, nor a new force led by traditional autobots, nor a pure cross-border real estate developer like Evergrande. What kind of category should Baoneng automobile belong to? 165438+1On October 8th, the first self-built factory in Xi 'an was completed and put into production, and the first new car of Baoneng New Energy xEV platform rolled off the assembly line. It may be an important node for Baoneng Automobile, which not only shows its determination to build a car, but also enables Baoneng to get rid of the previous low-key layout and start to enter the market boldly and high-profile.

How to understand Baoneng's car-making bureau? Otani Mingjun believes that this issue needs to be considered from the overall positioning of Baoneng Group: "Baoneng is a diversified industrial group involving high-end manufacturing, international logistics, property services and people's livelihood services. What we provide is not as simple as a car, but there will be services corresponding to the car. From this perspective, we already have such rich resources, which is beneficial to us. But the most crucial point is of course that the car product itself must be attractive enough for users to buy. "

Starting from the advantages of diversification, the positioning of Baoneng Automobile Group can be summarized as: building an ecological circle covering the whole automobile industry chain with smart cars and new energy vehicles as the core, such as the research and development of complete vehicles and forward-looking technologies, high-end automobile manufacturing, and the research and development and manufacturing of core components (power batteries, three-electric systems, powertrains, etc.). ), storage and transportation, automobile sales, automobile travel, automobile finance, and after-market services, covering the whole range of cars, SUVs, MPVs, etc. Commercial vehicle industry, focusing on van logistics vehicles, light trucks and new energy buses. Open up the integration channels between businesses and create a new experience of people-car-life.

Power battery: Peng Hongxin Energy is a subsidiary of Baoneng Group, and its main business includes R&D, manufacturing and service of high-end ternary automobile batteries and battery systems.

Self-built Poly Innovation Energy and Jin Woo New Energy, and developed power battery, motor and electronic control respectively.

A battery and new energy research and development center was established in Japan, followed by the German Engineering Center, the American Prospective Technology Center and the Italian Modeling Center.

There are more than 600 direct stores in China. It is planned to build 1 0,000 direct stores by the end of the year.

Baoneng's travel companies are all related to the cloud.

As can be seen from the above layout, Baoneng Group has a great career and invested heavily in automobiles. Otani Mingjun bluntly said that one of the advantages of Baoneng Group is its abundant funds, so although the development of the whole industry was affected by the epidemic in the first half of the year, Baoneng is still actively investing. On the one hand, the coordinated layout of each end of the industrial chain can produce scale effect, and Baoneng Automobile Group will have a competitive advantage with the whole industrial chain layout of "complete vehicle+parts+travel service"; On the other hand, it also shows that Baoneng regards building a car as a "protracted war", and automobile manufacturing is actually the core carrier of Baoneng's transformation in the fields of manufacturing, science and technology and people's livelihood.

In this process, the experience advantage of Otani Mingjun is also reflected. In lean management, Otani Mingjun has been responsible for the purchasing business of Nissan in the United States, Nissan in Europe and Japan, and is familiar with the European, American and Asian markets, and knows how to improve the competitiveness of Nissan cars by controlling and reducing the cost of parts. It was in this kind of multiple collision that Otani Mingjun began his 40th automobile career in Baoneng Automobile Group.

■ Accelerate brand promotion, and future products will be benchmarked against Mercedes-Benz/BMW.

From this perspective, we should not regard Baoneng Automobile as an ordinary car-making enterprise from the beginning. If it is just the car itself, Baoneng Automobile, as a new enterprise, does not have many advantages. However, relying on Baoneng's diversified industrial advantages and taking automobiles as a link to complement resources and ecological layout, the thinking and layout are completely different.

In other words, although Baoneng Automobile has only taken the first step at this stage, Yao Zhenhua has probably seen the end-what kind of automobile industry ecology he wants.

Of course, the car itself is still the most important first step, and Baoneng Automobile is actively promoting the "double brand" strategy. Among them, in terms of Qoros, Baoneng has invested about 20 billion yuan since taking office. In the future, Qoros will continue to implement the development path of "oil and electricity simultaneously". From the seventh year of Qoros, we will keep the pace of launching at least 1-2 brand-new models every year. By 2025, it will cover cars, SUVs and MPVs, from traditional fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles.

At the same time, Baoneng Automobile Group is planning a brand new high-end automobile brand, which is expected to be officially announced next year. The positioning of the new brand is higher than that of Qoros, and it will focus on new energy vehicles, and its products will be benchi and BMW. However, due to the gap in brand power, it is necessary to subtract brand differences from the price to make the products more cost-effective. Otani Mingjun said bluntly: "Next, our focus will be on improving brand influence and accelerating R&D and product release. It is planned to launch about 5 or 6 cars every year in the future, covering all market segments at a faster speed and efficiently distributing them to various factories for production. "

Electrification is undoubtedly the core entry point of Baoneng Automobile. At present, Baoneng Automobile Group has successfully independently developed the xEV platform. It is reported that the platform has strong scalability and supports various power sources such as BEV (pure electric vehicle), PHEV (plug-in hybrid vehicle) and REV (extended range electric vehicle). At the Beijing Auto Show at the end of September, the xEV platform made its debut. The first car rolled off the assembly line of Baoneng Xi 'an factory is an extended-range electric (REV) vehicle based on Baoneng xEV platform. The car adopts the extended range system of 1.2T engine+motor, and is expected to be launched in the middle of next year.

Otani Mingjun bluntly said that China's market is huge, but China's fuel vehicles have not caught up with the world's leading level. However, under the influence of the prospects, policies and broad market of new energy vehicles in China, there is a once-in-a-century opportunity in China automobile market, and new energy vehicles will continue to grow in the future.

The biggest feature of REV (Extended Range Electric Vehicle) is that it combines the advantages of pure electric vehicles and fuel vehicles: it reduces the mileage anxiety of pure electric vehicles and enjoys the same driving experience as pure electric vehicles, such as extreme acceleration; Because the requirements for battery life are not high, the price and cost will also be reduced, which is beneficial to consumers. It is reported that the extended-range electric technology of Baoneng Automobile Group is characterized by pure electric drive, higher energy conversion efficiency, ultra-low energy consumption and 30%-35% lower fuel consumption than fuel vehicles. This technology was jointly developed by the world's leading Baoneng new energy talent team, such as the former global director of Nissan and the current CEO of Qoros Auto, Ando Kazuo.

"Of course, pure electric vehicles will undoubtedly be the future, but at present, from the perspective of endurance/cost/safety, extended-range electric vehicles are more practical." Based on his years of experience in the field of electric vehicles, Otani Mingjun gave this judgment: "At present, the proportion of extended-range electric vehicles in China is relatively low, but in fact they have been selling well in Japan, such as Note models, which have gained popularity and popularity because of their good products, further promoting the growth of sales." It is understood that Otani Mingjun was the person in charge of electric vehicles and batteries when he was working at Nissan. Nowadays, many people in the R&D team of Note and Leaf have been "dug" by Baoneng, and they have applied their experience in electric vehicles to Baoneng cars. Otani Mingjun said confidently: "Now we will see some electric vehicles spontaneously ignite, but Leaf has sold more than 500,000 vehicles around the world, none of them spontaneously ignite, and none of them."

"Nissan leaf"

■ Baoneng: the "worry" behind accelerating development

"If we want to give priority to next year's work, what do you think needs to be strengthened?" When car home put this question to Otani Mingjun, he summed up three key words after thinking: "R&D, sales and management".

First of all, research and development can be regarded as the basis for the future development of Baoneng Automobile. Otani Mingjun bluntly said that after officially announcing his participation in Baoneng Automobile in February this year, he did a very thorough thing, that is, completely changed the R&D system and further accelerated the efficiency improvement. At present, Baoneng has set up research institutes in Shenzhen, Xi 'an, Guangzhou and Shanghai, and has developed three platforms and dozens of products under research, covering cars, SUVs, MPVs and other vehicles.

In terms of sales, it can be further refined to two levels. The first is brand promotion, including the Qoros brand and the independent brand of future Baoneng automobile. Previously, Qoros Automobile was somewhat backward in capital, products and research and development, and its product popularity and brand power were also insufficient, resulting in constant losses. Before the launch of Baoneng's own brand, it is necessary for Otani Mingjun to help Guanzhi turn losses into profits, otherwise it may be difficult to give consideration to the boost of both brands. He said: "Qoros 7 has just been listed, and now the order has exceeded 5,000. I hope that sales will increase gradually next year. In this process, we should also consider turning the company into a profit. We made a medium-term plan and realized that Guanzhi can't always rely on' parents' and must learn to be self-reliant. "

Second, closely related to brand and promotion is the construction of channels. Otani Mingjun mentioned: "After the launch of our new model Qoros 7, many dealers took the initiative to join our door. But it is not enough to rely solely on dealers, so we also started to do direct stores. Now we have completed about 600, which is very fast. " Indeed, the model of direct store is being adopted by more and more car companies, which can not only narrow the distance between enterprises and users, but also meet the needs of users faster and faster, and also facilitate enterprises to manage accurately and efficiently, and enhance brand power and sales power.

R&D and sales are urgent for the development of Baoneng Automobile, but for Otani Mingjun himself, management is more important and urgent. With the rapid development of various businesses of Baoneng Automobile, the talent team is also expanding rapidly. People from all corners of the country and all kinds of automobile enterprise backgrounds gather in Baoneng, which sometimes brings some minor "troubles". Otani Mingjun bluntly said: "The advantage is that different experienced people provide different ideas and exchange their ideas, but the difficulty is that they occasionally encounter different ideas and cannot be unified. How to make the whole team unify their thinking on important things and work in the same direction may be the most important thing for me personally. "

Editor's summary:

It can be seen that thanks to Baoneng's empowerment in capital, management and multi-industry forms, Baoneng Automobile has expanded rapidly in many fields, and Otani Mingjun is the key leader of Baoneng Automobile Bureau. However, despite the help of Baoneng's diversified resources, Otani Mingjun also shoulders the heavy responsibility of brand, research and development, manufacturing and sales. A careless move may also affect the pace and progress of other fields, and the pressure can be imagined. Moreover, when will Yao Zhenhua receive positive market feedback and results after huge investment? At present, Baoneng's advantages and challenges are not small. Whether Yao Zhenhua's dream of building a car can be realized depends largely on whether the product can become an instant hit and whether it can get the market bill, which also determines whether the subsequent goals and visions can be implemented one by one. (Text/car home? Cai Liyuan; Figure/Wang Yin)