From：Internet Info Agency 2019-01-10 16:46:32
The Chinese auto market experienced its first negative growth in 28 years. As the world's No. 1 auto giant, Volkswagen Group has long occupied the first position in the Chinese auto market, and the Chinese market accounts for 40% of its global market share. The future development of Volkswagen in China is the focus of the industry. At the beginning of the new year, Dr. Diess, Chairman of the Management Board of Volkswagen Group, CEO of Volkswagen Group and Head of China Management Board of Volkswagen Group, came to Beijing on January 7th, with Dr. Woellenstein, CEO of Volkswagen Group (China), and Professor Heizmann, former President and CEO of Volkswagen Group (China), met with the mainstream media in China and started his first working day in 2019.
Q: What is the most impressive thing about Dr. Dies' media communication meeting?
A: The future development of China's auto market is a key topic of this communication. Diess, Heizmann, and Woellenstein all spent a lot of time talking about this issue, but mainly on the favorable factors, and rarely mentioned the unfavorable factors or uncertainties. In general, Volkswagen is quite optimistic about the future Chinese auto market.
Q: Volkswagen has achieved the goal of selling 4 million vehicles in China in 2018 one year ahead of schedule, but the new sales target for the next five years has not yet been raised. How is this going?
A: Dr. Diess explained: “Because the work of this year has just begun, it is still too early to talk about specific strategies and plans in detail. We need to discuss, develop and implement the specific plans in detail with the joint ventures and partners. ."
I think this also reflects the caution of Volkswagen. Will 2018 become an important turning point in the development of China's auto market? And how much the overall demand for China's auto market will increase in the future? No one can predict it at present, and it still needs more time and observation.
With the many uncertainties in the Chinese auto market, I think Volkswagen is better off focusing on how to hold about 17% of the passenger car market share compared to setting an ambitious new sales target. Regardless of whether the total market volume is increasing or decreasing, if the market share can remain basically the same, it could be considered successful. In fact, Volkswagen has indeed made this happen in the past 10 years.
Q: In this way, the strategy of the public in the future seems to be conservative.
A: No. Even though there is not much room for growth in Volkswagen's production capacity and sales volume of 4 million vehicles in China, there is still much work to be done, such as product structure adjustment, increasing the proportion of new energy vehicles, more SUV models, increasing low-cost models, improving low-end market coverage, as well as vehicle networking technologies, mobility vehicle services, and more. These are expected to be the focus of the future Volkswagen China strategy, and they are also quite challenging and difficult.
In fact, the relevant adjustments have already begun. For example, Volkswagen has established Mobility Asia, and Su Weiming, global executive vice president of the Volkswagen Group, is the CEO. According to Professor Heizmann: “Most of the employees in this company are young engineers and technicians who have developed digital interconnection products for JAC VOLKSWAGEN in a short period of time and have begun to apply them in related models. In the future, the products they develop will also be carried on more models of the two joint ventures."
In addition, Dr. Woellenstein revealed that Volkswagen is about to launch a new brand to help VW further expand the market coverage. The new brand has undergone preparations for about three years. Volkswagen and its partners have done detailed research and development in product design, branding, and pricing.
Q: It is said that this new brand is called Jetta. is this correct?
A: Volkswagen did not give a specific brand name, but the market positioning of this brand is definitely lower than the market positioning of Volkswagen and Skoda. Or it is a low-cost car brand that covers the low-end passenger car market.
Q: It is reported that Dr. Dies particularly emphasized the need to jointly develop automotive Internet and digital new technologies with Chinese high-tech companies. What do you think?
A: This is very impressive. I have repeatedly mentioned in the communication with the senior management of the Volkswagen Group that German car companies, including Volkswagen, are seriously behind Chinese automakers in the vehicle networking and have failed to keep up with the new demands of Chinese consumers. Dr. Diess said clearly: "With the advancement of the automotive industry and the development of intelligent networking vehicles, cars have gradually become a kind of 'terminal device'. If you want to develop better car products, you need a new set of technology and related engineering knowledge. Unfortunately, these technologies and knowledge are relatively lacking in Europe, and they are more likely to appear in the Chinese market and Silicon Valley in the United States." He said: "I am deeply aware that for a long time, we have brought the technology, design and working methods of Germany and Europe to China and combined with local operations. Now, this method can no longer meet the needs of the future industry. We firmly believe that China will lead the development of the automotive industry. From the rapid development of technology and management of joint ventures, as well as the development of emerging technologies in the Chinese market, we can see that in the future, instead of bringing European things to China, we are more likely to make things created in China."
Volkswagen in this regard seem to be slow, but once began, it will be a huge challenge for competitors.
