·The new pioneer of China's own brand car development

How can GAC, which has no experience in automobile R&D, become a new pioneer in the development of China's own brand cars in just 8 years?
In 2006, there was no wide factory building and no sophisticated equipment. A 16,000-square-meter building next to South China University of Technology became the starting point for the later research and development of GAC – and it is now the Wushan R&D base of Guangzhou Automobile.
No one has thought that through nearly eight years of hard work, the R&D team with the technical backbone of the president of Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute, such as Huang Xiangdong, has started from scratch and has created A-AO, BC and A00-new energy vehicles. The three major architectures of the system are six platforms.
In February 2014, Huang Xiangdong told the Automotive Business Review that all of them are developing in the positive direction. In the next five years, GAC Chuanqi will enter the intensive period of new products, and the number of new cars will reach 30.
The number of R&D teams recruited globally has grown from the initial 40 to 50 people to 1,500 today, and has 12 departments, 3 centers, and 45 departments, forming an organizational structure that is relatively complete and basically meets its development requirements.
In addition to the earliest Wushan R&D base, GAC also owns the Yuangang and Hualong R&D bases in Guangzhou, and has acquired the Hangzhou base after acquiring GAC Gonow. The new Hualong Base, which was completed at the end of 2012, covers an area of ​​300,000 square meters, with an investment of 1.7 billion yuan and a building area of ​​150,000 square meters. It is a fully developed vehicle research and development base that has reached the domestic first-class level.
In the evaluation of the National Enterprise Technology Center in 2013, a total of 883 enterprise technology centers from all walks of life participated in the evaluation. In November 2012, the Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute, which was promoted to the Nationally Recognized Enterprise Technology Center, ranked 17th. The forefront of the Chinese automotive industry.
If you are surprised by this, then when you have an in-depth understanding of Huang Xiangdong's efforts over the years, when you know that GAC has invested more than 3 billion yuan in research institutes in just a few years, everything can be explained.
Platform: Reborn in inheritance Huang Xiangdong was one of the earliest “sea returnees”. After studying for a degree in vehicle system dynamics at the University of Turin, he worked at Fiat headquarters for five years. In 1991, he was recalled by the "Panda Auto" project at that time, but his desire to contribute to the Chinese auto industry was not realized. In the following 10 years, he contributed time to the education industry and worked as a technical consultant for GAC.
In October 2004, Huang Xiangdong, then vice president of the School of Transportation, South China Normal University, left the school and came to Guangzhou Automobile Group. Since then, Huang Xiangdong has been preparing various materials to prepare for the launch of self-owned brand projects. However, at that time, the Guangzhou Automobile Group did not make final determinations on “doing not engage in independent brands” and “how to engage”.
Two years later, the Guangzhou Automobile Group made up its mind in the internal meeting - to be a self-owned brand. After June 2006, under the auspices of Huang, the Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute was formally established. Subsequently, the internal demonstration of the issue of how to engage in independent brands within the Guangzhou Automobile Group continued until March 2007.
Starting from the middle and high-class cars, the “high-end cut-in” has become the final choice of GAC. There are two main reasons: First, as Wu Song, the general manager of GAC Passenger Vehicles, said on many occasions, “there is no Guangzhou-Chongqing’s today without joint venture experience” – when the GAC Group’s production The management experience is mainly from the joint venture, and the main brand of the joint venture partner is the mid- to high-end car.
In addition, independent brands such as Chery and Geely, which have been in development for a while, have already occupied a part of the low-end market. "They started from very cheap and have already pushed the ceiling in the future very low." Huang Xiangdong also frankly said that in this field, "we may not win them."
The Guangzhou Automobile Group, which has decided its direction and has no experience in building its own brand, must first describe the technical route to the NDRC and let it believe that GAC has the ability to develop and produce this level of its own brand.
However, at that time, if GAC relied on its own conditions to develop a model platform, the conditions were not available; in addition, the relevant departments did not believe that GAC had such research and development capabilities. Under the trade-off, GAC chose to buy a platform that can be improved from foreign brands, that is, the Alfa Romeo 166 platform that has attracted much attention and become its marketing point.
Huang Xiangdong told the Automotive Business Review that he was rushing around to find a platform for a long time after preparing to start his own brand.
At the beginning, GAC Group tried to negotiate with the joint venture partners to purchase a B-class platform with a high popularity in the market. However, during the negotiation process, the other party has been undecided; it is not until one year later that a clear reply is made - "No." Since then, Huang Xiangdong has focused his selection on the platform of Fiat's Alfa Romeo 166.
When Fiat's current CEO, Marjorie, took over Fiat in 2004, the European king of small cars had lost $12 billion in three consecutive years, and Malchowone took the first thing to change the status quo of the product, streamlining the platform. . The platform of the Alfa Romeo 166 is one of the platforms Fiat decided to discontinue.
Huang Xiangdong, who worked at the Fiat headquarters in Fiat for five years, took a fancy to the platform. This is not the choice of rushing to go to the hospital, but the platform "has the potential to be upgraded and upgraded."
Huang Xiangdong said that by purchasing a platform that foreign brands have given up, it avoids the possibility of property disputes in the future; and the platform provider does not need any staff to provide technical support. “This is not a foreigner in the general sense”; On the basis of this, GAC has integrated patent technology into the platform. “In fact, it has become a brand-new platform when it was built.”
After the upgrade, the chassis platform was upgraded to the current “five-star standard” by the control safety “Samsung Standard” at the time of purchase; the engine platform has undergone more than 500 technical upgrades, and the upgrade has been transformed into a brand new engine platform. The National II emission standard has been upgraded to the current national V standard – in order to allow GAC Chuanqi products to successfully meet the third and fourth stage fuel consumption standards in the future.
Based on the research and development of the BC-level platform architecture, GAC Chuanyi has developed the A-A0-level architecture with 100% independent intellectual property rights. Based on the cooperation with Chery, the A00-new energy platform architecture has been constructed. On these new platforms, GA5, GA3, and GS5 have been born – the only ones to win the Xuanyuan Award.
In addition to its contribution to all aspects of China's auto industry, the final award was awarded to Chuanqi GS5. The opinions of six experts from around the world – two domestic experts and four international experts – confirmed Huang Xiangdong’s words. It is based on other brands' platforms, but on top of this, GAC has created completely different products, and these experiences are worth learning from the industry."
Process: Can't be simplified, can't be hasty. "When balancing time, we must respect the laws of science." This is what Huang Xiangdong specifically emphasized when referring to the R&D process.
The times are different, but some similar things are still being staged. Similar to the birth of the Red Flag sedan, GAC Chuanqi’s first mid-to-high-end sedan was actually carrying a “political mission” – becoming the official car of the Guangzhou Asian Games – and certainly not just a political mission. Still an excellent marketing opportunity, GAC is not willing to miss.
However, the first product of a brand, because of the need to build a new platform, powertrain, etc., often have a longer production cycle than other products - the industry generally takes about 36 months. In order to get out of the Asian Games, Chuanqi's first mid-to-high-class sedan was officially released from the August 2008 project until September 3, 2010, and it took only 25 months.
For this reason, the car market has been flat - of course, the brand's initial popularity and low reputation are also important reasons, and the GAC in the initial stage has not been blamed by the outside world. However, Huang Xiangdong frankly said that the car was not doing well enough, and even bluntly said, "I feel terrible in retrospection now." "The process cannot be simplified, and cannot be rushed."
In the process of taking forward R&D, GAC is the most time-consuming process of manufacturing engineering prototypes in the laboratory for trial and error. The engineering prototype is based on the engineering design plan, casting the body and parts in a soft mold manner, and using the corresponding engineering samples and manufacturing processes to manufacture parts that meet the design requirements, to further design and verify the whole vehicle and system.
Before the GA5 went public, the R&D team produced 200 engineering prototypes in the lab for testing. At present, only a few foreign companies with relatively mature models have fully utilized simulation experiments and adopted the “zero prototype model” for R&D and production. Most auto companies still need to rely on a large number of engineering prototypes to carry out adjustments and improvements during the development process.
And more engineering prototype experiments, to a certain extent, mean more reliable products, but it also means greater investment. According to Huang's estimate, the laboratory production cost of each engineering vehicle is about 1 million yuan. The 200 engineering prototypes before the first GA5 off the assembly line means that only this one, GAC Group has invested nearly 200 million yuan in research and development.
Huang Xiangdong said, "Although Guangzhou Automobile has a strong simulation experiment, it can't get rid of physical verification." The reason is that the simulation experiment will have nearly 5% error. "The future technical conditions are mature, and the number of prototypes may be reduced. But at least there must be 60 engineering prototypes, otherwise I will not feel at ease."
In the process of research and development of all models, it is always led by the Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute. Senior leaders such as Zhang Fangyou and Zeng Qinghong are not directly involved, but only involved in important links.
This process is based on the R&D process of the joint venture partner Toyota. Toyota divides the R&D process into two segments, the “early phase” and the “late phase”. “The transition between the two is an important link, and senior leaders must participate.”
This is an important part of deciding whether to put into mass production. This link is usually carried out about one and a half years before the listing. At this time, the R&D model has completed the engineering prototype test. If the evaluation results of the senior leadership participation show that the product is not up to standard, it needs to be re-adjusted and revised; , that is, enter the mass production process. In China, this is actually a more scientific process system that avoids the emergence of “making a head decision”.
Huang Xiangdong told the Automotive Business Review. According to Toyota's process, Toyota's biggest authority in this regard is not leadership, but other people - CE (Chief Engineer) to make decisions, to take full responsibility. CE is the head of the project. "In fact, there is not only an engineer background, but also management capability. He is responsible for the full cycle of the product, not that it is okay when it is put into production, and the whole life cycle must be managed."
But in China, or in GAC, they are adopting the project director system. "The project director is responsible for every important new product developed, similar to CE, but the power is not as big as CE."
Like many multinational auto companies that are conducting forward R&D, GAC's R&D system adopts a matrix model, which is a product development project with a horizontal axis and various professional functional departments with a vertical axis. Interlaced to form a complete development organization. The project director on the horizontal axis is responsible for coordinating the resources of the various functional departments on the vertical axis. The same structural length on the horizontal axis considers the product development plan of this architecture at a higher level.
In various functional areas, GAC implements the chief professional master system. Huang Xiangdong translated it as Chief Engineer, but it is obviously different from the meaning of Toyota like the general manager of the project. "The chief is basically full, not enough. There is still a process to completely fill it up," he said.
At present, the Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute has a research and development team of about 1,500 people. The degree of undergraduate education is over 90%, the middle and senior titles account for about 25%, and the core technical expert team has more than 20 people.
Recalling the embarrassment of being responsible for the establishment of the Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute with less than 50 guns, Huang Xiangdong is still gratified by the achievements in the past few years. He proudly said to the Automotive Business Review: "Although we seem to start later than others, we do something earlier (forward development) than others."

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