This century-old car company once went bankrupt! Now it's a new era?

Pay attention to "Electric Vehicle Commune"

Rethink cars with us.

Hello, everyone, I am the president of the electric car commune.

The president wants to ask you a question today:

A * * * How many car brands can have a history of making cars for a hundred years?

Three or five? Six or seven? Twelve or three? None of them are right.

The correct number is 25.

Five of them belong to the same automobile group.

But it is such a big guy with a long history, but he is faced with several situations of life and death. 5 is likely to become 4, 3 or even 0!

This car company is the largest car company in American history, General Motors.

General Motors performed well.

Since the release of 1990 Fortune Global 500 list, GM has been firmly occupying the top ten position in the list. Even in 1997 -2000, it became the highest paid enterprise in the world for four consecutive years, and none of them!

Top industry giants such as Wal-Mart, Mobil and Shell. , have been crazy by GM.

The reason why GM can succeed is because "having more children is easy to fight." This strategy is simple, but effective.

Through a large number of alliances and mergers, GM has successively integrated world-famous automobile brands such as Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Pontiac and vauxhall, and then dispersed the production of different grades of cars through different product positioning among brands.

In this way, consumers who buy a car can start with the most cost-effective Chevrolet, switch to Buick a few years later, and finally switch to Cadillac, the president's car, forming a perfect closed loop.

At that time, GM spent money on publicity, but it was much richer than Evergrande. Evergrande released six new cars at a time:

The world-famous Titanic was jointly built by General Motors and White Star Shipping Company!

If it weren't for this accident, the world's largest ocean liner would probably end up in the General Museum.

Not to mention hard power:

The world's first closed body, the world's first concept car and the world's first hardtop convertible are produced by General Motors.

The world's first set of four-wheel brakes, the world's first set of independent front suspension and the world's first hydraulic torque converter are produced by General Motors.

The world's first V8 engine, the world's first V 16 engine, the world's first turbocharged engine, and a general product.

At that time, GM was synonymous with high horsepower, high performance, luxury and individuality, and its market share once reached 5 1%!

No car company can achieve such brilliant results.

However, the three oil crises in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s made GM feel depressed for the first time.

General Motors has to introduce economical cars with more compact body and smaller displacement to cope with market changes.

At the same time, California, as a fertile ground for new energy vehicles, has been plagued by photochemical smog for a long time, and it also requires car companies to manufacture a certain proportion of zero-emission vehicles in order to obtain the license to sell cars in California.

Either leave, admit the punishment or build an electric car.

But at this time, GM has keenly discovered new business opportunities:

Why not take this opportunity to build a shocking electric car?

As a result, the general EV 1 was born, which is a $350 million electric car.

Under the blessing of 137 HP AC induction motor, EV 1? 8 seconds zero acceleration performance, even faster than the performance of steel gun golf GTI!

Embracing digital panels and dense physical buttons have the same effect as airplane design, and also attract people's attention from the sense of science and technology.

However, in 1996, the development of lithium battery technology was not as rapid as it is now.

EV 1 can only use lead-acid batteries weighing 533kg, which is similar to the current ternary lithium battery 100 kWh, but the capacity is only 16.5kWh.

So if you want to improve your battery life, you must try your best in the details.

EV 1？ Ultra-low drag coefficient is 0. 19Cd and 0.367m? The ultra-low wind impact zone, even the current Tesla, is not an opponent at all. Aluminum alloy body frame, compound doors and even lightweight magnesium-aluminum alloy wheels also control the weight of battery pack within one ton, which is more than 20 years earlier than Weilai, which adopts all-aluminum body.

In the end, the cruising range of EV 1 reached 97km, and the power consumption of 100 km 16kWh was not much higher than that of the current new car.

After changing the model and replacing it with a larger capacity Ni-MH battery pack, the cruising range can even reach 230km!

This level is enough to make domestic new energy vehicles feel ashamed after 20 years.

General EV 1 not only lays the three basic structures of battery, motor and electronic control of modern electric vehicles, but also shows people that new energy vehicles are not only products under emission regulations, but also a possibility for future automobile development.

At that time, avant-garde celebrities, including Tom Hanks, the star of Forrest Gump, praised this kind of car with no noise, no pollution and excellent driving experience.

But it is precisely because of the popularity of EV 1 that the interests of some giants have been touched.

Just six years later, oil companies, mainly Mobil, joined hands to cull EV 1 in all directions.

Spent a lot of money to question the environmental protection value of electric vehicles, even at the expense of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, preventing California from building new charging piles and shaking the legitimacy of the electric vehicle bill.

In the end, due to various pressures, GM gave up 12 years of electric vehicle industry research and development. 1117 ev1was also recycled and destroyed.

The epoch-making EV 1 quietly ended in the long river of the times.

GM suffered a second crisis, but that was in 2008.

This year, the marketing strategy of multi-brand high leverage and crazy production pushed GM down the endless abyss.

A sub-prime mortgage crisis that swept the world not only blew out the pride of the United States, but also blew out the pride of GM.

At a time when people all over the world are scrimping and saving costs just for survival, GM's high horsepower, high performance, luxury and personality have all lost their place.

Due to its high price and high use cost caused by high fuel consumption, GM became unpopular overnight.

A large backlog of various brands has turned the warehouse into a large car cemetery.

Sadly, these cars are just like milk dumped by capitalism, even if they are sold as scrap iron.

In 2004, GM made a profit of $2.8 billion. In 2007 and 2008, the blood loss was 38.7 billion and 30.9 billion respectively, which directly set the highest annual loss record for global automobile companies!

At that time, GM's market value was only 7 billion, less than half of Wrigley's chewing gum (not as high as Estee Lauder's market value), and it could not bear the loss of more than ten times its market value.

The general manager of the last stop has tried everything.

First of all, by closing or partially closing as many as 28 vehicle and parts factories, tens of thousands of employees will be abolished, white-collar workers' salaries will be reduced by 30%, and their 1 100 dealers will be abandoned, aiming at reducing the operating cost of100 billion US dollars.

But this is a drop in the bucket for GM, which loses $30 billion a year.

Subsequently, GM made up its mind to give up the previous multi-brand strategy and sell all unprofitable brands. Even ACDelco, a component subsidiary, has not been spared.

But this loss-making brand, like a hot potato, can't be sold at all.

General motors began to ask the bank for help. However, under the cover of the Bird's Nest, the banks under the subprime mortgage crisis only used one sentence to prevaricate GM back:

The landlord has no surplus grain.

GM is also trying to warm up with another company, Chrysler, which is also struggling on the brink of bankruptcy. Further reduce costs and increase income through mergers and acquisitions.

But at that time, there was only $654.38+062 billion left on GM's books, which was only enough to lose money for half a year.

The consequences of forced mergers and acquisitions are obvious to the naked eye: the deterioration of cash flow is tantamount to licking blood, which will only accelerate the disintegration of GM.

Helpless GM, even by selling the headquarters office building-Detroit Renaissance Center.

The US government's conditional loan of $6,543.8+$07.4 billion at a critical moment failed to bring GM a sunrise tomorrow.

Submit the reorganization plan and reject the reorganization plan; Issue new shares to repay debts and refuse; The net loss in just one quarter is 6 billion.

GM can't take it anymore.

After surviving for half a year, GM was unable to repay the $27 billion debt-to-equity swap due and gave up the struggle:

Formally apply for bankruptcy protection from the US government.

The year before last, he was on the Fortune 500 list. In the past year, it actually created the biggest bankruptcy case in the history of American manufacturing! Times are changing so fast that it is too late for GM to respond.

A man named Daryl Clem (Daryl? Klemp) general motors workers, in the interview is described as follows:

"We think we are the most powerful automobile manufacturer in the world, and everyone wants to buy the large-displacement cars we make. But all this is like a bubble in a dream, and it disappears when you reach out. "

The 77-year-old boss of the global automobile industry has fallen.

On July 9, 2009, GM received a $60 billion capital injection from the US Treasury. Suddenly, it became an American state-owned enterprise-the new General Motors Company.

After going through the gate of hell, GM finally realized its own problems.

The more brands, the better, and the bigger the scale. What GM needs most is profitability and profitability.

Only brands that ask GM for money, such as Saab and Hummer, must be sold, and those that stop production must also stop.

In addition, GM began to re-examine its global business. Europe and Southeast Asia, which are unprofitable, have been cut off!

20 10 Belgian parts factory closed;

20 12 German parts factory closed and French power transmission business was sold;

20 15 completely withdrew from the Russian market and Indonesia stopped production;

20 17 Africa business was packaged and sold to Isuzu, Opel, vauxhall and General Finance (Europe) were packaged and sold to Peugeot Citroen Group, and India stopped production;

On 20 18, the assembly plant in Korea was closed and production was stopped in Vietnam;

In 20 19, seven factories around the world closed, laying off employees14,000 people and stopping production of six models;

In 2020, Horton announced the suspension of production, and the Thai factory was packaged and sold to the Great Wall.

In a word, GM's new goal is to leave only four profitable core brands, Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC, and devote all its energy to China, North and South America.

Profits and cash flows are back to normal, and dying GM is out of the quagmire!

GM, which came back from the dead, began to rethink the development direction of future cars.

What will the future car look like?

Between life and death, I developed a strong universal consciousness, and this time I finally got on the right track:

The name of this road is electrification.

On 20 1 1, GM first introduced the extended Chevrolet Volt to explore the future of vehicle electrification.

This is also the first mass-produced extended-range hybrid model after Porsche introduced the extended-range hub motor model a hundred years ago, which is better than BMW i3 and Audi A 1? E-tron is two years early.

Once it was launched, it directly won many awards such as 20 1 1 car model, 201/best innovation award, 201/environmental protection Fengyun car, and also won the title of Ward's top ten engines in the world!

In the five years since its listing, it has easily achieved excellent sales of 65438+ 10,000 units.

After being recognized by consumers, GM is more convinced that the future will be the era of pure electric vehicles.

So before long, Chevrolet Bolt, an economical pure electric car with a price of only 30,000 dollars and a battery life of 200 miles, came.

In the second year of listing, it entered the top ten of the global new energy vehicle sales list.

(Source: Geshi Automobile)

Mary Bora, CEO of General Motors, who ranked fifth in the list of 100 women in the world, also publicly stated at the press conference that GM will transform from a traditional automobile manufacturer to a high-tech company.

It was gradually discovered that the great ship of the mechanical age began to change its course.

But it's not enough just to say it verbally.

In the same period, it took Tesla only ten years to deliver more than 300,000 vehicles a year from the brink of bankruptcy, from ruthless short selling to soaring market value to 300 billion dollars.

Tesla's devastating killing speed shocked the world.

Only by taking practical actions can we really lead GM to change in the right direction.

Before the soldiers and horses move, food and grass go first, and money is needed first.

EV on March 4 this year? On March 20, General Motors officially announced that it will invest 20 billion US dollars in electric vehicles and autonomous driving by 2025, with an average annual investment of more than 3 billion US dollars.

On the other hand, GM's operating profit in 20 19 was 4.699 billion, and almost all the money it earned was invested.

With money, the next step is to create value.

At GM's global design center in Warren, there are 20,000 scientists, engineers and designers.

The proportion of employees engaged in electric vehicle development jumped from 20% a few years ago to 60%!

Their purpose is only one: to design better models with their own imagination and make consumers more satisfied with GM electric vehicles.

Gm knows very well that only when the car is built can it achieve commercial profit and make money.

With money and people, the next step is research and development.

Previously, Chevrolet Bolt was attacked by many people because all parts were made by suppliers, saying that GM did not have its own core technology, but was just an OEM.

Even though GM spent a lot of manpower and material resources in R&D and directed the production of suppliers, it was selectively ignored.

This time, GM made a bold decision: just do it yourself!

Different from other traditional manufacturers, driven by policies and aware of the universality of the future development direction of automobiles, they began to design modular electric vehicle platforms very early.

Simply put, just like putting together Lego bricks, you can complete the production from small cars to SUVs and even full-size pickups with the same car structure and parts of the same size!

The material of the building block also includes the core of the electric vehicle-the battery pack.

The Ultium battery developed by GM and LG Chem * * * does not adopt the mainstream CTP technology, but follows the scheme of soft package battery.

By horizontally placing 6/8/ 12 modules, the capacity of 50- 100kWh can be realized. For pickup trucks with high power consumption, it is easy to reach 200kWh by directly stacking two layers of building blocks. Compared with Tesla's 2 1700 round battery, the efficiency will be higher.

However, this battery pack is different from the mainstream power battery manufacturers in the world in terms of material selection.

We know that the mainstream ternary lithium battery is either NCM nickel cobalt manganese lithium battery or NCA nickel cobalt aluminum lithium battery. The high density is 8 1 1 battery, and there are 712,622,523 in different proportions.

The first number represents the proportion of nickel. The higher the battery capacity, the more unstable the performance.

The second number represents the proportion of cobalt. The higher the battery capacity, the more stable the performance. However, cobalt is a rare metal, which accounts for a large part of the cost of lithium batteries.

However, the universal Ultium battery innovatively added aluminum to the NCM battery, which became the NCMA quaternary lithium battery. The proportion of nickel is close to 90%! The amount of cobalt is further reduced.

In this quaternary formula, high nickel greatly improves the energy density of the battery pack, and low cobalt directly reduces the cost by 30%, reaching the standard of 100 USD/kWh. The added aluminum can improve the cruising range and stability of electric vehicles.

However, this kind of battery with high nickel and low cobalt is difficult to control after thermal runaway due to its high density and high charging rate, and it is easy to deflagrate.

This puts forward extremely high requirements for manufacturing accuracy and battery consistency, and must also cooperate with a more powerful BMS battery management system to ensure the safety of batteries.

Because of this, NCMA batteries have not been adopted by mainstream manufacturers.

Everything is ready except the east wind. The last resort of GM is the product.

Hummer, which was forced to stop production in the financial crisis, returned as the king of zero-emission electrification. Also unveiled with the electric Hummer is a brand-new pure electric SUV-Cadillac Lyriq.

From the book alone, Cadillac Lyriq doesn't lose Tesla models at all? y:

The body size is relatively close, and the endurance of 300 miles is similar, close to the enhanced L3 Super? Cruise also provides lane change on demand.

But the most brilliant thing is all kinds of "screens":

The 33-inch organic light-emitting diode curved display screen in central control can display 1 100 million colors, and it is not a simple split-screen design, but an integrated whole screen!

This integration is much more difficult than the ordinary split-screen design, which also shows that GM does adopt the leading electronic and electrical architecture.

The dual-screen design in the back seat can also play different programs independently, and there is no trouble of "grabbing TV" anymore.

HUD with AR function heads up, which is linked with GM's high-precision map, creating a cool navigation experience.

In GM's own words, without the obstacle of internal combustion engine, designers can freely fly themselves and lead the trend of automobile design.

Finally, with the best products, actively meet this new era.

Write it at the end

The president wants to tell you a cold joke.

Once upon a time, there were two people walking side by side in the forest. But unfortunately, they met a hungry tiger.

One of them turned his head and ran away without thinking.

Another person is puzzled: "What's the use of running?" ! Can you still outrun the tiger? "

The man replied without looking back: "Of course it works!" I just need to run faster than you! "

In fact, this cold joke is just like the current situation of the global automobile industry.

This tiger's name is Electrified Age. At first, you can survive as long as you run faster than others. Tesla, who has the fastest reaction and the best physique, is the fastest runner; But in the long run, only those who run faster than tigers are qualified to live.

So GM took out all its wealth? Now, vowed to become a technology-based automobile company;

Volkswagen Group throws 60 billion euros to collectively transform electrification;

Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Nissan, Ford ... have put forward plans for dozens of electrified vehicles;

Domestic traditional car companies and new car-making forces are also trying their best to catch up with Tesla.

If you don't run fast enough in this long chase, you will be eaten until there is no residue left.

I haven't realized this yet, but I really need to be careful of car companies.

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