Sunday 29th August 2021
Qoros, Nio, Byron
This is how Germans pimp China’s e-cars
From Helmut Becker
China is the most important auto market in the world. Electric is in in the Middle Kingdom. The models of the Chinese have so far not made it to Germany – despite the active support of numerous ex-managers from BMW and VW.
It all started at the beginning of the new millennium: At that time, the Chinese government thought it was time for its domestic auto industry to take its first steps towards conquering the world market. After all, there were now car manufacturers in almost all of the country’s 23 provinces – a total of more than 300. In 2005, a vehicle called the Landwind appeared in the Netherlands, an off-road vehicle from the car manufacturer Jiangling, completely unknown in Europe. The Landwind was a replica of the Isuzu Rodeo built between 1991 and 1997 and its sister model, the Opel Frontera. The Landwind received scathing reviews and failed spectacularly on the market – due to extremely poor crash tests, in an emergency with sometimes fatal consequences for the occupants. A similar fate befell the manufacturer Brilliance almost two years later with the BS6. His attempt to enter the market also turned into a disaster.
Because of all these failures, the Chinese government realized that in order to be successful in the world market, it was not enough for its auto industry to just copy and replicate Western technology. Beijing was now certain that “humane” automotive engineering, that is, know-how in the person of experienced car managers from western manufacturers, had to be put at the beginning of the market conquest. Including high personnel costs.
Experienced, sprightly, looking for …
And that’s what happened for the next 20 years. Time and again, prototypes or new Chinese car brands appeared in the car world, behind which top managers from development or sales departments of German car manufacturers stood as driving forces and construction assistants. A win-win situation for both sides: The Chinese auto industry received proven automotive know-how from the auto industry in Germany and the mostly sprightly German managers, who had usually left their companies due to age and often against their own will, were given a new challenge.
The first Chinese brand designed and thought out by German managers for the European market was Qoros, which was presented in December 2013 with a great PR roar in Shanghai. The leading man behind Qoros was the 70-year-old manager Volker Steinwascher, who was retired from VW at the age of 63. Steinwascher was supported by 2.57 billion dollars and a team of experts from companies from other Western car manufacturers, such as ex-BMW managers Klaus Schmidt (vehicle development) and car designer Gert Hildebrand, who previously worked for Opel for the Manta and for VW for the Golf III and finally responsible for the Mini at BMW and should also retire at BMW at the age of 60.
Steinwascher planned to start selling 150,000 qoros, so the factory capacity was designed with which he wanted to start the attack on the Chinese market. In the starting year 2014, however, only 7,000 Qoros were sold. In 2015 there were 14,000. Steinwascher and colleagues were fired in 2015. The company itself has so far proven to be highly loss-making and unsaleable.
A trip to Vegas
The main playground for futuristic prototypes and show car presentations with the participation of sprightly German “automobile experts” was and is to this day the Silicon Valley, more precisely the CES in Las Vegas. Electronic innovations have been shown there for 50 years and show cars and future visions of mobility in the form of concept studies of robotic and electric cars for 20 years. Remember the legendary sneakers and blue jeans appearance of Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche at the presentation of his Daimler future vision, the F 105, mercilessly crushed by his successor Ola Källenius.
Chinese investors presented an electric car startup called Faraday Future (FF) and the FF-Zero1 concept car at CES 2015. They immediately announced the construction of a plant in Nevada, similar to Tesla, where investors wanted to invest over a billion US dollars. At the beginning of 2017, Faraday Future wanted to show the first series-ready model at the CES, the FF91- a 1000 hp electric sports car. Series production was planned for 2018 in Nevada.
However, apart from the FF91 show car, no Faraday car has yet been spotted. Instead of opening a factory and producing vehicles, Faraday Future found itself in uninterrupted financial, technical and personal turbulence until 2020, in which ex-BMW manager Stefan Krause (CFO) and ex-BMW pioneer for the i project, Ulrich Kranz, ( Chief Technology Officer) were involved. Without lasting success, at least for FF.
Big plans and visions, but no capital
Then, in 2019, the next automobile retiree, Carsten Breitfeld, stepped onto the Faraday stage as the new CEO and was supposed to breathe new “future” into the company and the brand. Breitfeld worked for BMW for 20 years, where he last headed the development of the new carbon-electric hybrid sports car i8. Then he went to the People’s Republic of China with a team of BMW colleagues and other German car manufacturers, first tried to set up the Byton electric car brand there, then worked for Iconiq Motors for a few months and finally became head of Faraday Future in Los Angeles in autumn 2019 .
With CEO Breitfeld, ex-GM veteran Bob Kruse (Senior President for Product Execution) and the long-time Ex-BMW Manager Benedikt Hartmann (Senior Vice President of Global Supply Chain Organization), who was to manage and control the entire logistics, came as new recruits. What he had previously successfully done for the BMW-Brilliance joint venture in China.
And of course Breitfeld had big plans for his new employer, Faraday Future, immediately after taking up the job: for example, the immediate construction of a factory in Nevada in order to later build 270,000 luxury, mid-range and upper-class electric cars to be developed there later. Estimated capital requirements: over a billion dollars – which weren’t there. Although Breitfeld was able to successfully go public for over a billion dollars at the end of July 2021, Faraday Future would have made a fresh start. “But now we have to deliver and that is absolutely crucial,” he said at the time. But whether this will happen is open.
Another Chinese auto start-up is also suffering from an acute shortage of capital: Byton. The company has been under the German management of Daniel Kichert since it was founded in 2017. He had previously worked for BMW in China, among others. The name Byton says it all: it is short for “Bytes on wheels” – a computer on wheels. And that’s what the cars look like too. Kichert wanted to sell the first electric cars in Germany with the M-Byte by the end of 2020. The offer: A premium electric car with smartphone qualities, a range of up to 500 kilometers, at an affordable price.
Byton has so far been supported by influential investors such as the Chinese Internet giant Tencent, the car company FAW and the electronics giant Foxconn. Another round of investors is necessary and, according to Kichert, is about to be completed. At least in the short term, this ensures that the group of automobile-enthusiastic silver-agers in the German automotive industry does not continue to grow when looking for a job.
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