GAC-NIO HYCAN: Cooperation brings in win-win situation

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, IIA Senior VP LI San and the exclusive interview with LIAO Bing, the founder and CEO of GAC NIO New Energy Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., had to be changed to online video interviews.

As the head of GAC-NIO, Liao Bing has 25 years of experience in the automotive industry. He has been engaged in research and development, quality, strategy and management in Guangzhou Automobile Honda, GAC Parts, GAC FCA, and GAC Research Institute. He has deep experience in R&D and management.

For the automotive industry in a period of transformation, he believes that in the future market competition, acting alone will be difficult to achieve the ultimate victory. As representatives of traditional car building and Internet car building, GAC Group and NIO contribute their respective advantages, while also allowing employees to participate in and hold part of the shares, deeply binding the interests of all parties and flexibly applying The modern enterprise management mechanism has broken a new path in this era of change.

IIA: GAC Group is a traditional top Chinese company, NIO is the leading company in China's new energy vehicle manufacturers. The cooperation between the two of you has attracted great attention in the industry. Can you talk about the background of cooperation? And what you have done since the cooperation?

LIAO Bing: GAC-NIO was established in April 2018 by the joint investment of GAC Group, NIO and the company's employees. GAC Group is a leading company in a traditional manufacturing company. NIO should be a leading company of Internet car manufacturers. The advantages of both parties are obvious. GAC Group has many years of experience in the field of traditional car manufacturing, has large-scale production experience, has a mature supply chain, and has better quality assurance capabilities. NIO is a representative of cross-border car manufacturing, and it has some accumulation in brand building, user operation concepts, and high-end intelligent development.

At present, the automobile industry is entering the era of "new four modernizations", and the entire industry is undergoing drastic changes. Acting alone is difficult to achieve ultimate victory in future market competition.

In the past two years, GAC Group provided GAC-NIO with the latest GEP2.0 pure electric platform. GAC Research Institute also participated in the development work. The first product, HYCAN 007, was also manufactured at the GAC New Energy Intelligent Ecological Factory. NIO also imparted its experience and technology in brand building, user operation, digital cockpit, and intelligent network connection to HYCAN and applied it to HYCAN 007. At the same time, GAC-NIO also tried to innovate and merge these two ideas to make it more suitable for this era, and strive to provide better electric products and services for consumers in the 200,000 to 300,000 consumption range. At present, our first product will be settled on April 10th, and internal delivery will begin, and external delivery is expected to begin in May.

IIA: With the gradual improvement of the domestic epidemic situation, many local governments have carried out a certain degree of loosening of purchase restriction policies. It can be said that after the epidemic is over, there will be some improvement in the sales environment of the automotive market. For emerging brands such as NIO and HYCAN who have done a better job in user service, the market opportunities will also be better than before. So can you introduce the HYCAN 007 to us in the light of the current market environment?

LIAO Bing: HYCAN 007 is a collection of the latest platform technology and NIO technology from GAC Group. On top of this, we have carried out some superimposed innovations. This car has several features, the first is the beautiful appearance. HYCAN 007 chose the number "7" as the basic design element in terms of styling. "7" is an element that few people choose in the field of automotive styling. As a new company, GAC-NIO hopes to leave a deep impression on users through the selection of styling elements. At the same time, "7" also echoes elements such as Chinese Valentine's Day and 7 days a week in modern life.

In addition, security is a more important feature of HYCAN 007. There are many aspects to safety. In terms of basic safety, HYCAN 007 uses a lower aluminum and steel body structure to achieve higher structural strength. In terms of battery safety that new energy users are most concerned about, HYCAN 007 is adopted the most advanced NCM811 battery cells from CATL, and is equipped a complete battery monitoring system in the battery pack to fully protect user safety.

HYCAN 007 also adds more humane safety measures, such as rear occupant monitoring systems and high-precision life detection devices. When a child is detected in the back row, it will automatically send a reminder to the owner. If there is no sufficient response, our background will automatically alarm and lower the window for the vehicle to ensure air circulation.

We believe that in the Internet era, cars are not just transportation, but travel companions. The CAN robot from NIONOMI robot is a typical example. If the voice assistant is virtual, the result is just that the user speaks into the air, and on HYCAN 007, every word of the user, the CAN robot has a corresponding expression or action such as turning his head, such anthropomorphic settings, Not only reduces the feeling of boring, but also increases a certain intimacy.

The second interesting point is that HYCAN 007 can be interconnected with DJI drones, and can be controlled by the central console screen in the car. In low-speed environments, drones and vehicles fly simultaneously. In the wild, you can release the drone to check the situation in front, and collect the beautiful scenery in real time and send it back to the big screen in the center of the car, and share it to the social media in real time.

IIA: Indeed, as you said, sharing and communication is indeed a core topic of future cars. Next, I want to know about the channel status of GAC-NIO. Before you released a PAC channel model, what advantages does this model have over the traditional 4S store model? How is it going?

LIAO Bing: This model has its advantages, but in the context of the "new four modernizations", it is necessary to make a transformation, get rid of the so-called sense of security brought by strong path dependence and experience dependence, and innovate the sales model. Of course, to a certain extent, we also rely on the resources of shareholders to access the thousands of 4S stores and delivery centers of GAC Group and NIO across the country to expand our basic channel network.

But for the business model itself, we believe that what manufacturers should provide in the future is a powerful data center and business center to empower front-end sales. In the current era of digitalization, networking, and intelligence, except for the driving experience that cannot be completed online, everything else can be completed online. The front-end sales staff only needs to resolve offline online problems through offline contacts.

In this context, we have created a PAC channel model, where P refers to the data center and business center built by GAC-NIO to empower front-end sales staff. A refers to our city partner or partner. This partner does not want a large entity. It only needs to do two things. The first is to keep in touch with the user. The second is to let the user experience and drive HYCAN 007 . This model does not require a 4S shop or city showroom. Even the front-end sales staff can be ordinary people from all walks of life, as long as it can provide users with a scene-based test drive experience, which is the core of the PAC model.

C refers to the user. Each of the current users is an individual in a social state. This individual has influence, fission and radiation capabilities. We hope that the user will become a deep participant in the experience, use and future life cycle of the product, and he will become a communicator. In this kind of behavior, users will also get corresponding mental and material feedback.

As GAC-NIO is a new company that has just started, the resources and manpower we have at this stage cannot meet national coverage in all aspects. Therefore, we chose to start from the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. These two regions were selected first because our shareholders are in Guangzhou and Shanghai. Secondly, the first users of HYCAN 007 are mainly concentrated in these two areas and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, so we use these places as the core point, and then cover other areas. Of course, based on the "light and fast" characteristics of the PAC model, we will also adjust the channel construction steps in time according to the location of the user.

IIA: Through short communication, I think you want to make the car a boutique, not a simple machine, and use cars to create a car, family atmosphere of people, cars, and life.

LIAO Bing: Indeed, what we want to build in the future is a product that allows users to participate from the product definition. In HYCAN 007, we have already started some attempts. Traditional automobile companies do actual road quality tests on vehicles before they are listed on the market. Such tests are generally performed without user participation.

But for this test, in each city we passed, we invited order users and some business operators to join the test, listen to their voices, and let them experience the significance of we invited them to participate in the test. And when the final production car is officially delivered, they can see the change and progress of the vehicle. We want to turn the car into an open platform in this way. All professional people and companies can participate in injecting their ideas and ideas into our products.

IIA: For the HYCAN brand, as you said, with the deepening of consumer participation, the development of future models will be deeply involved by consumers from product definition to design, so is there a corresponding time plan?

LIAO Bing: At present, our first product, HYCAN 007, is based on the GAP 2.0 platform of GAC Group. The development of next-generation models is expected to begin at the end of this year. We will invite users to participate in depth from the initial product definition. . At present, we have a workshop in Nansha, Guangzhou. There is a clay model machine in the workshop. We will host an open discussion there and invite users in the community to conduct in-depth exchanges and discuss what kind of car should be made for the next model? At the same time, we will also open the workshop to external designers, and their design solutions will become real models, so that users in the community can see them, and make judgments in batches, and decide which style to use based on your choice. Of course, we also make our own value judgments.

From product definition to styling to engineering development, we will move all steps to the community, so that users can clearly see how this product was produced with their participation. Through this process, companies and users can also be closely linked together to truly turn user needs into a real product. We plan to launch such products in the end of 2022 or early 2023.