中
国迅速成长的汽车行业怎样融入世界？这是一个错综复杂、并且常常充满争议的问题。中国品牌很难在西方扬名，西方汽车生产商也还不知道怎样跟这个东方新兴巨人打交道。在中国为取得欧美市场份额而试探性地迈出脚步之际，欧洲和美国的汽车生产商正在苦苦思索，利用什么样的策略，才能最有效地抓住中国不断壮大、购物欲望强烈的中产阶级带来的、可能十分巨大的机遇赚钱？
在中国市场，生产商形成了两个群体。一个是外资品牌与中国国内企业组建的合资公司。这些合资公司主要是生产国外设计的汽车，通常以欧洲、日本或韩国款式为基础，根据中国社会富裕阶层的口味做了调整。中方合作伙伴往往是大型国有汽车生产商，如上海汽车工业（集团）总公司、中国第一汽车集团公司和东风汽车公司等。
第二个群体是独立厂商，即吉利、奇瑞、长城和比亚迪等中国企业家自创的公司。这些公司与国外汽车生产商一般没有关联。它们生产自己设计的产品，打自己的中资品牌，向中国私人买家出售更便宜的汽车。
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
2011年4月20日，上海汽车展的参观者参观一辆吉利SUV。
合资公司天生专注于国内市场的销售。而独立厂商自从本世纪最初几年以来常常在欧洲和美国的主要车展亮相。它们的策略是效仿20世纪70年代的日本和90年代的韩国，也就是先作为廉价品牌进入市场，然后逐渐地提高产品质量，达到成熟品牌的水平。
这在过去可能管用，但21世纪的汽车市场执迷于品牌，远比当初更难对付。欧洲或北美市场的营销成本巨大，在那里出售小排量廉价汽车基本无钱可赚。而在安全标准方面，中国人也极度缺乏经验。
还有盗用设计的问题。一家中国进口商就是因为这个问题，被迫将一款汽车从最近的法兰克福汽车展(Frankfurt Motor Show)撤下，因为戴姆勒(Daimler)对这款汽车与其“Smart”汽车的相似之处提出了抗议。
盗版问题是根深蒂固的。在中国文化里，抄袭设计并不被认为是不道德行为，反而被视为一种陡峭的学习曲线，能让中国更快达到自立门户的程度。
Getty Images
2010年，巴菲特曾说过他期待在中国的“重大机遇”，让这个世界上增长最迅速的经济体变成可以“合理投资”的市场。
目前存在两个利害攸关的问题：一个是窃取知识产权，即一家中国供应商明目张胆地抄袭另一公司的零件并尽最大能力模仿，然后将其作为自己的产品出售；一个是假冒行为，即对产品进行仿制并用外国公司的商标和品牌标识来包装，将其冒充为更优质的进口零件来出售。
Honda还是Hongda？
中国当局已经对盗版假冒行为进行了打击，主要是受到来自娱乐业的压力。娱乐业已经对盗版CD和DVD行为采取强硬立场。但如果没有人企图“假冒”仿制零件，中国当局就不大可能采取行动。目前成功的案例只有商标侵权方面的起诉，也就是使用相似品牌假冒产品。本田（Honda）成功阻止了一家中国摩托车生产商使用“Hongda”品牌。最近，中国企业找到了另一种扩张海外的方式，那就是收购西方品牌。最引人注目的就是吉利在2010年3月以18亿美元从福特（Ford）手中收购沃尔沃汽车公司（Volvo Car Corporation）。这桩交易为吉利在西方提供了一个重要立足点，并消除了吉利自主研发设计用于出口的压力。吉利计划通过新建一座产能30万辆车的工厂在中国提升沃尔沃品牌，而沃尔沃可能很快会实现每年生产100万辆车，这是在福特旗下从未达到的生产水平。
无独有偶，英国MG品牌最近也在上汽集团的麾下重新上市。MG罗孚（MG Rover）2006年破产后，上汽集团历经曲折收购了该公司。萨博（Saab）的荷兰所有者正努力与中国一家汽车制造商达成协议，从而保住该品牌的未来，并使其有机会进入中国生产。
不过，可供收购的西方汽车品牌数量有限。大多数成熟品牌都在主要汽车集团旗下，并且无意出售。这意味着其他中国汽车制造商将不得不创立自己的品牌。
最有可能成功的汽车品牌是比亚迪。比亚迪大约10年前进入汽车行业，但它的核心业务是制造锂电池，世界上大部分移动电话和笔记本电脑都使用锂电池供电。这给比亚迪提供了一个独特的卖点，即让它具备了以低于西方制造商的成本制造电动和混合动力汽车的能力。沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)已向比亚迪投资，而他一般是不会支持失败者的。巴菲特旗下的投资公司伯克希尔•哈撒韦(Berkshire Hathaway)目前拥有比亚迪10%的股权。
比亚迪计划2012年在美国上市销售其纯电动汽车E6，售价为3.5万美元。比亚迪称，这款汽车充电一次的行驶里程为320公里，由比亚迪自主研发的60千万时的锂离子电池组驱动，六小时可以充满电。
国外成熟制造商和中国本土汽车公司成立的大型合资企业，开始通过自主研发面向中国市场的车型而与中国民营制造商展开竞争。走在这股潮流前沿的是通用汽车公司(General Motors)，目前它正在打造针对中国市场的中国品牌车型。通用汽车与上海汽车工业(集团)总公司和五菱集团在2002年11月成立了三方合作的合资公司。2010年，该合资公司生产了123万辆汽车，占通用汽车中国总产量的三分之一以上。
创中国品牌
通用汽车并不是唯一一家打造中国市场新车品牌的厂家。本田已经宣布推出低成本自主汽车品牌，作为它和广州汽车集团股份有限公司的合资企业广汽本田汽车有限公司的部分业务。该品牌推出的第一款车型为理念S1，将在2011年底之前上市。这款车采用本田思迪的平台，配有1.3升和1.5升两种汽油发动机。其它汽车制造商也准备追随这股打造中国品牌的潮流。德国大众目前正和中方合作伙伴(可能是中国第一汽车集团公司)就开发中国品牌一事进行探讨，而日产汽车与其中方合作伙伴东风汽车有限公司也计划在2012年初推出一款名为“启辰”(Venucia)的新轿车品牌，以满足消费者对低价车型的需求。
这些新方案将创造大量新品牌，所有品牌的目标群体都指向首次购车者，特别是小城镇的首次购车者。很多这类业务都将是新业务，但同时也意味着中国民营汽车生产商将在市场竞争中面临强大的新对手，这些对手可能认为这些市场是其自主研发的低成本汽车的天然适销场所。
MARK BURSA
（更新完成）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
The question of how the burgeoning Chinese motor industry integrates with the rest of the world is a complex and often controversial one. Chinese brands are struggling to make their mark in the West, while Western car makers don't yet know how to cope with the emerging goliath in the East. As China makes tentative steps to build market share in Europe and the U.S., European and U.S. car manufacturers are puzzling over the most effective strategy to cash in on the potentially huge opportunities a growing and acquisitive Chinese middle class offers.
The Chinese car market surpassed the U.S. in 2009 as the biggest in the world and it is still growing. Total vehicle sales in China soared by 32% to 18.06 million units in 2010, according the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Of that total, passenger car sales in 2010 were put at 13.8 million units, 33% ahead of 2009's total, and more than 10 times bigger than the 2002 market.
Within the Chinese market, manufacturers fall into two groups. First, there are the joint ventures between foreign brands and domestic Chinese companies. These joint ventures produce largely foreign-designed cars, usually European, Japanese or Korean models, adapted to the tastes of the more wealthy echelons of Chinese society. The Chinese partners tend to be large, state-owned automakers such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, First Automobile Works and Dongfeng Motor Corporation.
The second group is the independents─entrepreneurial Chinese companies such as Geely, Chery, Great Wall and BYD. These firms are largely without links to foreign automakers. They build their own designs and sell cheaper cars under their own Chinese brands to Chinese private buyers.
Local-brand vehicles account for around one-third of the car market, while products of the joint ventures take up the remainder. China would like to see this shift in favor of the local nameplates, and has set a target of 44% local-brand vehicles by 2015.
By their nature, the joint ventures are focused on domestic sales. But the independents have been regular exhibitors at major European and U.S. motor shows since the early part of the previous decade. Their strategy has been to use the Japanese in the 1970s and the Koreans in the 1990s as templates. In other words, they enter as value brands and gradually increase quality to match established levels.
This might have worked in the past, but the brand-obsessed 21st century car market is a lot tougher. There is little money to be made from small, cheap cars in Europe or North America, where marketing costs are enormous. And the Chinese have been woefully naive over safety standards.
There is also the issue of design piracy, which has seen one Chinese importer forced to remove a car from a recent Frankfurt Motor Show because Daimler objected to its similarity to the Smart car.
The problem is deep-rooted. Within Chinese culture, copying designs is not seen as morally wrong. Instead it is seen as part of a steep learning curve that allows China to move more quickly to a point of self-sufficiency.
The concept of intellectual property is barely understood, and details can get lost in translation. Protection would appear to be offered if a product is deemed to be 'novel'. This interpretation allowed the otherwise respectable automaker, BYD, to launch a car called the F0, a blatant copy of the Toyota Aygo. But as the Aygo is not sold in China, Chinese authorities saw no infringement.
There are two issues at stake here: Firstly, theft of intellectual property rights, where a Chinese supplier simply copies another company's part and replicates it to the best of its ability and then sells it as its own; and secondly, counterfeiting, where a copy is made and packaged with a foreign company's trademark and logo, and passed off as a higher quality imported part.
Honda or Hongda?
Chinese authorities have cracked down on 'bootleg' counterfeiting─ largely as a result of pressure from the entertainment industry, which has taken a tough stance on CD and DVD bootlegging. But if there is no attempt to 'pass off' a copied part, Chinese authorities are unlikely to act. The only successfully prosecuted lawsuits have concerned trademark infringement. In other words, passing off products by using similar branding. Honda successfully blocked a local motorcycle manufacturer from using the brand 'Hongda'. Recently, the Chinese have found another way to expand overseas. Buy Western brands. The most significant move has been the $1.8 billion ( 1.2 billion) acquisition of Volvo Car Corporation from Ford by Geely in March 2010. The deal gave Geely a major foothold in the West, and has removed the pressure to develop in-house Geely designs for export. Geely plans to grow the brand in China through a new 300,000-unit plant, and Volvo could soon be building one million cars a year─levels it never achieved under Ford.
Similarly, the U.K.'s MG brand has recently been relaunched in Europe, under the control of Shanghai Automotive, following a tortuous battle for control after the collapse of MG Rover in 2006. And Saab's Dutch owners are trying to strike a deal with a Chinese automaker that would secure the brand's future and give it access to Chinese production.
However, there is a limit to the number of Western car brands that might be available. Most established brands are part of major automotive groups, and are not for sale. And that will mean the other Chinese car makers will have to build their own brands.
The brand most likely to succeed is BYD, which entered the auto industry about 10 years ago, but whose core business is making the lithium-ion batteries that power a vast proportion of the world's mobile phones and laptops. This gives BYD a unique selling point: The ability to produce electric and hybrid cars at lower cost than in the West. Warren Buffett has invested in BYD─his Berkshire Hathaway company owns a 10% stake─ and he doesn't tend to back losers.
The BYD E6 electric car, which is scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. in 2012, will carry a price tag of $35,000. BYD claims a range of 320 kilometers (198 miles), via a self-developed 60 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack which can be recharged in six hours.
Perhaps this impressive technology will prove to be BYD's biggest selling point. Daimler is already working with BYD on a China market car, and it's possible that BYD could develop its business by supplying batteries and electric vehicle technology to foreign automakers, just as it does for the telecommunications industry. Despite the obvious growing pains, China and the West are finding that working together is the best means of long-term success in the automotive industry.
The major joint ventures between established and Chinese car companies are taking on the independent Chinese-owned manufacturers by developing their own Chinese models. At the forefront of this trend is General Motors, which is building China-brand models aimed at China. GM's is a three-way joint venture alongside Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation and SAIC subsidiary, Wuling, launched in November 2002. In 2010 it built 1.23 million vehicles─ contributing more than one-third of GM's Chinese volume.
Making a Marque in China
GM is not alone in developing new China-market brands. Honda has already announced its own low-cost brand as part of its joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile, called Guangqi Honda. The first car under the brand, called the Linan S1, will go on sale before the end of 2011. The 1.3 liter and 1.5-liter gasoline-powered Linan S1 is based on the Honda City small car. Other manufacturers are set to follow the local-brand trend too. Volkswagen is talking with Chinese partners about developing a local brand, possibly with First Automotive Works, while Nissan and Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor Corporation also plan to introduce a new passenger car brand called Venucia from early 2012 to meet demand for cheaper models.
These initiatives will create a flood of new brands, all geared toward first-time buyers, especially those in smaller towns and cities. A lot of this business will be new business─but it also means that the Chinese independents will face strong new competitors in markets that they might consider to be a natural fit for their own low-cost products.
MARK BURSA
The Chinese car market surpassed the U.S. in 2009 as the biggest in the world and it is still growing. Total vehicle sales in China soared by 32% to 18.06 million units in 2010, according the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Of that total, passenger car sales in 2010 were put at 13.8 million units, 33% ahead of 2009's total, and more than 10 times bigger than the 2002 market.
Within the Chinese market, manufacturers fall into two groups. First, there are the joint ventures between foreign brands and domestic Chinese companies. These joint ventures produce largely foreign-designed cars, usually European, Japanese or Korean models, adapted to the tastes of the more wealthy echelons of Chinese society. The Chinese partners tend to be large, state-owned automakers such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, First Automobile Works and Dongfeng Motor Corporation.
The second group is the independents─entrepreneurial Chinese companies such as Geely, Chery, Great Wall and BYD. These firms are largely without links to foreign automakers. They build their own designs and sell cheaper cars under their own Chinese brands to Chinese private buyers.
Local-brand vehicles account for around one-third of the car market, while products of the joint ventures take up the remainder. China would like to see this shift in favor of the local nameplates, and has set a target of 44% local-brand vehicles by 2015.
By their nature, the joint ventures are focused on domestic sales. But the independents have been regular exhibitors at major European and U.S. motor shows since the early part of the previous decade. Their strategy has been to use the Japanese in the 1970s and the Koreans in the 1990s as templates. In other words, they enter as value brands and gradually increase quality to match established levels.
This might have worked in the past, but the brand-obsessed 21st century car market is a lot tougher. There is little money to be made from small, cheap cars in Europe or North America, where marketing costs are enormous. And the Chinese have been woefully naive over safety standards.
There is also the issue of design piracy, which has seen one Chinese importer forced to remove a car from a recent Frankfurt Motor Show because Daimler objected to its similarity to the Smart car.
The problem is deep-rooted. Within Chinese culture, copying designs is not seen as morally wrong. Instead it is seen as part of a steep learning curve that allows China to move more quickly to a point of self-sufficiency.
The concept of intellectual property is barely understood, and details can get lost in translation. Protection would appear to be offered if a product is deemed to be 'novel'. This interpretation allowed the otherwise respectable automaker, BYD, to launch a car called the F0, a blatant copy of the Toyota Aygo. But as the Aygo is not sold in China, Chinese authorities saw no infringement.
There are two issues at stake here: Firstly, theft of intellectual property rights, where a Chinese supplier simply copies another company's part and replicates it to the best of its ability and then sells it as its own; and secondly, counterfeiting, where a copy is made and packaged with a foreign company's trademark and logo, and passed off as a higher quality imported part.
Honda or Hongda?
Chinese authorities have cracked down on 'bootleg' counterfeiting─ largely as a result of pressure from the entertainment industry, which has taken a tough stance on CD and DVD bootlegging. But if there is no attempt to 'pass off' a copied part, Chinese authorities are unlikely to act. The only successfully prosecuted lawsuits have concerned trademark infringement. In other words, passing off products by using similar branding. Honda successfully blocked a local motorcycle manufacturer from using the brand 'Hongda'. Recently, the Chinese have found another way to expand overseas. Buy Western brands. The most significant move has been the $1.8 billion ( 1.2 billion) acquisition of Volvo Car Corporation from Ford by Geely in March 2010. The deal gave Geely a major foothold in the West, and has removed the pressure to develop in-house Geely designs for export. Geely plans to grow the brand in China through a new 300,000-unit plant, and Volvo could soon be building one million cars a year─levels it never achieved under Ford.
Similarly, the U.K.'s MG brand has recently been relaunched in Europe, under the control of Shanghai Automotive, following a tortuous battle for control after the collapse of MG Rover in 2006. And Saab's Dutch owners are trying to strike a deal with a Chinese automaker that would secure the brand's future and give it access to Chinese production.
However, there is a limit to the number of Western car brands that might be available. Most established brands are part of major automotive groups, and are not for sale. And that will mean the other Chinese car makers will have to build their own brands.
The brand most likely to succeed is BYD, which entered the auto industry about 10 years ago, but whose core business is making the lithium-ion batteries that power a vast proportion of the world's mobile phones and laptops. This gives BYD a unique selling point: The ability to produce electric and hybrid cars at lower cost than in the West. Warren Buffett has invested in BYD─his Berkshire Hathaway company owns a 10% stake─ and he doesn't tend to back losers.
The BYD E6 electric car, which is scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. in 2012, will carry a price tag of $35,000. BYD claims a range of 320 kilometers (198 miles), via a self-developed 60 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack which can be recharged in six hours.
Perhaps this impressive technology will prove to be BYD's biggest selling point. Daimler is already working with BYD on a China market car, and it's possible that BYD could develop its business by supplying batteries and electric vehicle technology to foreign automakers, just as it does for the telecommunications industry. Despite the obvious growing pains, China and the West are finding that working together is the best means of long-term success in the automotive industry.
The major joint ventures between established and Chinese car companies are taking on the independent Chinese-owned manufacturers by developing their own Chinese models. At the forefront of this trend is General Motors, which is building China-brand models aimed at China. GM's is a three-way joint venture alongside Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation and SAIC subsidiary, Wuling, launched in November 2002. In 2010 it built 1.23 million vehicles─ contributing more than one-third of GM's Chinese volume.
Making a Marque in China
GM is not alone in developing new China-market brands. Honda has already announced its own low-cost brand as part of its joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile, called Guangqi Honda. The first car under the brand, called the Linan S1, will go on sale before the end of 2011. The 1.3 liter and 1.5-liter gasoline-powered Linan S1 is based on the Honda City small car. Other manufacturers are set to follow the local-brand trend too. Volkswagen is talking with Chinese partners about developing a local brand, possibly with First Automotive Works, while Nissan and Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor Corporation also plan to introduce a new passenger car brand called Venucia from early 2012 to meet demand for cheaper models.
These initiatives will create a flood of new brands, all geared toward first-time buyers, especially those in smaller towns and cities. A lot of this business will be new business─but it also means that the Chinese independents will face strong new competitors in markets that they might consider to be a natural fit for their own low-cost products.
MARK BURSA
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