BYD: from being questioned to the top ten in the world

In the first half of this year, BYD It is the first time that a Chinese car company has entered the top ten global car companies in terms of sales volume. By the third quarter, BYD had made further progress, ranking the ninth in global auto sales, and maintained a strong momentum of development.

How did BYD go from being questioned to becoming a global player new energy Car leaders? What are the future development plans? With these questions in mind, NetEase Finance's Navigator visited BYD's headquarters in Pingshan, Shenzhen, and talked with Lian Yubo, BYD's chief scientist, and Li Yunfei, general manager of the brand and public relations office, to analyze the secret of BYD's success.

Vertical integration of supply chain

Realize cost reduction and efficiency increase

BYD began to lay out new energy vehicle business in 2003, and did not give up even in the face of doubt. As a witness and participant in this history, Lian Yubo, BYD's chief scientist, recalled that, "Since electric vehicles subvert fuel vehicles in many aspects, the stage of building new energy vehicle technology systems and industrial chains from 0 is the most difficult, and many parts and systems need to be developed by BYD itself."

In the process of overcoming difficulties, BYD has gradually formed a vertically integrated supply chain. About 75% of the parts can be produced by itself. The proportion of self manufactured parts is higher than that of Tesla produced in China and Volkswagen produced in Germany. This makes BYD the only car enterprise in the world that has mastered the core technologies of the whole industrial chain of new energy vehicles, such as batteries, motors, electronic controls and car size chips.

BYD's overall industrial chain layout

Li Yunfei, general manager of BYD's brand and public relations office, said that the biggest advantage of vertical integration is to reduce costs and increase efficiency through industrial collaboration. Many auto enterprises buy parts and assemblies from others. If they want to carry out an integrated innovation, they must bring together multiple suppliers to tackle the problem. BYD does not have this problem. As long as the company is strategic and gives orders, Several combat units will cooperate to tackle key problems. He believes that "in the high-speed development stage of the automobile industry, efficiency comes first and cost comes second. Once the golden development period is missed, no amount of money can buy it back".

Create "technical fish pond"

Build a moat

Walking in the BYD exhibition hall, the most eye-catching is the "patent wall": nearly 10 meters high and tens of meters long, the gray wall is densely lined with 1250 patents, and the slogan in the middle is the development philosophy that BYD has always adhered to - "technology is king, innovation is fundamental".

BYD patent wall

For 20 years of new energy layout, BYD has built a huge "technology fish pond", which has incubated disruptive technologies such as blade battery, DM-i super hybrid, e-platform 3.0, CTB battery body integration, Yisifang, Yunnian intelligent body control system, and achieved landing applications, and jointly built BYD's technology moat. At present, BYD has submitted 19 patent applications and obtained 15 patent authorizations on average every working day.

These achievements can not be achieved without the huge R&D team and strong R&D strength behind them. Up to now, BYD has 11 research institutes, more than 90000 R&D teams, and a total R&D investment of more than 100 billion yuan. Previously, Wang Chuanfu, BYD's chairman and president, said at the press conference that in the last 12 years, BYD's R&D investment in 11 years exceeded the net profit of that year, even 3 to 4 times the net profit in many cases.

Lian Yubo introduced that Chairman Wang Chuanfu's requirement for the R&D team is to produce one generation in mass production, reserve one generation, and pre research one generation, so 20% and 30% of the R&D personnel are reserved for future technology, which can ensure that BYD has a big technology push out every year. He also said that BYD would continue to make efforts in the light weight of the whole vehicle, the low temperature endurance rate in northern China, the intelligent upgrade of the cloud car system, and the intelligent car.

Speaking of intelligence, Lian Yubo said, "Our understanding of intelligence is safety first. Before the safety problem is completely solved, intelligent driving should not be too eager for quick success and instant benefit. I can tell you that BYD has no lag in intelligent technology research and development and reserves. We have a huge research and development team covering all sectors from hardware to software. From the perspective of the size and investment of intelligent research and development teams, we are among the best in domestic automobile enterprises. "

Accelerate high-end and sailing

Go to the next stop

Relying on the continuous iteration and innovation of BYD's core technology, its passenger car business has gradually formed a multi brand matrix constructed by BYD brand (Dynasty and Ocean), Denza brand, Yangwang brand and Eopard brand, covering from household to luxury, from public to personalized, in order to meet the needs of different users.

Among BYD's many brands, Yangwang, as the first millionaire car, has attracted much attention and is considered by the industry as an important step for Chinese brands to break through the price ceiling.

Li Yunfei said that BYD's brand planning for looking up is divided into three steps: in the first stage, looking up is BYD's looking up, and the parent brand and sub brand go in both directions and empower each other; In the second stage, Yangwang is an independent brand of BYD, just as Audi brand is to the public, everyone knows that Yangwang is BYD; In the third stage, it looks up to itself, just as many people know Lamborghini and Porsche, but they do not necessarily know that these brands are Volkswagen.

As for the core growth point of BYD's auto business in the next stage, Li Yunfei said that in addition to building a multi brand matrix and promoting high-end development, internationalization is also an important part.

BYD announced the passenger car sailing plan in May 2021, and now it has entered 58 countries and regions including Japan, Germany, Australia and Singapore. In the first 11 months of 2023, BYD's overseas sales exceeded 200000, more than three times the overseas sales of last year. In addition, BYD won the championship of new energy sales in Brazil for four consecutive months, and won the championship of cumulative sales in Thailand, Singapore and Colombia in the first ten months of this year.