For Li Mu, if he wants to enter the automobile industry, he cannot just focus on Tesla.
Even if alternative energy vehicles were the trend of the world, there was still a long way to go before this trend could be spread across the world.
Even in China, it will take at least 2020, or even 2030, to achieve a 50/50 ratio of alternative energy vehicles to gasoline vehicles.
Before that, most of the automobile market will be dominated by traditional gasoline vehicles.
Also, Li Mu's favorite thing to do is to integrate resources. This integration is not to integrate Jaguar, Land Rover, or Volvo into Tesla to become a more powerful Tesla. Instead, it is to integrate Jaguar, Land Rover, and Tesla into a more powerful Tesla, a more powerful Jaguar, a more powerful Land Rover, and a more powerful Volvo.
He will use Tesla's advantages in electric transmission, and Jaguar's advantages in luxury cars and sports cars. Of course, before they decline too much. He will use Volvo's advantages in family cars and safe driving, and Land Rover's 4WD and all-terrain adaptability.
Although Volvo's product line is very complete, it has a relatively small market. Lu Zhou will never be able to outsell Toyota alone. But if Volvo and Tesla go the hybrid route, they might be able to overtake Toyota in the hybrid market.
Hybrid cars and alternative energy vehicles might not be selling well in the early stages, but they still have a strong influence among the elites. In the US, elite gathering places like Silicon Valley have a special sense of moral superiority.
For example, those Internet company bosses have hundreds of millions of USD and live in mansions, but they drive a Toyota Prius that costs tens of thousands of USD. Why? It is because they need this sense of moral superiority.
When they drive a Prius that costs tens of thousands of dollars, they have a strong sense of superiority, like "I'm protecting the planet". Then they can stand on a high ground and use a critical eye to look at ordinary people who drive ordinary cars, or even cars with high emissions.
This is why the Toyota Prius is sought after by the elites in North America. CEOs, executives, university professors, fund founders, almost everyone has a Prius.
In the future, the pure electric Tesla and the hybrid Volvo will become the new favorites of these elites.
Li Mu immediately asked Davidson, "I need your help with something. Can you help me arrange a time to talk to Ford's executives? I am interested in their Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover. If they are interested, I can consider buying them."
Then, Li Mu added, "By the way, if you have other resources related to cars, please introduce them to me."
Davidson asked in surprise, "You want to buy Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover?"
Li Mu nodded and said, "If the price is right, it is not impossible to buy all of them."
Davidson said, "But these three brands are now losing money, and the losses are quite serious. Forgive me for being blunt, but you don't have relevant experience in the automobile industry. Without a professional team to help you deal with global suppliers and sales networks, it is impossible to make a profit in the short term. In the end, it is likely to be a huge loss."
Li Mu smiled and said, "Don't worry, I will start the IPO work soon. Once it is successfully listed, it will raise at least tens of billions of USD. Just take out one-tenth of it and it will be enough to buy these brands. As for the losses, it doesn't matter, just treat it as a game."
As he spoke, Li Mu said, "Maybe I will start a rally team next year, and in another two years, I will start an F1 team."
Even in his dreams, Chen Ze wanted to start a racing team. However, he did not dare to dream of starting an F1 team. Right now, he was training a group of karting racers at Shunyi's race track every day. In his plans, it was already his biggest dream to start a Formula 3 racing team in the future.
As for cultivating a real F1 driver for Hua Xia, this was basically something Chen Ze did not even dare to dream about. The requirements for a Formula 1 driver were extremely harsh. Most of them began to receive systematic training from a young age. From the age of five or six, they sat in karting cars and continued to burn money until they were 20 years old. Not only did they need to have enough money to burn, but they also needed to have enough talent. Otherwise, they would not be able to make it.
To cultivate an F1 driver, to a certain extent, was more difficult than cultivating a first-team player. At least, football was not a sport that burned money. If one had enough talent, it was enough to have a football.
There were so many teenagers in Brazil who played football on the streets, and many of them eventually became first-team players or even the world's top players. However, no one had heard of anyone who could become an F1 driver by riding a three-wheeled front wheel in the slums.
Therefore, Li Mu's idea was different from that of Chen Ze.
Chen Ze wanted to cultivate an F1 driver for Hua Xia, while Li Mu wanted to set up an F1 team that belonged to Hua Xia.
For example, this year he bought Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover, and then went to China to set up a new brand. The new brand was very simple. He just needed to directly integrate the technologies of these three brands. If the domestic team was not well integrated, it did not matter. He could spend a lot of money to poach the top team, Germans, Japanese, Swedes, or Italians. Wasn't it just money? Makino Technology had a lot of money.
When the new brand was set up, he would directly spend money to set up a team. Whether it was rallying, British touring car racing, or formula, as long as it could be done with money, he would do it.
First, he would spend money to buy ready-made chassis and engine suppliers for Formula Three, then set up a Formula Three team. Then, he would spend money to buy the top F1 technology and team talents in Europe, and hire overseas drivers. It did not matter even if the entire team, including the drivers and logistics, were all foreigners, because its headquarters was in Hua Xia, and the team and the brand belonged to Hua Xia.
Only in this way could the true essence of this sport be introduced to Hua Xia, and let the people of Hua Xia realize that they had this thing, and it was in their own home. This was far better than using the whole country's resources to cultivate one or two talents and then sending them overseas.
In other words, if there was a high enough level of football league in China, then it would be more appropriate to send domestic players to the five major leagues, because the improvement of the overall environment would always be much stronger than the improvement of an individual.
If Hua Xia really cultivated an F1 driver, and there was no team in China, this driver could only compete in F1 in a team from another country, wearing the uniform of another country. If his technical strength was not absolutely outstanding, he would always be at the bottom. His sense of existence would be so weak that it would be difficult to arouse the real enthusiasm of the domestic people for this sport.
However, if a team was introduced to Hua Xia, it would be equivalent to bringing in a whole set of systems. It did not matter if he did not know how to do it himself. He would first spend money to hire foreigners to do it. As long as this system was brought in, one day Hua Xia's drivers and Hua Xia's team of engineers could be cultivated. At that time, the entire domestic automobile industry would be improved.
Once the system was in place, the overall strength would be improved, and good drivers would inevitably be discovered and cultivated one after another.
Davidson did not understand Li Mu's interest.
If it was a hobby, then it was fine to set up a football club. After all, a football club did not cost too much money, and it did not involve any industrial chain, supply chain, or sales chain problems.
There was really a big difference between a car and a football club. It seemed that a car brand was very popular, but apart from the top brands that could make money, the rest were basically very poor.
More than half of the car brands were losing money or making a small profit. It was really normal to invest hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in such a company, and lose tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year. There were also car brands that were worth billions of dollars, but after working hard for a year, the net profit was only a few hundred thousand dollars. Whether it was the former or the latter, for the holder, it was a hot potato, a huge asset that could not be sold.
Ford was a standard example. In difficult times, several of its brands were losing money. Jaguar could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in a quarter, and hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Volvo and Land Rover, on the other hand, were sometimes good, sometimes bad. When it was bad, it meant that they lost hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and when it was good, it meant that they lost tens of millions of dollars a year.
Moreover, the losses of large industries were similar to an airplane that had lost its power. It was easier said than done to save a hundred tons of weight that fell from a height of tens of thousands of meters.
The area of the production line of any car brand could not be small. The cost of land, the construction and maintenance of the factory and workshop, the maintenance, renewal, and depreciation of the equipment were all large numbers.
At least thousands of workers were needed to operate a production line. The manpower expenditure alone was an astronomical figure.
It also required a high-cost research and development team, management team, and sales team. The cost was no lower than that of production line workers.
Not only that, if one wanted to build a car, they had to purchase all kinds of parts from hundreds of suppliers around the world. It was as if US dollars had grown wings, flying from the factory to all parts of the world.
Once the huge production line was started, it was equivalent to throwing bundles of US dollars into it. What was thrown in was money, and what was produced was cars. The cars were shipped around the world, and the money was put back into the production line. This was a big cycle that spanned across the world.
But what if the cars could not be sold? The cost was constantly invested, but the products produced could not be exchanged for money. Or, they could not exchange for enough money. They had invested 100 million US dollars a month, but only 50 million US dollars came back. This was a 50 million US dollar gap. If they wanted to keep the production line running, they had to throw in another 50 million US dollars.
At this time, the cars could not be sold. Both the manufacturers and the dealers had more and more cars in stock, and the financial pressure was increasing. In the end, they had no choice but to lower the prices. Otherwise, the dealers would not be able to take it anymore.
As an automobile company with a valuation of several billion US dollars, there was nothing it could do when faced with losses of several hundred million US dollars every year. However, the production line could not be stopped. Once the production line was stopped, the dealers and workers would immediately scatter. If that happened, the entire brand would be paralyzed. This automobile company with a valuation of several billion US dollars would immediately become worthless.
At this time, the automobile manufacturers that can't take it anymore have no choice but to sell themselves off to a large automobile conglomerate. Large automobile conglomerates often feel that they have a large market share, a wide distribution network, and a strong ability to make money. They think that they can revive their brands, so they decide to take advantage of the situation.
But Ford was unlucky. They had tried to take a gamble at the mountainside several times.
But Davis did not know that Ford had not only tried to take a gamble at the mountainside, but it had also tried to take a gamble at the bottom of the mountain.
Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover were all Ford's "bottom grabbing products." In the end, they had suffered huge losses, and Ford had no choice but to sell them at a low price. In the end, their bottom was taken by others.
Now, what Li Mu wanted to do was to take a gamble at Ford's bottom.
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