The test of time is the ability of car companies to seize the opportunity. General Motors, with its 112-year history, also feels: "Time waits for no man."

     On the evening of August 19, GENERAL Motors officially announced its strategy of fully embracing the Chinese market in the next five years at the activity of "Technology Outlook Day".

"We are steadily advancing the development of electric vehicles and autonomous driving, and plan to invest more than $20 billion in these two areas by 2025, and will continue to do so." Mary Bolla, GM's chairman and CEO, has a more determined eye on the next five years.

     Electrification, autonomous driving and Internet of vehicles are three key words in GM's new China strategy.

"China is not only the world's largest car market, it is also a centre of global innovation." Gm President Marco Reece acknowledged the importance of the Chinese market. At the same time, he said, GM has been abiding by its long-term commitment to the Chinese market, from the very beginning, to introduce the most advanced technology to benefit Chinese consumers.

Tesla, which represents the world's leading electric and self-driving technology, is revolutionizing the Chinese market just as much as GENERAL Motors did when it entered the country in 1997.

The scary part is that Tesla is even squeezing GM.

"China is a crucial market for GM and the needs of Chinese consumers are fully taken into account in the early stages of product and technology development." For the new gm China "chief executive" Bo Li, in addition to pressure, will also face new opportunities.

      Gm's new car sales in China fell 15 percent to 3.09 million units in 2019, the second year in a row, mainly due to the company's protracted sales slowdown in the Chinese market and increased competition in the mid-priced SUV market. Among them, in addition to Cadillac brand, Buick, Chevrolet, Wuling, Baojun and other brands overall decline.

How does a "stalled" GM accelerate?

The general trend of electric transformation of automobile enterprises is imminent. China has become the main battleground for GM's electric transformation.

More than 40% of GM's new models planned for the Chinese market over the next five years will be new energy models. From 2020 to 2025, SAIC-GM will launch nine new energy models, covering the Cadillac, Chevrolet and Buick brands, according to WANG Yongqing, GENERAL manager of SAic-GM.

In the meantime, GM is sending two important messages:

     1) As the core pure electric technology of GM, the Ultium battery system will be introduced into the Chinese market at the same time, and will be assembled and produced in the SAIC-GM Power battery System Development Center. The module used in the Ultium battery system is compatible with different types of cells, which GM will develop with suppliers. 

    2) The new energy models produced in China will be fully localized. All components will be sourced locally, and the Ultium battery system and the third generation global electric vehicle platform will rely on GM's highly localized manufacturing and supply chain system to resist market price competitiveness.

"We are always open to quality local suppliers." Mary Bora said GM has proven battery development, validation and testing capabilities in China to ensure the batteries meet the company's stringent requirements for safety, reliability and durability.

Gm clearly doesn't want to miss out on China in the face of electric trends, but the challenges it faces are no longer comparable and the competition is getting tougher. In addition to playing games with established rivals such as Volkswagen and Toyota, we should always be on guard against the encroachment of tesla and other forces on the market.

In 2010, GENERAL Motors introduced its first electric car to the Chinese market, and its electric solutions began to be introduced in China. In recent years, GM has launched buick Micro Blue 6, Micro Blue 7 and Chevrolet Patrol new energy model. But GM doesn't have much of a voice in China's new-energy vehicle market.

According to sales data released by the passenger federation, the top three new energy models in the first half of 2020 are tesla Model3, byd all-new qin EV and gac new energy AionS, while saic-gm VELITE6 is only the 15th.

General Motors' road to electrification is far from complete. Electric racing in China is just getting off the ground.

Intelligent Driving "Two-lane parallel"

Smart driving is an important segment of GM's "heavy" Market in China.

Gm will gradually promote and upgrade the Super Cruise™ Super smart driving system in the Chinese market. Over the next five years, Super Cruise™ will complete the full range of Cadillac brands and gradually apply to Buick and Chevrolet brands. At the same time, GM will accelerate the research and development of intelligent connected vehicles in accordance with the demand of The Chinese market. The company's first buick GL8 model equipped with V2X vehicle integrated everything technology will be launched in China within this year.

On the road to autonomous driving, GM is taking a two-lane approach. On the one hand, personal driving assistance technology represented by Super Cruise™ Super intelligent driving system; On the other hand, autonomous vehicle sharing business applications promoted by its autonomous driving company Cruise

"Both of these pathways will completely reshape the personal travel experience." Doug Parks, GM's executive vice President of global development and supply chain, said the Cruise team is pushing ahead with road testing of self-driving fleets in San Francisco. During the epidemic, Cruise's self-driving fleet successfully delivered 50,000 delivery orders in San Francisco to help fight the epidemic.

It is reported that Super Cruise™ has a total mileage of over 10 million kilometers in the global market and now covers about 300,000 kilometers of high road in China. In 2021, GM will launch an enhanced Version of Super Cruise™ in China and the U.S. simultaneously, which can perform automatic lane change at the driver's request, providing richer and more real-time map data. By 2023, GM will have 22 models worldwide with Super Cruise™.

In early 2020, Cruise unveiled Origin, a new all-electric, driver-sharing car that will have a range of more than 1m miles and cost about half as much to build as a regular electric SUV. "Autonomous driving technology is the work of a generation, and there is still a long way to go." Doug Parks admits.

In the area of Internet of vehicles, GENERAL Motors will be the Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet brand almost all models of the standard Internet of vehicles. Starting in 2022, 5G features will be available on the entire Cadillac line as well as most models under the Buick and Chevrolet brands. Gm will also continue to enrich its vehicle-networking services through OTA remote upgrades.

conclusion

The establishment of a new era of automobiles is bound to impact the rules of the old era, and the automobile enterprises without driving force will be abandoned by The Times eventually.

Gm reported a net income of $16.78 billion and a net loss of $780 million in the second quarter of 2020, according to its financial report for the second quarter of 2020. At the end of the second quarter, the auto business had $30.6 billion in liquidity.

      The strong cash flow and optimistic outlook on the future development of the Chinese market may be an important reason for GM to continue to increase the size of the Chinese market. But profitability will also be the most important thing for GM right now.

Wall Street is pressuring General Motors to spin off its electric car business to better compete with Tesla and other startups, foreign media reported. Emmanuel Rosner, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said the new ev company could be valued at at least $15 billion to $20 billion and as much as $100 billion if GM divestments electric cars. Gm currently has a market value of $43 billion.

Under pressure from both investors and competitors, GM has struggled both internally and externally.

In Eou's view, gm's deepening investment in The Chinese market is an important way out of its current predicament. From the perspective of data, although the Chinese market has reached an inflection point with sales declining since 2018, the car PARC of 1,000 people in China still has a large room for growth.

Second, GM can effectively cut costs by moving the industrial chain to China through the trend of electrification. Over the past few years, GM has announced a series of cost cuts and turnaround plans, including temporary shutdowns of plants in North America to increase capacity efficiency, even buyouts of employees and a reduction in management.

In recent years, GM has taken a series of steps to promote its transformation and further improve the flexibility, agility and profitability of its business to strengthen its investment in future mobility.

"China is a strategic market for GM and a key market for our continued investment. Our initial focus on the Chinese market has remained unchanged. In the future, we will have a lot of investment in products, technology, engineering, supply chain and other fields. "He said when asked whether GM would invest more in China in the future.