Beijing Auto maps out a global expansion

• Source: Gasgoo.com
• [08:30 October 10 2009]
• Comments

This time, GM is supportive of Beijing Auto's move. That's because unlike Opel, Saab is to be sold off entirely and thus won't get technical updates from either Opel or GM after a certain period of time, the person close to GM says.

With access to Saab technology, Beijing Auto holds a decent chance of revamping the Beijing brand, says Mr. Dunne.

Mr. Wang wants to build the company's Beijing brand to sell well more than 300,000 vehicles a year, a level now achieved by only one Chinese auto maker, Chery Automobile Co. In total, counting Foton vehicles and others, Mr. Wang wants Beijing Auto to produce and sell two million vehicles by 2011, up from an expected 1.13 million this year.

Mr. Wang is driven by a determination for Beijing Auto to not only survive the central government's move to consolidate China's fragmented auto industry, now teeming with more than 80 auto makers of all sizes, but also to come out of the consolidation as one of China's top-tier auto makers.

Meanwhile, the government, which envisions a domestic auto industry made up primarily of what it calls Big-Four and Small-Four groups, has designated Beijing Auto as one of the latter.

Mr. Wang, usually affable, shows flashes of feistiness as he calls the designation "not a given." The company is happy to be designated, he says. "But that's not good enough for us. We want to be a top-tier auto maker, and we want to be there very quickly, OK?"

Mr. Wang's years in Detroit are now paying off as he builds the core of Beijing Auto's management and engineering teams by poaching talent, mostly Chinese, from Detroit, Toyota City and other motor towns around the world. One of his best catches so far is Gu Lei, an 11-year veteran of Ford Motor Co. who left Chery earlier this year to be head of Beijing Auto's product-development center. Mr. Wang says that 30 to 40 members of his team have experience outside China, mostly with Detroit.

"In Detroit, for the past 20 years, it's been all downhill, and it's no fun. That's why many people are leaving, and I am able to attract a lot of talent from Detroit," Mr. Wang says. "Here it's all growing, growing, growing."