Geely Chairman Li Shufu: No matter what kind of energy the car uses, if it doesn’t scale, nothing will work

Editor's note: On May 29, Geely released the Borui GE, a hybrid car that achieves technological interaction with Volvo. Chairman Li Shufu gave a speech on the spot and mentioned that before the policy is fully liberalized and the transformation to new energy is imminent, energy solutions, scale, and safety will determine how the industry will be reshuffled.

The following is the original text of Li Shufu's speech, compiled and released by 36Kr:

China does produce a lot of cars, but compared with its foreign counterparts, the challenges facing China's auto industry are real. We must face them and cannot avoid them. Five years later, China's auto industry will be completely open, without any barriers, and foreign auto companies can completely change their way of development in China. How to make good use of these short five years is both an opportunity and an endless challenge for Chinese auto companies.

Foreign automobile companies are also making plans on how to coordinate with China's policies to better meet opportunities in five years and seize opportunities in China, the world's largest automobile market.

If we don't really participate in this competition, and just hype it up, we won't be able to achieve competitiveness or high-level, high-quality development. Our 43% are low-end, while their 56% are high-end. 43% of China's products are not profitable, or make a little money; their 56% are profitable, and make a lot of money. Their products are leading, original, and sustainable. Sometimes we in China have to learn from them, but we are not original, and there are many challenges of unsustainability.

Geely Chairman Li Shufu

Energy, environment, and safety are all very real issues before us. Safety is a must. Many people have told me that we should stop talking about safety in cars nowadays. They are all the same and are fully equipped. This is a naive understanding of safety. Being fully equipped is useless. Safety technology is not about how much you equip a car with, and it will be safe. It is not like that. If the safety technology of a car is so simple, then there is no need to build it. How many airbags and ABS safety technologies are installed will make the car safe? It is not like that. Safety issues are before us.

Energy. Currently, the energy for cars mainly refers to oil. China wants to develop electric cars. China does not import batteries. The electricity is generated by itself. To be honest, the energy is our own. Therefore, the development of electric cars has energy factors, but it is difficult to switch to electric cars all at once. This is a direction, and we need to work hard little by little.

Now we are researching methanol cars. Actually, these are all energy sources. Methanol is abundant in China and is also a clean energy source. I also think from the perspective of energy, why I have been researching methanol cars for more than ten years. I have spent a lot of energy and money. A large team is researching methanol cars, and it really consumes a lot of effort. For this matter, I "jump up and down" to this department and that department, researching this technology and that technology, and I am very tired. But I think this is very important for the energy security of China as a whole. Therefore, we are now persistently doing it, but it is not profitable. So far, it is not profitable at all. This thing is difficult, but I think it is worth trying.

Whether it is electric cars or methanol-powered cars, we mainly talk about the energy and environmental pressures, energy challenges, and scale issues faced by batteries. If the scale is not good, the innovation ability will not be good because the investment is small; if the scale is not good, there will be no cost advantage; if the scale is not good, the quality ability will be difficult to improve. If the scale is not good, sustainability will also face challenges, and if the scale is not good, the right to speak will also be poor, so there will be a series of problems. It is not about "scale for scale's sake". Scale brings various difficulties, challenges and disadvantages, so cars must be large-scale.

Let me state that Geely Auto has grown little by little with the care and support of everyone, the care and support of the Party and the government, the care and support of all sectors of society and media friends, the understanding of peers and the care, help and support of the upstream and downstream industrial chains, as well as the joint efforts of our entire Geely management, all Geely employees, and engineering and automotive personnel. Now we still face various challenges, difficulties and problems.

I very much hope to develop in a collaborative way with you. The automobile industry is characterized by openness, cooperation, and coordination. Only with openness, cooperation, and inclusive development can the automobile industry develop sustainably. Any single-handed competition behind closed doors will have little chance of success. Therefore, we are very willing to discuss various possibilities of cooperation with global peers in the upstream and downstream industrial chain to jointly promote the automobile industry to change better and faster. We are also willing to share with you the new generation of pure electric architecture and modules we are developing now, because the investment in developing a technical architecture is very large. To develop a technical architecture, technical module, brand-new, forward-looking, and very leading technology, it is impossible to succeed without three to five years, billions of investment, and a very combat-ready team.

Geely's latest hybrid car, Borui GE, has a power system derived from technical interaction with Volvo

We are willing to open up and share with everyone, which is conducive to the generation of economies of scale and to the increase of the proportion of the Chinese auto industry in the Chinese market in the next five years, from the low-end to the high-end, and to continue to work towards the top of the industrial chain. I think that everyone in the Chinese auto industry must have such an understanding. I believe that if everyone works together, it will be a good thing for the global auto industry, and will promote the development of the entire world auto industry towards intelligence, electrification, lightweight and shared travel, bringing better changes to the transportation of all mankind and bringing better transportation enjoyment to everyone.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.