Chapter 217 Classic Pickup Truck, General Motors’ High Efficiency
In one morning, Jiang Hui finished handling the investment matters.
At first I was thinking about treating Linda to a meal or something, but then I thought about the dry waist bag in my pocket, so I decided to forget it.
But he remembered Linda’s contact number very clearly.
My phone number in the courtyard was also left specifically for Linda.
Although it is very inconvenient to make phone calls now, it is still necessary to make calls occasionally.
After having a simple meal at the Hilton restaurant at noon, Jiang Hui stayed in the room and started drawing the appearance of the car.
This is what Austin was promised.
Now that he has good investment channels, he can’t wait to get the $1 million in design fees.
So it only took him one afternoon to draw the appearance.
Of course, this cannot be said externally.
"Jiang, I heard that you spent all your funds to buy the rise in crude oil futures, and increased the leverage ten times?"
That afternoon, Linda must have told Jiang Hui what happened in the morning Explained to Austin.
So Austin drove directly to the Hilton as soon as he got off work.
"That's true. I think this is a good investment opportunity. Would you like to join some?"
Jiang Hui was not surprised at all that Austin would know about his investment in crude oil futures.
It would be strange if he didn't know.
Of course, after Austin knew the news, he could pretend he didn't know.
Now that he came over right after work, Jiang Hui naturally wondered whether he could make some money with him.
No matter what, people are still caring about themselves, and this favor is still important.
"Investment opportunity?"
"Jiang, you are too hasty. Now everyone thinks that the price of crude oil is going to start to correct."
"If the price of crude oil futures rises at this time, by then Then you will lose all your money. "
"Especially if you increase the leverage by ten times, as long as the price of crude oil drops by 10%, you will lose a penny. "
Au. Steen felt that Jiang Hui might not know much about futures, and felt that he needed to tell him about the risks.
In order to avoid losing all the money in the future, he would feel resentful towards the United States.
It will probably be even more difficult for General Motors to invite him to work in the United States in the future.
"Austin, what you said is indeed a risk."
"But if the other way around, if the price of crude oil futures rises by 20%, wouldn't I be financially free all of a sudden? "
Jiang Hui didn't feel any pressure at all.
Today is September 20, 1980, and the Iran-Iraq war will break out in two days.
The price of crude oil will reach a new high by then, and you will soon be able to get a windfall.
In the future, if you invest in the stock market and continue to increase your funds, you will be able to do a lot of things in the future.
Whether you go to the special zone to develop first, establish a wholly foreign-owned company, or form a joint venture, it is all possible.
“The situation in the futures market is very complicated, and it is not something we can just imagine.”
"I suggest you don't touch futures."
Austin didn't expect Jiang Hui to be so stubborn and felt a little tired.
If he didn't think Jiang Hui was really a talent, he wouldn't bother to care so much.
"Austin, thank you very much for your reminder, but I still don't think the price of crude oil will fall that fast, and it is expected to continue to rise for a while."
"If you are worried , if you don’t want to follow the investment, you can observe the situation for a few days before making a decision.”
"Anyway, I'm still in America these days."
When Jiang Hui said this, Austin didn't want to worry about anything anymore.
If you want to destroy, then destroy.
"Before, you talked about designing a pickup truck that can rival the Ford F150. I wonder if the progress is going well?"
In a short period of time, Austin was most concerned about Jiang Hui helping him. Designing the appearance of a new car.
With this first cooperation, he was quite looking forward to Jiang Hui.
“It’s going very smoothly. Combining what I saw and heard in the United States during this time, as well as some things I thought about before, I am already drawing various renderings.”
“I can put it together tomorrow. I will hand over some of the drawings to you for confirmation. If there are no problems, the contract will be officially signed, and then I will improve the remaining work. "
Jiang Hui can actually show the drawings to Austin now. .
Appearance renderings are very different from strict parts design drawings. As long as you have an idea, you can draw them very quickly.
Unlike parts drawings, no matter how clear your idea is, the workload is there, and there is no way you can shorten the time very much.
"That's great. As long as there are no problems tomorrow, I can arrange for finance to pay you immediately within tomorrow!"
Austin's mood suddenly improved. stand up.
The results will be available tomorrow. No matter what the final result is, at least there is no need to worry and struggle anymore.
At this time, Zheng Haiming and others had also returned to the hotel.
When he heard the doorbell ringing, Jiang Hui immediately stood up and opened the door.
He guessed that Zheng Haiming and the others still had some doubts about staying in the hotel to design the exterior of the car, and would definitely come over to take a look after get off work.
"Xiao Jiang, it's such a pity that you didn't visit Magna's factory today..."
As soon as Zheng Haiming came in, he couldn't help but start sharing what he had seen today.
But mid-sentence, I found that Austin was also inside and stopped immediately.
In the past few days, Austin has been taking Zheng Haiming and others to visit many times, and everyone is relatively familiar with them.
"Jiang, let's see you tomorrow and have a good chat."
Austin briefly greeted everyone and left the hotel.
With Austin's endorsement in the room, Zheng Haiming, Chen Qi and Yue Rui had no doubts about Jiang Hui's work today.
Obviously, they are really serious about designing the appearance of the new car. Even Austin, the design director, came over to discuss it.
It seems that people are really going to complete a task of earning US$100,000 in foreign exchange again.
“As the world’s leading parts company, Magna is indeed very powerful. Not only can they produce most parts, but their technology in assembling cars is also very good.”
"As long as they want, they can turn into an OEM at any time."
Jiang Hui has naturally heard of Magna's name.
Even decades later, it is still the world's top auto parts manufacturer, with its own unique advantages in many segments.
In fact, as long as the automobile industry is very developed in a country, there are relatively powerful parts suppliers.
Only when the strength of this industrial chain increases, the automobile industry will be truly strong.
This is true whether it is Japan, Korea, America or Germany.
On the contrary, China's strength in this area has always needed to be strengthened.
Even though the sales volume of later generations of cars has ranked first in the world, the strength of auto parts is still relatively weak.
In the annual list of the top 100 global auto parts companies, there are only a handful of Chinese parts manufacturers.
Even if there are a few on the list, they don’t make any particularly core parts.
“It’s true. After looking at their production lines and then looking at the situation of our supporting factories, the gap is not a little bit different.”
“No wonder the quality of their cars is so high. This is also closely related to the level of parts. ”
Zheng Haiming has also been to most of the supporting factories of the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant and has a relatively good understanding of the domestic auto parts industry.
I am afraid of comparison in everything.
“The level of auto parts supporting factories represents the level of many domestic factories to a certain extent.”
“Although our categories are relatively complete, we have only solved some problems at present. There is no problem, no quality problem, no production problem.”
“Like Magna, which can supply tens of thousands of orders to various OEMs around the world, it is a complete domestic supporting factory. It can't be done."
"The First Machinery Ministry is currently promoting a plan to deepen reforms and carry out innovative reforms in some factories that are not in good operating conditions."
"There are some auto parts supporting factories, and the operating conditions are not very ideal." "There may be some major changes later."
Jiang Hui felt that he Now that we know that the First Machinery Department will further promote some reforms, we have already mentioned it to Zheng Haiming and Chen Qi before, and we see that the reforms will soon be implemented.
Then it is necessary for me to give the two factory leaders a briefing.
Lest others feel surprised when you do something.
"Reform is indeed needed, otherwise our automobile technology and parts technology will always lag behind."
He might have had some questions before coming to the United States.
Now these doubts are gone.
If you work hard, you can slowly catch up with the international level.
If you don’t work hard, the gap will get bigger and bigger in the future.
"Xiao Jiang, is the design of car exteriors for General Motors going smoothly?"
Chen Qi knew that Jiang Hui helped General Motors design a car before and received a reward of 100,000 US dollars. matter.
For this matter, there was a special meeting within the First Machinery Department to discuss it.
So now Jiang Hui continues to help GM design products, but he is not so sensitive.
After all, there is a precedent.
Maybe this cooperation project can become a good story for this inspection.
“It’s okay. This time the other party wants to design a pickup truck. Many things are different from what domestic customers care about, so it’s a little troublesome.”
“Basically tonight If you work harder, you can communicate with the people from General Motors tomorrow."
Now that this matter has been revealed, Jiang Hui has no intention of hiding anything.
Sometimes, hiding something can easily cause trouble. It is better to be open and generous, so that everyone will not have so many questions.
"After walking all day today, I'm already hungry. Why don't we go have dinner together?"
Zhu Jiansheng knew that Jiang Hui didn't want to talk too much with everyone.
So I quickly found a justifiable reason.
Of course no one will have any objections to this.
The next day, Jiang Hui followed them to the General Motors headquarters, but soon went to a separate conference room with Austin to confirm the appearance of the model.
"Austin, this is a 45-degree side view rendering. You can best feel the powerful shape of this pickup truck."
Jiang Hui didn't waste any nonsense. Knowing what Austin cared about, he immediately I took out the exterior renderings.
Pickup trucks are no stranger to Austin. He was even the person in charge of the design of a certain pickup truck.
But the pickup truck Jiang Hui showed now gave him a big impact.
This is different from any pickup truck on the market today.
The exterior design is very muscular, but it feels very different from traditional muscle cars.
The double-row center grille design presents a copy-and-paste style, using the Chevrolet logo as the middle boundary to connect the upper and lower layers together as a whole.
Four round headlights and four yellow turn signals decorate the entire grille shape, giving people a feeling of spring breeze blowing on the face, which is particularly comfortable and different from many powerful pickup trucks.
Below the accordion-style grille is a metal-style surround, with dazzling fog lamps dotted on both sides, which greatly enhances the presence of the front surround.
There are several raised ribs on the hood parallel to the ground, which not only creates a sense of layering, but also highlights the power of the car.
In order to make it easier to get in and out of the car, an external metal pedal is added to the door pedal, which is strong and useful and more in line with the large body of the pickup truck.
"Jiang, that's so cool, I'll take a look at the other drawings..."
Soon, Austin became excited.
However, he immediately realized that he should arrange for someone to sign the contract first.
“Wait a moment, I’ll ask someone to get the contract documents.”
Jiang Hui was in the conference room, and Austin also saw that Jiang Hui just took out one drawing, and there were other drawings in the bag that were not taken out.
What are you waiting for?
Sign the contract quickly!
The design fee of US$1 million is not cheap, but it is nothing to General Motors, a large company with a large business.
Especially in this pickup truck, Austin felt its ability to compete with the Ford F150.
In the end, let alone surpassing the Ford F150, even if the sales volume were half of the F150, it would be considered a great success.
This kind of large-displacement full-size SUV is very profitable.
Austin felt that Jiang Hui really chose a very good product for General Motors.
“This full-size pickup truck can design the length of the cabin and the layout of one row of seats or two rows of seats according to needs, providing consumers with more choices.”
"In terms of power, General Motors' current V8 engine can be used directly."
"However, considering that the current oil prices are relatively high and some consumers are more sensitive to fuel consumption, we can also launch some configurations with smaller displacements at the same time."
While waiting for the signing of the contract, Jiang Hui and Ao Sting continued to discuss some arrangements for this pickup truck.
Now that the exterior design drawings have been released, Jiang Hui definitely hopes that General Motors will make it more successful.
Otherwise, it would be considered as ruining one’s own brand.
Although we do not plan to have any further cooperation with General Motors in terms of car exterior design in the future, there is no possibility of cooperation in other fields.
Only if General Motors can taste the sweetness of cooperating with itself will there be more follow-up actions.
"Jiang, why don't you think about it and stay at General Motors?"
"I can propose to the board of directors that you be the person in charge of the design of this car. Not only can you provide The annual salary is very competitive, and stocks can also be allocated.”
Although Austin knew that it was impossible to persuade Jiang Hui to stay, he still didn’t give up.
“Thank you for the invitation, but I have not considered settling abroad for the time being. If I have this consideration in the future, I will definitely give priority to General Motors.”
Jiang Hui's answer was not beyond Austin's expectations.
Although this result is a pity, at least Jiang Hui did not go to other competitors, which is still acceptable.
If Jiang Hui goes to Toyota or Ford, then Austin will be in trouble.
The two of them didn't wait long in the conference room before specialized personnel came over with the contract.
Jiang Hui took a quick look and found no obvious pitfalls, so he signed his name directly on the contract.
General Motors' actions were also unprecedentedly fast. In the afternoon of that day, the finance department had already transferred $1 million to Jiang Hui's account.
Of course. This is something to talk about later.
After signing the contract, Jiang Hui immediately showed the remaining drawings to Austin.
“You can see if there are any other places that you want to make adjustments. I can cooperate with the modifications in the past few days.”
“But I suggest that you try not to make casual changes. Otherwise it will destroy the overall beauty.”
Jiang Hui is also very relaxed now.
This trip to the United States can be said to have gone well.
"I personally don't have any objections. President Murphy is out today. I will give him a look when he comes back."
"As long as he confirms that there is no problem, the next step will be immediately We can formally establish the project within the company and start making clay models.”
“I hope this pickup truck will be on sale in 1983 and bring a completely different experience to consumers.”
Austin couldn't be more satisfied with the pickup truck designed by Jiang Hui, and he doesn't want to change any detail at all.
Of course, this plan must be reviewed within General Motors.
After all, it costs a lot of money to develop and produce a new model.
If the model is not successful, these investments will basically be in vain.
Even General Motors, which is a big company, cannot afford to fail one model after another.
"In order to speed up the production of this car to the greatest extent, I think General Motors can consider choosing the chassis of an existing model as a reference."
"In this way, the powertrain does not need to be redesigned , the chassis does not need to be redesigned, but if some modifications are made to the body and interior and exterior decoration, the progress will be much faster. "
Jiang Hui very much hopes that this car can be mass-produced as soon as possible. More convincing than anything else.
Otherwise, it will just feel like talking on paper, which is almost meaningless.
(End of this chapter)