For Chen Geng's invitation to the prospective mayor of Detroit, GM, Ford, and Chrysler were very face-saving, and the representative of Ford Motor was Bill Ford, the current head of the Ford family and chairman of the Ford Motor Strategy Executive Committee; and the representative sent by Chrysler was Chen Geng's old friend, who retired in 1992 but has been serving as general counsel of the chairman of the Chrysler Motor Strategy Executive Committee since his retirement. As for General Motors, it was Ross Petro, a member of the board of directors of General Motors, who was an old acquaintance of Chen Geng.

The place where we met was on a large luxury yacht off the coast of Miami, Florida, with a hull length of more than 70 meters, the "Blue Sky" cruise ship is undoubtedly the most dazzling pearl off the coast of Miami.

Chen Geng, Bill Ford, Lee Iacocca and Ross Petro sat on a leather sofa on the lower deck, basking in the warm Miami sun, each snuggled up to a young girl in a bikini.

"Fernandez, you're so good at enjoying it," Bill Ford swallowed a grape from a bikini beauty next to him, shaking his head with emotion, "Really, I think I should buy such a yacht too." ”

Feeling the luxury of this yacht, Bill Ford was really envious.

Of course, as the famous Ford family, of course their family has a yacht, but it is only a yacht more than 40 meters long, which can be regarded as luxury, but compared with Chen Geng's yacht of more than 70 meters, it is simply a younger brother, which is too exciting.

As Bill Ford's words fell, Lee Iacocca and Ross Petro nodded their heads again and again, with a look of agreement, and they also felt from the bottom of their hearts that life had to be to this extent to be perfect. Iacoca, although he is now retired from the position of Chrysler CEO, but in addition to the pension of more than $1.2 million a year, the Chrysler Group will pay him another $300,000 in payment fees and other expenses, all in all, he can get more than $2 million a year from the Chrysler Group, which is an income that exceeds 99.9% of Americans, but with Chen Geng, it is not enough to see - All of his pension combined, not enough to buy this yacht.

Speaking of which, Lee Iacocca was a little dirty with Chen Geng back then, but as Chen Geng's wealth became more and more, the scale of AMC cars became larger and larger, and the unhappiness of the year had already been blown away, and he said half seriously and half complimentally: "When I saw Mr. Fernandez, I understood how success should be defined." ”

Chen Geng said a few polite words, and after some small talk, Chen Geng waved his hand at several bikini girls with an active atmosphere, and several beauties knew that **oss had something important to talk about, although they were very reluctant, but they still obediently retreated.

Bill Ford, who was obviously a veteran of the color, sniffed the tips of his fingers and smacked his lips regretfully.

Looking at Bill Ford's regretful look, Chen Geng scolded with a smile: "The head of the Ford family, but also a woman?"

Bill Ford shook his head and said with a serious face: "You don't understand this." ”

Chen Geng scolded with a smile: "Okay, I don't understand, you can take one with you when you go back." ”

These bikini beauties are all paid for, and it is typical that as long as the money is in place, it is easy to say anything, maybe now people are looking at Bill Ford, waiting to be taken away.

"Then you're welcome. Bill Ford said with a smile, this smile is really worthy of a veteran in color.

Lee Iacocca and Ross Petro looked at each other, exchanged a look that a man would understand, and then laughed at the same time with a lewd expression.

Shaking his head helplessly, Chen Geng spoke, and he said with a straight face: "Gentlemen, Dongying Automobile's market share in the U.S. market is getting higher and higher, if we don't do something, it is expected that their market share will exceed 30% next year, reaching 33% to 34%, which means that Japanese cars occupy one-third of the market share in the world's largest automobile market."

In recent years, the size of the U.S. auto consumer market has been expanding, but the sales of our American cars have not increased proportionately, I looked at the data, compared with ten years ago, the total sales of our four American auto brands have only increased by about 10%, which means that the new consumption of the U.S. auto market has been taken away by Japanese auto brands, which is definitely not what we are happy to see. ”

When it came to business, Bill Ford, Lee Iacocca and Ross Petro's expressions became serious at the same time, and the three of them glanced at each other, and Bill Ford, who was closer to Chen Geng, spoke first: "Fernandez, we all know what you said, and you also said the reason why you invited us over this time, that is, everyone sat together to discuss a countermeasure, how can we curb the momentum of Dongying Automobile in our territory...... Say, what do you think? If your solution works, we'll listen to you. ”

Ross Petro and Lee Iacocca nodded together.

Obviously, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors had communicated privately before they arrived, and they had reached an agreement: if Mr. Chen's approach worked, we would do it together.

"Okay," Chen Geng didn't say politely to the three of them, and said: "If you want to curb the share of Dongying Automobile in the North American market, in the final analysis, there are two ways: one is to increase the cost of Dongying Automobile and find a way to force Dongying Automobile to increase its price and reduce their competitiveness, and the other is to reduce our cost and increase our competitiveness." ”

That's the truth, Bill Ford, Lee Iacocca and Ross Petro nodded together.

Chen Geng continued: "Why can Dongying Automobile sell so well in the American market? Of course, Dongying Automobile is highly competitive...... Bill, you don't have to frown, there is no shame in admitting that the opponent is strong, and only by facing the strength of the opponent can you defeat the opponent. ”

"Okay," Bill Ford shrugged his shoulders in the face of Chen Geng's criticism, and honestly admitted that Ford was accustomed to disapproving Dongying Motors: "You go on." ”

"The competitiveness of Dongying Automobile, in the final analysis, can be divided into three aspects, namely reliable quality, relatively low price and lower fuel consumption, in these three aspects, Dongying people do really good, which we must admit, but this is unsolvable? Because their cars are lighter, light weight, which means that less materials are used, and light weight means that the energy required to push the car is lower, so let's change the angle, does this also mean that the safety of the car is relatively poor?"

Well?

Bill Ford sat up straight: "Fernandez, what do you mean by that?"

Chen Geng said in a deep voice: "It's very simple, we communicate with the IIHS to introduce a more stringent 40% offset crash test, and it is a bilateral 40% bias safety crash test, gentlemen, what kind of results do you think Dongying Automobile can achieve under such a rigorous crash test?"

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety IIHS a car crash test safety agency jointly established by insurance companies in the United States, in a few years later is considered to be the world's most reliable spectrum of car safety crash test agency, the reason why the insurance industry in the United States set up such an automobile safety crash test agency, is not to do charity, but to more reasonable planning of various models of insurance costs, but the car crash test architecture founded in 1959 has been until the year before last, It was only in 1992 that the Vehicle Research Center was officially opened to the public to conduct large-scale vehicle crash tests.

However, the IIHS crash test during this period only has a frontal 100% crash test, and the strict 40% offset crash test has not yet been adopted, while the two-sided 40% offset crash test that Chen Geng said is more stringent, requiring the crash test of 40% of the left side of the car and 40% of the right side of the front of the car.

"As long as the crash test results come out, everyone should be familiar with how to publicize it next, right?" Chen Geng said slowly.

Chen Geng thought this was a good solution, but Bill Ford, Lee Iacocca and Ross Petro were a little embarrassed on their faces, looking at the expressions on the faces of these three people, Chen Geng felt "......" in his heart: "Aren't you?"

"Our certainty...... It's really not very big," Bill Ford nodded with a wry smile: "I dare to guarantee that in the same level of situation, our Ford cars will definitely be higher than Japanese cars in terms of safety, but the key is that we haven't touched it, and no one knows what kind of result it can come out of." ”

“......”

Chen Geng didn't speak, and turned his head to look at Lee Iacocca and Ross Petro.

What made Chen Geng's heart sink was that Li Iacocca and Ross Petro did not have a calm expression, but their worries were not unreasonable, after all, everyone had never touched it like this, and these few people present were not car designers, who dared to guarantee what the results of the crash test would look like?

Chen Geng thought for a while and asked, "Why don't we build a crash test center temporarily and try it ourselves?"

Try it yourself, and if you're not far from satisfying the results, it's a good idea to tinker with the safety of your car and then send it to the IIHS for testing.