Located in the middle of the Detroit Auto Show, the booth of the China Group deservedly became the star of the audience, and it was always crowded during the opening period, which greatly surprised everyone.

In the crowd, there is a familiar face, Muller, senior deputy technical director of Volkswagen headquarters, is staring intently at the Chinese 2.0T engine internal structure display.

He remembers very clearly that when he was not growing up in the Chunghwa Group, he participated in the auto show in China and witnessed the prototype of the first generation of the Pangu series. At that time, he had worried with his colleagues that the Chinese would become another South Korean, and that they would quickly rise to become a new force in the automotive industry.

Unexpectedly, in just over a decade, the Chinese have made technological breakthroughs by leaps and bounds, constantly catching up with the world's technological trends, and now they can go hand in hand with the powerful Volkswagen Group.

The PG30, a 2.0T turbocharged engine, is not inferior to the Volkswagen EA888 in terms of data, and even surpasses the EA888's performance. The EA888, which burns engine oil, has caused a lot of problems, and the internal improvement plan has just been completed, and a new model will be launched on the market to calm the turmoil.

"Thomason, do you look at the engine structure of the Chinese, is there a sense of familiarity?"

The big-nosed Muller poked his colleague's arm with his hand and whispered.

"You mean they 'copied' our proposal?"

The engineer named Thomasson immediately understood what the other party thought, and Volkswagen, as a pioneer of turbocharged engines, could easily be imitated as a stepping stone. In particular, China is known as a country of copycats, and the protection of intellectual property rights is a formality, which is very doubtful.

Not long ago, Mr. Mueller led a top-secret team to China to investigate a major case involving an intellectual property leak.

They received reports from insiders that their partner in China, FAW Group, was stealing Volkswagen's patents and secretly copying the MQ200 transmission and the main components of the EA111 engine for their own products.

You must know that in the past 20 years of joint ventures, although Volkswagen and FAW have maintained a close cooperative relationship, they have been extremely conservative in technology transfer and have not given FAW any good things. Even if the Chinese side is willing to pay a large price to buy, Volkswagen is vague and does not let FAW's attempt to obtain advanced technology succeed, so it can only exist as a foundry.

With the rise of Zhonghua Group, FAW, the eldest son of the republic, began to decline, especially in terms of independent brands, Hongqi, Pentium and even Xiali, with a total investment of 6 billion R&D expenses but could not stop the decline in sales, which is in stark contrast to the rise of FAW joint venture brands such as Volkswagen and Toyota.

In particular, last year, it was named by the National Audit Office, saying that FAW only blossomed but did not bear fruit in the research and development of its own brand, and relied heavily on joint ventures to provide profits, and the entire group was almost lame.

This made Xu Yili, the current FAW boss, very stressed, and such criticism made him not sleep well for several days.

Whether it is smashing pots and selling iron, or rats burrowing, it is necessary to come up with a report card that satisfies the central government, otherwise FAW will be in trouble.

Within FAW, everyone knows that joint ventures such as FAW-Volkswagen, FAW Toyota, and even FAW Mazda are good, and the cars can be sold, and the talents are actively running to the joint venture department. The self-owned brand companies with high hopes for unsalable products and continuous outflow of talents are either running horizontally internally, or heading south to car companies with more flexible mechanisms such as Zhonghua Group.

In particular, Zhonghua Group, in recent years, has simply regarded FAW as a talent training institution, and has continuously poached people from FAW with high salaries, which has dug up the moat of FAW.

Xu Yili, the boss of FAW, was furious and asked to withhold the file and not allow capable employees to resign, but the other party submitted a letter of resignation, and the file and the identity of the cadre were not required to go south directly. What's even more infuriating is that the Jiangzhou government has also arranged special agencies to help accept these outsiders and complete the files, and even Zhonghua Group has hired lawyers to help employees change jobs and fight lawsuits with FAW.

Such an incident made a mess of chicken feathers, which made Xu Yili sigh that young people nowadays are really powerful, and the times have changed too fast.

As a result, the bad money chased the good money, that is, the excellent talents ran away, leaving behind many mediocre people who could not take charge of themselves.

This is why FAW Group has spent 6 billion yuan on research and development, but it cannot create qualified independent engines and transmissions.

"Being a monk for a day and hitting the bell for a day will scatter people's hearts. Talking about feelings, now is a market economy, and feelings can't be eaten!"

The FAW engineers who went south said unabashedly that their enthusiasm had long been smoothed out by reality, and it was time to think about the future for themselves.

"6 billion seems to be a lot, but it is the cumulative investment of Hongqi and Pentium for ten years, and the R&D investment of Zhonghua Group in 2008 reached 30 billion, and this number is only a lot more in the future. ”

Why FAW can't beat Zhonghua Group, there are different opinions, this former FAW engineer in the mouth of the rhetoric may be able to find out.

Since it has been criticized by the central government, this is not a matter of the media and shareholders, but the seriousness of the situation will be fatal, and FAW will be ready for it.

There is pressure from above, of course, it is decomposed layer by layer and conveyed downward, so the FAW's own brand department, which is focused on, is under more pressure and must do something to solve the problem.

So a shortcut was tacitly put out, as a Volkswagen foundry, FAW can get Volkswagen's backward technology, if it is set on its own products, it will get twice the result with half the effort. With the tacit approval of the upper and lower levels, an "autonomous" powertrain that imitated the Volkswagen MQ200 manual transmission and EA111 engine was quickly built and quietly installed under the Besturn series models. In order to hide people's eyes, these cars are basically sold abroad, and the internal improvement and research and development of the model is still being used in China, so that the Germans can not see the truth.

If anyone does not know it, he does nothing unless he does it.

I don't know if it was because of the uneven distribution of internal interests or what, but this matter was quietly stabbed in front of the Germans, causing the German side to privately send an investigation team to find out.

Müller is the head of this high-level investigation team, and they have no trouble obtaining evidence of FAW's infringement of Volkswagen's intellectual property rights, but they will hide it and use it as a bargaining chip with FAW at a critical moment.

To be honest, sometimes Mueller doesn't understand why they are all Chinese, the China Group is technically aggressive, and the FAW is a puddle of mud.

Back at the auto show, at the suggestion of Muller, Thomas used a high-definition camera to record the details of the PG30's mechanism, and also focused on the key engine technology involved parts mastered by Volkswagen.

Even if the PG30 changed some appearances, Muller still saw traces of imitation by the Chinese, but the other party was very shrewd and improved a lot.

"I think this discovery is much more important than what we have gained in China FAW, and I will recommend that a high-level meeting be held to discuss this issue when I go back, and we can't let the Chinese continue to develop like this." ”

Mueller whispered in the ear of his colleague as he looked at the crowded crowd at the booth.

The U.S. market is Volkswagen's coveted fat, but unfortunately they can't even drink soup, and they are only among the third-rate brands in North America. Japanese and Korean cars from Asia have become the favorite of sellers, and now there are new players in Chinese. If the Chinese succeed, Volkswagen may be relegated to a fourth-rate player.

Volkswagen did not expect that its hegemony in China would be snatched away by the China Group, and it could not regain it after launching a counter-charge for three consecutive years, so it could only sit back and watch the Chinese grow bigger. Even with the introduction of local evolution models such as Lavida and Bora, and even the introduction of ace SUVs such as Tiguan and Q5, Volkswagen is proud of the joint venture, but it still cannot shake the position of the Zhonghua Group.

What's even more terrifying is that the Zhonghua Group began to gradually reverse the trump card advantage that Volkswagen and even the joint venture brand have always been proud of, or the extra pressure on the bottom of the box: that is, the Chinese began to stop superstitious about the joint venture brand, and gradually opened their arms to try their own brand domestic cars.

This is a move to draw wages from the bottom of the kettle, you must know that the same car, it is not a joke that it can be sold for an additional 30,000 yuan with the Volkswagen logo. Joint venture brands have a premium over national treatment in China, and consumers are willing to pay more to satisfy their car dreams, which is the experience of successful inertia over the past 30 years.

Now, with the launch of newer cars that are more in line with the aesthetic and family needs of Chinese people to the market, Chinese consumers have begun to break the inertia of superstitious joint venture brands, and have also won more vitality for many domestic independent brands.

"Domestic cars can also be trusted", this is a thousand words!

At Müller's request, Volkswagen headquarters in Germany soon held a high-level secret meeting, this time to discuss whether to prevent the Chinese from making great strides in the automobile market.

To paraphrase an old saying, that is, the old hatred of the new is counted together, and it is time to teach the Chinese some lessons.

"From the analysis of our engineering team, the PG30 clearly borrows the working principle of EA888, and at the same time has commonalities in the design of key components. I can say with great certainty that the Chinese are thieves who take away the fruits of our knowledge. ”

This time, from the perspective of Volkswagen, Mueller no longer left room and bluntly demanded justice from the Chinese.

"But from a legal point of view, the Chinese are very smart, they have left no leverage, so to speak, bypassing our patents." Although the engine pictures are similar, we cannot directly sue them for infringing our intellectual property rights.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of our team of lawyers, only two flaws were found to bring charges, but the odds of winning the case were uncertain. ”

As a legal representative, they released their team's conclusions on this study, and the Chinese were too smart to plagiarize almost perfectly.

"The Chung Hwa Group has developed too fast, and if they gain a foothold in the United States, it will be a catastrophe that prevents us from reaching the top of the world. I already have a Toyota, and I don't want to come to another China. From a strategic point of view, we have to do something to stop them.

Now that Toyota and GM are in trouble in the United States, and the Koreans are low-key and reluctant to come forward, it seems that only we are the ones who have made the move. ”

Another senior vice president of Volkswagen said that while the global auto giants were struggling to take care of themselves due to the subprime mortgage crisis, the Chinese were expanding and taking advantage of the fire, and they must be stopped.

"We have to consider the Chinese government's thinking, if we rush to file a lawsuit against the China Group, we will definitely not win the lawsuit in China, and we may even provoke retaliation from the Chinese government."

Now the Chung Hwa Group is no longer Wuxia Amon, they provide a lot of jobs and tax revenue for China, and they have a very good relationship with the Chinese government.

If it is not handled well, it may affect our career in China. You must know that the Chinese market is our biggest source of profits, and if we mess up, the consequences will be unimaginable. ”

Another executive joined the discussion, and his fears could well be realized, and the Chinese government would certainly not ignore them.

You must know that the Zhonghua Group is not a soft persimmon like FAW, as long as Volkswagen jams the model and uses another Chinese joint venture partner SAIC to counterbalance, FAW will involuntarily give in. And the cheese of the China Group is moved, and the other party will not give up.

"I think we can file a lawsuit in the United States, so that we can control the problem to a certain extent, not in China, not in Europe, far from the home of both sides. Moreover, intellectual property protection in the United States is more complete, and if a lawsuit is filed, it is expected to prohibit Chinese from selling turbocharged models.

Pulling the U.S. government out of the fray would ease the pressure on the Chinese government.

If it goes well, other manufacturers such as Toyota and GM will also participate, and then enough Chinese will be busy.

Of course, we can't hope to beat the Chinese to death with a stick, we can only delay their pace and keep things under control!"

As the party to the bill, Mueller already had a countermeasure, proposing a plan to sue the China Group for infringement of intellectual property rights in the United States.

Soon, this plan was unanimously adopted, and the rise of the China Group threatened Volkswagen's position, and they had to take action against the Chinese under the stick of patent protection.

After thorough preparations, an intentional lawsuit against the Chunghwa Group began to kick off in the United States, and if it succeeds, the Chinese car will face a serious setback before it officially enters the North American market.

At a time when turbocharging technology has already begun to dominate the next decade, it would be a catastrophe if it were to be banned from sale.