Song Weiyang always likes to make some big news, and not long after he and Mr. Liu exchanged ideas on CCTV, there was suddenly news that caused a sensation across the country - Song Weiyang bought a car!

The car is expensive, costing $650 million in total.

Once upon a time, General Motors ranked first in the "Fortune 500 companies", and it was not a few years before there was news that it was about to file for bankruptcy. Before the bankruptcy reorganization application was approved, GM was already in a hurry to sell its assets, and its main sales projects were the "Hummer" and "Saab" brands.

The fuel consumption of the Hummer thing is too high, and under the influence of the global economic crisis, rising oil prices, and environmental public opinion, the sales of Hummer cars are very dismal. GM held the tweeter for a long time, and it was difficult to find a receiver, until Song Weiyang's hometown state-owned enterprise "Tengzhong Heavy Industry" made a move.

Unfortunately, Tengzhong Heavy Industry is a state-owned enterprise, and cross-border acquisitions must be approved.

And Song Weiyang bought "Sabo"!

Headquartered in Sweden, the car brand used to build airplanes, but it only started building cars after World War II and was wholly owned by General Motors in 2000.

There are not many buyers of the Hummer, but there are many who are interested in buying Saab.

But the global economic crisis, General Motors is in debt, and potential buyers are trying to lower prices. GM offered $800 million over the sky, and buyers paid back one after another, and even $300 million.

China's "BAIC" also wanted to buy it, but unfortunately, in the approval process, it was pressed by the scale of the acquisition, and it could not even come up with 300 million US dollars.

It was in this situation that Song Weiyang, who cashed out a large amount of money from Google in advance, suddenly stood up and said that he was willing to invest $450 million to take over. This made GM very happy, and only symbolically conducted two rounds of negotiations, and then couldn't wait to sign the contract, for fear that Song Weiyang would regret it halfway.

Song Weiyang borrowed several senior executives from Geely Automobile and BYD Auto as consultants, personally went to Sweden to rectify the company's business, and closed two automobile factories in one go, and spent a lot of severance pay for employees. At the same time, Song Weiyang decided to shift his business focus to China and reached a strategic cooperation with his own Tesla.

Six months later, Song Weiyang, as the chairman of Saab Automobile, signed a transfer agreement with the CEO of "BAIC" in Beijing.

BAIC spent $200 million to buy the intellectual property rights of two Saab models (old models before 2005), as well as three vehicle platforms and power systems.

Public opinion is a sensation!

Originally, when Song Weiyang paid $450 million to buy Saab, many Chinese people said that he was wronged. Who would have thought that in just half a year, a piece of technology asset was sold for 150 million, which is equivalent to spending only $300 million to take Saab.

Now it is the turn of "BAIC" to be sprayed as the head of the injustice.

Although it was ridiculed by the public, BAIC was also very happy. You know, in another time and space, they spent 200 million US dollars, and Song Weiyang also gave them a discount of 50 million, and it will definitely not be discounted if you buy it directly from GM.

BAIC now only spent 150 million US dollars to add two models of "BAIC Shenbao", and even the vehicle platform and power system are in hand.

After another half a year, Song Weiyang injected capital into Saab again to buy Tesla on the Chinese side.

It's too much of a headache to deal with the Swedes, and these guys are simply stubborn, and many times they don't listen to them at all. Even if Song Weiyang is the chairman, he will be scolded for making decisions in person, saying that he does not understand technology, feelings, or Saab's consistent purpose and concept.

Song Weiyang fired the CEO in a fit of rage, and then a bunch of executives and engineers resigned. What about the global economic crisis, anyway, Sweden's high-welfare state, my lord is not happy here, there is no need to kneel and suffer the anger of you capitalists!

It's a pit, and it's no wonder GM can't wait to sell it.

You must know that in another time and space, even if GM wholly acquired Saab, even if GM is facing bankruptcy, Saab still holds his noble head high. When developing the new model, it was clear that GM had a mature navigation system, but Saab had to re-develop it at its own expense, just to show that its navigation system was different from GM.

In Europe, for a long time, Saab owners regarded Volvo owners as nouveau riche, with their own elegance and feelings.

But in Song Weiyang's view, this kind of feeling is the anachronism of a group of broken old nobles. You are really so insistent on yourself, and you can also learn from the craftsmanship of other Japanese people, and you do a lot of bells and whistles, and as a result, you have all kinds of small problems in the car.

Of course, Saab also has its own advantages, which can be described in one sentence: when you have a car accident, you know why Saab is so expensive.

Solid, durable, safe and secure.

Song Weiyang was not intimidated by the large number of resignation letters, anyway, during the global economic crisis, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Fiat, Toyota, Honda ...... A bunch of car companies have laid off employees. GM closed 20 factories in one go, Ford is considering selling Volvo, Chrysler is directly closing 30 factories, Honda is about to announce its withdrawal from F1, more than 40,000 Fiat employees are on long vacations, and Volkswagen's Russian plants are all suspended.

You resigned, Lao Tzu spent money to recruit again, and now there are professionals everywhere who kneel and beg for work!

Throughout 2009, Song Weiyang spent most of his time in Sweden, personally completing the rectification and transformation of Saab cars.

The Swedish media bitterly criticized Song Weiyang's "nonsense" behavior, and then the Western European media collectively followed suit, and many old Saab car owners publicly protested.

The question is, what's the matter with you people?

The union also came out and said that Song Weiyang could not close the two factories for no reason, causing a large number of auto workers to lose their jobs. He also organized a march of these workers who received severance pay, blocked Song Weiyang at the company's headquarters to force negotiations, and even the Swedish officials were forced to communicate with Song Weiyang under pressure.

The consultants borrowed from Geely and BYD were at a loss for fear when they saw this kind of scene.

Song Weiyang smiled and called the trade union leaders, workers' representatives, and Swedish officials, and conducted a multi-party negotiation with him.

The result of the negotiations is as follows: one of the two factories that had been closed will be reinstated (in Sweden, in fact, one), but converted to an electric vehicle production line. During the renovation period, workers are equivalent to paid leave, and the severance pay previously given is considered an advance salary. At the same time, Song Weiyang personally donated 10 million US dollars for environmental protection in Sweden. $1,000,000 for trade unions in Sweden.

Immediately afterwards, Song Weiyang gave speeches all over Europe, promoting energy conservation and environmental protection, and calling for the protection of the earth's ecological environment. He threw money at environmental groups in Europe, and those environmental organizations praised and touted him, and Song Weiyang became a high-end environmentalist.

By the end of the following year, electric cars with "Saab Tesla" on their buttocks began to be officially sold in Europe.

Song Weiyang continued to promote environmental protection, continued to stuff money into environmental protection organizations, and at the same time frantically posted soft posts to build momentum. This newly designed economic version of Tesla has struggled to gain a foothold in Europe, and its sales are on a steady rise.

Unfortunately, there is too much money thrown in the early stage, and the economic Tesla will definitely lose money in Europe for several years, and the construction of charging piles is also a long-term and complex investment. It even attracted a collective boycott from the traditional auto industry and oil companies, who did not dare to oppose it publicly, but all kinds of secret stumbling blocks, resulting in Tesla's charging network not being able to be deployed in many regions.

Then seek new allies, can Song Weiyang still be scared away by this little thing?

For several months in a row, Song Weiyang has been negotiating with power companies in various European countries, pulling power companies into the water and fighting traditional gas stations. Dr. Ma incarnated as a big fool, full of economic crisis, consumption downgrade, energy conservation and emission reduction, saving the earth, and describing a beautiful picture of the future world full of charging piles replacing gas stations.

If charging piles can replace gas stations, how much profit should be made every year?

Power companies have entered the market, under the pressure of the traditional energy industry, and are struggling to promote the laying of charging networks.

In the European and American markets, whether it is Saab or Tesla, Song Weiyang has made up his mind to lose money in 10 years - the real purpose of acquiring Saab is to make up for Tesla's technical shortcomings, such as car chassis, vehicle platforms and other things.

Where do you get all this lost money back?

Chinese market!

This approach is similar to Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's PC business, spending huge sums of money to buy foreign companies and using the profits of the Chinese market to subsidize foreign countries. Don't laugh at 50 steps for 100 steps, if you succeed, you can boast of strategic vision, and if you fail, you will be stupid.

Mr. Song Weiyang, a great environmentalist, changed when he returned to China. He decided not to mention environmental issues, but to promote the safety of Saab cars everywhere, focusing on the mid-to-high-end market of 300,000 to 2 million, and all produced were gasoline Saab. In addition, he closed Saab's North American plant and built a large-scale automobile manufacturing base in China, shifting the focus of manufacturing and sales of Saab cars (gasoline version) to China.

Moreover, in order to expand Saab's brand influence in China, Song Weiyang cooperated with Chinese car companies everywhere and sold all Saab models before 2005, and packaged and sold supporting technologies such as power systems.

Because Saab had a bunch of high-level resignations, including the design director. Song Weiyang also hired Giles Taylor with a high salary to serve as Saab's chief designer, and even gave the guy 5 million shares of the company.

Giles Taylor worked as a designer at Citroën and then as a core designer at Jaguar. If Song Weiyang doesn't poach him, this person will also jump to Rolls-Royce as a design director, responsible for designing Rolls-Royce Phantom, Yaoying, Phantom (new generation) and other models.

By 2012, Giles Taylor's "Saab Milestone" had achieved unprecedented success in the Chinese market, although it did not sell well in Europe and the United States.

This thing is luxurious and dignified, and the landing price in China is more than 8 million yuan. Not only does Song Weiyang open a "Saab Milestone" every time he goes out, but Ma Xiaoyun, Xiao Ma Ge, Ding Sanshi, Liu Brothers, Shen Nanpeng, Zhang Chaoyang, Ding Ming, Rebus and other business tycoons, as well as many student bosses in Ma's Whampoa, were also fooled by Song Weiyang to buy new cars.

Such a celebrity effect, coupled with the excellent "Saab Milestone" itself, immediately became the new favorite of China's rich.

By the way, Song Weiyang also changed Sabo's car logo, and the old car logo was too ugly!

In Europe and the United States, it was not until 2016, relying on various technological breakthroughs, that Tesla's electric vehicles finally turned losses into profits, which were truly widely recognized by the market and actively fed back to China.

From 2009 to 2015, Song Weiyang spent a lot of his energy on building cars, and some media even joked that Song Weiyang has changed from a leader in the technology industry, an Internet pioneer, and a hegemon in the beverage industry to a complete car man.

(End of book.) ）

(There are also a few afterwords.) ）