GM's acquisition of Saab was a big mistake from the start, and the responsibility for this mistake can be attributed to Bob Brown, then president of GM Europe. Eaton head.

Later, this guy also became the CEO of Chrysler, and during his tenure, Chrysler and Daimler. Mercedes reached the infamous "merger of reciprocal results".

In front of Li Yifan was an investigation report from Heidi's consulting team, and the data and analysis of this report came from a wide range of sources, some of which were public data, and some of which were from some large European research companies.

Some of the words are quoted from authoritative media, and some of them are written by the consultants themselves, although they have a certain emotional color, but their comments on Bob Eaton, Li Yifan very much agrees, that guy is an out-and-out idiot.

After he came to Chrysler, he presided over the merger of Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz, but Mercedes-Benz suffered from the pit, of course, it was not without any contribution, at least he made a qualified leading party, and successfully introduced Mercedes-Benz to the continental United States through Chrysler's channels.

Because it doesn't pay attention to exterior design, nor does it pay attention to brand promotion, so its appeal is very narrow, and the brand is destined to be small in the long run.

While Saab owners may not mind being called "weirdos" and may be happy to do so, when it comes to people who drive Saab, people always think of a group of British professor-style owners wearing corduroy jackets and Earth brand travel shoes - which shows that its customer base is not extensive.

Compared with other European brands, his cousins are desperately trying to expand their brand appeal. The best of these is Audi.

And so on. Saab has become an "unbearable weight" for GM.

And it has to feed a large group of well-paid and incompetent Swedish workers.

It is reported by Automotive News. Dave who was at the helm of Saab in the 90s. Herman once said, "A healthy and beautiful boy can get a certificate from the doctor and ride a motorcycle and take his girlfriend to the lake or something." The daily absenteeism rate is as high as 18%. ”

As a result, the company's productivity is very low and the quality is terrible, and last year Saab was historically near the bottom of the initial quality rankings of cars published by consulting firm J.D. Power.

If this report hadn't come from that group of very trustworthy advisors, Li Yifan would have wanted to jump up and shout slander. This is complete.

Think about the trust and pursuit of European brands and products by Chinese people over the years, not to mention the public, there are even some people who like to praise foreigners' stinky feet in China, and regard Saab's cousin Volvo as a classic, but I don't know that his treatment abroad and Saab is not much different.

The biggest difference is that Volvo produces only three times as much as Saab.

But in China, it is well known by a bunch of elites, touting why European classics, the strongest car and other.

Moreover, Sweden's international reputation is also very good by domestic people, although it is a Nordic country with a small population, but it gives the impression of the Chinese people. But he is kind and hardworking. Moreover, it has very good craftsmanship in the field of machining, especially in finishing, as well as in electronically controlled robots, and many companies are in the leading position in the industry.

According to the report, how is it possible that the workers are lazy and absent from work all day?

Is this still the Normans, who were known for their rigor and seriousness?

But this is an objective fact, because the spectacled professor of statistics at the University of Anderlecht, who was sitting opposite him, told him very seriously that the report was full of facts, and that he could vouch for it with his personality and that he was absolutely not telling nonsense.

Originally, the Swedes had a more noble temperance in Li Yifan's heart, but it was shattered in an instant.

But think about it, a few years later, Saab's big brother Volvo also fell into the black hands of the Chinese, and everything was normal.

If these car companies are really as good as they advertise, then it is our turn to take over?

Anyway, I'm a peach picker, and the more messy they are now, the better, and it's better to mess up a mess, and it's good to mess up seven or eight troughs.

Li Yifan waved for the professor to go out first, and now he had arrived at Heidi's home in Belgium, an ancient castle on the outskirts of Antwerp, built in the medieval style of architecture two hundred years ago.

The later owner of the building did a very good job of preserving the ancient building, but after Heidi took over, it underwent a large-scale reconstruction.

In fact, the main thing is to add a lot of modern facilities to the castle, such as adding a sunroom, and a swimming pool with a closed roof.

After all, Heidi, who grew up with modern civilization, can't accept it, that full set of ancient European aristocratic style.

Although that set was very advanced hundreds of years ago, even a homeless man can do better than the nobles at that time now.

It's a pleasure to live in such an ancient building, and in the past few days, Li Yifan has been enjoying it while reading every day, and Heidi's team has collected information about Saab from all sides in order to make plans for the future.

Heidi, on the other hand, became a trapeze artist, coming back today to stay with him for one night, and the next day she would either fly to the United States or London, in short, most of the time outside the road.

According to her words, she was born to work hard and run errands, of course, that is compared with Li Yifan, Li Yifan's concept is to be transformed into reality through her.

And Li Yifan also felt that in fact, she was using her practical actions to enhance her status in her heart.

Although she said to herself on the surface that she didn't care that she had other women, but when she knew about Tang Tian's existence, her subsequent performances have always seemed a little strange.

O woman! It is always a creature with different hearts and mouths, and it is unpredictable.

These days, through constant reading and understanding, he has mastered quite a bit of information about Saab.

Judging from the current environment, Saab's decline is already doomed to be inevitable, and it can even be said that it is a death sentence.

In the hands of General Motors, they are declining, and General Motors itself is now too busy to take care of itself, although the US military is in the Middle East, with great success.

In just a few months, Saddam Hussein was beaten to the ground, and the economic environment in the United States was very good, but the people who really enjoyed the dividends of the war on a large scale were domestic arms dealers and oil merchants.

Automobile manufacturers like them have not enjoyed too many dividends, but they are losing ground under the pressure of Japanese car dealers and Korean car dealers, and they are eating away from their own markets step by step.

The current GM can be said to be too busy to take care of itself, and it is becoming less and less attentive and impatient with a branch like Saab.

In the decade from 1993 to 2003, Saab lost money for eight years, which made GM's shareholders completely lose trust in the company.

Last year, they gave Saab a lot of things, and ordered them to rectify and join the global integration process of GM.

They used GM stuff to put together a new car, only to be a big loser, but now they're building on the road and continuing to go all the way down.

But that doesn't mean they don't have any good stuff at all.

For example, their turbocharged engine control technology, up to now, is a must in this field, and it is also one of the main goals of Li Yifan's visit to Europe.

Another discovery is their F/25 and F/35 gearbox.

It turned out that Li Yifan really didn't know that this company could also produce its own gearbox, and after coming, he learned through understanding that because of the inherent pride and stubbornness of the Nordic people, they have always adhered to the attitude of self-production and self-sale before they were acquired by General Motors.

Almost all the parts of the whole vehicle are produced in-house, so they are also one of the few companies that can produce automatic transmissions by themselves.

This routine is exactly the same as Japan's Toyota and Honda, the only difference is that they don't have Toyota, Honda is as agile as Honda, and they don't have the scale of others.

As a result, Toyota and Honda, which also developed after World War II, became the world's most famous car manufacturers, and they were reduced to rural washing, cutting and blowing.

But that doesn't negate their ability to build gearboxes, their automatic transmissions, which have always been made in Europe, are reliable, sophisticated, efficient, and work perfectly with their turbocharged engines.

In addition to their current several hydraulic automatic transmissions, they have also carried out certain research and development on the DCT respected by Volkswagen, which is not fast, but it is very stable.

Even CVT has been studied, and like DCT, it is halfway through the process, and there is no result yet.

This news is definitely a very unexpected surprise for Li Yifan.

Although he poached a lot of people from DSI, it would take a while for those people to come up with any results.

During this time, it happened to be the window period of his Chenhua car, during which they could only use manual transmissions, or 4AT transmissions.

If Saab can get these automatic transmission technologies from his side, it will greatly accelerate the development and production of his autonomous automatic transmissions.

What's more, although this company's automatic transmission is not well-known, their six-speed manual transmission is famous.

You must know that in these years, there are only a few car companies in the world that can manufacture six-speed manual transmissions, Volkswagen, and a few car companies in Japan...... (To be continued......)