"Pete, how do I feel that hot stamping is suddenly on fire in Huaxia?"

"The first hot stamping production line put into operation this year may enter full production from the end of next year, and we need to start considering the investment of the second production line."

As the general manager of BENTELER Huaxia Branch, Feng Bo is actually a native of Germany.

However, as a doctor, his German surname is pronounced very similar to "Feng", so after arriving in Huaxia, he gave himself the name "Feng Bo".

Even his business card has this name printed on it.

On the contrary, Pete is actually called Qian Hui, and he is an authentic Modu person.

But after joining Benteler, he gave himself a foreign name.

Even his company email address is.

"Feng Bo, this matter is really thanks to Great Wall Motors, the crash test they came up with, and the hot stamping forming technology that has no popularity has become a hot technology in the automotive industry."

"We have been looking for various customers to promote the use of hot stamping technology, but most of them are not very interested except for Volkswagen."

"Even Mercedes-Benz and BMW's models in China are not planned to use hot stamping as quickly."

"Now Great Wall Motors is doing this, not only Modu Volkswagen and Chuncheng Volkswagen have accelerated the use of hot stamping parts, but BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Modu General Motors, and Shenlong Automobile have also begun to speed up the application review of hot stamping parts technology."

"I think it's time to start planning for the second production line."

"Otherwise, when the customer asks us if the production capacity can meet the requirements, I don't know how to answer."

Although Qian Hui and Feng Bo were directly subordinate to each other, they were directly called by their names.

This point, in European and American companies, the hierarchy on the surface is indeed not so obvious.

Unlike Dongying companies and Korea companies, the positions are one level higher, and the level of talking to each other is very obvious.

"It's a bit dramatic, but it's just the opportunity to go to various customers for a hot stamping technology exhibition."

"If you can get enough orders, we will officially start planning for the second production line."

"In the past two days, I heard a news that our old rival in Europe, Gesamp, has also arranged personnel to visit China, and it seems that he is also preparing to build a factory here to produce hot stamping parts."

"That's not a good thing for us."

"Once Gestamp is confirmed, then Cosma, a subsidiary of Magna, is estimated to accelerate the pace of entering China."

"After all, if the hot stamping technology here is applied earlier, they will definitely be aware of it."

Founded in 1876, BENTELER is one of the world's leading suppliers of automotive parts, producing ancillary products for almost all European and American automakers in the world.

Their products include front suspension, rear suspension modules; undercarriage; anti-collision structural parts; Engine exhaust and control systems.

At the same time, BENTELER holds a number of patents for thermoforming stamping technology and was the first company in the world to successfully apply thermoforming technology to an automotive body.

But they are not without rivals in the international market.

Gestamp and Cosma, both of which are in Europe, are its old rivals.

BENTELER produces chassis parts, as do Gestamp and Cosma.

BENTELER produces hot-stamped parts, as well as Gestamp and Cosma.

Even before the Yangcheng Huaqiang plant entered the field of hot stamping, Benteler, Gestamp and Cosma were the only three international suppliers of mass production hot stamping.

So a lot of the time, Benteler's people see Gestamp and Cosma as their competitors.

As for those enterprises in Huaxia, they didn't look at it.

Even if Huaqiang Factory has 12 hot stamping parts used in Great Wall Motor's H6, and has attracted the attention of many OEMs.

"When we came to Huaxia to invest in the hot stamping line, Volkswagen had already committed to a part of the order."

"Although Mercedes-Benz and BMW only contacted them this year, we also supplied them with hot-stamping parts in Germany."

"As long as the headquarters and the Huaxia branch work together, I don't think it's a big problem to get their orders."

Qian Hui can be said to be full of confidence at this time.

In the field of hot stamping, Benteler has no rival in the Chinese market.

"You sort out the hot stamping parts of each OEM, and we also find a time to have a conference call with the people at the headquarters to see how many orders we can get."

Feng Bo's mood is also very good.

The future of the company is bright.

……

Guo Shuyin is very busy.

During this time, wave after wave of OEMs came to visit the factory.

The hot stamping factory next to Great Wall Motors is not so convenient to take customers to visit because it is dedicated to supplying parts to Great Wall Motors.

The most important thing is that the headquarters is in Yangcheng, and it is inconvenient for Guo Shuyin to run to Baozhou often.

Fortunately, the new factory built by Huaqiang Factory for Xingchen Automobile has basically completed the equipment introduction of the hot stamping production line and has begun to enter the equipment commissioning stage.

So if a customer wants to come and visit, it won't be like there is nothing to see.

"Guo Bu, before visiting the factory, I would like to ask what is the difference between your production line and the production line that Benteler invested in Modu?"

Li Jianfeng of the magic capital Volkswagen came to Yangcheng Huaqiang Factory with Hassan and Bu Defan today.

They have already quoted a round of prices to the Huaqiang factory, and the same parts are twenty or thirty yuan lower than Benteler's offer.

This is still the situation where parts are transported from Yangcheng to Modu, and each part is a few dollars higher than Benteler's transportation fee.

Although Huaxia's parts manufacturers have always had advantages in terms of cost.

But if this is also the case for new technology parts such as hot stamping, he is a little curious.

"Li Gong, I haven't directly visited Benteler's production line."

"However, according to the information we have obtained from our previous investigation, as well as some introductions from Li Gong, we can generally know where the equipment differences between the two sides are."

"First of all, Benteler's hot stamping production line, the heating furnace is produced by BENTELER itself and imported from Germany, while ours is the domestic equipment produced by Nanshan Equipment."

"Secondly, the most critical hot stamping machine, BENTELER imports from AP&T in Europe, and we are also a domestic press produced by Nanshan Equipment."

"Then there is the hot stamping mold, as far as I know, although Benteler is going to make it in China in the future, it is still imported from Germany at this stage."

"And ours was purchased from Nanshan Mold, and from the main materials of the mold to the processing, it has been localized."

"Finally, there is the laser cutting equipment, which BENTELER buys from TRUMPF and imports from Germany."

"A hot stamping line is equipped with four TRUMPF laser cutting machines, and it is said that the purchase cost of this piece of equipment alone exceeds 20 million."

"And our laser cutting equipment is also produced by Nanshan Equipment."

"In addition, we are also studying with Nanshan Mould to see if some places with low tolerance requirements can be cut directly in the mold."

"In this way, the amount of laser processing can be greatly reduced, the production efficiency can be improved, the cost can be reduced, and the investment in laser cutting equipment can also be reduced."

Although Guo Shufu is engaged in sales, he is also very familiar with his own hot stamping production line.

This production line is complicated to say, but if you just understand the basic principle, it is actually not difficult.

It's not that you need to design this production line.

"Let me interrupt, just now you said that your company is researching the trimming in the mold, can you introduce this situation in detail?"

Although Dr. Hassan's Chinese is spoken with a slight accent, there is no problem at all in communication.

As a quality expert, he knows very well why hot stamping parts need laser cutting.

Just like advertised, the tensile strength of hot stamping parts can reach 1500Mpa.

What is this concept?

In 2005, the highest tensile strength of the body parts of most OEMs was not yet 590Mpa.

Even if there is, it is only used on a small number of key parts.

On top of the 590Mpa steel plate, there are generally 780Mpa, 980Mpa and 1180Mpa ultra-high-strength steels.

Even 1180Mpa is still in the state of the laboratory, and has not entered mass production.

Even if it is a 980Mpa automotive plate, no steel mill in China has achieved large-scale mass production.

You can imagine how high the strength of 1500Mpa is.

If the parts produced in this way need to be punched and trimmed on them, there is no way to complete them directly using stamping machines and dies.

This is where the laser cutting process comes in handy.

No matter how strong you are, it's not a problem in front of lasers.

However, although the laser processing process is good, the cost is also high.

Take a B-pillar reinforcing plate as an example, there are more than a dozen, or even dozens of mounting holes, positioning holes, process holes, and weight reduction holes that need to be processed.

Then the perimeter of the part also needs to be trimmed by laser to meet the tolerances specified in the drawing.

After all, those who have been engaged in stamping know that the parts that come out of the drawing process must be trimmed.

Otherwise, the parts will definitely not meet the requirements of the drawings.

"Dr. Hassan, that's about the way it goes."

"We can participate in the early drawing design of the main engine factory, and for some places where there is no welding mating surface requirement, the tolerance can be appropriately relaxed, and the edge can be cut directly when the mold is formed."

"For some weight-reducing holes and process holes, the tolerance relaxation does not affect the performance of the parts, and you can also add a punch to the mold and punch it out directly."

"Of course, some specific details, we need to analyze and discuss in combination with specific drawings."

"But our Huaqiang factory has conducted in-depth research together with Nanshan Mould in this regard."

As soon as Guo Shufu introduced this, Hassan's confidence in Huaqiang Factory has improved a lot.

This is not a factory that only comes to the processing of drawings.

As the quality director of Modu Volkswagen, he has also been to many local suppliers in China over the years.

Many of these manufacturers can only produce parts purely according to the drawings of Modu Volkswagen.

As for making process or cost improvements on the basis of drawings, they don't know at all.

Even these companies do not have R&D personnel at all, and only a few technicians do some basic technical work.

"Guo, I also have a question that I'm curious about."

"As far as I know, the hot stamping equipment of Huaqiang factory has only been newly invested in the past year, and the amortization of various equipment and plants is relatively high."

"Why can your prices be lower than those of other manufacturers?"

Bu Defan didn't mind letting Guo Shufu know that their price was lower than Benteler's.

There is no need to hide this matter at all.

"This question, in fact, can be answered in combination with the comparison of the differences in production lines just mentioned by Li Gong."

"First of all, in terms of equipment investment, I estimate that Benteler's production line, not counting the plant investment, will exceed 100 million."

"But we only need about half of them."

"Secondly, their hot stamping molds need to be imported from Germany, but ours can be domestically produced."

"In this aspect alone, a set of molds for the B-pillar reinforcements of the Passat model can cost us millions of yuan cheaper than Benteler."

"In terms of raw materials, we use hot-stamped steel plates jointly developed and produced by Nanshan Group and Baosteel, while BENTELER imports them from ArcelorMittal."

"These differences are cumulative, and we have a cost advantage of at least 20 yuan for a part like a Passat B-pillar reinforcing plate."

"And we have room for further review of cost improvements."

The quotations have all been submitted to the public of the magic capital, and Guo Shufu is not afraid to say these comparative information.

When he quoted to the public in the magic capital, he had already put the processing fee relatively high.

The plant equipment is normally amortized according to 10 years, and he directly quoted according to the amortization of 5 years.

After all, he also knows very well in his heart that only Benteler and them can produce hot stamping parts in China.

In this case, there is no point in blindly fighting a price war.

As long as it maintains an advantage of about ten points over Benteler, it is enough.

And to do this, in fact, it is enough to reflect the advantages from the mold.

According to the reference information given by the personnel of Nanshan Mold, Benteler imported a set of hot stamping molds from Germany, which required more than 10 million yuan, which was simply outrageously expensive.

The hot stamping molds sold by Nanshan Mould to Huaqiang Factory, the type of B-pillar is out of two, and it is almost as long as five or six million.

And Guo Shufu reported to the public of Modu, and on the basis of this price, 15% of the management fee and 10% of the maintenance cost were added to it.

It can be said that if the hot stamping parts of Huaqiang factory can smoothly enter the magic capital Volkswagen, the profit margin can be more than 20%.

This is still in the case of a part of the budget reserved for price reduction negotiations.

After all, the procurement of OEMs, before the new model is put into production, will often find suppliers to review the price reduction again.

"Hassan, I've pretty much everything I want to know, why don't we go to the scene and have a look?"

Bu Defan was quite satisfied with Guo Shufu's answer.

After all, there is no logical problem with this answer.

So soon, everyone entered the on-site confirmation link.

The technical staff of Huaqiang Factory, who already has production performance, can naturally easily answer this question.

In the end, Bu Defan and his entourage came happily and left happily.

Soon, Yangcheng Huaqiang Factory also officially obtained the order for hot stamping parts from Modu Volkswagen.

Of course, that's for later.

……

"Mr. Cao, our Xingchen Automobile has not been exposed on the Internet for a while, can we consider revealing the information on the use of hot stamping parts?"

During this time, Yongxiang was busy with the development of Xingchen Automobile.

The first drawings have been drawn, and the supplier's prototypes are in production.

Soon, the first prototype will be produced.

As long as there are no major problems in the production and assembly of the prototype car, and some basic tests can be passed, the supplier can be officially notified to open the permanent mold and prepare for large-scale mass production.

"Your proposal is a good one, hot stamping technology is very hot during this time, and many consumers who don't pay attention to this knowledge are discussing this topic there like a decent."

"Great Wall Motors H6 uses 12-point hot stamping parts, and it has already achieved such excellent results in crash tests."

"And our Xingchen No. 1, there are 22 parts that use hot stamping technology, and the safety performance is more guaranteed."

Without any hesitation, Cao Yang agreed to Huan Yongxiang's proposal.

Sometimes, how to "leak" in the development process of a new model is also a good marketing tool.

You don't see that before the blockbuster models of various OEMs are about to go on the market, there will always be some "leaked" camouflage photos coming out.

Although a small number of them were really leaked, they were revealed by internal employees or partners.

But in fact, most of them are the marketing methods of the OEMs themselves.

They deliberately "leaked" it themselves.

"That's right, such a large number of hot stamping parts, not to mention in China, even if you look at the world, you can't find a few manufacturers."

"Even the BMW 730 is far from this level, and maybe we can follow the example of Great Wall Motors and stand on the shoulders of the BMW 730 to win a wave of fame."

Huan Yongxiang is very confident in the product strength of Xingchen No. 1.

But he wasn't very confident in the price of the Star 1.

Because according to the current tone revealed by Cao Yang, this car is really going for a high-end luxury car.

The price is definitely not cheap.

"Although this approach can win short-term benefits, it is a bit of a bad character, and I don't plan to do it until I have to."

"Sometimes, blowing out someone else's lamp doesn't make you brighter."

"Tearing each other down is also building a wall for yourself."

"If you splash dirty water on others, you will be covered in mud."

Although Great Wall Motors engaged in Honda's business, Cao Yang privately suggested to Wang Ying.

But that doesn't mean he's going to learn on his own.

If Xingchen Automobile wants to go far, it is still necessary to use upright means as much as possible.

Otherwise, it may become a stain on the development process.

You're the one who's going to build luxury cars after all.

……

"Xingchen Automobile's new car uses 22-point hot stamping parts, which is too aggressive."

"Minister, on our next-generation Accord model, there are no hot stamping parts at all."

"Will it be criticized then?"

Yangcheng Honda, when Lu Xiangyang and Li Huarong were eating together in the cafeteria, they couldn't help but talk about a news they saw this morning.

As the head of the stamping department, he is responsible for whether it is cold stamping parts or hot stamping parts.

Therefore, he pays more attention to the topics related to hot stamping on the Internet than the average person.

In particular, the CRV of the sister company Zephyr Honda was taken out and whipped into the corpse, which became a stepping stone for the Great Wall H6 model.

This made him even more worried.

"I met with the senior management of Honda Huaxia a few days ago and discussed this topic with them."

"At present, the entire Dongying car companies, the models currently under development, are not ready to use hot stamping."

"Of course, it doesn't mean that Toyota and Honda won't improve the strength of the body."

"With the tightening of crash-related regulations, the use of high-strength steel plates will definitely increase."

"However, Toyota and Honda are all meeting the collision requirements by propulsion and the use of a large number of 980 and 590 high-strength steel plates."

"Theoretically, there is no problem with such a solution, but the weight reduction effect is not as good as that of hot stamping."

"But in terms of cost, there are definitely advantages."

Li Huarong must have more information channels than Lu Xiangyang.

The Huaxia automobile market is now thriving, and they are naturally worried about whether Yangcheng Honda can keep up with the pace of development.

"I talked to the people in Yangcheng Epac yesterday, and their parent company has also conducted some early research related to hot stamping, and the cost will indeed rise a lot."

"However, I think this matter cannot be said purely from the perspective of cost when it is publicized externally, otherwise consumers will not admit it at all."

"As I understand it, Toei's suppliers are the strongest in the world in terms of technology accumulation for cold stamping of high-strength steel sheets."

"They have now mastered the stamping technology of 590 to 980 various high-strength steel plates, and they have more experience data on the rebound of steel plates in the stamping process.

"However, some stamping suppliers in Europe and the United States are not so good at stamping high-strength steel plates."

"That's why they chose a different way of hot stamping to solve the problem of increasing the difficulty of stamping after the strength of the steel plate is improved."

"If everyone can accept this point of view, then the debate on the Internet about hot stamping will develop in our favor."

As soon as Lu Xiangyang said this, Li Huarong's eyes couldn't help but light up.

That's a good idea.

We didn't use hot stamping, not because I had a low configuration and didn't want to spend money, but because I had a deep technical accumulation in cold stamping, and I could meet the strength requirements using traditional methods.

The reason why manufacturers in Europe and the United States and Great Wall Motors are actively promoting hot stamping technology is because they are not good at traditional cold stamping.

This logic is much smoother to understand than other explanations.

(End of chapter)