A Chinese Upstart Goes After Detroit
底特律倒下 吉利崛起
After quitting his job as a senior engineer at Chrysler to join China's fledgling domestic auto industry, Frank Zhao had a stark premonition.
在辞去克莱斯勒(Chrysler)高级工程师的职位加入中国新兴的国内汽车业之后，赵福全(Frank Zhao)就有了一种强烈的预感。
'I saw the end of Detroit,' says 45-year-old Mr. Zhao, who now supervises 1,200 engineers building a new generation of vehicles for Geely Holding Group Co., one of China's top-selling brands.
45岁的赵福全说，我看到了底特律的结束。目前他负责着1,200名工程师，为中国畅销汽车品牌之一的吉利控股集团(Geely Holding Group Co.)开发新一代车型。
As Chrysler LLC and General Motors Co. close plants and shed jobs, Geely's expansion plans are moving into high gear, showing how the crisis in the U.S. is accelerating a shift in the global auto industry towards the emerging markets, including China.
在克莱斯勒和通用汽车(General Motors Co.)纷纷关厂裁员之际，吉利的扩张计划却在高速运转，显示出美国的危机正在加快全球汽车业向中国等新兴市场转移的速度。
'We are making progress,' says Mr. Zhao, the president of Geely's research and development arm who moved back to his native China five years ago and joined Geely in 2006. 'GM is big but moving down. We are small but moving up.'
赵福全5年前回到中国，2006年加入吉利，目前任吉利汽车研究院院长。他说，我们正在进步。通用汽车很大但在衰落。我们很小但却在前进。
Geely, with a group of financial backers, is now considered a front-runner in the bidding for Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo unit. A decision could come in the next several weeks, according to people familiar with the situation. That deal is taking shape just as another Chinese car company, Beijing Automotive Holding Co., is gunning for a 51% stake in GM's Germany-based Opel unit. German officials have expressed concern that such a transaction could make the GM unit too reliant on the Chinese government.
在多家金融机构的支持下，吉利目前被认为在争夺福特汽车(Ford Motor Co.)旗下沃尔沃(Volvo)子公司的大战中处于领先地位。据知情人士透露，决定可能在今后几周内做出。随着另一家中国企业北京汽车工业控股公司 (Beijing Automotive Holding Co.)提出收购通用汽车旗下欧宝(Opel)子公司51%的股份，这项交易也在逐渐成型。德国有关人员对这项交易可能让欧宝过于依赖中国政府表示了担忧。
In 2008, Geely, one of China's top 10 passenger-car brands, sold 221,900 vehicles, up 3.2% from a year earlier, according to U.S. consulting firm CSM Worldwide. That's a small figure compared with other Chinese car producers such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., which markets vehicles through joint ventures with giants like GM and Volkswagen AG. Still, the numbers are significant because Geely is one of the country's few independent companies building branded vehicles without the help of established foreign partners.
吉利是中国十大乘用车品牌之一。据美国咨询公司CSM Worldwide的数据显示，2008年该公司共销售汽车221,900辆，比2007年增长了3.2%。同上海汽车工业公司(Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.)等中国汽车制造商相比，这个数字并不高。然而，这个数字却具有重要的意义，因为吉利是中国为数不多的几家在没有外国合作伙伴的帮助下发展自主品牌汽车的独立公司之一。上海汽车通过与通用汽车和大众汽车(Volkswagen AG)等巨头成立的合资企业销售汽车。
The ascent of China and other new car-making nations is likely to mean a faster outflow of auto manufacturing jobs from the U.S., Europe and Japan, say auto executives and analysts. They say it could also lead to a migration of higher-level design and engineering positions to lower-cost countries that are becoming new hubs for research and development.
汽车业高管及分析师们说，中国和其它新兴汽车制造国的崛起可能意味着汽车制造业就业机会将从美国、欧洲和日本更快地流出。他们说，这也可能导致更高层次的设计和技术职位流向成本较低的国家，后者正成为新的研发活动中心。
Over the past few years, as the global auto industry was faltering, Geely was carefully honing a strategy to transform itself into an international competitor. Starting around 2006, it hired top management talent, lined up financial backers, poured funds into research and development and built engineering and manufacturing capabilities.
在过去几年里，随着全球汽车业的滑坡，吉利小心地制定了把自己转化为国际性竞争对手的战略。从2006年前后，它聘请了高级管理人才，寻找融资伙伴，将资金投入到研发中，加强了技术和制造能力。
Thus far, Geely is known mainly for producing affordable small cars such as the Panda subcompact and the larger King Kong compact. More recently, it has been trying to break into bigger and more luxurious models such as sport-utility vehicles and upscale sedans -- segments that are currently dominated by GM, Toyota Motor Corp. and other global players.
到目前为止，吉利主要生产经济型小型轿车，如熊猫微型车和稍大些的金刚小型车。最近，它一直试图打入运动型多用途车和高级轿车等更大、更豪华的车型，而这块市场目前主要由通用汽车、丰田汽车(Toyota Motor Corp.)和其它跨国公司占有。
Meanwhile, the company has been working for almost three years on its takeover plan for Volvo, key elements of which people familiar with the plans described to The Wall Street Journal. Geely is bidding at the parent company level, not through its Hong Kong-listed unit Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. It has hired consultants to advise it, including a former top executive at Volvo. It has also appointed a veteran Chinese finance executive to spearhead the effort.
与此同时，吉利近三年来一直在制定收购沃尔沃的计划。知情人士向《华尔街日报》描述了这一计划的关键组成部分。吉利是由母公司出面，而非通过在香港上市的子公司吉利汽车控股有限公司(Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd.)提出收购沃尔沃的。它已聘请了顾问提供咨询，其中就包括一名前沃尔沃的高层管理人员。它也任命了一位中国资深财务管理人员负责这项计划。
Although the bid could still fail, as some industry analysts predict, a successful deal could point to the future shape of global auto manufacturing. Geely, according to people familiar with its plans, would use Chinese engineers -- including graduates from four engineering colleges the company set up in cities around China -- to conduct basic engineering tasks like generating digital blueprints of parts designed by more seasoned engineers in Sweden. A main goal would be to make and sell more Volvos in China, the world's only major car market still growing, where Volvo sold only 12,600 vehicles last year.
虽然竞购可能会向部分业界分析师预测的那样以失败告终，但交易的成功则可能会改变全球汽车制造业的格局。据知情人士透露，吉利将起用中国工程师──包括该公司在中国城市中设立的4所工程学院毕业的学生──从事制作数字零部件设计图等基础技术工作。而在瑞典，这都是由经验更丰富的工程师完成的。一个主要目标将是在中国生产和销售更多的沃尔沃汽车。中国是世界上仍在增长的唯一大型汽车市场，去年沃尔沃在中国仅售出了1.26万辆。
Ford management, initially skeptical of Geely's bid, now believes the Chinese company could successfully run Volvo, say people familiar with the situation. A Ford spokesman declined to comment.
知情人士说，福特的管理层最初对吉利的竞标表示怀疑，现在它认为这家中国公司可以成功运营沃尔沃。福特的发言人不予置评。
Geely Chairman Li Shufu has thus far refused to discuss his plans for Volvo publicly. In interviews, he has been coy about his interest in the Swedish auto maker. 'Volvo is like a mysterious, beautiful woman,' he told The Wall Street Journal in April. 'We just look at her from far away, amazed. We don't dare get close to her. We're just a bunch of farm boys.'
吉利的董事长李书福迄今为止一直拒绝公开谈论他针对沃尔沃的计划。在接受采访时，他总是羞于表示自己对这家瑞典汽车生产商的兴趣。他今年4月对《华尔街日报》说，沃尔沃像一位美丽的神秘女郎，我们只能从远处睁大眼睛看她，却不敢走近她，我们不过是一帮农家子弟。
Chinese auto makers face significant obstacles to growth. A lack of global management skills and other shortcomings could make it tough for Geely and other Chinese auto companies to buy and digest foreign brands -- or make inroads overseas on their own.
中国的汽车生产商面临着巨大的发展障碍。由于缺乏全球管理技能并存在其他不足，吉利和中国其他汽车公司可能难以买到和消化外国品牌，也难以将自身品牌打入海外市场。
Another issue: Labor unions and governments trying to defend jobs in the U.S. and Europe could balk at any attempts by Chinese companies to shift auto jobs to China. China's corporate culture, which has often tolerated shortcuts on quality to accelerate product development, could also dent the reputation of acquired brands, say engineering experts who have worked with Chinese auto makers.
它们面临的另一个问题是，美国和欧洲的政府及工会为了保护本地的就业机会，有可能不愿让中国公司将就业岗位转移至中国。而曾与中国汽车生产商合作过的工程专家们说，在中国的企业文化里，为了加快产品开发常常可以容忍在质量上走捷径，这也有可能损害被收购品牌的声誉。
There are signs that momentum is gaining anyway. GM's tech outpost in Shanghai, jointly operated with a Chinese partner, recently designed the interior of a Buick car it sells in the U.S. The center also develops vehicles for the China market in collaboration with GM's other R&D centers around the world. Honda Motor Co. recently opened a development center in Guangzhou with one of its Chinese partners.
不过，有迹象显示中国汽车工业的发展动力正在增强。通用汽车与其中国合作伙伴在上海共同运营的一个技术中心，最近就为该公司供应美国市场的别克 (Buick)轿车进行了车内设计。该中心还与通用汽车在全球各地的其他研发中心合作，开发了一系列面向中国市场的汽车。本田汽车公司(Honda Motor Co.)最近也与其中国合作伙伴在广州开设了研发中心。
Tens of thousands of engineers graduate each year from China's top universities and vocational schools, making it fertile territory for technical talent. Couple that with government policy support and subsidies for automotive research, and 'China may soon become the most significant hub of low-cost engineering for the global auto industry,' says Michael Laske, head of the China operations of Austrian engine-technology firm AVL List GmbH.
中国的顶级大学和职业学校每年能培养出数以万计的工程师，这使中国成了诞生科技人才的沃土。奥地利发动机技术公司AVL List GmbH的中国业务负责人拉斯克(Michael Laske)说，这一因素再加上政府为汽车研发提供的政策支持和补贴，使中国可能很快就会成为全球汽车行业最重要的低成本工程中心。
While it took 30 to 40 years for Toyota to crawl its way to the top of the engineering ladder to sophisticated engineering, 'Geely may be setting itself up to repeat the same process in a much accelerated fashion,' says Steven Spear, a senior lecturer in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
麻省理工学院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)的工程学高级讲师斯皮尔(Steven Spear)说，尽管丰田汽车公司(Toyota)用了30到40年时间才在汽车工程学方面达到顶级水平，但吉利走完这段路可能要快得多。
At Geely's tech center in Taizhou, a coastal city nestled against tea fields, stylists sketch cars with a special digital pen on touch-sensitive drawing tablets while engineers put a new engine on a test bench to gauge its emissions and performance. Upstairs, a chemist, clad in a white lab coat, mixes ingredients in test tubes to develop a new 'new car' fragrance for auto interiors. Geely technicians also routinely check the durability of door hinges and locks by putting a car door on a machine that opens and closes it automatically 24 hours a day.
在吉利汽车位于沿海城市台州的技术中心，设计师们正用特殊的数字笔在触敏式绘图板上勾画着汽车草图，而工程师们则在测试台上检测着一台新式发动机的排放和性能指标。在他们楼上，一位身穿白大褂的化学工程师正在试管里调配各种化学原料，以开发一种用于车内的新型芬芳剂。吉利的技术人员还会定期检查车门折页和门锁的耐久性，检测方式是把车门放到一台机器上，对其进行24小时不间断的开关试验。
'We didn't do it before, but this is how we build good quality into vehicles,' says Mr. Zhao, who spent nine years in Detroit teaching engineering at Wayne State University before joining Chrysler in 1997.
赵福全说，我们以前并不做这种测试，但要想让车有好的质量就得这么做。在1997年到克莱斯勒(Chrysler)工作前，赵福全在底特律的韦恩州立大学(Wayne State University)教了9年的工程学。
Mr. Zhao convinced Geely's chairman, Mr. Li, to invest at least 8% of Geely's revenue in product development. Toyota and its subsidiaries, by comparison, spend 5% of revenue on R&D. Since arriving at the tech center three years ago, Mr. Zhao has tripled the number of engineers to 1,200.
是他说服李书福，至少要把吉利汽车收入的8%用于产品开发。丰田汽车及其子公司把收入的5%用于研发。自从三年前到吉利的技术中心任职以来，赵福全已使吉利的工程师人数增加了两倍，达到1,200人。
Behind Geely's transformation is the chairman, Mr. Li, a self-described workaholic who most nights sleeps inside the company's headquarters building in Hangzhou. Born in 1963 to poor farmers in Taizhou, about 250 miles southeast of Shanghai, he came of age during the era of economic reform that began in the late 1970s.
推动吉利汽车转变的是该公司董事长李书福，他称自己是工作狂，大多数时候他都在公司的杭州总部过夜。李书福1963年出生在台州的一个贫穷农家，他成年时正赶上中国始于上世纪70年代末的经济改革开始席卷全国。
When he finished high school, he used his graduation gift of 100 yuan, about $14 today, to buy a used camera. He then opened a photo studio for villagers. With the money he earned, he launched a business stripping gold and other rare metals from discarded appliances and machinery. Later, he opened factories to produce refrigerators and freezers, and then construction materials.
高中毕业时，李书福用100元的毕业贺金(现在约合14美元)买了一架二手照相机，为村民开办了一家照相馆。然后，他又用赚来的钱干起了从废旧家电和机器中回收黄金和其他稀有金属的买卖。此后，他又开办了生产电冰箱和冷柜的工厂，以及生产建筑材料的企业。
By the early 1990s Mr. Li was thinking about building cars. But at the time, China's central government barred private companies from the auto industry. So Mr. Li began making motorcycles, while still buying cars and stripping them down to learn how they were made. In the late 1990s, as official restrictions began to ease, Mr. Li founded Geely. He came up with the company's first auto prototypes based loosely on competitors' models and began selling cars in 2001. In 2002, Toyota sued Geely in Beijing accusing it of copyright infringement for using a corporate logo that resembled its own, and of using a label on one of its engines that made it seem like it was made by Toyota in Japan.
早在上世纪九十年代初的时候，李书福就开始考虑造汽车。但当时中国政府禁止私营企业从事汽车行业。因此李书福转而开始生产摩托车，同时购买并拆装汽车，了解汽车的制造原理。九十年代末的时候，随着政府开始放松限制，李书福组建了吉利集团。他广泛借鉴竞争对手的车型，造出了吉利集团的第一个汽车原型，并在 2001年开始销售。2002年，丰田汽车(Toyota)在北京起诉吉利集团侵犯其专利，称吉利使用了一个酷似丰田汽车的商标，并在其中一个引擎上打上标签，显得这一引擎看上去好像是由丰田汽车在日本生产的一样。
Toyota lost both cases and didn't appeal. By 2006, Geely was producing and selling more than 200,000 vehicles a year, and a confident Mr. Li pronounced that the company would start marketing cars in Europe and the U.S. by 2008. But when it began re-engineering cars to meet U.S. and European safety and emissions regulations, Geely saw that the task couldn't be easily accomplished. It needed to design cars from the ground up.
丰田汽车最终在两起诉讼中都败诉，而且没有提起上诉。到2006年，吉利集团每年生产和销售超过20万辆汽车，李书福自信地表示到2008年吉利汽车要打入欧美市场。不过，当吉利集团开始按照欧美安全和排放标准重新设计汽车时，该公司发现要实现这个任务并不容易。吉利需要从头开始设计汽车。
'We realized you cannot create a car by simply gathering needed components,' Mr. Li told an industry conference in 2006. 'We're only a baby, learning to crawl let alone walk on our own.'
李书福在2006年一个行业会议上表示，我们意识到不能仅靠购买所需部件来造汽车。我们还只是个刚刚会爬的婴儿，更别说自己站着走路了。
But Mr. Li began thinking that Geely could accelerate its growth by taking over an established global auto maker. He started thinking seriously about Volvo, a famous brand but a money loser for Ford in recent years. In 2007 Mr. Li hired Peter Zhang, a financial controller from BP PLC, to lead the pursuit of Volvo. And he tapped Hans-Olaf Olson, Volvo's former top executive, as an adviser.
但李书福开始考虑，吉利可以收购一个知名全球品牌来加快增长步伐。他开始认真考虑收购知名品牌沃尔沃(Volvo)的可能性，近年来这个瑞典品牌在福特汽车旗下一直在亏本运营。在2007年，李书福挖来了英国石油公司(BP)的财务审计师Peter Zhang来负责收购沃尔沃的事宜。后来李书福又请到了沃尔沃前总裁奥尔松(Hans-Olaf Olson)出任顾问。
Through an American consulting company, Mr. Li was able to get a meeting in January 2007 with Don Leclair, then Ford's chief financial officer, during the Detroit auto show. The two discussed a number of issues, including Volvo, but nothing firm came of the meeting, according to people familiar with the situation.
通过一家美国咨询公司，李书福在2007年1月的底特律汽车展期间会见了当时的福特汽车首席财务长勒克莱尔(Don Leclair)。据知情人士透露，双方讨论了包括沃尔沃在内的诸多问题，但没有达成什么结果。
They met again in January 2008, and this time Mr. Li directly expressed Geely's interest in acquiring Volvo. Mr. Li sent Ford a letter making his proposal official.
双方在2008年1月再次会面，这次李书福直接表达了吉利有意收购沃尔沃。李书福向福特汽车正式发送了提议函件。
At the time, Ford was trying to restructure Volvo, and hadn't decided to sell it. And, knowing little about Geely, it didn't take the overture seriously, according to people familiar with the situation. But the U.S. auto industry sank deeper into despair as the year wore on, and Ford, while healthier than its American rivals, reevaluated its options.
但当时福特汽车还在努力重组沃尔沃，还没有决定出售这一品牌。据知情人士透露，由于对吉利知之甚少，福特汽车没有认真对待这一提议。不过，随着美国汽车业在2008年逐渐陷入绝望，尽管福特汽车的状况要好于美国其他汽车公司，但也开始重新评估其选择方案。
Soon after, the Geely bid began to get attention inside Ford. John Thornton, a longtime Ford board member and former president of Goldman Sachs with extensive contacts in China, learned of it, and with Ford management's encouragement, he started checking into Geely. In December, he met at Beijing's Grand Hyatt hotel with Mr. Li and Mr. Zhang, who laid out Geely's strategy.
此后不久，吉利的提议就开始获得福特汽车内部的关注。前高盛集团总裁、出任福特汽车董事职位多年的约翰?桑顿(John Thornton)得知了这一情况，他与中国有着广泛的联系。在福特汽车管理层的鼓励下，桑顿开始接触吉利集团。去年12月，桑顿在北京君悦酒店会见了李书福和Peter Zhang，了解了吉利提出的计划。
Mr. Thornton reported back that the bid should be taken seriously. Around that time, Ford announced it was ready to put the money-losing Volvo cars unit up for sale.
桑顿向福特汽车报告了情况，并建议认真考虑吉利的提议。大约这个时候，福特汽车宣布准备将经营亏损的沃尔沃挂牌出售。
Mr. Li's vision for Volvo is to radically slash the Swedish brand's costs for some of its primary activities, such as product-development and manufacturing, by tapping the relatively cheap labor available in China, people familiar with the situation say. Mr. Li, according to those people, doesn't plan to merge Volvo and Geely: Volvo would remain as an independent brand, and Mr. Li would retain Volvo's current management team.
知情人士透露，李书福对沃尔沃的设想是借助中国相对廉价的劳动力，大幅度削减沃尔沃一些重要环节的成本，例如产品研发和制造。据他们透露，李书福并不打算将吉利和沃尔沃合并，沃尔沃将继续作为独立品牌存在，而李书福会保留沃尔沃当前的管理层。
Mr. Booth and Ford CEO Alan Mulally agreed to meet with Geely executives again during the Detroit auto show this past January. Chairman Bill Ford did not attend that meeting, but Mr. Li also met with Mr. Ford briefly during the same visit, say people familiar with the situation.
在今年1月的底特律汽车展上，福特汽车首席执行长穆拉利同意再次会见吉利管理人士。据知情人士透露，福特汽车董事长比尔?福特(Bill Ford)没有参加此次会议，但李书福在此次底特律之行中也短暂会见了福特。
Geely renewed its interest in Volvo in March and is expected to offer a final bid by mid-July with an offer that is anticipated to be around $2 billion according to people familiar with Geely.
据了解吉利的知情人士称，今年3月，吉利再次燃起对沃尔沃的兴趣，预计会在7月中旬前提出最终收购要约，报价可能在20亿美元左右。
Nirohiko Shirouzu
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