engineers

It is not easy to build a car brand from scratch. In fact, if you appreciate advice on how to go broke, put all your money into trying to build one. Over the decades, the number of companies that have succeeded in the automotive industry from nothing, completely from scratch, are absolutely exceptional. The electric car has been a breakthrough which has facilitated the entry of new players, such as Tesla, and despite everything, many have failed along the way. Let’s think about Fisker, Dyson, Apple… All of them were projects that were developed with more or less effort but that they have not finished curdling. And to start a new company you need a lot of money. You have to design a car, have access to the factory and the corresponding machinery, distribute the cars and offer after-sales service. And, above all, gaining the trust of the general public, key when it comes to trusting a brand without references, without a story behind it and a brand that has to prove to be solvent enough to get ahead. That opportunity offered by the electric car, as we said, has been taken advantage of by China. For years they have built a supply chain and invested huge amounts of money in researching how to get the best out of this technology. And to do this they have not hesitated to absorb the knowledge of European manufacturers. He all-stars from Xiaomi is a good example. Learning from the classics In its learning to position itself as the market leader in electric cars, China has not hesitated to rely on European knowledge. In the early 2000s, European manufacturers thought that the Chinese state was laying out a red carpet for them to produce their cars on its soil. They did it with one condition: that manufacturers ally with a local company. In this way, the engineers assimilated the knowledge coming from outside and were able to apply it in entirely Chinese companies, already outside the European orbit. He result We have seen it years later. The Chinese customer now prefers the purchase of a locally developed car because it better adapts to their demands and they consider them more advanced than Western ones. The gap, even, has forced Volkswagen to look for engineers in China in order to better understand the market and produce specific vehicles for said market. In the opposite direction, Chinese firms have armed themselves with Western talent to bring their cars closer to the European and American aesthetic standards. We have seen historical designers like Wolfgang Egger, who designed the beautiful Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, carry out the Yangwang U9, BYD’s supercar. Or Walter de Silva, who built his career in the arms of the Volkswagen Group, designing cars for the BAIC group. But design has not been the only rock on which Chinese manufacturers are building their new house. And Xiaomi is an example of this. Just as Volkswagen has hired Chinese engineers to be able to approach the Asian market, Xiaomi is aware that it has to adapt to European tastes so that their cars find sufficient support outside their borders. A decision that is summarized in a photograph. In it we find the design and research and development team that will lay the foundations of the product that we will see in Europe. Click on the image to go to the original tweet As seen in the image in the post, Xiaomi has built a kind of all-stars of German engineering. And there are such relevant figures in his team that they have directed the teams that have produced cars of the caliber of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the Mercedes S-Class or the BMW i8, among others. Where Xiaomi Much emphasis has been placed on design. Jean-Arthur Madelaine He was part of the team that created the Mercedes-Benz Vision GT Concept, a prototype created for the Gran Turismo 6, but his most relevant positions have been as head of interiors for Citroën first and Polestar later. He now heads the Xiaomi electric design team in the plant that the company opened in Germany last year. Julien Cueffwho is in charge of the interiors, worked for Mercedes but has been in the orbit of Chinese manufacturers such as Nio or Lotus for years. Fabian Schmölz-Obermeierdedicated to the exterior appearance of cars, has worked for Porsche and Lamborghini. In this last company he was the person most responsible for the exterior design of a car like the Temerario. But beyond the design, the company has looked for prominent heads in the market to guarantee the good performance of its cars. Simon Schmitt is an engineer specialized in aerodynamics who has been part of the BMW racing team. From the same company they have arrived Claus-Dieter Grollfor the development of the dynamics of their cars, and Kai Langerwho worked for 22 years at BMW and was design director of the Bavarian company’s electric range to lead the team focused on user experience. These names are just a handful of examples. The company seems aware that it needs to get closer to the European public in its expansion strategy outside of China. And in recent years we have seen very good competitors arrive from China but also how some of these cars had not adapted to the tastes and demands of the European public. In Xataka we have counted the case of firms like Omoda/Jaecoo, which have tweaked their cars in record time to make them harder and leave aside dynamics supported by suspensions that are too soft. A good part of the Chinese market needs to delve deeper, for example, into driving assistance systems, which are clearly not tuned for European roads and our way of driving, with narrower lanes. But Chinese manufacturers are demonstrating enormous adaptability. Stellantis assures that Leapmotor vehicles are tuned in Italy To suit our tastes, BYD aims to produce a purely European vehicle with its Hungarian factory. At Ebro they assure … Read more