【王傳福：領(lǐng)導(dǎo)比亞迪崛起的靈魂人物】


In late 2011 a fresh-faced Elon Musk could not contain a chuckle at the idea that Tesla could ever be challenged by Chinese carmaker BYD: “Have you seen their car?”

2011年底，對于中國汽車制造商比亞迪可能挑戰(zhàn)特斯拉的想法，容光煥發(fā)的埃隆·馬斯克忍不住發(fā)笑：“你見過他們的車嗎？”

“I don’t think it is particularly attractive,” he explained on television then. “The technology is not very strong. And BYD, as a company, has pretty severe problems on their home turf.”

“我不認(rèn)為它特別有吸引力，”他當(dāng)時在電視上解釋道。“其技術(shù)不是很強(qiáng)。而比亞迪作為一家公司，在本土市場也面臨著相當(dāng)嚴(yán)重的問題。”

A decade on, the Shenzhen-based company led by Wang Chuanfu has claimed Tesla’s crown as the biggest producer of battery-powered cars. In the fourth quarter of 2023, BYD, which was founded in 1995 and counts Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway as a shareholder, sold a record 526,000 battery-only EVs to Tesla’s 484,000.

10年過去了，這家總部位于深圳、由王傳福領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的公司已奪走特斯拉的桂冠，成為全球最大的電動汽車生產(chǎn)商。2023年第四季度，比亞迪銷售了創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄的52.6萬輛純電動汽車，而特斯拉銷售48.4萬輛。比亞迪成立于1995年，股東包括沃倫·巴菲特的伯克希爾哈撒韋公司。
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“Four to five years ago no one would have thought that Chinese EVs would have the quality or reliability to compete,” said Tu Le, founder of Sino Auto Insights, a Beijing consultancy.

“四五年前，沒有人會想到中國的電動汽車會具備競爭的質(zhì)量或可靠性，”北京咨詢公司中國汽車洞察創(chuàng)始人涂樂表示。

BYD’s ascent adds further glory to the rags-to-riches legend of Wang. The story of the professor in nonferrous metals research turned hard-headed executive with a fastidious focus on technology, supply chains and cost- cutting has become gospel in Chinese science and business schools.

比亞迪的崛起為王傳福白手起家的傳奇錦上添花。他曾是研究有色金屬的教授，后來成為一位精明而注重實(shí)際的高管，對技術(shù)、供應(yīng)鏈和成本削減極為關(guān)注，他的故事已成為中國科技界和商學(xué)院的信條。
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To his employees, Wang is simply known as “The Chairman”. Both revered and feared, the 57-year-old billionaire’s unassuming demeanour belies a micromanager with a Stakhanovite work ethic.

員工們簡單地稱王傳福為“董事長”。這位57歲的億萬富翁既受人尊敬又令人畏懼，他謙遜的舉止掩蓋了他是一位有著斯達(dá)漢諾夫式職業(yè)道德的微觀管理者。

“The work-life balance concept is just not in his lexicon,” said Michael Dunne, chief executive of Asia-focused car consultancy Dunne Insights.

專注于亞洲的汽車咨詢公司Dunne Insights的首席執(zhí)行官邁克爾·鄧恩表示：“他的字典里根本沒有工作與生活平衡的概念?！?/b>

In 2008, Charlie Munger convinced his business partner Buffett to invest $230mn for a 10 per cent stake in the then little-known Chinese company, arguing that in Wang they had a mix of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch, the former General Electric chief. Berkshire has since sold a 2 per cent stake for $890mn. Its remaining holding is worth about $2.3bn.

2008年，查理·芒格說服他的搭檔巴菲特投資2.3億美元，收購這家當(dāng)時鮮為人知的中國公司的10%股份。芒格稱，王傳福是托馬斯·愛迪生和通用電氣前首席執(zhí)行官杰克·韋爾奇的混合體。后來，伯克希爾以8.9億美元的價格出售了2%的股份。其剩余持股價值約23億美元。

BYD’s net profit more than doubled to Rmb21.37bn ($3bn) in the first nine months of 2023, compared with the same period a year earlier. Its share price has soared more than fivefold since the start of 2020, giving it a market capitalisation of Rmb622bn.

比亞迪2023年前9個月的凈利潤同比增長逾一倍，至213.7億元人民幣（合30億美元）。自2020年初以來，其股價已飆升逾4倍，市值達(dá)到6220億元人民幣。

While Munger was impressed with Wang’s engineering skills, experts attribute BYD’s success largely to a ruthless culture of cost-cutting. The entrepreneur had instituted “absolutely aggressive cost control”, said Christoph Weber at Swiss software group AutoForm.

雖然王傳福的工程技術(shù)給芒格留下了深刻的印象，但專家們將比亞迪的成功主要?dú)w因于其無情的成本削減文化。瑞士軟件集團(tuán)AutoForm的克里斯托弗·韋伯表示，這位企業(yè)家實(shí)行了“絕對激進(jìn)的成本控制”。

Steeped in lessons from making mobile phone batteries and other components for Siemens, Nokia and Motorola in its early years, BYD has developed its own in-house capabilities. Contracting other companies for hardware or services is a last resort, so much so that an executive once told car reviewers the company made everything on the vehicle “except the tyres and the windscreen”.

比亞迪早年曾為西門子、諾基亞和摩托羅拉生產(chǎn)手機(jī)電池和其他零部件，吸取了大量經(jīng)驗(yàn)教訓(xùn)，由此發(fā)展了自己的內(nèi)部實(shí)力。只有萬不得已該公司才會把硬件或服務(wù)承包給其他公司，以至于一位高管曾告訴汽車評論家，該公司制造了汽車的所有部件，“除了輪胎和擋風(fēng)玻璃”。

The emphasis on cost has underpinned the group’s vertical integration, from supplies of resources to batteries and computer chips. As one of the world’s top battery makers it supplies rivals including Tesla and Toyota.

對成本的重視支撐了該集團(tuán)從資源供應(yīng)到電池和電腦芯片的垂直整合。作為世界最大電池制造商之一，它為特斯拉和豐田等競爭對手供應(yīng)電池。

This has resulted in manufacturing innovations. In one example, in BYD’s early days, Wang acquired a panel-stamping tool from Jeep in Beijing. This led the company to crack “cell-to-body” technology, which sandwiches together the EV battery cell with a car body.

這推動了制造創(chuàng)新。舉個例子，在比亞迪早期，王傳福從北京的吉普那里購得了一款汽車覆蓋件沖壓模具。這促使該公司破解了“電池到車身”技術(shù)，將電動汽車電池與車身一體化。

Wang’s unforgiving business model has led to complaints about worker treatment. By splitting manufacturing into “finer and finer steps”, Weber said, individual workers only carry out very narrow tasks. This means there is greater propensity to replace staff with cheap workers. “They basically treat people like robots,” he said.

王傳福無情的商業(yè)模式導(dǎo)致了人們對工人待遇的抱怨。韋伯表示，通過將制造分成“越來越精細(xì)的步驟”，單個工人只能完成非常有限的任務(wù)。這意味著，該公司更傾向于用廉價勞動力取代現(xiàn)有員工。韋伯說：“他們基本上就像對待機(jī)器人一樣對待人。”

Its battery-only vehicles have trumped Tesla in the fourth quarter, but taking into account plug-in hybrid vehicles — which China defines as “new energy vehicles” alongside pure battery- and hydrogen-powered models — BYD overtook Tesla in the first half of 2022. BYD’s total sales for 2023 were up 62 per cent to more than 3mn vehicles, compared with 1.81mn for Tesla.

去年第四季度，比亞迪的純電動汽車銷量超過了特斯拉，但若計(jì)入插電式混合動力汽車——中國將其與純電動和氫動力汽車一起定義為“新能源汽車”——比亞迪在2022年上半年就超越了特斯拉。比亞迪2023年的總銷量增長62%，至逾300萬輛，而特斯拉的銷量僅為181萬輛。

In an era when China’s ruling com...st party frequently cracks down on the nation’s business elite, experts believe that Wang, a proponent of high-tech products that help achieve Beijing’s carbon emission reduction goals, is on relatively safe ground.

在中國頻頻整頓國內(nèi)商界精英的時代，專家們認(rèn)為，作為有助于實(shí)現(xiàn)中國政府碳減排目標(biāo)的高科技產(chǎn)品的推動者，王傳福的處境相對安全。

In a rare endorsement, President *** in his annual new year address on Sunday noted that Chinese-made “new energy vehicles” showcased “China’s manufacturing prowess”.

中國在上周日發(fā)表的年度新年賀詞中罕見地表達(dá)了支持，指出國產(chǎn)“新能源汽車……給中國制造增添了新亮色”。

BYD’s battery technology has for several years been taught as part of the curriculum at the elite Tsinghua University in Beijing. High school students now learn about the Tang, BYD’s plug-in hybrid SUV, as part of their physics lessons.

多年來，比亞迪的電池技術(shù)一直是北京精英學(xué)府清華大學(xué)課程的一部分?，F(xiàn)在，高中生們也將比亞迪的插電式混合動力SUV“唐”作為物理課的一部分來學(xué)習(xí)。

Despite Musk’s earlier derision, BYD has been on some car executives’ radar for a few years. In 2021, then-Volkswagen chief Herbert Diess told the Financial Times that the Chinese group was the company the German automaker feared most.

盡管馬斯克早年曾嘲笑過比亞迪，但幾年前比亞迪就已經(jīng)進(jìn)入一些汽車企業(yè)高管的視線之中了。2021年，時任大眾首席執(zhí)行官赫伯特·迪斯告訴英國《金融時報(bào)》，這家德國汽車制造商最害怕的就是比亞迪。

Yet BYD’s recent rise has surprised many in the industry. This is partly because growth accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, when China’s borders were shut.

不過，比亞迪最近的崛起令許多業(yè)內(nèi)人士感到意外。部分原因是，在中國關(guān)閉邊境的新冠疫情期間，該公司增長加速了。

It was Musk’s own decision in late 2022 to chase higher volume in China through price cuts that gave BYD a recent boost. “If I’m shopping on value, BYD has got five models that are cheaper [than Tesla]. And they’re newer,” said Bill Russo, former head of Chrysler in China and founder of advisory firm Automobility.

正是馬斯克自己在2022年底決定通過降價來提高在華銷量，才給比亞迪帶來了最近的提振?？巳R斯勒前中國區(qū)總裁、咨詢公司Automobility創(chuàng)始人羅威說：“如果我想要物有所值，比亞迪有5款車型（比特斯拉）便宜，而且它們更新潮?！?/b>

Having conquered the Chinese market, Wang is now setting his sights on foreign shores. In November BYD management told Citigroup analysts they aimed for a market share of about 10 per cent in overseas markets excluding the US or Europe in the long term. That implies annual overseas sales — outside of two crucial western markets — of 2mn-3mn cars, up from about 240,000 this year, according to Citigroup.

在征服中國市場之后，王傳?，F(xiàn)在將目光投向了海外。去年11月，比亞迪管理層向花旗集團(tuán)分析師表示，他們的長期目標(biāo)是在除美國和歐洲以外的海外市場占據(jù)約10%的份額?；ㄆ旒瘓F(tuán)的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，這意味著除兩個關(guān)鍵西方市場之外的海外年銷量要從今年的約24萬輛增至200萬至300萬輛。

Meanwhile, the group’s prospects in the US and Europe remain uncertain. In Brussels, fears of a wave of Chinese-made cars have led the European commission to probe Beijing’s industrial support as well as boost its own local subsidies.

與此同時，該集團(tuán)在美國和歐洲的前景仍不明朗。在布魯塞爾，對中國制造汽車?yán)顺钡膿?dān)憂已促使歐盟委員會對中國政府的產(chǎn)業(yè)支持展開調(diào)查，并提高了歐盟自身的本土補(bǔ)貼。

Anti-China sentiment in Washington has percolated into the minds of US consumers. While Chinese carmakers are not barred from selling vehicles in the US, they face a 25 per cent tariff and cannot receive EV subsidies available to other manufacturers through the Inflation Reduction Act, which excludes “foreign entities of concern”, which includes China.

華盛頓的反華情緒已滲透到美國消費(fèi)者心中。盡管中國汽車制造商未被禁止在美銷售汽車，但要面臨25%的關(guān)稅，而且無法獲得《降低通脹法》提供給其他制造商的電動汽車補(bǔ)貼，該法排除了“受關(guān)注的外國實(shí)體”，這其中包括中國實(shí)體。

Chinese carmakers need to find a way into North America, the world’s second-largest car market, if they want to maintain growth keep Chinese factories filled, Dunne said. They “really genuinely need the access”, he said. “They understand that doing that by sitting back in China is not an option.”

鄧恩表示，如果中國汽車制造商想要保持增長、充分利用中國工廠產(chǎn)能，就需要找到進(jìn)入全球第二大汽車市場北美的途徑。他說，他們“真真切切需要這種渠道”?！八麄兠靼?，固守在中國是做不到這一點(diǎn)的?！?/b>

However, Chinese car companies including BYD are mostly unproven outside of their home market. “Their business model is contingent on state subsidies,” said Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican ambassador to China and now a partner at Dentons Global Advisors.

然而，包括比亞迪在內(nèi)的中國汽車企業(yè)在本土市場之外大多尚未得到檢驗(yàn)?！八麄兊纳虡I(yè)模式取決于國家補(bǔ)貼?！鼻澳鞲珩v華大使、現(xiàn)任Dentons Global Advisors合伙人的豪爾赫·瓜哈爾多說。

A big test of this would be the company’s plans to build its first European car factory in Hungary.

一個巨大的考驗(yàn)就是該公司計(jì)劃在匈牙利建立的歐洲第一家汽車廠。

“State subsidies are usually also contingent on them producing locally . . . you lose all those advantages once you take the operation outside of China,” Guajardo said.

“國家補(bǔ)貼通常也取決于它們是否在本土生產(chǎn)……一旦你把業(yè)務(wù)移出中國，你就失去了所有這些優(yōu)勢。”瓜哈爾多說。

Experts also point out that Tesla remains a formidable competitor in a fast-growing global market. The US carmaker reported fourth-quarter sales beating analyst forecasts and $7bn in net profit for the first nine months of last year. Its market capitalisation stands at $754bn.

專家還指出，在快速增長的全球市場上，特斯拉仍然是一個可怕的競爭對手。這家美國汽車制造商公布，去年第四季度銷量超出分析師預(yù)期，前9個月實(shí)現(xiàn)凈利潤70億美元。其市值為7540億美元。

Instead, the question many are asking is whether any other EV makers can compete with the economies of scale boasted by Tesla and BYD. In China — the world’s biggest car market — BYD and Tesla soak up 43 per cent of electric vehicle sales.

實(shí)際上，許多人提出的問題是，是否有其他電動汽車制造商能夠與特斯拉和比亞迪具備的規(guī)模經(jīng)濟(jì)競爭。在全球最大的汽車市場中國，比亞迪和特斯拉占據(jù)了電動汽車銷量的43%。

“Tesla need not worry too much,” said Dunne. “Everyone else who builds cars should be gripped by panic.”

“特斯拉不必太擔(dān)心，”鄧恩說，“而所有其他制造汽車的人都應(yīng)該感到恐慌?！?br /> 【中國企業(yè)將英偉達(dá)游戲芯片改用于人工智能】


Chinese companies are resorting to chips repurposed from standard PC gaming products to develop artificial intelligence tools, after Washington blocked US exports of high-performance processors.Thousands of Nvidia gaming graphics cards are being stripped of their core components in factories and workshops every month, before being installed on new circuit boards, according to two factory managers and two chip buyers familiar with the situation.

華盛頓方面禁止美國出口高性能處理器后，中國企業(yè)正在用從標(biāo)準(zhǔn)個人電腦游戲顯卡改變用途的芯片開發(fā)人工智能工具。
據(jù)熟悉情況的兩名工廠經(jīng)理和兩名芯片買家透露，每個月都有數(shù)千張英偉達(dá)游戲顯卡在工廠和車間被拆除核心部件，然后安裝到新的電路板上。

Industry experts said the repurposing of chips from cards designed to be slotted into consumer PC motherboards to improve gaming graphics amounted to a rough workaround to tackle the lack of high-end processors in China.

行業(yè)專家表示，將原本設(shè)計(jì)用于消費(fèi)類個人電腦主板、以改善游戲圖像效果的顯卡上的芯片改變用途，是解決中國高端處理器短缺問題的一種臨時變通辦法。
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While Nvidia’s gamer-focused products have raw computing power, they are not as capable in the high-precision calculations needed for training some large language models with bigger data sets. Due to the limits of interconnection speeds between chips, it is also challenging to overcome this by simply grouping more chips in computing clusters.

雖然英偉達(dá)的游戲芯片擁有強(qiáng)大的計(jì)算能力，但在訓(xùn)練一些具有更大數(shù)據(jù)集的大型語言模型所需的高精度計(jì)算方面，這類芯片的能力就不盡如人意了。由于芯片間互聯(lián)速度的限制，簡單地將更多芯片組合成計(jì)算集群來克服這一問題也很有難度。

“This is a desperate move by Chinese companies under the export controls. Just like using a kitchen knife to create artwork, it’s doable, but the effect is suboptimal,” said Charlie Chai, an analyst at research group 86Research.

研究集團(tuán)86Research分析師Charlie Chai說：“這是中國企業(yè)在美國出口管制下的無奈之舉。就像用菜刀制作藝術(shù)品，雖然可行，但效果并不理想?！?/b>

The Biden administration tightened export controls for cutting-edge AI chips in October, making it more difficult for chip companies such as Nvidia to sell high-performance semiconductors to China.

去年10月，拜登政府收緊了尖端人工智能芯片的出口管制，使得英偉達(dá)等芯片企業(yè)更難向中國銷售高性能半導(dǎo)體。

Demand for the graphics processing units sourced from the gaming cards has surged in the past month, according to people familiar with the situation. One of the factory managers said workers had disassembled more than 4,000 Nvidia gaming cards in December, more than four times the number in November.

據(jù)知情人士透露，過去一個月對從游戲顯卡上拆下來的圖形處理單元的需求激增。其中一位工廠經(jīng)理表示，去年12月工人們拆解了逾4000張英偉達(dá)游戲顯卡，是11月份的逾四倍。

Customers for the repurposed components have been mainly public enterprises and small AI labs, which had not stockpiled enough Nvidia server chips before the new US export controls took effect, according to the two factory managers.

上述兩位工廠經(jīng)理表示，這些改變用途的芯片的客戶主要是公共企業(yè)和小型人工智能實(shí)驗(yàn)室，它們在美國新的出口管制生效之前沒有儲備足夠的英偉達(dá)服務(wù)器芯片。

They declined to reveal more details about their clients due to the sensitivity of the issue.

由于問題的敏感性，他們拒絕透露有關(guān)客戶的更多細(xì)節(jié)。

However, industry experts and analysts warned that modifications to Nvidia’s products violated the company’s intellectual property rights, while some of the gaming cards could be banned from being sold to China at any time.

然而，行業(yè)專家和分析師警告稱，改造英偉達(dá)的產(chǎn)品侵犯了該公司的知識產(chǎn)權(quán)，其中部分游戲顯卡可能隨時被禁止銷往中國。
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Nvidia’s most powerful gaming graphics board, the GeForce RTX 4090, was one of the most popular models to be repurposed, but it has now been blocked from being sold to China, the company said.

英偉達(dá)最強(qiáng)大的游戲顯卡GeForce RTX 4090是改用中最受歡迎的型號，但該公司表示，其已被禁止銷往中國。

To comply with the latest controls, Nvidia came out with a slower version of the banned cards last month, called the GeForce RTX 4090 D, which is 5 per cent slower than versions sold outside China, according to the company.

該公司表示，為了遵守最新管制措施，英偉達(dá)上月推出了一款與被禁型號相比運(yùn)行速度較慢的版本，名為GeForce RTX 4090 D，運(yùn)行速度比在中國以外地區(qū)銷售的顯卡慢5%。

One of the factory managers said the performance gap between the modified versions of the 4090 D and 4090 would be “more significant”, which could mean the slower version was not powerful enough for large language model training. The manager said a batch had been procured for further verification.

其中一位工廠經(jīng)理表示，改造版4090 D和4090之間的性能差距將“更加顯著”，這可能意味著較慢版本的性能不足以進(jìn)行大型語言模型訓(xùn)練。這位經(jīng)理表示，已經(jīng)采購了一批4090 D用于進(jìn)一步驗(yàn)證。

Nvidia told the Financial Times that “disassembling gaming cards is not a viable way to create data centre compute clusters for AI”, adding that gaming products were “designed, manufactured, and marketed for individual gamers and consumers”.

英偉達(dá)向英國《金融時報(bào)》表示，“拆解游戲顯卡不是為人工智能創(chuàng)建數(shù)據(jù)中心計(jì)算集群的可行方式”，并補(bǔ)充稱，游戲顯卡是“為個人游戲玩家和消費(fèi)者設(shè)計(jì)、制造和銷售的”。
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Nvidia has developed three chips tailored for China that meet the region’s growing demand for AI systems while complying with US export controls, enabling the company to maintain its foothold in one of its most important markets.

英偉達(dá)為中國量身定制了三款既滿足其對人工智能系統(tǒng)日益增長的需求，又符合美國出口管制的芯片，使該公司能夠在中國這個對其最重要的市場之一保有立足之地。

However, the performance of these chips is substantially weaker than those previously sold in China, and they will not be widely available until March, according to three people familiar with the situation.

然而，三位知情人士表示，這三款芯片的性能明顯弱于之前在中國銷售的芯片，而且要到3月份才能廣泛上市。
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Chinese customers have also obxted to the prices Nvidia hopes to set for these inferior processors, which are close to those of their more powerful banned counterparts, the three people said.

這三位人士表示，中國客戶也反對英偉達(dá)對這些較低性能處理器的期望定價——與功能更強(qiáng)大的被禁處理器價格接近。
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However, the options for migrating to China’s alternative chip ecosystem under development are limited, leading some companies to turn to Nvidia’s less expensive gaming chips.

不過，轉(zhuǎn)移到中國正在開發(fā)的替代芯片生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的選擇有限，導(dǎo)致一些公司轉(zhuǎn)向英偉達(dá)價格更低的游戲芯片。

“We don’t know whether such a reinvention will be successful, but we hope that these machines will be usable, at least in the short term,” said a buyer.

一位買家說：“我們不知道這種改造能否成功，但我們希望這些機(jī)器至少短期內(nèi)能用?！?br />