Shake off the “baggage” and go into battle.
Editor’s note: This article is from “Future Car Daily” (WeChat public ID: auto-time), author: Pan Lei.
Author | Pan Lei
Edit | Liang Chen
BMW is advancing its transformation plan in the cracks.
On September 20, Bloomberg quoted the German “Manager” magazine as saying that BMW may announce a layoff plan in December, with up to 6,000 layoffs in Germany to cut costs. However, BMW responded to the report and said that it continues to recruit people in the fields of electric vehicles and autonomous driving.
Between reduction and increase, it reflects the contradictory mentality of BMW in the face of this wave of technology triggered by new energy and autonomous driving. On the one hand, BMW has been developing R&D costs for several consecutive years (previous year: 6.89 billion euros), dragging down profitability and stock price movements (down 16% in the past year), cutting costs is imperative; on the other hand, in order to be sustainable To maintain technological competitiveness, it is necessary to invest huge amounts of research and development funds, including continuing to recruit professionals.
In addition to working with peers including Daimler to reduce costs in terms of autonomous driving and mobile travel, BMW’s new CEO, Zeppec, is also logically cut through layoffs, and The position is mainly from the Munich headquarters, he has tried to make personnel adjustments without compromising BMW’s technical competitiveness.
It is worth mentioning that this layoff does not involve BMW’s most potential and its largest single market – China. Considering that China is the world’s largest new energy vehicle market, this is in line with BMW’s continued recruitment of talent, overweight electric vehicles and autonomous driving.
At the industry level, this is not a problem for BMW. After decades of development or even hundreds of years of development, traditional car companies like BMW have accumulated a lot of “baggage”, including some assets that are unattended in the era of electric vehicles. It is a matter of time to be cut.
At the same time, investment in electrification and autonomous driving is difficult to reduce.
According to the British “Economist” report on August 15, the German automotive industry has been slow to adapt to the rise of electric vehicles and autonomous driving, and BMW’s layoff plan shows that sheI am already aware of this.
[I am Pan Lei, the author of the Future Auto Daily, focusing on the automotive industry and forward-looking technology, and are always welcome to exchange and provide news clues. WeChat A10010A123, please add a note name, company, position. 】
