When it came to Japanese automakers, their obsession with precision wasn't always about engineering pride—it was about control.
If a family car were rated for a one-ton load and needed a 2 cm steel plate for safety, a Japanese company wouldn't make it 1.9 cm to cut corners. But they wouldn't make it 2.01 either. They'd hit 2.00—exactly.
Every millimeter was costed—every lifespan calculated.
Take wear-and-tear, for example. German and American brands are often built for long-term durability—keep the car alive as long as possible.
But Japanese cars were different.
They built to match replacement cycles.
If the average Chinese family swapped cars every eight years, that's what the parts were tuned for. Flawless for eight years. After that, decay by design.
It worked. Their control systems were unmatched, and their cars perfectly met the needs of budget-conscious buyers.
Whether you liked it or not, Japanese brands had set the benchmark for China's economy car market.
That benchmark made one thing very clear:
Anyone lacking industrial scale or cost-control mastery was going to lose.
Haifeng understood this. And he wasn't planning to step into that arena—not personally.
"The family segment doesn't care about power, performance, or specs. They want fuel efficiency, reliability, and decent comfort. That's it."
He had no illusions about his capacity. Audi's plants were already maxed out printing profits on the A4 and its siblings.
Testing the waters in the budget market with Audi's lines? Wasteful.
But the new money flooding into the industry? Now that was something else.
These "hot cash" companies were desperate to enter the car business, buying up zombie brands for their production licenses.
Haifeng saw them for what they were:
Perfect guinea pigs.
He wasn't going to build cars for the masses, but that didn't mean he wouldn't profit off them.
Still, the state had taken notice.
He'd received word from higher-ups asking whether Audi had plans to move down-market, perhaps even release an ordinary, non-premium brand.
Because if it did, and Haifeng stuck to his usual tactics—high-tech, low-price, and total vertical integration—he'd wipe out half the domestic auto industry overnight.
The A4 had already caused enough pain. If Audi dropped a complete entry-level line, the fallout would be worse.
Haifeng understood.
They weren't asking him to back down.
They were telling him: leave some breathing room.
And he agreed.
He had no intention of entering the low-end market directly.
He couldn't compete on cost—and even if he could, he wouldn't. It wasn't worth it.
But not competing didn't mean not profiting.
So this time, he wasn't selling budget cars.
He was selling powertrain kits—the way Japanese companies did.
Most local automakers didn't make their powertrains anyway. They bought prebuilt engines and gearboxes, slapped them into shells, and sold them under their brands.
And those parts? Expensive. Imported and controlled by foreign OEMs.
Now, those OEMs were jacking up prices by 40% overnight.
So Haifeng wasn't going to be polite.
"Why sell cars when I can sell the engine, the gearbox, and the platform—all without the overhead?"
"Let them build the factory. Let them deal with retail. I'll just collect at the source."
He walked into the lab and got to work.
What kind of tech did these guinea pigs need?
Audi's high-performance engines were out of the way too expensive.
Even the 1.8 THX888 turbo unit had a production cost they couldn't stomach.
So he opened the system mall and browsed.
T/N[1]
"What do I use? Gotta hit the sweet spot. Low-cost, high-reliability."
For the chassis, the answer was easy: front MacPherson, rear multi-link. Simple, cheap, stable. The patent was even in the public domain.
As for the engine and transmission?
After an hour of combing specs, Haifeng found it:
Skyactiv Technology. Mazda's crown jewel from his past life.
Technically, it wasn't a single engine. It was a comprehensive engineering system that balanced fuel efficiency, responsiveness, and cost.
Perfect for the low-end segment.
And in this world? It didn't exist yet.
He dropped 200 million system points to purchase the full Skyactiv suite.
T/N[2]
Then, several engine variants ranging from 1.2L to 3.0L were added in both naturally aspirated and turbocharged flavors.
He could always tweak the tuning if any of these upstart brands wanted to play performance games later.
What mattered now was manufacturability.
The system-generated production lines would guarantee top-tier tolerances. Even if these newcomers didn't know what they were doing, the parts wouldn't fail.
[1] dude finally starts using the system
[2] Does anyone know how the system works? It's been so long.