Summary of the Core Content
This article begins with the newly introduced "native one-touch electric sunroof" feature of Xiaomi's Pengcheng series of cars and raises a very counterintuitive question: The concept of a sunroof that can be raised for camping emerged over sixty or seventy years ago, and the inconvenience of installing and removing a tent on the roof has been well-known to users. So why has it only now become a mass-market car feature that ordinary people can afford?
The article then outlines the evolution of modern industry over the past 200 years: Initially, the focus was on reducing the production cost of a single product through specialization and assembly lines. Later, to meet the diverse needs of consumers, a balance was sought between "product variety" and "cost control" through modular and platform-based design. Today, with the highly dispersed automotive supply chain, the core competition in manufacturing has shifted from "production efficiency" to "coordination efficiency"—that is, the ability to efficiently convey consumers' vague needs to hundreds or thousands of suppliers, allowing the entire industry network to adapt with minimal effort. This makes even seemingly simple features accessible as mass-market products.
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Detailed Explanation
1. Why was the "one-touch sunroof" idea around decades ago not implemented for mass production?
Many might wonder: Isn't it just about adding an electrically operable sunroof structure to a car? It doesn't seem like some advanced aerospace technology. Why didn't car companies think of it decades ago?
The problem wasn't the ability to create such a structure; the challenge was integrating it into mass-produced cars. Numerous modifications were required: the car body's stamping design had to be changed, the sunroof's sealing strips needed new molds, crash safety tests had to be redone, and even the wiring, sunroof position, and interior components had to be adjusted.
Car companies calculated that for such a niche feature, the entire production line and supply chain would need to be modified, resulting in additional costs of several thousand dollars per car. The vast majority of consumers were unwilling to pay for this, and the cost of modifying the molds would not be recouped even with a few thousand units sold. Thus, this seemingly simple feature was hindered by the high comprehensive costs of changing the entire supply chain.
2. The earliest form of industrial efficiency was "everyone stays the same, I produce the same thing repeatedly"
The earliest logic of industrial efficiency was essentially about resisting change:
In early workshops, a carpenter could widen a table by two centimeters on the spot, but they could only make a few tables a day, making them unaffordable for most people. Adam Smith discussed this in "The Wealth of Nations": By dividing the needle-making process into eight steps, ten workers could produce 48,000 needles a day, far more efficiently than one person doing it all.
Ford's assembly line took this logic to its extreme: Early Ford Model T cars were all black, and you couldn't even choose a different color or configuration. The more standardized the products, the cheaper the parts, and the lower the cost per car due to the large production volume. At that time, the main consumer need was to have a car at an affordable price; people didn't care about color or configuration. By producing the same car repeatedly, Ford turned it from a luxury item for the wealthy into a mass-market product.
3. Consumers want variety, so the industrial system focuses on superficial changes while keeping the core unchanged
As more people could afford cars, demands changed: Young people wanted stylish designs, families needed more space, and the market shifted from "having a car" to "which car to get."
If each car model required a new production line and all parts to be made from scratch, costs would soar. So the automotive industry developed a new approach: standardizing the invisible parts of the car while varying the visible aspects.
For example, the Volkswagen MQB platform allows models like the Lavida (around 100,000 RMB), Tiguan (over 200,000 RMB), and Audi A3 (over 300,000 RMB) to share the same chassis, screw holes, and most components. This not only meets different consumer needs but also avoids massive investment in new production lines, keeping costs low.
4. The more fragmented the supply chain, the harder it is to make small changes
The automotive industry is no longer like Ford's large factories that made everything in-house. A car has over 30,000 parts from hundreds of suppliers, each specializing in different components. This division of labor reduces production costs, but it also creates new challenges: When a car company wants to add a small feature, it needs to coordinate with many parties. For instance, implementing a one-touch sunroof requires changes to the car body, sealing strips, and safety tests, as well as adjustments to the interior. Each supplier has to consider whether the new feature will result in additional profits. Even a small modification can become prohibitively expensive due to the coordination costs.
5. Today's top car companies compete in their ability to interpret consumer needs
People often judge companies by their engine technology or battery density, but the most crucial skill is the ability to interpret consumer demands.
Ordinary consumers simply say, "Camping with a tent is too troublesome; I don't want to spend half an hour setting up the roof every time." Car companies must translate this vague complaint into a clear engineering solution: how high the sunroof should rise, what materials to use, and how the interfaces should be designed to meet camping needs without significantly altering the car's structure. The goal is to minimize changes to the supply chain and ensure the additional costs are affordable for consumers, while still generating profits for all suppliers.
In essence, modern industrial competition is about coordinating the entire supply chain to adapt to new consumer demands at the lowest cost. The one-touch sunroof button is the result of two centuries of effort to balance "scale efficiency" with "consumer needs."