Car headlines

At the moment, Yu Chengdong, who spoke out of line, was given the title of "Yu Dapao" by the outside world.

Twenty years ago, the reputation of this "cannon" probably belonged to Li Shufu.

[A car is just four wheels plus a few sofas.]

"Selling cars in the future is like selling watermelons."

"GM and Ford are going to close sooner or later."

Li Shufu, who said these words at the time, had an even louder nickname –"Car maniac."

However, Li Shufu did not think so.

"Every step I take is in accordance with the national policy."

"I didn’t go beyond my own abilities in making cars, but developed and planned very rationally."

But at the same time, he said, "I have no other hobbies, and I even think about cars when I sleep."

If this is not "crazy", then send it to Li Shufu"Car Maniac"The title is not an exaggeration.

Li Shufu was born not to take the ordinary road.

After graduating from high school, Li Shufu was already tired of this conformist student life.

So he asked people older than him what jobs they would be assigned after college.

Everyone’s answers were different. Some said it was a doctor, a teacher, or a factory.

"They told me whether the monthly salary was 36 yuan or 32 yuan."

"But when I was in school, I spent dozens of dollars a month. If I only had so much after graduating from college, I would feel bored."

At the age of 19, Li Shufu was determined to go on a journey.

In 1982, with 120 yuan from his father, Li Shufu started a "photography business."

"At the beginning, I bought a small camera and rode a broken bicycle all over the street to take pictures of people."

"But when I do these things, I think about what I want to do in the future. I don’t do it for cycling and taking pictures."

"This is by no means a long-term solution, nor is it my pursuit, but I have to do it, or I don’t know where to start."

"My original dream was to open a photo studio."

After a year, Li Shufu earned 2,000 yuan, and he really used the money to open a photo studio.

However, after realizing his ideal, Li Shufu did not stop there.

In the process of developing the photos, Li Shufu found that soaking with a potion could extract the gold and silver from the waste.

Later, he simply closed the photo studio and switched to this gold and silver business.

With such a rapid process of accumulating wealth, Li Shufu began to enter the asset-heavy manufacturing industry.

In 1984, Li Shufu took tens of thousands of yuan and established the "Huangyan County Arctic Flower Refrigerator Factory".

"We have tens of millions of sales and profits every year."

In 1989, Li Shufu’s refrigerator factory produced 600 to 1,000 units a day.

But at this time, the policy began to adjust the fixed-point production of refrigerators, and they needed to be shortlisted for the fixed-point list to be eligible for operation.

Arctic Flowers was not selected, and all the finalists that year were state-owned factories.

In this situation, Li Shufu handed over tens of millions of assets such as factories, inventory, and land to the township government.

Li Shufu, who chose "light body", turned around and went to Shenzhen to go to university, fulfilling his college dream.

In the 1990s, Shenzhen was full of entrepreneurial atmosphere.

Li Shufu, who had just entered the campus, originally only planned to decorate the dormitory with his roommates.

But in the process of visiting the building materials market, he found a building material called "magnesium aluminum curved board", which is very expensive but not expensive, especially there is no domestic manufacturer to produce this product.

Due to the businessperson’s sense of smell, Li Shufu decided to give up his studies and set off for Taizhou to start a business again.

To this end, Li Shufu and several of his brothers jointly invested in 20 million established the "Huangyan Geely Decoration Materials Factory", specializing in the production of magnesium-aluminum curved plates.

"The benefits of building materials are better. It turns out that we are the only one in China, and we all use our own equipment and craftsmanship."

"At that time, these building materials were all imported, and we solved them ourselves, so the efficiency was very good. At that time, everyone queued up to get things, and we produced them."

Li Shufu, who made a lot of money doing everything, has many outstanding personal abilities.

But the components of the opportunity of the times cannot be ignored.

The money earned by luck is also easy to lose back by skill.

In 1992, Li Shufu lost more than 50 million yuan in the "Hainan Real Estate Fever".

"I lost all my money, and no one can come back."

"I can only do business!"

Li Shufu, who exclaimed like this, chose to return to his old job in manufacturing.

This time, he started a career in mobility – motorcycles.

"Once, the Taizhou municipal government organized us to visit and study advanced enterprises. One of them was to visit a motorcycle factory."

"I found that motorcycles are so simple, and I also found that there are business opportunities and a lot of profit margins."

In April 1994, Li Shufu and his brothers established the "Huangyan Huatian Motorcycle Factory".

In June of that year, the first pedal-type luxury motorcycle in China was born at Huatian Motorcycle Factory.

In 1995, Huatian Motorcycle Factory achieved production and sales of 60,000 vehicles.

The following year, production and sales exceeded 200,000 vehicles, and sales exceeded hundreds of millions of yuan.

However, Li Shufu, who has always dared to think and do, did not consider stopping here.

In May 1996, Huangyan Geely Group was renamed"Zhejiang Geely group company".

This reform represents Li Shufu’s official entry into the automotive industry.

"Car Madman",On the way.

Li Shufu explained why he went to build cars.

"Our business was doing well at that time, but I always felt it was too small."

"These hundreds of millions of sales are still a long way from our pursuit, so if we want to expand the development scale of the enterprise, we need product support."

"We didn’t know what product to choose. We also tried a lot of market research and selected a lot of products, but none of them were very successful."

"Once I went to the United States, when I got off the plane, I found that it was a lot different from China. As soon as I got on the expressway, I saw that there were 16 lanes, and they were all packed with cars."

"My idea at that time was how to build this car and sell it to the United States, because isn’t it a lot of cars and a big market?"

Li Shufu, just do it.

Originally, Li Shufu wanted to build a car in his hometown, Luqiao, but the local area never agreed.

After all, at that time, private car manufacturing was not a matter of compliance.

Later, Li Shufu applied for an 800-acre plot of land in Linhai in the name of making motorcycles.

"When we planned the base, we followed the technological process of automobile production, which couldn’t be said at the time."

Although Geely Motorcycle sold on a large scale, taking such a large plot of land at once would inevitably make people suspicious.

Li Shufu responded,"What we want to build is the largest luxury motorcycle industrial park in the country."

Li Shufu, who was determined to do something, soon announced that he would invest 500 million yuan to build a car.

But such investment is just a drop in the bucket for the automotive industry.

Furthermore, Geely still lacked the talent to build cars at that time.

Li Shufu searched through the files of all employees in the company before finding three talents with experience in the automotive industry.

"If there is a fourth engineer, and he is the chief engineer, that would be me (Li Shufu)."

Li Shufu, who was short of people and money, was not favored by the outside world.

"I decided to build a car, and everyone else took it as a joke, including my brother and my brother."

"I secretly told myself to build a car and show it to them, and my car production history began slowly."

Without the conditions, Li Shufu personally created the conditions.

He bought several Mercedes-Benz and Red Flag cars to study and improve the design drawings through reverse learning.

Then through the patchwork of various parts,"Geely One"Officially born.

The car is assembled like this, but can the quality pass?

At the symposium on the success of the "Geely One" test, most people were not optimistic.

But here’s the thing."Production Qualification"Once again, it became Li Shufu’s dilemma.

Li Shufu first found the local economic commission and got an "impossible" answer.

Afterwards, he kept searching until he found the Machinery Industry Hall at that time.

The other party asked Li Shufu, "Do you know how to build a car? Do you know where the engine comes from? Where does the money and technology come from?"

Li Shufu, who lacked confidence at that time, hurriedly said, "I don’t produce cars."

"But, can I study it first?"

for"Research."The minister did not give clear instructions on this statement –"You research, that’s your business, it has nothing to do with us."

Without explicit support or opposition, Li Shufu paid attention to it"Continuing research."Meaning.

In the past, cars were divided into seven categories in China –

"1" is a truck, "2" is an off-road vehicle, "3" is a dump truck, "4" is a tractor, "5" is a special vehicle, "6" is a passenger car, and "7" is a sedan.

Among them, the difference between "6" and "7" is not big, like the hatchback at that time was defined as a passenger car, while the sedan had the qualification of a sedan.

In this regard, Li Shufu, who did not have the qualifications for a car, decisively chose to start with a hatchback.

The reason for this was also the popularity of Tianjin Xiali at that time.

On this basis, Li Shufu also proposed the "Three-Five Plan" –5 liters of oil, 50,000 yuan/vehicle, 5 people sitting.

This is the later version of the Haoqing hatchback.

On August 8, 1998, at 8 am, Geely Haoqing officially went offline.

On this specially chosen day, Li Shufu wanted to have a big feast to celebrate.

With more than 700 invitations and 100 tables of banquets, Li Shufu was not stingy.

However, some people were still unwilling to attend.

"When we started building cars, it was treated as a crime, as if it was a rebellious thing."

"I personally invited some officials, but no one came except the vice governor of Zhejiang Province."

"They are all afraid and think we are committing a crime."

[The arrival of the vice governor has given us great encouragement and encouraged us to continue to support.]

After the first batch of Haoqing produced more than 100 vehicles, Geely invited a group of dealers to take a look at the cars.

But unfortunately, those cars couldn’t even pass the rain test, and naturally they couldn’t get the dealer’s favor.

At this time, Li Shufu made a decision-"Destroy these cars with road rollers."I would rather lose millions than scrap these more than 100 cars.

It was not until November 1999 that the re-produced pride was officially put on the market.

Geely Auto is on sale.

In the year that Geely Auto entered the market, Li Shufu also had such a story.

That year, when Zeng Peiyan, then the director of the State Planning Commission, inspected the local economy, Li Shufu gave a detailed report on the car construction work over the years.

"I don’t think a car has four wheels and several sofas?"

"Let’s do some exploration and use the mechanism of private enterprises, just like making motorcycles back then."

[Geely doesn’t want a penny from the country, doesn’t lend a penny to the bank, and all funds are at its own risk.]

"Can you give me a chance to fail? Let’s try!"

Zeng Peiyan replied, "I don’t object to you building cars."

Later, the same reporter went back and wrote a report – "Please give me a chance to fail".

An auspicious elder said in his recollection,"Because of the issue of the birth permit, I heard Li Shufu crying several times at night."

In order to obtain production qualifications, Li Shufu tried different methods. He once wanted to learn from Chery and become affiliated with SAIC, so he actively contacted GM and FAW, but to no avail.

Later, he found Jiangnan Automotive Industry Co., Ltd., and established a new joint venture company "Jiangnan Geely Automobile Company" with the other party by investing 24 million yuan, and the other party accounted for 51% of the shares.

This time, it cleared the way for approval.

More importantly, two important reforms were introduced in 2001.

1. The 16-year implementation of the Catalogue management measures has ended.And we’ve got Proclamation.The main change is that the State Economic and Trade Commission has taken over the management functions of the automobile industry.

Li Shufu believes that,"Without the Proclamation, we would have been sentenced to death."

"Because without it, the state doesn’t allow us to develop new products. If we always sell old-fashioned cars, how can we arouse users’ desire to buy them?"

2.China joined the WTO.This is also another important change.

An Conghui once analyzed this, probably in the opinion of the relevant departments, since foreign capital is coming in, it is better to let Geely go and let foreign capital have one more competitor.

Li Shufu also agrees with this statement, noting that"Without entering the WTO, there is no good luck."

On October 31, 2001, the announcement of "Vehicle Manufacturers and Products (Sixth Batch) " was released, and Geely JL6360 was listed on the list.

On December 26, Haoqing and Meirui were included in the seventh batch of announcements.

Geely became the first private enterprise to obtain a car production qualification.

"Build good cars that ordinary people can afford",This was Geely’s development goal when it first built a car.

Low prices are largely Geely’s development weapon.

"The automotive industry has been around for more than a hundred years, and the mid- to low-end technologies are all open."

"No one believed me when I said I wanted to build a car for 3-50,000 yuan, saying that such a car must be patchwork and fake."

"They have air conditioners, stereos, automatic doors and windows, and cylinder pistons. Our car is only 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, but there is not a single part missing."

"Later, other cars also dropped to 30,000, and people suddenly realized that Li Shufu did not lie to me. Thirty-five thousand can really buy a car, and Geely’s car is easy to sell."

Li Shufu, who was questioned back then, was not afraid to reveal his attitude.

However, after receiving the birth permit, Li Shufu also knew that it was impossible to maintain the original low-price competition route.

Therefore, how to enhance his own competitive strength became a major concern for Li Shufu.

So he decided –Eliminate the original family-style enterprise management and carry out modern share transformation.

In May 2002, Li Shufu announced that he would hand over the management and operation of Geely Group to two new recruits – Xu Gang and Bo Yang.

Among them, Xu Gang served as CEO of Geely Group, Li Shufu was replaced as chairperson, and the other three Li brothers withdrew from the decision-making level.

From then on, Geely entered the "era of managers".

Geely’s transformation of modern enterprise management is inseparable from going to IPO.

To this end, Li Shufu proposed the "Geely Development Trilogy" –Production and sales reached 300,000 in 2005, 1 million in 2010, and 2 million in 2015.

At the same time, Geely has also taken the initiative to cooperate with South Korea’s Daewoo, striving to improve its own car manufacturing level.

Among them, Li Shufu gave such a high evaluation of the freedom ship jointly built by the two sides –

[The Freedom Ship represents Geely’s entry into the era of high-level, large-scale, and modern car manufacturing.]

As the climax of this round of auspicious upward development, there is also the Ningbo Declaration in May 2007.

At that time, Li Shufu announced to the outside world,From now on, Geely will build safe, environmentally friendly, and energy-saving cars, allowing Geely cars to travel all over the world.

As a result, Geely took the initiative to stop production of the "old three" Haoqing, America, Japan and Ulio, and proposed not to manufacture models under 50,000 yuan.

Li Shufu, who was determined, even threw away the original equipment and molds, even though the factory building was flattened.

"I just want to break the boat and launch a new one on a completely clean foundation."

If it weren’t for this determination, Geely might not have created the Emgrand EC7, which has had a good harvest in sales and reputation.

In this way, the Emgrand brand and An Conghui at that time may not have the opportunity to break through.

All of this influenced Geely’s later story line.

At a summit forum in 2001, Li Shufu said,Building a car is not a particularly difficult task, just like building a bicycle.

"GM and Ford are going to close their doors sooner or later, but small and medium-sized enterprises like ours will survive and become more and more competitive."

At the Geely Business Conference in 2008, Li Shufu said again –

"When I was interacting with students from Jilin University, I told everyone that your mission is to drive Toyota and Honda out of China."

"I may not be able to do it in my lifetime, but together, I think it’s entirely possible, not nonsense."

"I’m not saying this to embolden myself, nor do I have any resentment towards Toyota or Honda. It’s the law of the market."

Li Shufu, who has long disliked foreign brands, is determined to stand at the center of the world stage.

In 2005, Geely Automobile went public in Hong Kong.

After the wallet bloated, Geely officially launched the "buy buy buy" mode.

What many people may not know is that Geely was also involved before SAIC and Rover sealed the deal.

"At that time, SAIC did not acquire, so Rover came to us."

"Rover is a company that I am very familiar with. I have been there five or six times, and they have come several times. We have talked very well, and the cooperation agreement has been drafted."

"If Rover were to do it in our hands, it would definitely do well. I don’t know how it would do if it wasn’t done in our hands now."

Li Shufu once mentioned such past events.

After failing to buy Rover, Li Shufu continued to seek targets in the UK.

In October 2006, Geely invested 40 million pounds to acquire a 19.97% stake in the London Taxi Company controlled by British Manganese Bronze.

Geely’s Shanghai Huapu and Manganese Bronze form a joint venture"British Dihua",The latter established a factory in China and produced the TX4 London taxi in Shanghai.

This acquisition has also changed Geely’s brand deployment.

Shanghai Huapu, which was originally planned to be a mid-to-high-end brand, was relegated to a production base, and Geely turned to the new brand of British Dihua.

Later,Global Hawk, Emgrand, British Dihua.It has become Geely’s three major brand breakthrough points.

Among them, Geely GE, known as "Little Rolls-Royce", was intended to be launched as a model of British Dihua, but it was not implemented later.

"What was my original motivation? If you want to make a big impact in the international market, you have to try your skills first, otherwise you don’t know what’s going on."

"Geely first listed in Hong Kong in 2005, and with the money raised from the stock market, it acquired shares in the British Manganese Bronze Company."

"Then we will produce London taxis in China through British Dihua, and bring the money back from London to Shanghai."

[A sum of money did three things.]

Li Shufu, who started his business at an early age, is no less adept in the face of capital games.

After tasting the taste of success, Li Shufu quickly resumed his search for prey.

This time, it’s Volvo.

In 2007, as the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States became increasingly tense, Ford was already in a financial quagmire.

Li Shufu, who saw the opportunity, first applied to Ford for the acquisition of Volvo by registered letter in September of that year.

But the reply he got was,Do you know how much sales Volvo has a year? 15 billion dollars, which is equivalent to more than 100 billion yuan!

During the Detroit auto show in January 2008, Li Shufu finally met Dawn Leclerc, then Ford’s CFO, through a public relations firm.

It is worth mentioning that Ray Claire once took the initiative to mention to Li Shufu,"Ford is planning to sell Jaguar and Land Rover, and Geely is welcome to join the bid."

Later, Geely offered 300 million pounds for Jaguar Land Rover, but compared with India’s Tata Group’s 1.30 billion pounds, the latter naturally won the bid.

As a result, Geely will focus its bidding on Volvo.

In fact, there is a debate within Ford about whether to sell Volvo.

It is reported that the safety tone of the Volvo brand is particularly in line with the taste of Ford boss Bill Ford.

Therefore, Ford would rather sell Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover first than put Volvo, which is still losing money, on the shelf early.

But under the continuous impact of the financial crisis, Ford also had to come to this point.

December 2007Ford has announced the possible sale of Volvo cars.

From then on, the takeover battle began.

In terms of access to water, Changan actually had an advantage as a joint venture partner of Ford and Volvo in China at that time.

In addition, during the same period, it was reported that Chinese automakers participating in the bid for Volvo also included Chery, Dongfeng, BAIC, and others.

As a private representative, Geely has to compete for gems among state-owned enterprises.

However, at the time, Li Shufu denied that any competitors were involved in the bidding.

"Where is there an opponent, no, they don’t dare."

"I don’t dare to ask for it, it is said that the Shuanglong bought by SAIC is not good, which one dares to ask for it?"

In September 2009, Geely first confirmed its bid for Volvo.

In the same month, Ford announced that Geely had become the preferred bidder for Volvo.

In December, Yao Jian, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce, said that the Ministry of Commerce supported Geely’s acquisition of Volvo.

On December 23, Geely announced that it had reached an agreement with Ford on all important commercial terms for the acquisition of Volvo, and the negotiations were in the final stage.

March 28, 2010Geely officially acquired 100% of Volvo Cars in Sweden for $1.80 billion.

In 1999, Ford bought Volvo for $6.40 billion.

After 10 years, Ford sold it to Geely for less than 30% off.

In fact, Ford originally offered $3.50 billion.

But Geely found through calculations that Volvo’s investment in research and development expenses and fixed assets in the next three years has decreased by $1.70 billion compared with the previous one.

Without R & D investment, there is no recovery in sales, and Volvo lost about $1.90 billion in 2008.

From this, Geely found room for negotiation.

It is worth noting that the total assets of Geely Group at that time were less than 20 billion yuan.

Volvo has a carrying value of $2.40 billion and sales of $12.40 billion in 2009.

This "snake swallows elephant" story is quite incredible.

Furthermore, Geely’s bid is not as high as "Number 1".

In December 2009, the American Crown Group suddenly came out of nowhere and offered Ford a higher price.

However, Ford still chose to sell to Geely. Why is that?

At that time, the United States was in the midst of a financial crisis, and in addition to relying on quantitative easing monetary policy to save itself, China’s participation was also indispensable.

At that time, China bought a large amount of US Treasury bonds, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities, which benefited from such a huge injection of water to extinguish the "financial fire" in the United States.

The background of the honeymoon period between China and the United States has easily cleared the way for Geely’s cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

Later, Geely’s overseas acquisitions went unchecked.

Australia’s DSI Transmission Company, Proton and Lotus, Daimler-Benz nearly 10% stake, Aston Martin nearly 8% stake, etc., Geely has all included them one by one.

The current Geely has already successfully established itself at the center of the world stage.

An Conghui has outlined several key adjustments to Geely.

1. 2003-2004.

Geely adjusted its personnel structure and improved its production infrastructure until the birth of the Freedom Ship, which marked Geely’s achievement of true "independent research and development".

From 2007 to 2008.

Geely issued the "Ningbo Declaration", establishing theThe 24-word development strategy of "overall follow, partial transcendence, key breakthroughs, recruitment, joint vertical and horizontal, and catch up from behind".

This move signals that the company has a clear and correct strategic plan.

3. From 2013 to 2014.

From the multi-brand value proposition to "one Geely", and launched Geely’s "boutique car" strategy.

From 2018, Geely entered the fourth round of adjustment.

This round of adjustment has clarified the strategic resolve of the enterprise, which is[Lay the foundation, practice internal skills, be solid, there is no shortcut.]

An Conghui emphasized that,"We are ready to fight a protracted war."

In this new phase,"New Energy"It began to dominate.

When Borui GE went public in 2018, An Conghui pointed out that –

"This year is the first year for Geely to fully enter the new energy vehicle market. Starting with Borui GE, Geely’s new products will be electrified in the future."

In fact, as early as 2015, Geely first proposed"Blue Geely Action Plan",We aim to sell more than 90% of new energy vehicles by 2020.

Among them, the sales of plug-in and gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles accounted for 65%, and pure electric vehicles accounted for 35%.

In the same period, taking advantage of the dividends of the CEVT R & D center jointly established by Geely and Volvo in 2013, the two parties will cooperate to build a PMA pure electric architecture.

This was also the precursor to today’s vast architecture of SEA.

PMA was renamed "Vast", which broke through the connotation of boundaries and actually meant the open sharing of the architecture.

In his speech at the Longwan Forum in May 2018, Li Shufu mentioned –

"The automotive industry is characterized by openness, cooperation, and collaboration. Anyone who goes it alone and participates in industry competition behind closed doors has little chance of success."

"Geely is willing to share the new generation of pure electric architectures and modules currently being developed, which is conducive to the generation of scale and efficiency."

"It will also help Chinese cars increase their market share, from the low-end to the high-end."

The idea of cooperation that few people paid attention to at the time later became a reality.

Nowadays, many brands such as Krypton, Jitsu, Lynk & Co, Galaxy, Volvo, Polaris, Lotus, and Smart have launched a vast number of architecture models one after another.

The vast structure of the stars and the moon also points to Geely’s leadership role in the new energy track.

From January to May this year, Geely Holding Group’s cumulative sales exceeded 1.23 million vehicles, an increase of 27.9% year-on-year.

Among them, the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles were close to 468,000, an increase of 48.8% year-on-year.

Li Shufu, who proposed win-win cooperation six years ago, has won again.

Six years ago, Li Shufu also said,"Geely will transform into a" global innovative technology conglomerate. "

At the Boyue PRO conference at that time, An Conghui pointed out that,"Geely has become the first car company to deeply define and lead the development of the core technology of automotive chips."

In 2021, the "Smart Geely 2025" strategy was officially released, and Geely announced the construction of "one network and three systems".

Among them, "One Network" refers to the "Intelligent Geely Technology Ecological Network", a self-developed system and ecological alliance built around chips, software operating systems, data and satellite networks.

In June 2022, the first orbit of the "Geely Future Travel Constellation" was successfully launched in the form of nine stars with one arrow.

In 2023, the first domestic car-grade 7-nanometer chip will be launched in China"Dragon Eagle One"Officially mass-produced, Lynk & Co 08 became the first model to be equipped with applications.

In addition, the "car, road, cloud, network, map" integrated computing power base built by Geely last year –"Geely Star Smart Computing Center"Unveil Online.

Thanks to this, Geely will be able to continuously accelerate the application iteration of AI technology and empower the smart cockpit and smart driving.

Today, Geely has become a global innovative technology enterprise group.

It originated in automobiles, but it has long since transcended the role of automakers.

No one dared to look down on this behemoth in the world.

Li Shufu said,"The future of Chinese cars is private."

At that time he thought,If a Chinese brand wants to become a world-renowned brand, it is impossible to achieve it without a history of decades or hundreds of years.

Chinese auto companies want to have their own technological accumulation, which cannot be achieved without decades or centuries.

Li Shufu, who was a straight-talking young man, was once called a "car madman" by the outside world.

In his heart, Li Shufu did not deny the disparity in strength with foreign brands.

It is precisely because of this that he has made great efforts to promote Geely’s adjustment and upgrading again and again.

These efforts have propelled Geely to the top of the Chinese brand of passenger cars and to the center of the world stage.

Car madman, come true.