Write on the front:
In 2021, your eyes are more on that industry?
energy? medical? internet? real estate? Education and training? These industries have their own ups and downs in 2021, and the stories are enough ups and downs. In contrast, the technology industry seems to be slightly inferior in this year, whether it is good or bad, it is not particularly impressive.
But if you look back carefully, you will find that this is actually a year when the technology motor is running at high speed. Technological advances, industry changes, and even various sci-fi concepts have poured in during the year, forming a story that is enough to be enough to be enough to be imaginative.
Technology 2021 is a topic that people can't help but "gossip" at the end of the year. So let's really "gossip", right?
The progress bar in 2021 is about to end, and looking back at the development of the entire technology industry, you will find that there is a particularly obvious outlet - car-making fever.
In Zhou Yi's Gossip, the departure symbolizes fire, which has the meaning of light and endless operation. The scene of car-making fever corresponds to the heat of separation, which may best reflect the common carnival of car companies, Internet companies, technology companies and capital.
The spread of this "fire" began in early 2021.
Since January, Baidu and Geely have announced that they have joined forces to jointly create Jidu Automobile to enter the ranks of smart car manufacturing. Mobile phone manufacturer Xiaomi announced in March that it officially set up a smart electric vehicle project, with an initial investment of 10 billion yuan and plans to invest 10 billion US dollars in the next ten years to build cars; 360 Group announced in May that it cooperated with Nezha Automobile to participate in car manufacturing; Jingdong entered the sky, and the Ningde era bound AIWAYS Automobile; and Ali, Didi, Apple, Evergrande, Skyworth, and OPPO all announced their entry into car manufacturing. Internet giants, home appliance companies, mobile phone manufacturers and even real estate developers, in the eyes of the public, these companies that have nothing to do with cars have begun to build cross-border cars, which is dazzling.
Car manufacturing is not a simple thing, the industrial chain and the return cycle are very long, to go through a series of processes of market research, product development, vehicle manufacturing, supply chain management, the investment of manpower, material resources, financial resources is a bottomless pit. Take Wei Xiaoli, the representative of the new power of new energy vehicle manufacturing, in recent years, it has been in a state of loss, with a loss of 5.304 billion yuan in 2020, a loss of 2.732 billion yuan for Xiaopeng, and an ideal loss of 152 million yuan. Knowing that many companies in the deep pit still choose to enter the first iron in this situation, what is the reason why they are optimistic? What is the underlying logic that drives the investment of real money and silver in these big factories to participate in the next scene? With the mud and sand, is there a possibility of cold field for car construction? What causes cooling?
The industry where the car-making fever occurs is inevitable
Behind the hustle and bustle of this car-making feast, the desire of technology giants and capital markets is clearly pointing to the value wealth behind the policy and industrial trend.
Many companies are optimistic about car manufacturing, is to see the changes in the car business model, including "software-defined car" under the new energy vehicle subscription payment service, etc., some technology companies and home appliance giants in the system, software, core components and other fields have a deep accumulation of technology, from the related fields into electric vehicles, intelligent cars, can make their own technology in new areas to play, than the early car-making new forces feel the stones across the river can be more effective with half the effort. In general, the origin of this car-making boom mainly stems from these three opportunities and the underlying logic.
1. Under the change of green energy development demand, the industry needs to go hand in hand with national development strategies and policies. Under the formulation of the dual carbon strategic goal, the entire industrial chain needs to use this strategy as the basis for development, and the development of the green economy has become a strategy rather than a slogan. Accelerating energy conservation and emission reduction and helping to achieve the goal of double carbon have become a new driving force for China's development of new energy vehicles.
In the field of transportation, which accounts for a large proportion of carbon emissions in human activities, the state has also issued a series of policies to guide and support the development of industries. For example, the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" issued by the state in 2020 proposes that by 2025, the sales of new cars with partially autonomous driving and conditional autonomous driving intelligent networked vehicles will account for more than 50%, and the sales of new energy vehicles will increase from 5% in 2025 to 20%. In the context of a special economy like China, policy is an important weather vane, and enterprises and capital value the market potential of new energy vehicles under the support and drive of policies.
2. Driven by 5G, AI, cloud computing and other new technologies, the automobile as a must-have for transportation has become a comprehensive industrial-grade product carrying these cutting-edge technologies, developing in the direction of electrification and intelligence. The combination of these technologies and products is a new growth point and trend valued by enterprises. Behind the birth of a new outlet, there is often a shadow of technological empowerment. A prominent feature of this round of car-making fever is the large number of cross-border interventions of some technology companies with deep technical levels. These Internet technology companies are facing the pressure of opening up new tracks and new growth under the background of shrinking traffic and dividends and slowing industry growth. At the technical level, they have accumulated technologies such as control systems, AI algorithms, 5G communications and other fields in the process of development over the years, and the combination of these technical advantages and the automotive industry will also release huge value and wealth potential.
3. Under the upgrading of the Internet of Vehicles technology, smart cars have become new consumer goods with novel and rich functions similar to mobile terminals, with rich market potential. The car is an indispensable means of transportation for modern families, and the cockpit has become a four-wheel drive device that meets a variety of entertainment needs, such as audio-visual functions and information search, office and other needs. User experience has the need to continuously improve and upgrade, the car can carry the public entertainment and comfortable and convenient experience, the car, a more daily consumer product, brings the convenience of public life and the upgrading of the consumer experience, which also means a huge market and investment prospects.
Driven by national policies, industries and consumption trends, this vigorous car-making activity burned from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. The companies that flock to the market are snooping on the trend and embracing the change. And we borrow the sales of new energy vehicles, the acceptance of industrial changes by market consumers, and we can also see the popularity and prospects of this car-making heat.
According to data from the China Passenger Vehicle Association, compared with last year's national new energy sales data, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in 2020 was 1.109 million, while the sales volume in the first half of 2021 basically equaled the whole year of 2020. From January to November, the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles were 2.514 million units, an increase of 178.3% year-on-year, and the overall new energy market accounted for almost 20% of the narrow passenger car market. Consumers have changed from being anxious about the choice of electric vehicles to being able to rationally look at new energy vehicles and accept them, and the market has shifted to an increase in individual users.
All in all, the new car is a track with high heat, but from its development trajectory, it is still in its infancy.
Different routes, different fireworks
In this fiery wind direction, there are also countless voices of doubt such as the car-making bubble theory, after all, in the new energy industry that is a pioneer, there are already bodies on the road to car-making, such as Byton, Sailin, Bo County, etc. Abandoned parks and semi-finished factories, tens of billions of government investments, are all talking about the risks of this movement. However, unlike the previous new energy vehicles, these later technology companies have undergone very big changes. In the outlet of software-defined cars, they will not touch the manufacturing process, quality management, supply chain management and other categories that they do not understand, but use their own technical advantages to make up for the shortcomings of the automobile's path to electrification and intelligent evolution.
Behind the participation in this round of car-making fever, most of the companies we see are mainly Internet technology companies with strong technical strength. In the development gears of intelligent driving and the Internet of Everything that has not yet been fully commercialized, they intervene in the field of car manufacturing, and they also choose to use software capabilities as a barrier to competition, and participating in it, this way of entering the market is also a manifestation of prudent thinking. However, there are also strong companies that have entered the market as vehicle manufacturers.
For example, Xiaomi is involved in car manufacturing as an automaker, at present, Xiaomi Automobile has begun to settle in the Beijing Economic Development Zone as the headquarters for development, and the vehicle factory will also be established in two phases, Xiaomi announced that it is expected that the first car will be off the production line in 2024. In the cooperation with Geely Automobile, Baidu, as a vehicle manufacturer, has formed a smart car company with Geely , Jidu Automobile, accounting for 55% of the shares, but in essence, as the main provider of intelligent technology, the process and supply chain of automobile manufacturing should be the main provider of Geely. The cooperation between 360 and Nezha Automobile is to empower its own technology and experience in the fields of network security, intelligent hardware security, and vehicle networking security to Nezha Automobile, and cut into the direction of intelligent networked vehicle security services.
This round of car-making fever is basically based on the above two models, one is as a vehicle manufacturer, and the other is as a technology provider. The routes of enterprises participating in car manufacturing are different according to their own technical output, and this is also the core advantage of this car-making fever.
In cooperation with automakers, how to position itself is the biggest challenge to test the participation of this round of technology companies in car manufacturing. These technology giants are good at different fields, and they need to think about their outstanding advantages, which is also the key to non-homogeneous development. This will also allow enterprises to build an irreplaceable, autonomous and controllable key link in the lengthy supply chain. The new car-making forces must have technological innovation and real talent in order to win the support of the market; otherwise, if they just want to take the opportunity to play the capital game and make quick money, the end of the organ's calculation is to finally miss Qingqing's life.
Of course, the car-making fever is obviously not only to bring capital and market succession and fanaticism, but also to make the industry blossom. Traditional car companies, Internet technology companies, cross-border giants, etc. will complement the automobile industry according to their respective advantages, and different development paths and advantages will also create different product experiences and business logic, and the sparks of these thinking will become the fuel that drives the development of the industry. The automotive industry chain is long and complex, no matter which end occupies the upstream and downstream, entering the market is only the beginning, with the qualifications of the card table, whether it can continue to fight, become a winner to stay until the end, is also a protracted battle.
Next, where will the car go?
The release of policy and technology dividends is a change that has occurred in the past two years. Whether it is the popularity of new energy vehicles, the transformation of communication networks from 4G to 5G, or the upgrading of V2X and digitalization in the cockpit, it has brought new opportunities to participating players. The changes in these trends also determine the production methods of automobiles, product forms and business models of enterprises. Facing the future, players also have three clear developments and trends in the process of building cars.
First, in the process of the evolution of the intelligent path, the top-level design in the field of intelligent transportation is the standard first, and it is necessary to improve the technical system and standardization system of intelligent vehicles. Standards and technical guidelines regulate the healthy and orderly development of the industry, providing important prerequisites for the commercialization of smart cars, and there will be close cooperation between national institutions and industry industries, and more detailed and comprehensive rules and standards will gradually be launched.
Second, cutting-edge technologies based on AI technology are deeply applied in the field of car manufacturing. On the basis of the original, car manufacturing will strengthen the innovative application of new technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and AI. According to the specific scenarios of the transportation industry, the data, business and algorithm of the model are integrated to open up the gap between the data model and the traditional business application. Not only to the depth and intelligence of each subsystem of the system, but also to achieve horizontal integration between the systems, stimulate more intelligent applications, data fusion and sharing between the systems has become the development trend of automobiles and intelligent transportation systems.
Third, from the intelligent acceleration of bicycles to the evolution of the vehicle-road cloud collaboration of the Internet of Vehicles and The Internet of Vehicles. With the superposition of the load-bearing network capacity required by the vehicle communication system, as well as the gradual landing of 5G technology and C-V2X technology, car-making players will face more comprehensive perception of the completion of road traffic infrastructure, comprehensive and intelligent traffic management system and global control of the automatic driving travel system will gradually improve. Based on the high-speed, low-latency, and wide-connectivity characteristics of 5G networks, this change has gone to practice.
We look back at the wave of car-making fever from the time interval of one year, and we will find that not only are there new car-making forces announcing their entry, but also the advent of new technologies and vehicles, such as the commercialization of a number of intelligent electric trucks and intelligent cars, etc., and cities are also planning and creating soil for enterprise car-making, such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities to newly add planned intelligent networked vehicle test areas, these progress and changes are impressive.
In 2021, robotaxi autonomous driving commercialization of the first single landing, 5G, the successful application of car networking technology at the road end and the car terminal, etc., the continuous coverage and construction of a number of smart roads are the key milestones marking this year, and under the trend of intelligent transformation in these transportation fields, major Internet manufacturers and technology giants continue to expand their territory along these trends on the road to car building, becoming a step by step solid footprint in the grand background of this year, these footprints are worth recording.
If we stretch the timeline and look at the past and the future, we will find that the entire transportation field has undergone qualitative changes. In the past, when imagining the future, we will only lament the upgrading of transportation, and will not see the trend changes in road infrastructure and other fields. And now imagine the future, under the watering of cutting-edge technologies such as a new generation of 5G communication technology, power batteries, AI, cloud computing, etc., the car will take this express train to go to the far away without limit, the imagination has been barren, I think of the heavens, what about you?