In the domestic electric vehicle market, a new brand has recently been released. On December 15th, the debut and brand launch of Box Auto (Beijing Box Zhixing Technology Co., Ltd.) was held in Beijing. Unlike other new car brands, Box Cars will focus on the car, online car, taxi market and high-end rental market.
From the perspective of competitors, the Didi D1, which is manufactured by BYD, will become a direct competitor of box cars.
Is the box car product strong?
At the press conference, Box Auto launched two models, namely the BM-400 for the chauffeur-hailing, ride-hailing and taxi markets, and the BM-600 for the mid-to-high-end rental market.
From the perspective of modeling, the biggest feature of the box car is that a large number of square designs are used in the shape of the whole vehicle. In addition to the appearance of the vehicle, including the windows, rearview mirrors, front and rear light groups are all square design.
The advantage of how to design is that, on the one hand, the space inside the vehicle can be guaranteed, for the customers of the online car, the space inside the car is far more important than the shape and wind resistance coefficient; on the other hand, the recognition of the whole vehicle is higher, which is also of great help to promote the brand, even if it is considered by consumers to be a bit dazed, but it is also convenient for people to remember.
From the perspective of cruising range, the BM-400 provides two versions of the endurance, which are 420km and 530km; the BM-600 has a higher endurance, reaching 600km.
Purely from the data point of view, in the context of many new models in China NEDC endurance impact 1000 km, 400, 500 km endurance performance is not eye-catching, but the box car has planned 240kW and 480kW two kinds of supercharged pile scheme, the maximum voltage of 1000V. It is expected that in 2022, the 10-minute charging endurance can exceed about 200 kilometers, and the 10-minute charging range in 2023 will exceed 400 kilometers.
Octopus Platform + HIGH DO became the cornerstone of the box car
For box cars, the octopus platform with strong scalability and versatility is the key to achieving the entire company strategy. The chassis components of the BM-400 and BM-600 built on the modular chassis of the box car's self-developed "Octopus" 1.0 platform have up to 95% versatility, and can be adapted to different spaces and bodies based on actual needs, and are compatible with different battery modules.
In the "Octopus" 2.0 era, through the linear control of the movement and the steering of the skateboard platform, the entire platform will gradually have advanced intelligent driving functions. In addition, the "Octopus" 2.0 platform can also support three driving forms: front drive, rear drive and four wheel drive, and can use the power battery CTC structure.
However, the biggest highlight of "Octopus" 2.0 is that it can provide customers with deeply customized services, including chassis body design, completely open source remote control interface and reserved sensor installation space, etc., which can give customers maximum design freedom and few constraints.
In terms of intelligent networking, Box Car has also created a customizable intelligent interaction system - HIGH DO. The system not only integrates traditional entertainment services such as games, live broadcasting, on-demand, and singing K, but also has functions such as in-car machine vision technology application, vehicle networking, and in-vehicle intelligent control. In addition, as an online ride-hailing/taxi, it can also access smart city and smart transportation services, and push various advertising services and news to consumers.
Flexible operating model
For box cars, there are three ways to choose from their future.
The first is to build your own mobility fleet and mobility company to achieve internal digestion. However, operating such a heavy asset as a mobility company requires a lot of capital to invest in it, and it is difficult to obtain benefits in the short term. This requires Box Cars to find investors willing to make long-term investments to help Box Cars operate the mobile travel market.
The second is to cooperate with domestic mobility companies to sell the models of box cars directly to mobility companies. The advantage of this is that you can save a lot of expenses, but you may also face more fierce bargaining by mobility companies.
Third, the box car can sell the platform to a third-party company for secondary development of the platform based on the box car.
So from the model point of view, the box car is still very flexible. In other words, how to achieve maximum benefits, what kind of model to adopt.
Another point has to be mentioned that the box car can also be placed in the car vending machine, providing hot and cold drinks, snacks, rain ponchos and other ready-to-use goods, and can even provide seat massage, car KTV, somatosensory games and other services, which will also become a new profit point. As for pushing ads in the car, if the advertising revenue can be shared with passengers, it is estimated that many passengers will also be willing to use the time on the road to earn a little fare for themselves.
What can be seen in the box car is a very clear low-cost operation plan: how to quickly bring the product to the market, how to maximize the profitability of the project, how to operate the box car.
At present, consumers' expectations for sandian and automatic driving related technologies are even higher, and the threshold for electric vehicle manufacturing is also getting higher and higher. The box car approach is the wisest way to keep itself alive, while also having the opportunity to gain a place for itself in the less competitive mobility market.
However, the B-end market threshold is not as high as the C-end market, in the case that major OEMs have already had their own mobile travel market layout, it is not ruled out that in the future, there will be other OEMs to reduce the dimensionality of the blow, to create an exclusive B-end market models and brands, but also to get a piece of the pie.
Whether box cars can take advantage of the current relatively less competitive environment, build their own brand and product strength, and stand firm, we have to wait and see.