Author | Pan Lei
Edit | Zi Yu
Image source | Photo network, author shooting
In 2021, for the automotive industry, which is undergoing a new energy transformation, the disadvantages encountered are unprecedented.
In addition to the new crown epidemic, the automotive industry has also suffered multiple bearish consequences such as chip shortages and rising upstream raw materials, but surprisingly, according to the forecast of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the Chinese auto market will record total sales of more than 26 million vehicles this year, continuing to maintain a growth trend.
Among them, the new energy vehicles that represent the direction of change in the industry are particularly eye-catching, with sales of 2.99 million units in the first 11 months, up 1.7 times year-on-year, and the market penetration rate reached 12.7%.
This means that China's new energy vehicle production and sales will rank first in the world for the seventh consecutive year.
CICC also recently released a research report saying that it is expected that the sales of new energy vehicles will reach 5 million in 2022.
At present, almost all the major events happening in the automotive industry are closely related to new energy. To this end, at the end of the year, Chuangbang took stock of the TOP10 auto events in 2021 that can profoundly affect the direction of the industry, presenting readers with important moments in the automotive circle in the past year.
Giants cross-border car manufacturing
Lei Jun started his business for the last time
On March 30, Xiaomi officially announced the construction of the car. Xiaomi founder Lei Jun defined the car-making plan as "the last major entrepreneurial project in his life". According to the plan, Xiaomi will initially invest 10 billion yuan to build cars, and the investment is expected to reach 10 billion US dollars in the next 10 years.
Lei Jun's car-building plan is progressing quickly. On September 1, Xiaomi Automobile Company was officially established. By 2024, Xiaomi cars will achieve mass production.
In the past year, Xiaomi has rapidly laid out the car industry chain through investment, most of which are core component areas, including batteries, electronic controls, semiconductors, chassis, lidar, automatic driving, etc.
According to rough statistics, at the Xiaomi Production and Investment Demo Day in October this year, more than 40 invested companies were related to automobiles. There are also nearly 10 automobile-related enterprises invested by Xiaomi Group and Shunwei Capital.
Xiaomi has proven its success in the mobile Internet era through smart phones and changed the industry map of smart phones, so now there is also an opportunity to reconstruct the automotive industry that is undergoing a stage of transformation and upgrading.
And Xiaomi does have a card to play - the ecology created by the mobile phone + AloT dual strategy, the car will enrich this strategy and provide new traffic entrances; it has a huge "rice noodle" group, so Xiaomi car does not lack base disk users.
In addition, through the operation of smart phones and some peripheral businesses, Xiaomi has also accumulated certain hardware manufacturing experience; Xiaomi is not short of money, and has a top entrepreneurial star like Lei Jun to lead the team.
Another person who will personally build a car in 2021 is Baidu.
Baidu car manufacturing is actually officially announced earlier than Xiaomi, announced the news at the beginning of the year, and in March and Geely officially established "Jidu Automobile".
The reason why Baidu's car manufacturing has not triggered the sensational effect of Xiaomi is that Baidu has long been laying out the automobile business including the "Apollo Intelligent Driving Platform", which provides certain expectations for car manufacturing, and the second is that compared with Xiaomi, Baidu's presence in the mobile Internet era has declined slightly.
But Baidu car manufacturing is still not lacking in points of view, one of the most concerned points is that Baidu previously developed an autonomous driving platform, aimed at the role of Tier 1, and now he personally built a car, which means starting to walk on two legs - on the one hand, continue to be a supplier, on the other hand, increase the role of the main engine factory.
But it's clear that Baidu seems to prefer to build its own cars. This also indicates that Baidu's automotive business has undergone a major strategic shift.
In addition, Baidu founder Robin Li recently also talked about "intelligent transportation" will make the first-tier cities cancel the purchase restriction within 5 years, and the traffic will no longer be congested within 10 years, which has aroused new concerns - what kind of solutions will Baidu provide for intelligent transportation, and what role will Baidu's Jidu cars assume?
Huawei, which "does not build cars", has been tortured by the soul
The blow from the United States has frustrated Huawei in the smartphone business, but Huawei quickly found a new area of innovation in the automotive business, which is becoming more important than ever.
On the one hand, this importance is reflected in the fact that Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU has undergone three personnel and structural adjustments this year alone.
In May, Yu Chengdong began to serve as CEO of CheBU; in June, Bian Honglin began to serve as CTO of this division; by the third quarter of this year, Huawei no longer established the position of president of CheBU, and the previous president Wang Jun served as chief operating officer and president of the intelligent driving product line.
After some changes, Yu Chengdong, who dominates the smartphone business, has become the leader of the car BU, and coincidentally, he is also the representative of Huawei's internal "car-making faction".
On the other hand, in order to promote the car BU business and appease partners, Huawei has also repeatedly stressed that its positioning is to use the intelligent network technology in its hands to "empower" other car companies to build good cars, but not to build cars themselves. However, this statement has not been recognized by some mainstream car companies.
In June this year, Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor, said that it would not cooperate with third parties such as Huawei in automatic driving, because SAIC would thus become a "body" and the partners would become a "soul".
This reflects the doubts of most car companies.
Because Huawei has built a top-level application from the chip to the underlying operating system to the automatic driving system, Huawei's version of the "software-defined car" has formed a systematic competitiveness, and the cooperation between car companies requires an open interface with high permissions, which makes it difficult for car companies to accept.
However, in the case of fierce market competition and huge pressure on product launch, some local state-owned enterprises and relatively small car companies have begun to cooperate with Huawei in depth, including BAIC Jihu and Jinkang Cyrus.
At the winter flagship new product launch on December 23, Huawei released the first AITO Q&I M5 equipped with harmonyOS car-machine system. Huawei officials have always stressed that they do not build cars, but this M5, which cooperates with Xilis, is deeply branded by "Huawei".
Didi went public in the United States and delisted
Ride-hailing "Flock of Deer"
Didi Chuxing went public on June 30 in a low-key U.S. stock market, and did not even hold a bell-ringing ceremony.
However, the next day, the Cyberspace Administration of China said that it would implement a network security review of Didi, during which "Didi Chuxing" stopped new user registration.
On July 9, in addition to Didi Chuxing, which has been removed, 25 applications under Didi, including hitchhiking and substitute driving, were removed from the shelves.
On July 16, seven ministries and commissions, including the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of State Security, entered Didi to conduct a network security review. Didi Chuxing is the first case since the implementation of the Cybersecurity Review Measures.
On December 3, Didi announced that it would be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and would be listed in Hong Kong.
But so far, Didi has still not been "unblocked", and new users cannot register, which means that the network security review is still not over.
At a time when Didi is being "sealed" for its cybersecurity concerns, its rivals are reserving funds through high financing and accelerating their staking.
In September, CaoCao Chuxing announced the completion of a 3.8 billion yuan B round of financing; just one month later, T3 Travel announced the completion of a series A financing of up to 7.7 billion yuan, which is the largest single financing in the domestic travel field this year.
This will trigger a series of chain effects, and even the entire ride-hailing industry will usher in a reshuffle of power restructuring.
The best case is that Didi successfully landed in Hong Kong stocks after being delisted from the US stock market, and after various rectifications were in place and the compliance needs of the regulatory authorities were completed, it officially unblocked to participate in the market competition - but it took time to complete the process, and the opponents did not stop seizing Didi's turf for a moment.
For Didi Chuxing, it is more likely that the online ride-hailing market has changed from the original one of Didi to the three worlds between Didi, T3 and Cao Cao Chuxing.
Chip shortages expose supply chain vulnerabilities
Chip shortages run through 2021, but this is just one proof that cars have entered the era of intelligence.
At the beginning of the year, automakers began complaining that the market had just recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and suffered from a shortage of chips.
Recently, He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xiaopeng Motors, said that he needs to often "fly" to drink alcohol to get more chips. He also believes that the chip shortage will continue for about half a year.
The direct impact of chip shortage on car companies is to reduce production. According to public information, the shortage of chips will lead to a reduction of 11.3094 million global automobile production this year.
Another impact of the chip shortage is that the price of used cars has been rising in the face of new car production cuts – the average used car transaction price in Japan hit a 10-year high in October.
Statistics from the China Automobile Dealers Association show that as of November this year, the average transaction price of used cars in China rose for four consecutive months, reaching 67,100 yuan / unit, a new high in four years.
It is worth noting that what is missing this time is a low-end chip with a size of 40 nanometers, which is mainly responsible for recording and storage, such as car radar, ESP, etc.
Compared with mobile phone chips, the foundry income of this part of the chip is not high, and the company has no incentive to expand production, and even adopts a de-capacity strategy. The shortage of chips exposes the fragility of the supply chain of low-end chips, there are great risks, and once the external environment changes, it is easy to trigger a global supply chain rupture.
The market value of "Ning Wang" exceeded one trillion yuan
Tsang Became hong Kong's richest man
Driven by the sales of new energy vehicles, power batteries have become one of the hottest tracks this year.
The Ningde era was known as "Ning Wang", or "Battery Mao".
At the end of May, the market value of CATL exceeded 1 trillion yuan, and by the time it reached a high of nearly 700 yuan in early December, it even reached 1.6 trillion yuan, second only to Guizhou Moutai in the entire A-share market. This means that this year, the market value of the Ningde era has increased by 800 billion yuan. Tsang also took advantage of this to sit on the throne of Hong Kong's richest man.
Behind the soaring market value is the continuous increase in the installed capacity of on-board batteries in the Ningde era - from January to November this year, the Ningde era became the world's largest power battery supplier with a market share of 31.8%.
Market demand is still rapidly expanding. Since 2015, China has ranked first in the world in the production and sales of new energy vehicles for six consecutive years, and sales in the first 11 months of this year reached 2.99 million units, an increase of 170% year-on-year.
Moreover, the Ningde era is still constantly investing in the industrial chain. In November, CATL announced its participation in Nezha Automobile's D2 round of financing.
Previously, CATL also invested in Aichi (invested 3.08 million yuan, accounting for 0.36% of the shares), Extreme Kr (Pre-A round), Avita (invested about 770 million), Beiqi Blue Valley (allocated 300 million yuan) and so on.
As one of the most core components of electric vehicles, power batteries have become the focus of contention for all parties. In the future, the competition in the battery industry will be more intense, rising from local competition to competition between global economies.
How to defend its "Ning Wang" throne in the Ningde era will be the challenge it has to face.
Owners defend their rights
Tesla broke the trillion-dollar market value
At this year's Shanghai Auto Show, there was an emergency at Tesla's booth - a female owner stood on the roof of the car to defend her rights because she questioned Tesla's "brake failure", and was then carried away by security personnel.
The incident sparked a big debate about whether Tesla was safe.
The female owner sued Tesla for reputation infringement, and Tesla also filed a counterclaim and claimed 5 million yuan.
Until recent days, the matter continued to attract attention — the female owner said that her lawsuit with Tesla had been held, and the latter wanted both sides to withdraw the lawsuit, but she had rejected it.
So far, the "roof rights protection" has not reached the result of the major changes in the "financial service fee" promoted by the female owners of Mercedes-Benz sitting on the hood two years ago, but it is the concentrated outbreak of dissatisfaction with the electric vehicle giant since Tesla played the role of "catfish".
But that didn't affect Tesla's popularity in the market. As of November, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory delivered 413283 vehicles in 2021, up 242% year-on-year.
Tesla's stock price also soared in 2021, entering the trillion-dollar club, becoming the world's first car company to break through the trillion-dollar market value. Elon Musk also became the world's richest man.
Unmanned rental landing
Autonomous driving becomes an outlet
The commercialization of self-driving taxis (Robotaxi) has officially landed.
On November 25, Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing became the first batch of enterprises to commercially operate autonomous driving fleets since the release of the "Implementation Rules for the Pilot Management of Autonomous Driving Services commercialization in the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone (Trial)".
This could mean the beginning of a mobility revolution. Maybe not just cars, but the entire transportation industry will face drastic changes.
From the user's point of view, self-driving taxis indicate that they no longer need to buy a car, just need to summon an unmanned car to come over when using the car.
This may be the biggest confidence of Baidu founder Robin Li who said that "within 5 years, first-tier cities will no longer limit purchases and restrictions, and congestion will be eliminated within 10 years".
In addition, Didi, Momenta, Wenyuan Zhixing, AutoX, and Yuanrong Qixing are also conducting road tests on Robotaxi.
According to some statistics, the global driverless taxi market will reach $2 trillion by 2030.
Capital is also moving. Wenyuan Zhixing received as much as $600 million in financing in the first half of the year, Ali led the Series B financing of $300 million in September, and Momenta's recently completed C+ round of financing also exceeded $500 million.
The commercialization of autonomous driving in various scenarios is accelerating. Scenes such as ports, mines, sanitation, and terminal distribution are considered to be the fastest tracks for commercial application of autonomous driving technology due to their closed and low-speed characteristics, and a number of autonomous driving companies have emerged that have deeply cultivated the scene.
From the perspective of the industry, it is also an indisputable fact that Chinese autonomous driving companies have stood at the forefront of the industry, which means that China's auto industry has gained a relative technological advantage in the new round of competition.
New brand of traditional car companies
A few joys and a few sorrows
The rapid rise of the "new car-making forces" represented by Tesla has also accelerated the transformation of traditional car companies, in the form of establishing high-end electric vehicle brands that operate independently.
On April 15, Geely Automobile officially released its high-end electric brand, Extreme Krypton, and on October 19, The Company rolled off the production line and officially delivered to the owner on the 23rd.
At the end of October, SAIC R brand officially announced the brand Chinese named "Feifan Automobile", and specially established "Feifan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd."
In addition to Feifan Automobile, SAIC motor also has a "Zhiji Automobile" established at the end of last year, which is the highest specification of saic motor group strategic electric vehicle brand, just in recent days, Zhiji Automobile's first model L7 Beta version has officially rolled off the production line.
In November, Changan Automobile released the Avita brand, and the first model, Avita 11, will be released in the second quarter of next year and delivered in the third quarter.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show at the end of this year, the high-end brand "Salon" under the Great Wall also unveiled its first new car, "Mecha Dragon", with a limited price of 488,000 yuan and was quickly snatched up.
Dongfeng's Lantu Automobile also ushered in a key node this year, and the delivery volume in December will exceed 3,000 units.
However, so far, the high-end electric brands incubated by these traditional car companies generally have problems such as slightly slow movement and relatively weak user minds, and 2022 will be a key year for these brands to form technology and brand core capabilities.
"Wei Xiaoli" becomes "Xiaoli Wei"
In most of the time after its establishment, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal have stolen most of the attention, and the sales position of these car companies is relatively fixed, generally Weilai ranks first, Xiaopeng second, and ideal third.
Occasionally, at certain moments, the ideal can also rush to the second position.
But by the second half of the year, things had changed a bit.
On the one hand, the sales volume of Xiaopeng Automobile has suddenly risen. Xiaopeng delivered more than 10,000 yuan in September, October and November for three consecutive months, and officially became the first delivery volume of "new car-making forces" in China with a data of more than 15,000 units in November.
In the same month, Ideal ranked second with 13,485 vehicles, and Weilai ranked third with 10,878 vehicles.
At the same time as the internal changes of "Wei Xiaoli", the "new forces of second-line car manufacturing" that had been considered to have no hope before also began to exert force, and the typical representative of it was Nezha Automobile.
From January to November this year, Nezha delivered 59,547 vehicles, up 393% year-on-year, becoming the fourth "new car-making force". During the Shanghai Auto Show, Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 Group, appeared at the Nezha Automobile booth and officially announced a strategic investment in Nezha in May, becoming the second largest shareholder of the latter.
This is a far-reaching reconstruction of the domestic "new car-making forces" - in the past few years, Xiaopeng Automobile has hardly won the first position, and its voice is not as loud as that of Weilai Automobile and the ideal car.
This is related to the rich product line of Xiaopeng Motors, in the "Wei Xiaoli" combination composed of Weilai Xiaopeng Ideal, Xiaopeng Automobile is the only car company that has both SUV models and car models.
In addition, the top of the delivery volume is also related to the "smart" label created by Xiaopeng Motors, which has aroused the interest of some young users.
The tight supply chain has brought great fluctuations to the three-strong pattern of new car-making forces, and also posed challenges to the supply chain management of various car companies. In the future, the sales competition among the head players of the new car-making forces will be more glued.
The "new forces" that fell in 2021
In July, Byton Automobile was officially filed for bankruptcy and restructuring, and the new car-making force that burned out 8.4 billion yuan of financing ultimately failed to achieve mass production offline.
One of the most widely concerned points is that Byton is known for extravagance and waste, and its offices in North America have about 300 employees, but in 2018, the cost of buying snacks alone exceeded $7 million.
At the end of December, Bojun Automobile, another new car-making force also located in Nanjing, was officially filed for bankruptcy reorganization.
The trajectories of the two companies are similar, and both have experienced hot events such as employee salary bargaining after the financing burned out.
Their ending also shows that the "new forces of car manufacturing" have ended the era of blindfolded running, and car manufacturing is no longer an "outlet" that can use PPT to pull a large amount of financing.
Perhaps the most unfortunate are the employees, who are torn between one car company and another.