2021 is a challenging year for the automotive manufacturing industry, but also a year of full-blown outbreaks. The industry is rising rapidly, and major automobile manufacturers have also pressed the acceleration button of transformation and change, actively changing and adjusting their thinking, facing fierce competition, cutting off, cutting existing business, and opening up new directions. Make all-round efforts to realize the transformation from traditional manufacturing to innovative and intelligent new directions.
Cross-border car manufacturing: major manufacturers have entered the game
1. Baidu, Xiaomi car manufacturing: vehicle manufacturing, the first shot of "cross-border car manufacturing" of technology companies
At the beginning of 2021, Baidu fired the first shot of the technology company's "cross-border car", and through joining hands with Geely, "Jidu Automobile" turned out to be born; then, at the end of March, Xiaomi also officially announced the construction of the car, which was personally led by Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi.
Both have chosen to become automakers, but the difference is that Baidu has been paying attention to the automotive industry for a long time, in 2013 Baidu has begun to develop autonomous driving technology, and in 2017, it has officially released the autonomous driving open platform Apollo, which is also the world's first autonomous driving open platform. For intelligent driving, in the past decade, Baidu has invested more than 100 billion yuan in related technology research and development. In 2020, Baidu's test mileage in Beijing reached 1.125 million kilometers.
At the beginning of the year, he chose to join hands with the traditional car company Geely to form a joint venture company, Jidu Automobile, and held an excellent share. Technology companies go down to build cars, cooperation is the fastest sinking industry shortcut, Baidu is responsible for software development, Geely is responsible for engineering research and development, supply chain and vehicle manufacturing. Due to the clear division of labor, in 2021, in the middle of the year, Jidu Automobile has completed brand naming, personnel recruitment, and the first concept mass production car sludge model wind tunnel test, Jidu's first model has been exposed, from the outside is a large SUV, is expected to have L4 level automatic driving capabilities. Jidu Automobile will also be officially launched in 2023.
Compared with Baidu's mature means, Xiaomi is somewhat unstoppable, according to Lei Jun, from the Xiaomi board proposed to study the prospects of the electric vehicle industry to the final decision to build a car, the period is only two and a half months.
Unlike Baidu, Xiaomi chose a wholly-owned car road to go through a process from scratch. Xiaomi's layout strategy is mainly to achieve the integration of the automotive industry chain by investing in industry supply chain manufacturers, since the official announcement of the car in March 2021, Xiaomi has invested in dozens of automotive industry chain enterprises, covering intelligent driving, chips, power batteries and other fields. In November 2021, Xiaomi signed a "Cooperation Agreement" with the Administrative Committee of Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Xiaomi Automobile Factory officially settled in Beijing Yizhuang, with an estimated production capacity of 150,000 units in the first and second phases. At the same time, Xiaomi is also promoting the product definition and team building of automobiles, including accelerating the progress of technology research and development by investing in and acquiring related companies. According to Lei Jun's plan, Xiaomi Automobile will build a factory with an annual output of 300,000 vehicles in Beijing, and Xiaomi Automobile will achieve mass production in 2024.
2. Huawei "does not build cars": supply parts and control the whole process of automobile manufacturing
"Huawei does not build cars, helps car companies build good cars." Although Huawei has reiterated many times that it "does not build cars", Huawei's layout in the automotive field has an early history. As early as 2009, Huawei began the research and development of in-vehicle modules. In 2014, Huawei established the "Internet of Vehicles Lab" and began to dabble in technological innovations in the interconnection, intelligence, electrification, and sharing of vehicles. Since 2017, Huawei has reached cooperation with many domestic OEMs in 5G, cloud, AI and other fields. In May 2019, Huawei officially established the Smart Car BU, which ranks among Huawei's six first-level departments.
In 2021, as a model jointly developed by Jihu and Huawei, the Jihu Alpha S Hi has built-in Huawei ADS high-end automatic driving full-stack solution and is equipped with Huawei's Hongmeng OS operating system to realize the intelligent cockpit and smart phone associated operation.
On December 23, 2021, Huawei released the high-end car brand AITO jointly launched with Xiaokang Xilis, and its first model, the M5, was also unveiled at the same time. Yu Chengdong said bluntly that the SF5, which was launched with Xilis at the beginning of the year, used some of the components and technology of Huawei Drive One, but the whole vehicle was not designed by Huawei, "We think we can do better."
Although the ultimate point is still to help car companies build cars, from only providing intelligent systems to leading design, user experience and post-sales, Huawei is constantly touching and testing the boundaries of car building.
In the new round of automobile revolution, Internet companies undoubtedly have certain advantages in intelligent technology, in the vehicle manufacturing, upstream and downstream supply chain control need to continue to accumulate, Huawei is slowly moving towards the whole process of car manufacturing, over time, with car companies to cooperate with the way to change or even eventually independent car manufacturing, may be just around the corner.
3. Tencent "does not build cars": digital infrastructure, to help multi-party car projects
"Tencent does not touch hardware, does not build cars, and will focus on its own strengths." Consistent with Huawei, Tencent is also firmly "not building cars"
Tencent's smart travel business layout is based on the digital base capability of "cloud, map, id" as the core, providing the automotive industry with four scenario solutions of "building a good car, selling a good car, using a good car and enterprise management".
On November 4, 2021, Zhong Xiangping, vice president of Tencent and president of Tencent Smart Transportation and Mobility, also said: Tencent will build a digital channel that connects the upstream and downstream partners of the travel industry chain, opens up the full link of the industry, connects the whole life cycle of users, and a circulating and flexible growth "network". Tencent announced the newly upgraded smart travel business map, releasing products and solutions covering all aspects of the industrial chain, such as smart cockpits, autonomous driving, digital marketing, travel services, and automotive cloud digital solutions.
Although Tencent does not build cars, Tencent has invested in a number of car projects. The most successful investment is Tesla, Tencent is now Tesla's second largest shareholder, generating profits far greater than any new domestic car-making force today. Tencent has always been a deep participant in obtaining market dividends for smart cars, smart transportation and smart cities. It can be said that in the field of automobile, transportation, city or big travel, Tencent's software services cover all subdivisions of the industrial chain.
The choice of car companies to cooperate with Tencent is equivalent to opening up the boundary between car companies, distributors and users, and more for the "future" to have a greater imagination space.
By the end of 2021, in the field of smart cockpits, Tencent Eco-Vehicle Networking TAI has cooperated with 35 car companies to carry out more than 7 million vehicles in total, while in terms of cloud solutions, Tencent has carried out digital transformation with more than 40 car companies.
4. Geely "Transformation": A New Way out for Traditional Car Companies to Create a "New Empire" for Automobiles
In the case of the new energy sector being chased and major enterprises entering the market to build cars, Geely Automobile is facing industry changes, using capital layout to try to stabilize the market, taking car companies as the base point and spreading the industrial chain throughout all walks of life.
Geely is still cooperating, investing and acquiring in 2021. In the first month of the year, Geely has cooperated with Baidu, Foxconn, Tencent to Jia Yueting's FF, with many partners. In 2021, Geely began to go deep into the upstream of the electric vehicle supply chain and actively lay out the field of power batteries. Then, together with Visteon and Qualcomm, it announced that it would join hands to provide intelligent cockpit solutions for the global market; set up a joint venture with Volvo to jointly develop the on-board operating system; and cooperate with Fu Neng Technology, the first share of power batteries on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, to establish a joint venture company to build a power battery production plant. In September 2021, Geely announced its entry into the field of mobile phones: "Mobile phones are rapid iterations of portable mobile terminals, and application carriers for electronic product market verification and software innovation, which can not only allow users to share innovative achievements as soon as possible, but also transfer a safe and reliable part of the results to automotive applications, and realize the close interaction between car machines and mobile phone software technology." ”
From this point of view, in 2021, Geely's automotive industry chain involves many fields, including power technology research and development, power battery production, automatic driving, chip research and development, intelligent cockpit, and power station replacement construction. Geely tries to take a diversified route, but in this industry change, Geely's aggressive transformation strategy and brand matrix for many years have become a sign of Geely's fall behind, in the first 11 months of 2021, Geely Automobile's new energy sales were 64,500 vehicles, ranking only 12th in the domestic new energy manufacturers, in 2021 Geely has a lot of actions but still has not seized the opportunity, but fell into the passive situation of continuous decline in sales.
At present, the most important thing for Geely is to seize the brand opportunity of new energy in the middle and high end in order to find a new position in the new era of automobiles.