At the beginning of the new year, "Baidu Car" has made new progress.
It is reported that Jidu (Baidu Car Project) has set up a new headquarters in Beijing and settled in the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone (i.e. "Yizhuang"). This is also another new car-making company that has settled in Yizhuang after Xiaomi Automobile.
On January 10 this year, the official website of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology released its 2021 annual work summary. Among them, an annex document that has not attracted much attention, "The Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology 2021 Annual Daily Performance Assessment Matters Completion Self-Inspection Table", has buried an important "foreshadowing".
In the implementation of the comprehensive performance of duties in accordance with the law, the document clearly writes: "Baidu Car has completed the industrial and commercial registration of 'Jidu Technology Co., Ltd.' in Beijing and set up a headquarters in Beijing." This is also the first time that the word "headquarters" appears in official documents, which basically confirms the layout of Jidu to set up another headquarters in Beijing.
According to the Tianyancha App, on June 7 last year, "Jidu Technology Co., Ltd." was established with a registered capital of 2 billion yuan and the legal representative was Xia Yiping. The registered address is: Room 611, 6th Floor, 6th Floor, Building A, No. 12 Hongda North Road, Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, Beijing (Yizhuang Group, High-end Industrial Area of Beijing Pilot Free Trade Zone), and its business scope includes technical services for new energy vehicles and related parts; manufacturing of auto parts and accessories; sales of new energy vehicles; software development, etc.
The map search shows that the registered place is located in the "Innovation Building" in the core area of Yizhuang, which is only about 1.2 kilometers away from the most prosperous commercial landmark in Yizhuang, "Han's Square", and is surrounded by the production bases of many well-known enterprises such as Coca-Cola, Bayer Pharmaceutical, SMC and so on.
In addition to setting up a company in Beijing, Jidu Automobile has also been heavily settled in Shanghai, and a large number of employees have been in place.
On March 2, 2021, Baidu established "Jidu Automobile Co., Ltd." in Shanghai, with a registered capital of 2 billion yuan and a legal representative of Xia Yiping. The registered address is: Shanghai Jiading District Huirong Road No. 468, Building 2, 1st Floor Area B.
It is not difficult to find that the set of registered in Beijing and Shanghai is almost completely symmetrical from the perspective of legal representative, registered capital and business scope, combined with the above-mentioned "headquarters" expression of the Beijing Economic and Information Bureau, there is reason to speculate that the set is building a Beijing-Shanghai "dual headquarters" structure, but from the perspective of the company name, the Beijing headquarters may focus on "technology", and Shanghai is stronger than "vehicle".
Last year, Jidu Automobile said that Shanghai and Beijing are currently two important strategic center cities for Jidu business, and based on the current business needs of enterprises, the establishment of companies in the two places can facilitate the absorption of talents and better business development nationwide.
As we all know, Baidu's headquarters is located in Beijing, and the current automatic driving has become the "mainstay" of Baidu's future business transformation. Baidu began the layout of autonomous driving technology as early as 2013, and launched the world's first autonomous driving open platform Apollo in 2017, followed by the unmanned vehicle travel service platform "Radish Run" in 2021. In terms of policy support for new technologies and new formats, Beijing is also at the forefront of the country. Beijing has set up a "Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone" in Yizhuang, issued test licenses in various scenarios, and also took the lead in opening the first commercial pilot of autonomous driving travel services in China.
Jidu is a young car company, which was established in March 2021 and received more than $300 million in start-up capital, with Baidu holding 55% of the shares and Geely holding 45% of the shares. On January 26, 2022, Jidu announced that it has completed nearly US$400 million (about 2.54 billion yuan) of Series A financing, which was jointly increased by Baidu and strategic partner Geely. According to the plan, Jidu's first concept car will be officially unveiled at the Beijing International Auto Show in April 2022 and will be mass-produced and delivered in 2023. It is reported that this car will have L4 level of autonomous driving capabilities and have "emotion and intelligence".
In addition to jidu, in this wave of new energy vehicle investment, Beijing has made many gains.
According to the list of "3 100" city key projects released by the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission in 2022, Xiaomi Automobile and Ideal Automobile's global flagship plants are listed in the list of 33 advanced manufacturing projects.
According to the list of key tasks in the 2022 beijing municipal government work report, the "Tesla China Design Center", which has been preparing for nearly two years, is also expected to start construction together with Xiaomi Automobile Manufacturing Plant, Weilan New Energy Solid-State Battery Phase I, Toyota Fuel Cell R&D Center and other projects.
Integrated/Future Urban Development, Autohome
Edited/ming