Luxshare Precision from Shenzhen has made Qingdao, thousands of miles away, begin to take root in the field of intelligent vehicles.
Recently, Luxun Precision spent tens of billions of yuan to complete the "equity delivery" with Qingdao Wudaokou, holding 19.88%, 7.87% and 6.24% of the equity of Chery Holdings, Chery Automobile and Chery New Energy, and will establish a joint venture with Chery to "help others build good cars". For this transaction, the outside world continues to speculate - Apple is about to build a car, Chery mixed reform encountered obstacles, Qingdao Wudaokou exit Chery, etc., endlessly emerging.
In any case, for Chery, Qingdao and Lixun Precision, the entry of Lixun Precision has created a win-win situation; Chery Mixed Reform no longer has financial problems, Luxun Precision gets smart car tickets, and Qingdao has the possibility of transforming into "digital Detroit".
Build a 100 billion industrial park
"Qingdao's car dream has taken root since then." In the 1980s, in the face of the prosperity of traditional automobile industry bases such as Changchun, Chongqing and Guangzhou, Qingdao, which was also in excellent geographical advantages, coveted it for a long time.
At the beginning of this century, Qingdao, which missed the first opportunity for automobile development, is committed to introducing automobile projects. At that time, Qingdao only had one car company in Qingdao, FAW Jiefang Commercial Vehicles, in order to realize the dream of cars as soon as possible, after searching around and consulting with many parties, qingdao and SAIC-GM reached a cooperation and won the mini-van project.
Although this project is only a mini-van in the ranks of passenger cars, not a car in the strict sense, it is also the first step for Qingdao to enter the field of cars.
With the entry of FAW-Volkswagen in East China, Qingdao has finally realized its 30-year dream of cars. In 2014, the East China base officially started construction; in 2018, the base was officially put into operation, with a planned production capacity of 300,000 units, and Volkswagen Bora also became the first car series in Qingdao; since then, with the settlement of Audi A3 and A3L, it has filled the gap in Qingdao's high-end cars.
According to media reports at the time, the completion of the East China base brought nearly 80 supporting enterprises and 12 billion yuan of investment to Qingdao. This is of far-reaching significance for the development of Qingdao's high-end manufacturing industry.
However, relying only on "processing plants" and eating the profits of low-end backward manufacturing is far from enough to fill qingdao's entire automotive industry chain. Only by upgrading from "processing plant" to "headquarters" can Qingdao's automobile industry dream get rid of the dilemma of seeking people to do things and achieve a virtuous circle of industrial development.
In order to fill the regret of not having a vehicle headquarters, Qingdao pulled in beijing automobile manufacturing plant. Although the conditions for Qingdao's opening have not been disclosed, it can also be seen from the entire process of negotiation, signing the contract to starting construction, and then to the first model off the production line, which took less than two years. It is worth noting that thanks to Qingdao's participation in Chery's mixed reform, Chery New Energy Qingdao Base was able to settle here.
Over the years, Qingdao has gradually built a relatively complete automobile production base, including more than 200 automobile projects such as FAW Jiefang, BAIC New Energy, FAW-Volkswagen East China Base, SAIC-GM-Wuling, etc., and more than 900 related supporting enterprises have formed a relatively complete industrial chain.
According to data, as of 2020, Qingdao's vehicle production has exceeded one million units for three consecutive years, of which the vehicle output of the Jimo District Automobile Industry Base is 527,000 vehicles, accounting for nearly half of Qingdao's total vehicle output value.
From a complete automotive industry chain to "building the world's largest new energy industrial zone", Qingdao's automotive industry is becoming more and more ambitious.
Anchor the smart car track
If you want to build a smart car city, manufacturing alone is not enough. Qingdao is well aware of its reasoning, but it has not found a suitable breakthrough.
With the official listing of Chery's capital increase and share expansion project, Qingdao has finally lit a flame of hope. However, as the star of China's own brand, qingdao will naturally not be the only one to bid, and other governments are also eyeing the tiger. In the case of strong enemies, basically no one predicted that Qingdao would have a chance of winning.
In order to get this excellent target, during the negotiation, Qingdao poured its money into it. From the perspective of Qingdao Wudaokou's establishment only 3 months before delisting Chery, this company was born for Chery. The biggest stakeholder behind Qingdao Wudaokou is Qingdao and Beijing Wudaokou.
Secondly, in the bidding stage, Qingdao raised 5 billion yuan as an intention fund in a short period of time, several times higher than that of competitors. Chery insiders have disclosed that Qingdao is willing to come up with a premium of 100 million yuan to buy, but also promised to help not add to the chaos. In the end, with full sincerity, Qingdao Wudaokou successfully delisted Chery Mixed Reform.
With chery establishing Chery Automobile Qingdao base in Qingdao, Qingdao Automotive Industry New City has 5 major vehicle bases, and it is predicted that Qingdao will build an industrial cluster with an output value of more than 300 billion yuan. In the industry's view, Qingdao, which already has a certain automobile industry foundation, wants to introduce a more high-end automobile industry and delist Chery Mixed Reform, which is a key step in its optimistic development of the intelligent automobile industry. "Participating in Chery's mixed reform is because I am optimistic about the opportunities in new energy vehicles." Zhou Jianmin, chairman of Beijing Wudaokou, said so.
Today, Chery's mixed reform has suddenly changed, and Qingdao has benefited but has not reached the expected standards. There are many reasons why mixed reform failed, and some in the industry said that this is related to Qingdao's desire to control Chery. Previously, when Chery started the mixed reform, it agreed on three chapters of the law, saying that it was still dominated by Wuhu and the equity was different. And Lixun Precision and Chery successfully set up a stage, which is mainly Chery, and the model supplemented by Lixun Precision may be able to give Qingdao a clear lesson.
In order to secure the title of smart car city, Qingdao is not only betting on Chery. In mid-January, Qingdao and the new car company Huaren Express officially announced that they intend to establish a Chinese headquarters in Qingdao and plan to build a world-class research and development center. In the eyes of the outside world, the entry of Huaren Express is expected to make the development of new energy vehicles in Qingdao to a higher level.
In addition to the introduction of vehicle companies to drive the benign development of the entire industry, Qingdao also spares no effort in policy. In the past two years, Qingdao has issued a number of incentive measures for the automobile industry, paving the way for the development of intelligent and connected vehicles. Including the development outline for 2020-2025, the implementation rules for the management of demonstration applications and the overall implementation plan.
Nowadays, with the new four modernizations of the automobile industry coming like a wild wave, all the princes are accumulating strength on the road of competing for smart car cities. Compared with Hefei, the "city of venture capital", Shenzhen and other strong competitors, Qingdao, which is already lagging behind, does not dare to slacken off at all. And Qingdao can only compete for the opportunity to fight against the water and gamble on "digital Detroit".