Author: Zhang Dayan
With Tesla's rapid progress, smart electric vehicles continue to become the outlet. "Building a car" has not only become a fashionable term, but also a profitable thing.
Although it is difficult to admit, the big pits in the past few years show that building smart electric vehicles is not the strength of traditional car companies. The lack of talents in software engineering and the lack of experience in software projects have made the global automotive landscape from the situation of a traditional car company being the only one to a warring states pattern in which multiple forces are competing for hegemony.
A few days ago, the well-known domestic "fruit chain" company Lixun Precision, tens of billions of shares in chery, so that the automobile market, which has already shown a white-hot competitive situation, has set off a lot of waves.
In recent years, aside from the new forces that have sprung up from the ground, many have fallen, including Luxun Precision, Huawei, Baidu and Foxconn, setting off a third round of car-making boom.
Unlike the predecessors of the previous two rounds, most of the new car builders in the third round are tire1 suppliers of automobiles and ICT parts, and the symbolism and characteristics are quite distinct. When suppliers also rush to the forefront, what kind of logic is hidden behind them? Is the car building a paper or a real knife and gun? All deserve our continuous attention.
Some are "forced to liangshan"
For Luxshare Precision, with the acceleration of Apple's car manufacturing pace, whether it is OEM for Apple or helping Apple produce related auto parts, it is a profitable thing for Luxun Precision, which has been mixed in the middle of the fruit chain for a long time.
Taking over Qingdao Wudaokou shares, strategically investing in Chery, and forming a joint venture with Chery New Energy can help Lixun Precision build the relevant system capabilities of the automotive industry and gain a firm foothold in the shortest possible time.
Like Luxun Precision, Apple's largest foundry company in the world, Foxconn, has not only unveiled a variety of models created by joining hands with Taiwan's local brand Longyu, but also established a joint venture with Geely to focus on the electric vehicle FOUNDry industry. Foxconn's move is believed to be to prove to Apple that it has the ability to build its own cars, and OEM for Apple is a piece of cake.
For Apple foundries such as Luxshare Precision and Foxconn, OEM consumer electronics for Apple and other electronics companies was once the core business of enterprises.
But the problem is that the foundry industry is less profitable, especially with the rise in domestic labor costs and overall manufacturing costs, it is difficult to ensure that Apple will not move its production base to Southeast Asia, where labor costs are lower in the near future.
Once Apple moves the idea of switching suppliers, Then Luxshare Precision will face an earthquake in the business. Finding a new business support point for themselves in addition to the OEM of consumer electronics is the top priority of Luxshare Precision and Foxconn.
Before Luxshare Precision and Foxconn, Huawei and Baidu had already entered the smart electric vehicle track. But unlike the "fruit chain" company's conversion risk, Baidu and Huawei are a bit forced to Liangshan.
Whether it is Baidu or Huawei, they have strong strength in the field of intelligent networking. Among them, Baidu's Apollo system has always been the world's leading autonomous driving platform, and in multiple tests, it has not lost to foreign counterparts. However, looking at China, although Baidu and most domestic OEMs have cooperated, there are relatively few that promote related cooperation to the stage of mass production models.
As for Huawei, it faces almost the same problems as Baidu. Last year, the soul torture of the head of SAIC Motor caused a lot of turmoil, but it did say the voice of traditional vehicle companies.
Therefore, in this case, Baidu joined hands with Geely to create the Jidu brand; Huawei, while cooperating with several vehicle companies, vigorously supports the Xilis brand under Xiaokang, especially the AITO brand, which is regarded as a masterpiece of Huawei's own car manufacturing.
Some are "better than good"
Different from the urgency of fruit chain enterprises, xiaomi, including the previous Evergrande, Gree electric appliances, etc., is more relaxed. Most of them hope to find new growth points for enterprises in addition to their main business, combined with the outlet of domestic intelligent electric vehicles.
The reason why Xiaomi car manufacturing is optimistic by all parties, on the one hand, is that xiaomi itself is stronger, and the strength here not only refers to xiaomi's financial strength, but also xiaomi's ability to develop software engineering, even in the process of confrontation with traditional car companies.
On the other hand, Xiaomi's ability to integrate the supply chain is relatively strong. As we all know, Xiaomi has actually formed a relatively perfect Internet ecology through various methods. Behind the Internet of Everything, the car is just another node outside the mobile phone, and this conceptual derivation is much lower than that of other competitors built from scratch.
Not to mention that through the operation of mobile phones and other home appliances, Xiaomi has gathered hundreds of millions of fan groups in China. A conversion rate that does not require a high conversion rate is enough to help Xiaomi catch up with the sales of the vast majority of new power car companies at present, and this is also where Xiaomi Car dares to enter the smart electric vehicle industry.
Once Xiaomi can gain a foothold in the field of smart electric vehicles, from the perspective of market capitalization, it can undoubtedly recreate a new Millet. Whether it is for the short-term profitability of the enterprise, or the long-term sustainable development, it constitutes a major positive.
At present, while Xiaomi Automobile is recruiting and buying in the market, it is also building its own circle of friends around smart electric vehicles, especially in the field of automatic driving, through mergers and acquisitions and investment in shares. Obviously, the outside world has more expectations for Xiaomi's car manufacturing.
Don't think about simplicity or complexity
For a long time, in the automotive industry chain, traditional vehicle companies have a relatively large right to speak. Even an almost omnipotent supplier like Bosch can hardly challenge the upstream status of OEMs. However, with the advent of the era of "new four modernizations" of automobiles, especially Tesla and many Internet giants entering the field of intelligent electric vehicles, the global automotive industry is facing a situation of reconstruction.
In the era of "new four modernizations" of automobiles, on the one hand, new forces with leading advantages in software engineering and artificial intelligence hope to make greater progress in the era of intelligent electric vehicles; on the other hand, traditional car companies need to defend their right to speak in the industrial chain and are also undergoing transformation.
In the face of aggressive suppliers, traditional car companies are also increasing their investment in transformation. Especially from the recent recruitment of traditional car companies, it can be found that the mechanical engineers who used to account for the majority are being replaced by software engineers. Companies like GM and Ford have even invested heavily in driving technology startups Cruise and Argo AI to help them close the gap with Tesla and Waymo in the shortest possible time.
In the context of mutual penetration, parts companies want to obtain oem orders, unless they have a relatively large technical advantage or a very high cost performance, otherwise the vehicle company has a relatively large voice in the selection of parts. Once the parts company has a technological leading edge and begins to threaten the position of the main engine factory, the main engine factory will inevitably fight back.
Before the Ningde era, its position in the battery field was unshakable, but from Xiaopeng and GAC E-An to support AVIC lithium batteries, to Great Wall, Volkswagen, Daimler or self-research or acquisition, and BYD to build their own battery supply system, are the best examples.
Whether suppliers can build cars or not cannot be generalized. Before that, there were indeed many enterprises PPT to maliciously circle money from local governments or capital markets, but there were also many enterprises that used their own funds and had clearer plans for car manufacturing.
Relying on the superior resources in the past, combined with their own long-term planning, entering the car building is also a drain. After all, the prince will have a kind of hu, and the matter of building a car can neither be simple nor complicated.