"Wei Xiaoli" jumped out of the quagmire of financing and was able to turn around in the Chinese market, partly because Tesla entered China and lowered the cost of smart electric vehicles, opening up the consumption threshold.
Of course, from the adoption of supplier solutions to the transfer of self-research, the core capabilities of intelligent technology have been repeatedly hung up by "Wei Xiaoli" in the past two years. Although the experience of electric vehicles is good, the consumer side's awareness of smart cockpits and intelligent driving is still not high, and everyone obviously feels more deeply about the showroom in the supermarket, no bargaining, intimate service, and brand App that can be played at any time.
So it is no wonder that Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, will say that starting in 2024 and 2025 will be the final stage of the automotive industry, when many technology companies like Huawei, Xiaomi, and Apple have plans to gradually become clear in the automotive field.
The detours taken by the predecessors, the latecomers certainly do not want to go again.
For a time, the car has not yet, and the concept of manufacturing technology has become a gimmick for many new car companies to flaunt their own way.
Jidu said that the first mass production car went directly to the L4, and emphasized that it would not start first and then OTA, but should be used immediately; and there were many new concepts in the car, such as SIMACar (software integrated simulation prototype) and automotive robots.
Jidu recently released a detailed drawing of the car robot
Last year, Xiaomi, which officially announced the construction of cars, began to work on intelligent driving. Xiaomi's crazy digging in the field of automatic driving has also set off a small climax of talent flow in the field of car manufacturing.
The two new car brands that have attracted the most attention in the field of technology have also announced the time point of mass production. It is reported that Jidu's first mass production car will be launched at the end of 2023, and Xiaomi will achieve mass production in the first half of 2024.
However, in 2024, it is too early to talk about L4 landing, and it is too late to talk about mass production. Brutal market competition doesn't necessarily give these new concepts much of a chance.
Temptation from apples
Recently, Ideal Car founder Li Xiang mentioned when talking about future goals that he hopes that Ideal Car can become Apple in ten years.
Apple's achievements in its own field are obvious to all, its management ability and promotion of the supply chain is one of its advantages, and the ability it has created to give the software to the mobile phone as a smart terminal has given it a broader market opportunity to develop the ecology.
There have been rumors about Apple's car for a long time, but the mass production time has not been announced. The longer Apple has been polishing its car, on the one hand, it seems to leave opportunities for competitors, on the other hand, it also makes people more afraid of the energy of its first mass production car. Many predictions indicate that the mass production time of Apple's car is in 2024 or 2025.
Pin driving / product play also dared to speculate, the late entry of millet car, the founder "Rebus" (Xiaomi founder Lei Jun) may also have a corresponding idea: after the iPhone 3GS was officially introduced to China in 2009, the millet mobile phone was established in the next year, and the rapid development of China's Android smartphone manufacturing also opened a boom in the mobile Internet.
Perhaps in Lei Jun's view, at the moment when Apple Cars unveiled, there was a wave of market turnarounds, and this is the best time for Xiaomi Cars to enter.
Soochow Securities pointed out in the survey report China that the differentiated path of Apple's car manufacturing is self-developed in-vehicle OS. At present, the mainstream automotive operation system uses QNX+ LINUX or Andriod, and Apple is expected to achieve automatic driving + intelligent cockpit full set of operation system self-research in the future, seamlessly switch with mobile phones and other devices, and build a perfect ecosystem.
In the view of pin driving / pin play, the innovation of software-driven hardware of Jidu Automobile SIMUCar is based on the ability of this development ecology, and the so-called automotive robot is more of a brand concept propaganda.
From the experience of the digital field, Apple's drive to the industrial chain has made many industries really alive. The highlight of Xiaomi's car is precisely how to link with the smart cockpit of Xiaomi car and Xiaomi mobile phone.
If Tesla has brought China's new energy vehicle market into the marketization stage, perhaps Apple, which is regarded as a potential threat by many car manufacturers, may indeed really stir up the entire new energy vehicle market.
Of course, when it comes to the time node, on the one hand, the outbreak period driven by the marketization process, on the other hand, the potential threat of Apple, 2024 may be a time when the industry change factors are suddenly mobilized, and the entire industry feels the crisis.
However, making a car is indeed different from a mobile phone. Xu Chao, vice president of Xinchi Technology, told Pinchao/Pin play that Apple will bring innovation to the supply chain, and will also promote some strong traditional parts companies to launch innovative parts that are more in line with the needs of future automobile development as soon as possible, and, with Apple's thinking, the core components should be mastered by themselves.
In his view, the entire industry is also undergoing gradual changes based on this, and there will be no node-type and subversive fundamental changes in the short term.
This is also the reason why the new car-making forces, including Tesla, have not become the Apple of the car-making industry.
Therefore, a mature era of automotive intelligence still needs a long time to verify.
The era of car intelligence is not coming so soon
Yu Kai, founder of Horizon, said in an interview with PinChai/Pin Play that the development of smart electric vehicles is still in its infancy, a bit like before the release of the iPhone in 2007. And many industry insiders have also expressed that in fact, intelligent driving at this stage is not yet mature.
Nokia Symbian can not dominate the world, the golden age of smart electric vehicles has not really arrived.
Back to the original intention of the birth of Jidu, Baidu hopes that the autonomous driving business can be commercialized in disguise with the help of mass production vehicles and start to make profits.
Lei Jun, who had been in the aid of Xiaopeng in a time of crisis, may have chosen to change lanes and build cars at the moment when Wei Xiaoli's market value soared.
When Xiaopeng Automobile went public, Lei Jun gave He Xiaopeng a kilogram of gold bricks
For Baidu and Xiaomi, at least in the past few years, they do not feel that building a car is a feasible thing. The reason for building a car is both temptation and risk.
Challenges are always new.
Since last year, the financing environment for intelligent and connected vehicles has begun to improve, and many Chinese autonomous driving fields and chip companies have thus obtained more financing opportunities, which is also the biggest difference between the time nodes of this stage of jidu, xiaomi and Wei Xiaoli car manufacturing.
Nowadays, the market environment has changed, the enthusiasm of the capital market for car manufacturing has intensified, and the core ability to build directly in the core intelligent driving has also become the fundamental direction of Jidu and Xiaomi at the beginning of car manufacturing.
Earlier, Wang Weibao, head of Intelligent Driving in Jidu, said in a public exchange with the media that the context of Tesla and Nio's Chuangsheng era is electrification, and the context of Jidu is intelligent.
However, Jidu also admitted that by 2024, there are still many challenges facing direct L4, such as policies and regulations, product experience, market environment, user acceptance and so on.
When intelligent driving is touted to a strategic high position, excessive technology orientation has made many companies that think they have technical genes ignore the real needs of users for smart electric vehicles.
Zhang Junyi, managing partner of Oliver Wilshire Consulting, told Pinchao/Pin play that today's higher-level automatic driving capabilities, more hardware, and functions that are not yet mature are waiting to be opened, when everyone is spending a lot of effort to compete for the number of lidars, the number of OTAs, and software capabilities, if you return to the car itself, many car companies may forget: users actually only need a car with a suitable price, high value, can highlight themselves, and is useful and easy to take care of.
Just as it is exciting to build the first car of young people when Xiaomi officially announced the construction of cars, practicality is the real market to be tapped.
At this stage, there is still a huge gap between user perception and the development of intelligent driving technology itself. In the face of this chasm, Jidu and Xiaomi are facing a choice problem. If they aim to make up for the gap with competitors in the progress of intelligent driving, and want to make the capital market shine, while ignoring how users accept them, it may not be worth the loss.
In other words, thinking too much about the future may delay the best time for the present.
Car-building anxiety is underway
It is believed that at the beginning of 2022, a supply chain anxiety is spreading among car companies.
Last year, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate rose tenfold, which directly caused a cost-impossible impact on A00-class electric vehicles, followed by A-class electric vehicles.
For many brands that once bet on micro and small electric vehicles, they have to change direction, and the competition for medium and high-end electric vehicles will be more intense.
At the same time, Xu Chao feels at the supply chain that most traditional manufacturers are actively embracing new technologies and new things, and the urgency of in-depth understanding of chip technology is also increasing sharply. The lack of core has become an important topic that people in the industry have to pay attention to.
The new generation of car manufacturers known for their scientific and technological backgrounds, with the backwardness of mass production time, the advantages will be diluted little by little.
Not only that, the wisdom of Ali background, as well as Huawei, which personally went down, have already advanced mass production before Baidu and Xiaomi, and the pre-emptive strike of the opponent is also quite dangerous for Jidu and Xiaomi.
At the same time, multinational car companies have also realized that China's new energy vehicle market is developing rapidly, and it is too late to get on the car. In 2022, it will become the first year of the new energy vehicle power of the joint venture car company.
Last year, multinational groups such as GM and Toyota released new electric platforms and products, which will land in China in the past two years, and BBA's new cars have also arrived in batches.
Cadillac's pure electric vehicle LYRIQ has entered the supermarket store
Under the pressure of recent price increases and shortages, the "battery anxiety" problem of traditional OEMs has become more prominent, and anxiety has been released through a more radical lock order. On February 26, Chery New Energy and Jiewei Power signed a strategic cooperation agreement, the two sides reached a deep cooperation on the power battery supply and demand linkage and capacity guarantee; before That, on February 24, Sunwoda also issued an announcement that its subsidiary Sunwoda Auto Battery received joint investment from 19 companies and capitals such as Chehejia, Sky Top LLC, and Weirui Investment, with a total investment amount of 2.43 billion yuan, and obtained about 19.5% of the equity of Sunwoda Auto Battery.
Behind the "signing" of battery factories by OEMs, it is precisely the time when auto OEMs have realized that their demand for power batteries has reached a time when they must make corresponding binding strategies for the supply chain in advance. In the next one to two years, high-quality supply chain capacity will become more and more scarce, and this binding relationship will become more and more obvious.
The anxiety of the moment has not yet turned the need for intelligence. Perhaps, the so-called intelligent demand still needs a long time to precipitate.
But at the same time, the value and temptation brought by the capital market to car manufacturers is equally great. It is precisely for this reason that some virtual and real concepts and illusions are born in the bubble of new cars. When more and more intelligent and technological stories are packaged into new stories of new forces, users are becoming weaker and weaker in their ability to distinguish under the blessing of brand effects, and under the encouragement of the capital market, there is still a great debate in the industry about whether the valuation of new cars is exaggerated.
There's no denying that the tracks of 2024 will only get more crowded.
And in the wave of hundreds of new cars on the market, how much advantage of these new cars is left.
In 2024, the competition is blazing
Li Bin told PinChai/Pin Play that more and more car companies believe that 2024 is the final moment of the industry, mainly because "the relevant technology has been finalized at that time" .
Although mature intelligence still needs time, the new energy vehicle market is growing rapidly.
In 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", proposing that by 2025, the sales of new energy vehicles will reach 20% of the total sales of new vehicles.
According to the market capacity of 30 million vehicles in 2025, new energy vehicles are expected to reach 6 million in 2025.
But in fact, the development of new energy vehicles in the mainland is accelerating.
The China Automobile Association expects that the sales of new energy vehicles in the mainland will reach 5 million units this year, and the entire industry is also very optimistic about the penetration rate of new energy vehicles. The development of new energy vehicles, under the decline of subsidy policies, has also greatly exceeded the original expectations.
In 2024, 6 million, 8 million, or even 10 million, may be possible.
The mass production of Jidu and Xiaomi has also stepped on such an embarrassing time node.
Ideal has previously announced that it will reach a market share of 20% in the domestic market in 2025, with an annual sales volume of nearly 1.6 million. NIO has also launched an unprecedented lineup of products, including the release of new brands to reduce dimensionality.
After BYD announced its sales results for 2021, the agency also raised BYD's sales forecast for new energy vehicles from 2022 to 2024 to 1.3 million, 1.75 million and 2 million, respectively.
Today, Tesla is also busy expanding its factory. If Tesla's sales volume increases by 50% per year, it means that the global sales of Tesla vehicles will reach 3 million in 2024.
However, in 2024, Jidu and Xiaomi have just completed the first full year of delivery cycle, and they may have opened a huge gap with their predecessors in terms of market share.
Tesla is ruthlessly taking away "market quotas." As the first new force to rise, Wei Xiaoli understands the significance of market share for the brand.
However, from the time node of the announcement, the set of millets really can not be faster. A new car, from project establishment, design, research and development to mass production, mature car companies have their own set of development processes. In the period of financial difficulties and the rise of the market, Wei Xiaoli was improving the efficiency of the brand and accelerating mass production.
Once Xiaopeng P7 was proposed for mass production, the whole process took 28 months. At the same time, the new car-making forces are also trying to disclose the information of new models after the completion of the product planning stage, and continue to create momentum, for example, WEI's ET7 from the announcement of new car information to the actual mass production delivery, it will take one year and four months.
In the view of Lu Shengyun, strategic consultant of Zero Idea Technology and partner of Artefact, Tesla and the new forces have not completely broken through the entire time rhythm of the car from design to procurement to final production and marketing, in other words, the degree of integration and millet of the officially announced car last year has been very limited.
So, does concentrating on polishing the product mean that success is more likely?
Zhang Junyi believes that in 2024, as more products in the market pour in, more homogeneous products will inevitably appear on the market, which undoubtedly adds more tests to the product positioning in this period.
At that time, the competitive environment faced by Jidu and Xiaomi will be much more complicated.
Recently, Euler stopped taking orders, but also once again amplified the problem of high costs in the automotive supply chain, A00-class electric vehicles even face the risk of disappearing, how to create a more cost-effective model, the next two years obviously face more challenges.
"Xiaomi itself attaches great importance to supply chain cost management, and now chips and battery raw materials have risen by 50% and higher, for Xiaomi to create a cost-effective millet, it is necessary to slowly upstream prices and form its own price advantage, Xiaomi in the creation of hardware at the same time, leave a little time to do the software ecology." Lu Shengyun believes that if Xiaomi wants to play its advantages in the field of mobile phones, it may take some time.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, believes that the rising price of chips and batteries will stimulate the new energy vehicle market and test the anti-cycle ability of car manufacturers, "By 2024, there will be car manufacturers who cannot sustain it." ”
There are some that cannot be sustained, but there will still be a geometric increase in sales. In Cui Dongshu's view, millet and jidu are more in the face of the new energy vehicle market with a sharp increase in scale, and the pressure will be greater.
This is a red flag for Jidu and Xiaomi.
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