Didi car can be said to be "the heart of Sima Zhao, passers-by are well known". In 2020, Didi has cooperated with BYD to launch the D1 model. However, in this model, BYD is the provider of technology platform and production capacity, and Didi provides more product definition. On the D1, Didi only touched a little threshold for making cars.
Recently, Didi was once again rumored to build a car, and it was its own independent car. Didi will acquire production qualifications and factories through the acquisition of Guoji Zhijun, a subsidiary of China National Machinery Automobile. To this day, affected by Didi's car, the stock price of China National Machinery Automobile has risen and fallen for three consecutive days. On the other hand, Didi is recruiting on a large scale to build its own car-making team, and it is said that Didi has set up a car-making team of 1600 people in Beijing, and headhunting companies are still "shaking people" everywhere, with salaries that exceed the industry average, digging corners everywhere.
It is also said that Didi has named the car-making project "Da Vinci Plan" internally, and plans to officially announce the car-making in June, and deliver the product as soon as next June.
Didi, who used to "repeatedly jump sideways" on the car, seems to have come to the real world this time.
From the D1 to see Didi made a car
From Apple to Sony, from Gree to Skyworth, from Baidu to Xiaomi, from Easy Car to Tuanche, now any company announcing that it wants to build a car is no longer surprising to me. It is true that in the era of electric vehicles, the threshold for making cars has been greatly reduced, and electric vehicles have truly entered the era of "four wheels plus two sofas".
Earlier barbaric such as Evergrande, bought Benteler's new energy chassis patent, find a few internationally renowned designers, and then pull up a few automotive design companies and parts suppliers, the same can save out 9 products, if it is not the main business thunderstorm, presumably Hengchi 5 has long been offline to accept the test of the market, even if it has been so difficult, recently Hengchi 5 or entered the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology declaration directory, began to prepare before listing.
In the era of electric vehicles, the difficulty of creating a "tool" that can be driven on the road has been far lower than that of gasoline cars, but to build a good car, a product that can really be played, the test is no longer the technical level of the engine, chassis and other machinery, but the understanding of people.
Obviously, Didi, which deals with drivers and passengers every day, seems to have learned more about users than most car companies.
I have sat on the D1 car many times before, and this BYD-made, Didi-defined product has left a great impression on me. For passengers, this small-looking car has enough rear and trunk space, cup holders and USB ports are also available, while sliding doors and a higher roof make getting in and out of the car more natural, no longer have to climb in and out like Xuanyi.
For drivers, it is also very good, electric vehicles inherent advantages so that D1 has a very brisk acceleration, for time is the income of drivers can be faster shuttle in the city, while the current low cost of electric vehicles, but also greatly reduced operating costs, the central control screen can also directly log in to the driver account, to achieve a large screen to grab a single navigation, the only bad may be D1 is still relatively high rental costs.
In this era when the technical threshold has been infinitely declining, who can more accurately grasp the needs of users, and even create user needs, who can grasp the opportunity for development. I believe that in addition to Didi, there will also be many car companies to understand the needs of rear passengers, through the feedback of products on sale, research company data, they may have more data than Didi, but what is valuable is that Didi will really feedback the user's appeal to the product, for passengers, what is more important than a spacious and comfortable rear seat, enough storage space and smooth comfort? The user thinking and execution ability reflected in the D1 may be able to become a major killer of Didi when it officially enters the car.
Is Didi a cross-border?
In the case that software-defined cars have become the consensus of the industry, what is more important for Didi is naturally software capabilities.
Judging from the current use of software, Didi still has a greater advantage over competitors such as Tock and Meituan. As a senior taxi user, Didi's positioning accuracy, map information detail, including the fluency of use, and the frequency of flashback are better than other competitors.
What's even more frightening is that now the app and millions of drivers (there are also rumors of tens of millions) give Didi plenty of ammunition in the future competition. Since 2022, when I use Didi Chuxing almost every time, I can always hear the APP's reminder to drivers: "Please note that there may be large cars around you." ”
I don't quite understand how the software on a mobile phone can detect the surrounding road conditions, but from the actual situation, the accuracy of this broadcast is not low, basically whenever I hear this warning tone, look up, there may be a heavy truck around, there may be an Iveco.
At a time when autonomous driving has become a core competitiveness and a must for soldiers, Didi has become the best data and machine learning collector with a million drivers. As strong as Tesla, it is ahead of the industry's self-driving capabilities and experiences, largely from the "shadow mode", through each Tesla driving on the road to collect data, and extract effective data, machine self-learning, huge human driver driving habits and road data to help Tesla's Autopilot continue to evolve, so that Elon Musk needs to build a Dojo supercomputer for artificial intelligence learning.
Zhiji Automobile, whose first product is about to be delivered on a large scale, also proposes a similar concept, they believe that the data generated by users in use is extremely valuable in future competition, so they propose a rough plan, and even take out the income and dividends of some equity assets to give back to users.
However, this collection of usage data is based on the number of users, and only with enough users can we cover as many road conditions and usage habits as possible. The number of users is precisely the advantage of Didi, millions of drivers and users every day, can produce a huge amount of usage data, road conditions, of course, the problem in front of Didi is how to screen out effective data from it, and provide it to the machine for self-learning.
Some people also say that the end point of car companies is companies such as Didi and Uber. When autonomous driving really lands, the attributes of the car will change from a means of transportation to a variable mobile space, most users may no longer need to drive, they need to provide a variety of other functions (such as meeting or sleeping), then users no longer need to have a car, what they have to do is to find a car that meets their needs through software, through the network or through some new way when needed.
A car company executive once told me that in the future, car companies may be reduced to foundries, and the owner and definer of the car will become a travel company, and the travel company will make a request, and the car company will only transform the requirements into products. User data and products will be in the hands of travel companies. This is also an important reason for the transformation into a travel service company promoted by many giant car companies in the past few years. Didi, on the other hand, has become the largest travel service company in China and holds the largest user resources.
If you only talk about building cars, Didi is not as good as a century-old giant like Mercedes-Benz, than software, I think Didi will not be the opponent of Baidu and Ali, than fan culture or industry expectations, Didi will not be the opponent of Apple and Xiaomi. But the usage data and habits of users (including drivers and passengers in this case), and The ability that Didi has demonstrated to turn user needs into products, may help Didi gain a place in the current chaotic war in the auto industry.
AUTHOR 83 Ashkenazi Quality Control
"Rational, Objective, Rigorous"