Image source @ Visual China
Text | Dai Xi Hai
In just five years, how fast is the development speed of new energy vehicles?
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the proportion of annual sales of new energy vehicles in mainland China has soared from about 1.2% in 2016, and by 2021, production and sales have accumulated 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years, with a market share of 13.4%. In December, the market share reached 19.1%, continuing to maintain a high growth trend.
The new car-making forces are still facing losses after the difficult growth of crazy money-burning refinancing financing. Li Bin, founder of WEILAI, said that the threshold for car manufacturing has been raised from 20 billion yuan to 40 billion yuan. Since entering 2022, car-making forces including Weilai, Nezha, and Zero Run have targeted Hong Kong stocks and opened a new round of capital hematopoiesis.
In this wave of car-making, crazy money burning is still difficult to stop the continuous influx of latecomers. Backed by Baidu and Geely's Jidu Automobile, it has multiple advantages such as capital, technology and industrial capabilities that are difficult for other latecomers to have, and has contained the "golden key" from birth, and is regarded as the most powerful player in the team of new energy car-making latecomers.
Since its establishment in March 2021, Jidu Automobile has completed several important events in one year: such as working closely with the Baidu Apollo team to complete the road test of SIMUCar (Software Integrated Simulation Prototype) and the complete integration of intelligent cockpit software with JET1.0 (self-developed electrical and electronic architecture). In addition, the official also announced that the first prototype car will be officially unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show in April.
Compared with other latecomers, Jidu Automobile undoubtedly has a greater chance of winning. However, the current chain reaction caused by the epidemic has brought severe tests to new energy vehicle companies. For Jidu Automobile, it must not only deal with the adverse effects of the repeated impact of the epidemic on the industrial chain, but also face possible problems within itself.
Challenge 1: Chip shortage, or delay the development process
From 2021 onwards, lack of cores has become the norm in the automotive circle. For the set, which is still in the development stage, the impact of the chip shortage has begun to appear.
Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu Automobile, mentioned in an interview with the media that the chips needed in the product verification process are often not found, and if the chips during the verification period cannot be supported, the research and development progress is easy to postpone.
On a global scale, due to many factors, chip supply problems have become a pain point for the world's automotive industry, hindering the development of the entire automotive industry. According to AutoForecastSolutions, a data forecasting company for the automotive industry, as of March 20, the global automotive market has reduced production by 1.158 million units this year due to chip shortages. Among them, the cumulative production reduction in the Chinese automobile market increased to 71,000 units.
Why does the lack of chips have a greater impact on set size? Let's first look at how many chips a car needs. In traditional fuel vehicles, 600 to 700 chips are generally used, while the average number of chips required for new energy vehicles is about 1500. For example, Weilai uses more than 1,000 chips per vehicle, of which 10% will encounter tight supply problems, and the uncertainty of supply has become the biggest challenge.
Relying on Baidu's Apollo automatic driving system, CEO Xia Yiping defined Jidu Automobile as an "auto person", taking intelligence as a major selling point of the car, and declaring that mass-produced models can achieve L4 level automatic driving. This means that Jidu cars may need higher computing power and more chips.
Xia Yiping admitted to the outside world that the lack of chips will indeed affect the test parts, and has taken countermeasures: "On some specific chips, I have a team dedicated to keeping an eye on the goods, updating the latest situation every day, such as a component A sample difference of three chips, they will go everywhere to find." ”
In addition to chips, the lack of batteries is also another major problem faced by new energy vehicles. It is worth noting that Jidu Automobile has never released relevant information about battery solutions.
Challenge 2: How to effectively coordinate the bilateral resources of Baidu and Geely
At the same time that Jidu announced the completion of the A round of financing, Baidu set up the headquarters of Jidu Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jidu Technology") in Beijing. It should be noted that Jidu Technology and Jidu Automobile are two independent different subjects.
In an interview with the media, Xia Yiping deliberately emphasized, "Jidu Automobile is a relatively independent company, and cooperation with Baidu and Geely is a cooperation in business model." ”
From the perspective of the form of cooperation, this form is undoubtedly one of the ideal choices. However, how much Jidu Auto can strive for the best quality resources within Baidu and Geely, I am afraid that certain obstacles need to be overcome.
First of all, Baidu, which exports Apollo technical support for Jidu Automobile as a supplier through its wholly-owned company "Jidu Technology"; and Apollo, as Baidu's most core business and technology, whether the group can fully share this technology with Jidu Technology has to be retained; the identity of Jidu Technology's supplier means that it belongs to a subordinate role. Therefore, the shortcomings of Jidu Automobile's technology research and development and technology integration capabilities come from the strength of their own technical team.
In the form of cooperation with Geely, the same is true of Jidu Automobile.
Jidu Automobile mainly uses Geely's existing capabilities on the entire vast platform, including three electrics and chassis, to completely design and define the entire car and products, and finally the Geely team will help Jidu Automobile to carry out the engineering landing of the first car.
As one of the most complex industrial products, automotive requires the cooperation of suppliers in various fields, often as many as dozens. In addition to Baidu and Geely, Jidu Automobile has also signed a contract with Continental Group, Hesai Technology, Qualcomm, etc., to jointly develop the first mass production model in China that adopts the 8295 digital cockpit platform of the 4th generation Of Snapdragon Automobile; in the new generation of intelligent chassis technology, the cooperation is NVIDIA and ZF.
Challenge Three: Can L4 Autonomous Driving Conquer Users?
In the era of digital intelligence, cars have moved from "manufacturing" to "intelligent manufacturing". Intelligent connected vehicles involve vehicle parts, information communications, intelligent transportation, map positioning and other multi-field technology, the technical architecture is divided into "three horizontal and two vertical" technical architecture, covering intelligent driving system, three electric systems, information network system, engine control, chassis control system, entertainment system and other systems.
Some insiders believe that in the field of new energy vehicles, the final competition is mainly reflected in two aspects, in addition to the battery, the other is the degree of intelligence of the whole vehicle.
As a latecomer, Xia Yiping's goal is to build Jidu Automobile into a benchmark intelligent product and a benchmark autonomous driving experience.
According to public information, Jidu's first mass-produced model will be equipped with NVIDIA Orin X autonomous driving chip in terms of hardware, with a single computing power of 254TOPS. With the support of Orin chips, Jidu's first mass production model can achieve L4 level of autonomous driving.
Can intelligent and L4 intelligent driving become the biggest selling point of the product? Are users willing to pay for this?
Let's take a look at the situation of other peers, Weilai spares no effort to lay out the replacement power station nationwide, with charging efficiency and user service to win word of mouth; Tesla's sense of science and technology and brand appeal, attracting countless fans; BYD with battery technology and super high cost performance, to achieve sales explosion; the ideal car uses oil-electric hybrid to solve mileage anxiety, super space and business design to seize the user's psychology; the later rise of Nezha, with the affordable route; Wuling Mini with the low price and value of the sky, Complete market occupation in lower-tier cities.
At least from the current sales of major brands, intelligent and intelligent driving is not the most attractive selling point for users.
Especially in August last year, after the owner of Weilai opened the automatic driving function and caused an accident, major brands have increased their sales caliber, no longer emphasizing automatic driving, but replacing it with auxiliary driving function.
In an interview with the media, Xia Yiping revealed the automatic driving capability of the first version of Jidu's first car, "In the city, when the user uses navigation, the vehicle can automatically stop when it recognizes the red light; the navigation requires a left turn, and the car will drive to the left turn lane by itself (that is, realize automatic driving according to map navigation). This is much more complex than the user only using assisted driving on the highway, and the complexity of the scene is much higher. ”
However, Xia Yiping also admitted, "Baidu Apollo is the highest configuration, applied to the mass production car needs to be cut, to see which functions are the most important to the user, how to achieve it, and the experience is better, in this range, the hardware configuration should be how." Mass production is really about finding a balance between function, cost and final implementation. ”
Combined with the past history, automatic driving is like a double-edged sword, although it can highlight the strength of the vehicle technology, once a major accident occurs, it will inevitably affect the image of the brand. This problem, I believe that the decision-making level of Jidu Automobile must have some concerns. In today's research and development stage, Jidu Automobile still wants to take automatic driving as the main point of the product, and a reasonable explanation must be based on the actual comprehensive situation.
After mass production, L4 automatic driving may just be the icing on the cake, injecting a sense of technology into the brand, and the strength of the vehicle and after-car service are the key.
We believe that among the many late entrants of new energy vehicles, Jidu Automobile, which is backed by Geely and Baidu, is undoubtedly the most potential power faction. However, there is still uncertainty about whether Jidu can eventually emerge, at least before mass production, and whether it can be successfully overcome. I hope that Jidu automobile can bring different surprises to users.
Resources:
Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu Automobile: Building a car is just the tip of the iceberg
The "preventive shot" under the big sale of new energy vehicles: how to provide aftermarket services in the electric era is not lacking
Jidu Automobile: AI-empowered automotive robots, top Ashkenazi supply chain support
Four questions set degree: L4 level automotive robot can hand over the homework in 2023?
Dialogue with Xia Yiping: In 2023, jidu's journey is the benchmark for autonomous driving