When the new forces of car manufacturing fall into the dream of capital

Text/Meng Yonghui

In a sense, the logic of building a car and building a mobile phone is actually the same. This is the fundamental reason why so many mobile phone manufacturers have begun to join the ranks of car manufacturing. Similarly, in the car-making family, we also see the situation of making mobile phones. There is auspiciousness in the front, and there is Weilai in the back. Yes, recently Weilai Li Bin expressed his views on making mobile phones in an interview. Although Li Bin did not make it clear that Weilai made mobile phones, his statement had to let us think about the internal logic of making mobile phones and cars, and to spy on the future development direction of mobile phones and cars.

In recent years, there has been a lot of news about mobile phones being replaced. More and more mobile phone manufacturers are beginning to join the ranks of car manufacturing, which seems to confirm such a view. Regardless of whether the future mobile phone will be replaced, however, one thing is certain that with the continuous improvement of mobile phone penetration, the future mobile phone market will eventually be saturated, and it will inevitably be a red sea war between the tip of the needle and the mai mang.

Unlike the saturation of the mobile phone market, the automobile market, especially the new automobile market, is a blue ocean. In a sense, the once traditional automobile industry is facing a deep and thorough revolution with the advent of the "double carbon" era and the era of new technology revolution. For such a fledgling industry, if you can take the lead in participating in it, you can not only achieve overtaking in the corners, break the industry pattern that has been dominated by auto giants for a long time, and even make up for the development dilemma brought about by the saturation of the mobile phone market. I think this is not only the reason why mobile phone manufacturers have joined the ranks of car manufacturers, but also the reasons why Internet players have joined the ranks of car manufacturers.

Yes, the advent of the new era of automobiles has indeed opened the door for us to rethink and look at the automobile industry. It also allows mobile phone manufacturers that are facing increasing competitive pressure to see this opportunity. So they began to re-examine the car and the mobile phone, trying to find a place where the two could communicate, so as to achieve a "win-win situation".

I have always believed that the functions and roles of cars and mobile phones are essentially the same. Whether it is a mobile phone or a car, the functions and functions they assume are the medium of the usual external world of human beings, but the car brings humans to the real world, while the mobile phone brings humans to the virtual world. Therefore, if you must find a most realistic theoretical footnote for mobile phones and cars, the medium is perfect.

In the early context, mobile phones and motor homes were not connected. A mobile phone is a mobile phone, and a car is a car. However, with the deepening of the influence of the Internet, especially the advent of the era of automobile Internetization, such a clear relationship between cars and mobile phones has really been bridged, and the barriers and gaps between mobile phones and cars are disappearing step by step.

Today's cars are beginning to take on the functions of mobile phones more and more, and break the traditional sense of the car connected to the real world, by the mobile phone connected to the virtual world situation. It is in this case that we are seeing more and more mobile phone manufacturers begin to join the ranks of car manufacturers. Therefore, if we must find the internal reasons for the beginning of the bridge between car building and mobile phone building, the deep integration of the virtual world and the real world may be the most essential reason.

However, what we also have to see is that the vast majority of car-making families and mobile phone-making families now only follow the logic of the Internet, the logic of capital to operate, the reason why they will build cars or make mobile phones, not that they have found ways and methods to connect the virtual world and the real world, but that they see the capital market's attention to car-making and mobile phone-making, and through their own actions to meet the investment needs of the capital market.

Therefore, in such a situation, what we see is that car building and mobile phone building have actually become a way and method to obtain capital attention, and a way and method to alleviate the financing difficulties of traditional business models. The Internet players we see throw themselves into the ranks of car building, and the real estate players we see throw themselves into the ranks of car building, almost all of which are like this logic. If you say it more bluntly, it is that those players who are really short of money will really build cars, or build mobile phones, and for those players who are not short of money, they will look at car building and mobile phones from a deeper and long-term perspective.

This is a good understanding of why Apple and Huawei are so cautious about building cars, and until now have not announced the root cause of car building. In addition to these companies are not bad money, one of the more in-depth reasons is that the car is actually the same logic as the mobile phone, if only the parts are pieced together and assembled, then any company can be involved in the ranks of car building. In fact, what really determines the success or failure of car manufacturing lies in the innovation of technology, especially in finding ways and means to connect the real world and the virtual world.

Why are mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple and Huawei fundamentally different from other mobile phone manufacturers? One of the important reasons is the difference in core technology. In the end, the logic of building a car and building a mobile phone is actually the same. In the short term, it may be a battle of capital, a war of scale, but when such a war of capital is fought, the war of scale is no longer there, and in the end, it is still a competition of technological innovation and strength.

In other words, the final winners of car building are still those players who have mastered the core technology and basic technology. The car-making family and mobile phone-making family we see now are basically continuing the Internet-style development logic. For players such as Apple and Huawei, they are more concerned about the research of core technology and basic technology, they just regard car building as a future layout to do, and will not really devote themselves to the ranks of car manufacturing, use car manufacturing to win the attention of capital, and use car manufacturing to continue the Internet-style development model.

From this point of view, we look at car building and mobile phone building, in fact, we will find that in the end, they are still a game of capital, and the real laugh to the end may not be the capital players we see now, but the technical players who have really mastered the core technology and can bring new technical genes to the car.

When more and more mobile phone manufacturers began to devote themselves to the ranks of car manufacturing, when more and more car manufacturers began to look back at mobile phone manufacturing, in the end, in fact, they are telling us that the essence of mobile phones and cars are the same, they are the medium of human beings to the outside world.

At the same time, what we should also see is that many car-making players are actually building cars according to the logic of capital, in fact, they are building cars according to the logic of the Internet, and they are not really looking at the car itself from a more essential and basic perspective to explore the relationship between cars and mobile phones. Therefore, in the final analysis, the current battle to build cars is actually a battle of capital.

When the dividends of capital are no longer there, especially when the players in the car market begin to saturate, we will inevitably see a deep reshuffle. Take Jiangsu Province, an important town of new car-making forces, as an example. According to the Notice on Effectively Strengthening the Supervision and Management of Investment Projects and Risk Prevention and Control in the Automobile Industry previously issued by the Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the utilization rate of automobile capacity in Jiangsu Province in 2020 is only 33.03%, which is about 20 percentage points lower than the national average.

Among them, the new car-making forces have become the "hardest hit areas": since 2016, the capacity utilization rate of the newly built Future, Min'an and Fengsheng has been less than 5%; the automobile capacity utilization rate of The Jintan Branch of Mahayana Automobile has been less than 2% for two consecutive years.

The "Analysis of Mainland Passenger Car Capacity in 2020" released by the China Automobile Dealers Association pointed out that the capacity utilization rate of mainland passenger cars fell from 66.55% in 2017 to 48.45% in 2020, which is in the range of serious overcapacity.

Wait until the overcapacity of the car-making ranks, especially until the capital market loses patience with car-making, relying on the drive of capital to make cars, may still not be able to escape the fate of the shuffle. At that time, car-making may really face new difficulties and problems like the current mobile phones, and in the same way, in that era, the real pride may not be the car-making families we see now, but those Apple and Huawei who have really mastered the core technology and basic technology.

When the car-making family began to build mobile phones, in fact, it was telling us that the so-called car-making was just a game of capital, an Internet-style game. This is worthy of our vigilance, and it is equally lamentable.

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Author: Meng Yonghui, Senior Contributor, Columnist, Special Commentator, Industry Research Expert, Strategic Consultant. A daily article, long-term focus on industry research, providing deep thinking and hardcore dry goods. Support the sharing of the author's source, please retain the author's copyright information when reprinting, and the offender will be investigated.