When the rammer hammer weighing dozens of tons was lifted high and slammed into the ground from the top of the crane, the Xiaomi automobile factory finally slammed the door of wealth in Maju Bridge, a "border town", in April this year.
Earlier, the author had reported on the progress of Xiaomi's automobile factory. The earliest one was in December last year, when the Xiaomi automobile factory had just officially settled in the Beijing Economic Development Zone; the most informative one was in March this year, which was carried out around the first anniversary of Lei Jun's car construction.
Time flies. In nearly half a year, everything around the Xiaomi automobile factory is undergoing earth-shaking changes. For example, from the chain salesman Xiao Zhangkou learned about the rise and fall of the nearby property market; for example, the past and present life of Xiaomi Automobile Factory, how it evolved from the beginning of the vegetable greenhouse to the current automobile factory step by step...
Therefore, the author attaches a link to the previous reports, interested readers and friends can go through every detail of the development of the Xiaomi automobile factory from the perspective of several reports in succession.
One
On the west side of the Archway of Fangxindian Village, the land for the first phase of the Xiaomi factory has been tightly shrouded by dust-proof nets, and the once iconic ridge ditch shape has completely disappeared under this "green shade".
In previous reports, the water pipe that was buried in the ground also had a clear purpose this time, and the construction team built two large reservoirs at the entrance of the factory to replenish the water supply by sprinklers working in the surrounding area.
The first to start construction is the plot south of the first phase of the Xiaomi Automobile Factory. According to the author's investigation, the factory is currently mainly divided into three construction areas, namely the site leveling construction area, the backfill land construction area and the backfill ramming operation area.
At present, the site leveling work in many areas outside the factory has been completed, and the backfilling and ramming operation area is the most "lively" area of the whole factory: the huge hanging hammer is lifted high by the crane, reaches the top and then quickly decouples, accompanied by the loud sound of the ramming hammer landing and the dust raised around the periphery, back and forth.
According to the on-site staff, the first phase of the factory has been under construction for about a week, and the site leveling and strong foundation are the initial stages of the plant construction, and it is expected that these two processes will last for a total of one month.
Among them, site leveling refers to the transformation of the original ground into a site plane that meets the needs of production, which can fully meet the needs of water supply, drainage, power supply, roads and temporary buildings necessary for construction; strong ramming foundation is the use of the huge impact force generated by the ramming hammer landing instantly, forcing the land gap to compress, thereby greatly improving the bearing capacity required for the plant foundation.
The staff also said that after the completion of the above two processes, the seepage well for drainage purposes will be excavated on the site immediately.
Two
According to the information previously disclosed, the Xiaomi automobile factory project is expected to invest 63 billion yuan and be completed in two phases, undertaking relevant functions such as Xiaomi automobile production base, sales headquarters, research and development headquarters and future listing entities. According to the plan, the first phase of the plant will be completed in June 2023, with an annual production capacity of 150,000 units.
Considering that there has been news that Xiaomi Automobile's first factory prototype will debut in the third quarter of this year, the author expects Xiaomi to take the lead in building a production line for the production of engineering prototypes in the first phase of the factory.
The second phase of the Xiaomi Automobile Plant will start construction in March 2024 and be completed in March 2025. Like the first phase of the project, the second phase of the plant also has an annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles. At present, the largest building standing on the site of the second phase of the project is the Jingdong Tongzhou Sorting Center, which is still surrounded by many signs marking the vacated area.
In this way, the construction of the Xiaomi automobile factory is still proceeding in an orderly manner according to the plan.
It is worth noting that the location of the first phase of Xiaomi Automobile Factory is the YZ00-0606-0101 plot of Yizhuang New Town. According to information disclosed on the official website of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Nature, the plot was only listed for sale on April 6, and the initial auction price was 610 million yuan.
At about 3 p.m. on April 6, a mystery buyer whose name had not yet been disclosed gave the first round of bidding, which was equivalent to the starting price given by the official website of the Beijing Planning and Self-Government Commission. However, this is more than the transaction has not yet been officially completed. According to the announcement of the Beijing Planning and Self-Government Commission, the listing bidding period should not be less than 11 working days.
That is to say, even if the settlement plan of the millet factory has long been settled, and the factory construction has officially started, as of the date of the author's publication, millet has not really become the new owner of this land.
Three
Outside the factory, Xiaomi Cars also has a new action in the patent application.
According to Tianyan, Xiaomi Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. announced 7 invention patents related to electric vehicles on April 8, April 12 and April 15, respectively, including "electric drive axle and its fault diagnosis method and device, vehicle terminal", "adaptive cruise start time adjustment method, device, equipment and storage medium", "electric vehicle and its control power circuit", etc.
Among them, the patent of "adaptive cruise start time adjustment method, device, equipment and storage medium" can reasonably arrange the start time of the adaptive cruise function based on the accurate information of the current vehicle; and the patent of "electric vehicle and its control power circuit" can ensure that when the low-voltage battery fails, the low-voltage side load and the high-voltage side load are still driven normally to complete the work.
It can be found that the patents currently published by Xiaomi Auto mainly focus on the needs of cars in terms of safety.
According to statistics, although Xiaomi is a new recruit among the new car manufacturers, it has more than 800 automotive-related patents, and has a layout in the fields of wireless communication networks, data processing, digital information transmission, image communication, etc., and does not lose the current head force of more than 10,000 monthly sales.
In fact, long before the official announcement of the car, there were intellectual property service providers who evaluated the value of Xiaomi's patents in the automotive field, which was expected to exceed 100 million US dollars at that time, while the value of the patents owned by Weilai in the same period did not exceed 20 million US dollars.
In the past year, Lei Jun, in line with the original intention of "building a satisfactory car for all rice noodles", has stepped down as a legal person of many affiliated companies just to concentrate on building cars, and the supply chain construction and talent recruitment can also be described as a bow.
With the official start of the first phase of the factory project, Xiaomi Automobile has truly entered a new stage. It is foreseeable that compared with last year's early preparations, this year's large number of problems related to factory construction are the touchstones that really test Lei Jun and Xiaomi's auto team.
Lei Jun's road to building cars has reached the most dangerous halfway up the mountain.