Wen | East Fence
"The shift in the powertrain is relatively insignificant, the bigger change is that the car is gradually becoming a fully integrated internet device, and for the first time in history, we will see the car companies build a relationship directly with the customer." Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen Group, made his judgment before the advent of the era of smart electric vehicles.
On April 28, CARIAD, a software company owned by the Volkswagen Group, officially announced its China strategy to officially establish cariad's China subsidiary, which will promote the development of software products for Chinese consumers, including the development of a unified and scalable new software platform, advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving, and next-generation intelligent interconnection functions with headquarters.
Automotive intelligent networking or digitalization includes both the Internet of Vehicles, the intelligent cockpit, and the vehicle-road collaboration V2X, which is also covered by automatic driving, which is really a rather grand proposition, and China is indeed one of the main battlefields.
Adding weight to China is an inevitable choice for digitalization
After seeing Tesla and Apple as "big enemies" in 2020, Diess showed the latest progress of Volkswagen Group's NEW AUTO strategy on Weibo on April 20, and they have included Chinese car companies such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and BYD in the list of competitors, and reached a consensus: to promote the development of the group's automotive software company CARIAD, establish a new guidance model for the group, and promote the growth of Chinese business.
As Changqing Chang, CEO of CARIAD's China subsidiary, said, China is leading the world in digital applications and innovation, and consumers are increasingly demanding new features and experiences.
However, the new car manufacturing forces represented by Wei Xiaoli and Chinese independent brand car companies such as SAIC, BYD, and Geely have already made joint efforts in the field of intelligence to meet the needs of Chinese consumers, which has to make many foreign car companies, including Volkswagen, full of urgency.
In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the same follows such a truth: backwardness will be beaten. Traditional independent brands and new car manufacturers have seized the opportunity.
In 2016, Roewe RX5 created a precedent for "Internet cars", which is not only an innovation in definition, it is really borrowed and learned by many car companies, a number of industry experts told HD Auto, shortly after the release of RX5, "several European manufacturers directly bought a few and shipped them back for dismantling and analysis." ”
But one of the characteristics of the Internet is that it replicates quickly. Various Chinese car companies have launched functions such as central control large screen, map that is, desktop, voice interaction and control, and the "Internet car" is rapidly homogenized. However, the inner roll did not quickly spread to foreign countries, and the large screen did not seem to be installed quickly on Japanese, German and other models, which greatly reduced the attractiveness of Chinese consumers who are accustomed to digitizing the inner roll.
According to McKinsey's "AutoMotive Consumer Insights" released last year, in all other market segments except the high-end market, the offensive trend of independent brands is quite rapid, the joint venture brand "moat" has almost disappeared, in a certain price band, independent brands and joint venture brands have even been "equally divided".
Auto brands in the Chinese market are accelerating value revamping. Electrification is obviously not the differentiation of brand value remodeling, but only the foundation, and it is more worth looking forward to is that each company can provide products and solutions that meet the needs of different consumers in terms of intelligence, networking, automatic driving, and personalized services.
What's more, there seem to be more barbarians coming from the Chinese auto market. Apple, Sony and other global technology giants are bound to not ignore the Chinese market, and domestic electronic giants such as Millet, OPPO and other brands into it, and even Evergrande Automobile has released 9 products, and the brand power and product power of automotive products and services in different industries will be more intense.
The post-90s generation has gradually grown into one of the main forces with spending power, and many of them are in high school or college, using Apple and Xiaomi mobile phones, and now they are starting to buy Xiaomi TVs, speakers and other products. A post-90s consumer told HD Auto that when the products come out after that, between Volkswagen and Xiaomi, he will choose Xiaomi.
Accelerating the deployment of software research and development and digital capabilities in China is an inevitable choice, and no one will give up the world's most dynamic and promising mobility market.
Localization remains challenging
"In China, for China", such a statement is not only Volkswagen, almost all foreign car companies need to carry out localization strategy, that is not everyone's strategy can be smooth.
"Chinese consumers are younger and more proficient in e-commerce and smartphone applications. They are perhaps the most interconnected consumer group in the world. Julian Blissett, GM's global executive vice president and president of GM China, has a deep understanding of Chinese consumers, and the digital habits of Chinese users and foreign consumers are very different in their own way, and they must rely on China's local forces.
Before leaving as president and CEO of Volkswagen China, Heizmann told HD Auto, "Companies need to be able to find the right partners to move forward together, because no manufacturer can accomplish the goal alone." Chang Qing, who returned to China from his Headquarters in Germany as CEO, said at the press conference that the Chinese team will work closely with the group's various brands in China and three joint venture partners to achieve group scale effect at the software level.
This is the advantage of the joint venture that has been established, whether it is SAIC Volkswagen or FAW-Volkswagen, it has a strong enough local team and research, but this may also become a certain constraint. Will the two strong Chinese shareholders be willing to let the joint venture's vehicles use CARIADA products? For example, Skoda, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, has signed a cooperation agreement with Zebra Network to use its software services.
The game of strong shareholders at home and abroad may become an unstable factor, and Jianghuai Volkswagen does not have such a problem, and it is likely to land related products faster, which is expected to become a breakthrough for CARIAD to open the market.
On the other hand, how to find partners for Chinese Internet companies is also a big difficulty. Many Internet giants have their own layouts, and even jump into the game to build cars. Even if they are willing to open up cooperation, most of them are quite strong, and giants like Volkswagen will not give up their dominance, and there is no more news about its previous cooperation with Didi.
Therefore, how foreign monks can read china's intelligent "sutra" well needs to be further pondered.
In addition to local companies, car companies also need to rely on local talents. CARIAD currently has more than 600 employees in China and expects to double its workforce by the end of 2023, with more than 90% of them being local software talent. At the same time, we are building R&D forces in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Hefei to gradually build a national distributed R&D network.
However, the current fierce competition for talents is very high, new car forces, independent brands and foreign car companies, are all looking at high-end software and digital talents, it is not uncommon to dig corners for each other, and it is far more difficult to form a larger and more competitive team than imagined.
Finally, the key to the real attention of intelligence is that the automotive industry will be a data-driven industry in the future, and the car is the contact point for connecting users and enterprises. He Xiaopeng once said that the core of smart cars lies in operation, so that users and cars can form a lasting interaction, generate a steady stream of data, and feed back software and hardware development.
However, data security and privacy protection is not an easy problem for foreign car companies. Both assisted driving and autonomous driving need to collect external environmental data through sensors, while smart cockpits need more information about all aspects of the user. A lot of information can be desensitized, but the threshold may be higher than that of local companies.
Foreign car companies have been deeply involved in China for many years, although the challenges of intelligence and digitalization are not small, there will always be enough companies to stand out, let us wait and see.
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