Set degree confusion! Robin Li and Li Shufu, can this car be created?

Author | Wang Peng

Source | CarVisibility

"Don't put your eggs in one basket" is the guideline for diversification. As Baidu Group (09888. Robin Lee, the head of HK), seems to know this well.

In recent years, Internet companies have gone down to build cars, seizing the new energy vehicle outlet has also become the choice of many big guys, China has gradually become the world's largest new energy vehicle market, such as Huawei, Xiaomi and other companies have bet, Baidu Group is naturally one of them.

Previously, Baidu Group invested in WM Motors several times and became its largest institutional shareholder; in March this year, Baidu Group joined hands with Geely to establish Jidu Automobile Co., Ltd., and occupied 3 of the 5 board seats, becoming the majority shareholder of Jidu Automobile.

Jidu Automobile Co., Ltd. was established on March 2, with a registered capital of 2 billion yuan, Baidu Group holds 55% of the shares, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group holds 45% of the shares, is a new energy vehicle developer, the main business is the new energy vehicle vehicle and related parts of the technical services, auto parts and accessories manufacturing and new energy vehicle sales.

Du Ge noticed that although Baidu has already bet on building cars, it has never been able to create its own IP. Compared with Lei Jun, who started half a year late and built cars with hundreds of billions of reserves, although Robin Li is also quite atmospheric, he does not have the determination to all in.

Driven by favorable policies and continuous development of automotive technology, China's new energy vehicle sales are expected to have considerable development in the next few years, and whether Baidu Group can stand out in the fierce industry competition and successfully create its own IP is still unknown.

Hand in hand with Geely

In recent years, the development of new energy vehicles has accelerated, and the sales growth of new energy vehicles in China has exceeded that of fuel vehicles. According to the China Insight Consulting report, sales of new energy vehicles in China increased from 300,000 units in 2016 to 1.2 million units in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 41.7%. In addition, in 2020, the sales volume of new energy vehicles accounted for only 5.8% of the total sales volume of passenger cars, indicating that new energy vehicles have great growth potential in the future.

As early as a few years ago, as the head of Robin Li, he joined hands with Baidu Group to start the road of car building: on December 11, 2017, WM Motors announced the completion of a B round of financing led by Baidu Capital and followed by Baidu Group; on March 8, 2019, Baidu once again led A round of C financing of 3 billion yuan; in September 2020, WM Motors announced the completion of a total of 10 billion yuan of D round financing, which still has the shadow of Baidu.

In addition to giving large financial support to WM Motors, Baidu has also cooperated with WM Motors in autonomous driving technology, and jointly developed AVP autonomous parking technology, that is, through L4 level driverless technology and real-time big data, to achieve a high degree of intelligence and unmanned parking under the parking lot, so as to solve the "last kilometer" problem.

Just when everyone thought that Baidu Group bet on Weima Automobile, Robin Li, who had said in early 2021 that he would not build a car, changed his mouth and joined hands with Geely Automobile to build Jidu Automobile and entered the car-making camp in a big way.

Previously, unmanned driving was undoubtedly the focus of Baidu's resource tilt. Although Baidu has achieved good results in this regard, it is far from enough to get rid of the embarrassing identity of the "second group".

On March 2, after the official registration and establishment of Jidu Company, it immediately and efficiently launched research and development work quickly and efficiently: in 100 days, the number of core teams has approached 200 people; after 4 months, the modeling design plan was completed and entered the engineering development stage; 6 months later, the first model of the sludge model wind tunnel experiment was completed; 200 days later, the intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit function development was launched, and its CEO Xia Yiping even said that the first new car will be unveiled next spring.

It is worth mentioning that Baidu said that the name "Jidu" was given by Baidu AI: "At the beginning, we used the algorithm to give this company more than 100 names, and finally determined the 'Jidu'! It means that it is the culmination of Baidu's AI capabilities. From this name, we can glimpse Baidu's determination to show its fists through Jidu Automobile.

Set degree confusion

Overall, Baidu Group has achieved initial results in the field of intelligent driving and car manufacturing. However, its layout is quite tangled, first cooperating with WM Motors to focus on the field of intelligent driving, while At the beginning of this year, Li Yanhong, who said at the beginning of this year that he would "not build cars" and only focused on building an autonomous driving platform, spent a lot of money to set up Jidu Automobile.

Compared with other Internet ecosystems, Baidu is one of the few companies that regards online marketing revenue as the vast majority of revenue sources, so the mobile ecological business is still Baidu's pillar business. On May 18, Baidu disclosed its first financial report after returning to Hong Kong for listing, showing that online marketing revenue still accounted for nearly 80% of Baidu's core revenue. This also means that for Baidu, it is very difficult to make way for mobile ecological business to build cars.

Baidu seems to have a natural gene for fear of difficulties, which is also related to Robin Li's experience and personality. Robin Li is a technician in his bones, thanks to the dividends of the Internet blue ocean, Baidu created by Robin Li has risen rapidly, but he himself has not been prepared to change to a business tycoon. Compared with other Internet tycoons who dare to fight, Robin Li often wavers or even retreats when faced with choices.

What really pulled Baidu off the altar was the "Wei Zexi Incident" in 2016, where the medical information bidding ranking plunged Baidu into an unprecedented word-of-mouth crisis, and Baidu's business model and values were also challenged by many parties. At that time, Robin Li should not have thought that with the corporate image being questioned, Baidu gradually began to decline, and he himself would also be in a certain embarrassing situation.

In addition, Du Ge found that baidu group, which seemed to be betting at both ends, seemed to have been hesitating, and compared to lei jun who fought from the Red Sea, Robin Li lacked the courage to make a desperate bet.

Compared with Baidu's car, Lei Jun personally led the Xiaomi car is quite rich and profound: the reserve fund reached 100 billion yuan, the first phase of investment of 10 billion yuan, the next 10 years to increase to 10 billion US dollars. It should be noted that Xiaopeng Automobile, which has been established for nearly 6 years, only has 30 billion yuan at hand. With the support of huge financial resources, the progress of Xiaomi car manufacturing work is also far beyond expectations, on October 19, Xiaomi Investor Day, Lei Jun said that Xiaomi car will achieve mass production in the first half of 2024.

In this way, if Baidu wants to build its own car, it still needs to burn a lot of money, and I don't know if Robin Li is ready for this at this time.

Software benefits

At present, "new cars" are still the darlings of capital players, but as the threshold for vehicle manufacturing becomes higher, there are more competitors, and internal rolls are inevitably occurring. Many capital players have set their sights on the profit core of car manufacturing, that is, looking for targets with more investment value in the field of automobile chips and power batteries.

Baidu, which officially plunged into the car-making army, started not too late, at least one step faster than Xiaomi, and invested in Weima for several years. However, the manufacture of new energy vehicles not only requires a lot of money, but also requires mature technology. This also means that the accumulation of enterprises in car manufacturing is very important, which is exactly what Baidu lacks at present.

Baidu car manufacturing is not without opportunities to stand out. Compared with the advantages of Ali car manufacturing in the C-end, as a technology company, Baidu also has its advantages in car manufacturing, and the realization of software-defined cars is one of them. Xia Yiping has said that the software team has collaborated with the Baidu Apollo team on the development of intelligent cockpits and intelligent driving functions based on THE SIMA Car (analog prototype car).

SIMU Car is in the early stage of research and development in this process, and through the adjustment of the electronic and electrical architecture of the basic vehicle, the development of intelligent cockpit functions and intelligent driving is placed in the front to improve the development efficiency.

As a partner of Baidu, Geely Automobile's strength is also quite good. Overall, whether it is brand fame, quality or sales, Geely is in the front line in China, which can also provide more practical data support for Baidu's automatic driving. In addition, Geely Automobile's 18 billion yuan-based Vast SEA architecture is also one of its advantages.

At the same time, thanks to the favorable policy landing of new energy vehicles, the development of battery technology and intelligent vehicle technology, the improvement of consumer recognition of new energy vehicles and the improvement of the derivative industrial chain of new energy vehicles, the cake of new energy vehicles is also getting bigger and bigger.

Robin Li's Baidu, the timing of entering the car is not too late. Years of accumulation have also given it its own advantages. However, building a car is a difficult journey, and like marriage, it requires huge sacrifices from all parties. If Robin Li can be more resolutely involved, it is not difficult to tell a good Jidu story with Jili.

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