Text: Understand the original CheDi Cai Limei
[Understand the original industry of Chedi] [Understand the car emperor original 2021 Shanghai Auto Show] Editor's note: Under the sweep of electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing - the new four modernizations of automobiles, the global automobile industry is experiencing major changes unprecedented in a century. At a time when the automotive industry is facing great opportunities and windfalls, another year of the Shanghai International Auto Show is coming. Understanding Car Emperor will launch a series of reports around the theme of "embracing change" to provide a comprehensive outlook on the development of China's auto industry in 2021, this is the first issue of the series: "Decoding the three major signals to be read by the car market: electrification, interlopers, core technologies"
Standing at the starting point of the "20s", when the automobile market was in a period of violent turmoil, the transformation of the new four modernizations was accelerating, cross-border car manufacturing was flocking in, market competition was intensifying and evolving, and the chip crisis ushered in unprecedented challenges... These factors will make the development of the automobile industry more complex than ever. There are less than ten days left before the opening of the Shanghai Auto Show, and the major car companies have already prepared their own "good goods". What will happen to the future car market? Understand the car emperor to take everyone to explore the three major signals of "predicting the future car market".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > Volkswagen All in electrification, Toyota will not shoot again! </h1>
In the torrent of the times, electrification has become the clearest and most core theme of the automobile market. Whether it is the rapid and fierce new forces of car manufacturing, or the gradual progress of traditional manufacturers, a change of "car" and "electricity" has begun.
The Volkswagen Group, which is committed to completing the transformation, is more determined than any traditional car company on the road to electrification in All in.
Volkswagen Group's first "Power Day"
The Volkswagen Group believes that the future of the automobile is electrified, but the real challenge is digitalization. In March this year, at the first "Power Day", the Volkswagen Group made it clear that it would comprehensively and systematically deepen its platform strategy, covering four major aspects: hardware, software, battery charging, and travel services. In addition, Volkswagen plans to build 17,000 fast charging piles in China by 2025. This means that Volkswagen's fast-charging network will be five times that of today.
Volkswagen ID.3
In the view of Volkswagen Group, reducing battery costs is the only way to make electric vehicles mainstream, so while developing battery technology, we will cooperate extensively to strive to reduce the battery cost of entry-level models by 50%, which will make electric vehicles and fuel vehicles have the same competitiveness.
BMW i3
If in the past era of fuel vehicles, BBA luxury brands represent industry leaders and technology benchmarks. Nowadays, under the wave of the electric vehicle era, luxury brands are also competing to "show muscle".
In the history of electric vehicle layout, BMW, which "got up the earliest", released the first pure electric model BMW i3 and plug-in hybrid coupe i8 as early as 2013. Under Mercedes-Benz's "Vision 2039" corporate strategy, the "Year of EQ" will be fully launched this year. Audi expects new energy models to account for 40%-45% of the luxury car market share by 2030.
It is not difficult to see that at a time when competition is becoming more and more fierce, BBA is accelerating the completion of the electrified product line map. Only through the continuous entry of products into the hinterland of the market can it be expected to gain a firm foothold in the future era.
Toyota C-HR EV
Compared with most traditional car companies, they are "forced" to develop new energy technologies due to the great environmental impact, while Toyota began to try to electrify cars as early as the 1980s. The difference is that Toyota's main new energy technology route is hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell technology. At present, the global sales of Toyota hybrid models have exceeded 10 million units, and it has formed technical patent barriers for other car companies. But today, in the pure electric vehicle market track, Toyota does not seem to have shown its strength.
Yi Ze E into the qing
According to Toyota's plan, in the future, a total of 10 models will enter China by 2025, including the C-HR EV/Yize E Jinqing and lexus UX 300e. Moreover, by 2025, Toyota will achieve a sales target of 5 million new energy vehicles, including 1 million pure electric vehicles. In contrast, as of June 2020, the total number of new energy vehicles in the global new energy vehicle market is only 9.23 million. Therefore, the goal of this "2050 plan" formulated by Toyota is more radical. Looking at Toyota's current "electrification" process, its "transformation" speed can be said to be exceptionally slow compared to the grand goals it has set.
Lexus UX 300e
What is more "frightening" than the slow introduction of electrified new models is that the NEDC comprehensive working range of these three electric vehicles is only about 400 kilometers. Most of the electric models on the market are already more than 500km endurance today, compared with other competitors, Toyota's electric vehicle advantages or need to be further examined. Although Toyota has performed relatively optimistically in the sales of new energy vehicles in recent years, the more warm boiled frogs, with more and more traditional giants accelerating the pace of electrification transformation, the more fierce competition in the electrification era, the more likely Toyota is to lose its competitiveness. After all, if it is not changed by the times, it will eventually be abandoned by the times.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > Xiaomi break in? 7-year-old Weilai has become an old predecessor! </h1>
Even if the automobile market has entered the Red Sea era, there are still various gods who have entered this field one after another. From rumors to real hammers, in just a few years, Xiaomi, Huawei, Apple, Sony and even Foxconn have begun to enter the smart electric vehicle industry in various postures, planning their own car-making plans, and Weilai, who is almost 7 years old, has become an old predecessor.
So, why are Internet companies building cars across borders? What are their advantages?
To put it simply, there was no cross-border car building before, because the direction was not clear and the technology was not mature. But now, with the advancement of the new four modernizations, under the clear route of electrification and intelligence, the end of major businesses seems to be to build cars. In terms of advantages, the first is the cross-border its own topic degree, the more it is not related to the "car-making" business, the more it can have its own topic heat, and naturally it can bring a large number of traffic and users. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun once said that 92% of rice noodles said they would buy electric vehicles made by Xiaomi. According to rough statistics, the shipment of Xiaomi mobile phones in 2020 reached nearly 150 million units, and if this figure is replaced by cars, it is not a problem to set a record for historical sales.
Secondly, the Internet company's own scientific and technological research and development capabilities. Some people say that "software-defined cars", the product power competition of electric vehicles, and other complex industrial machines are increasingly showing the importance of software capabilities, and the organization and implementation of software engineering is precisely the ability of xiaomi, Huawei, Apple, Sony and other technology giants.
Finally, and most importantly, Internet companies have sufficient cash flow and high market capitalization. For the automotive industry with a scale of tens of billions, these risks are also redundant under the sufficient accumulation of Internet technology companies. By the end of 2020, Xiaomi has 108 billion yuan in cash reserves. With the company's R & D team of 10,000 people and the world's top three mobile phone businesses, coupled with the world's best ecological business, Xiaomi can afford to lose.
After all, the automotive companies of the future will not only manufacture cars, but will also be promoted to mobility service providers, providing users with software services throughout the life cycle. Emerging models such as OTA software upgrades, subscription services, and battery leasing have changed car consumption from "one-hammer trading" to "long-term consumption", which will largely subvert the traditional automobile consumption model. And Internet technology companies naturally will not let go of this huge "cake".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > chip shortage is not an isolated case, and no core technology will always be a supporting role! </h1>
Driven by the new "four modernizations", automotive chips have ushered in unprecedented development opportunities. Up to now, nearly 20 factories of 10 car companies have reduced production globally, including Volkswagen Group, Daimler Group, Ford Motor, Toyota Motor, General Motors and other mainstream car companies have suffered from lack of cores. Some market observers predict that global automobile production will be reduced by 4.5 million units in 2021 due to this chip shortage.
Why is the global automotive industry suddenly caught up in the wave of "lack of core"? Mainly because chip suppliers have adjusted chip production capacity to other industrial sectors with higher growth rates, such as consumer electronics, which in turn has led to a decline in chip supply to customers in the automotive industry, and there is a shortage of supply.
Image source: CCTV13
In March this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a seminar on the supply of automotive chips, proposing to actively guide and support the development of the automotive semiconductor industry and support enterprises to continuously improve the supply capacity of integrated circuits. At present, the demand for computing chips, power chips, memory chips and so on continues to increase. Among them, the cycle of upgrading the demand for computing power has been shortened from two years to half a year. At present, the chip dominance is still in the hands of foreign chip giants, and local forces have begun to show a diversified competitive pattern in the field of automotive chips.
In addition, for new energy vehicles, in addition to the core three-electric technology, there is also an electronic trend, the most representative is the automatic driving technology. Tesla firmly grasps the core capabilities of smart electric vehicles that most traditional car companies do not have in its own hands, and continues to break the upper limit of consumer expectations for a car with a more aggressive posture.
Fu Bingfeng, secretary general of the China Automobile Association, once said, "We now have a lot of core technologies already exist, but the scale of industrialization is not enough, may not be able to do the same very economic can support the application, if one day we come to that step, I think these technologies are completely supported, there is no need to worry too much about not being able to do, others can do, we can also do." ”
It can be said that the current major car companies are actively making changes in order to adapt to the trend of science and technology, rejuvenation, electrification, etc., and their visions for the future are also quite similar, and they all hope to seize the opportunity and win the future under the wave of electrification and intelligence. But there is no doubt that only by truly mastering the core technology and creating high-quality products can we stand at the forefront of the tide.