Bohu nodded: Wang Gang, head of the autonomous driving laboratory of Damo Academy, once said: "If there is no suitable torso, we can also do it ourselves." ”
Tmall wants to build a car.
Recently, a digital Weibo big v, mentioning that Tmall wants to enter the car circle, has now reached the battery docking stage, and attached a screenshot of the WeChat chat.
Tmall as a differentiated B-end e-commerce platform from Taobao, although its Tmall automobile has car sales, spare parts sales, car maintenance and other car-related services, but from the automotive aftermarket services to the manufacturing end, more or less still hit a little suspicion in people's hearts.
Take a closer look at this WeChat group screenshot and you will find that the expression "Tmall makes a car" is problematic. The user who claims to have friends in the car circle, although he mentioned building cars, the main body has always been Ali.
(@Tech's things Weibo screenshot)
I don't know if I was induced by the words "Double Eleven", originally "Ali wants to build a car" became "Tmall wants to build a car". At this annual juncture, the hot spot is rubbed.
Regardless of the problem of the source, if you take stock of Ali's actions in the automotive sector over the years, it is not difficult to find that Ali's participation in car manufacturing is already well known, and the only thing that makes people wonder is how Ali will build it? And this time, why is the rumor of Tmall making a car so rampant?
In 2015, Alibaba established the Automotive Division, and Wang Licheng, the former general manager of Juhuasuan, served as the first general manager.
The operation idea of Alibaba Automobile Division is the same as that of the e-commerce platform: through the o2o model, it provides one-stop service of "seeing, selecting, buying, using and selling" to car owners.
In the year of its establishment, Alibaba Automobile Division has integrated nearly 10,000 4S stores and nearly 20,000 automotive after-sales service outlets, covering new cars, used cars, localized services, automotive products and other links, including 50 mainstream car companies such as BMW, Land Rover and Volkswagen.
These achievements depend on the accumulation of Tmall Auto and Taobao Auto in the auto aftermarket for many years – although the two sales terminals have been integrated, they will continue to be retained.
Ali contacted the car, the earliest report was that in 2010, Geely opened a global eagle flagship store on the Taobao mall, becoming the first car sales company on the Taobao mall, and the first sales model was the Geely Panda. Since then, there have been automobile brands settled in.
On January 11, 2012, "Taobao Mall" was renamed "Tmall". But whether it is Tmall Auto or Taobao Auto, the business done is similar.
An intermediate platform to provide others with a place to sell goods, from the early stage of selling cars, to the back to start buying tires, seats, oil, and finally began to expand offline, do car cleaning, maintenance.
In 2016, after Ma Yun proposed the concept of new retail, car sales also began to pay attention to offline. On December 12, 2017, Alibaba opened a Tmall unmanned car supermarket on the 6th floor of Nanjing Golden Eagle World, which is known as the largest shopping mall in Asia, and launched the "Super Test Drive" project.
In August 2018, Tmall Auto, together with Auto Superman (auto maintenance platform) and Kangzhong (auto parts supply chain service provider), established a new company in the automotive aftermarket, and two months later, the company named Xinkangzhong, released brands and businesses such as Tmall Station and Tmall Car, and built after-car services in terms of store certification, parts operation, and digital integration of repair.
(Tmall car offline store Source: Network)
But the layout of the automotive aftermarket did not end because of this.
In July 2020, Tmall, Taobao, Alipay, and AutoNavi jointly organized the "Tmall Meow Car" to do car beauty, maintenance and repair. If there is any difference from Tmall car, it may be the three words "localization".
At this point, we can also see that Tmall's automobile-related business basically covers the whole cycle outside of automobile manufacturing.
Ali can completely make it possible to build cars independently of Tmall cars, after all, whether it is the car aftermarket or car manufacturing, the work is not simple.
Therefore, compared with the "Tmall car" that "does not do business", Ali car manufacturing is more likely - Tmall car is only a sales terminal of Ali automobile.
As for Ali's car, the history is relatively long, and what can be concluded in advance here is that the direction of Ali's car is not clear.
The first is unmanned logistics, which is a completely autonomous project of Ali.
In 2016, Ali launched the unmanned logistics vehicle "XiaoG"; in 2018, "Little GPLUS" began to test on the street; in 2020, Alibaba Yunqi Conference launched the logistics intelligent robot Xiao Brute Donkey. However, these projects are currently in the experimental phase and have not been widely promoted.
(The intelligent logistics robot "Little Wild Donkey" developed by Dharma Academy Source: Network)
The second is unmanned travel: robotaxi. This piece, Ali entered the game not long ago. Three months ago, Alibaba strategically invested in Yuanrong Qixing, a l4 level autonomous driving solution provider. What is not clear here is whether Ali is only looking at Yuanrong as an investment project.
Then again, logistics and travel, although closely related to Ali's business development, it is a bit far-fetched to classify them as car-making in the traditional sense.
Ali's real car-making related goes back to SAIC.
The cooperation with SAIC motor began with the Internet of Vehicles.
In 2014, Musk brought Tesla across the Pacific Ocean to bring the wave of electric vehicles to China. At that time, Jack Ma, who was full of spirit in the e-commerce business, led his team to visit SAIC and soon signed a strategic cooperation agreement on "Internet Car".
The following year, the two companies formed zebra networks to provide operating systems and solutions for cars. In July 2016, the Roewe rx5 equipped with zebra system was launched, and the sales exceeded 40,000 in more than three months.
After that, Ali continued to lay out the Internet of Vehicles, and there was a new brand alios Internet of Things operating system after the integration of yunos mobile terminals, and the application scope included automobiles, iot terminals, and industrial fields, a bit like Hongmeng now.
However, as the industry's understanding of smart electric vehicles is deepening, car companies seem to be more and more wary of tripartite technology solution providers. Especially SAIC , that is, SAIC, which says that it doesn't want to give its soul to Huawei.
At the end of 2020, Ali joined hands with SAIC to make "Zhiji Auto" with Shanghai Zhangjiang. Obviously, in this cooperation, the three parties have their own advantages: software technology, manufacturing capabilities, and industrial chain.
But in zhiji cars, the core self-driving technology comes from momenta. Recently, the company completed a C+ round of financing, led by SAIC, and the previous investors were Tencent.
Maybe on the Zhiji car, Ali can install a Gaode map, but the music player can't be installed.
Some people can't help but ask, ali automatic driving is not OK?
In 2017, Ali established Damo Academy and set up an autonomous driving department; in September 2018, Ali released the first l4 new energy vehicle. In 2018, in kitti, the world's largest set of autonomous driving computer algorithms, Ali won three world firsts, including 3D object detection, pedestrian detection and recognition.
(Alibaba's 3D object detection technology Source: network)
Although it is impossible to judge the overall ability of Ali's automatic driving, at least in China, it should be worthy of the name.
But the embarrassing thing is that Ali's technology (including the Internet of Vehicles) cannot be greatly used in car companies, including Xiaopeng, which it has invested in.
From 2017 to 2020, the number of times Ali financing Xiaopeng can be traced 4 times. Although Xiaopeng received Ali's financing, in terms of automatic driving, Xiaopeng is self-developed, even if Ali has a good performance of the alios network connection system, Xiaopeng also chose to develop itself. Alibaba's investment may just be an investment from former employees.
Ali can't fully exert its fists and feet, and if Ali wants to build a car himself, this is one of the motivations.
Above we took stock of some of Ali's layout in the automotive field, its situation is the same as "Huawei inside", when the right to speak is still on the car company, the current third-party solution provider is a spare tire and optional for car companies.
However, unlike Huawei's repeated emphasis on never building a car, Ali is very likely to build a car himself.
First, Tmall Auto is doing the auto aftermarket, from the beginning to provide a platform to sell cars to people, to the later car maintenance, etc., the business continues to extend outwards, car manufacturing is only a part of the business extension, although this part is very "heavy", but in the auto aftermarket service aftermarket service, compared to other new car-making forces, there must be more ecological advantages.
What's more, Ali also has funds.
Second, as the largest component of China's platform economy, Ali has been promoting its own physicalization process over the years.
Marked by the official proposal of new retail in 2016, from the online Tmall supermarket (partly self-operated), to the offline Tmall store, Tmall International, and Cainiao Network, Ali's virtual component is being reduced, and the physical part is growing.
The car is just part of Alibaba's materialization. As for whether the car is built by Tmall or by Ali's independent new department, it is not so important.
Finally, back to the gossip a few days ago, although it is not certain whether Ali is going to build a car, and whether the program has come to the battery docking stage, Ali's foothold in the automobile industry is already an ironclad direction.
References:
1. Phoenix Technology: Alibaba set up an automotive business unit to open up automotive e-commerce o2o services
2.bt Finance: Tmall enters the game? Ali has long been involved in the "big fight" of new energy vehicles
3. Auto Sankei: After entering the robotaxi, Ali's "automotive territory" is complete?