Repairer market needs a new story
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Financial loudly” (ID: caijwj), Author: Wei Hang.
2020, which has just ended, is a year belonging to the epidemic and the end of another decade.
Since 2010, China’s new economy has undergone earth-shaking changes. The crystal ball of China’s new business radiates colorful light. Standing in the changing year of 2020, looking back on 2010 can also reflect the development of China’s new economy. barometer.
Beginning in 2010, the Thousand Regiment War first kicked off. In 2011, it was an e-commerce war. From 2012 to 2018, we experienced smartphone wars, news client wars, online car-hailing wars, O2O wars, and used cars. Wars, office collaboration wars, short video wars, and the hottest online video wars and community group buying wars in the last two years.
In 2021, the auto industry is also surging, price cuts, joint ventures, and a chaos is unfolding.
Why does Baidu build cars?
On January 11, Baidu announced its entry into the smart car industry as a vehicle manufacturer. A car building plan seemed to be on paper, while Geely was only a strategic partner of the new company.
Internet giants with massive amounts of data, advanced algorithms and autonomous driving technology are eyeing the traditional auto industry.
Baidu will also focus on the entire industry chain of smart car design, R&D, manufacturing, sales and service, focusing on the use of Apollo’s autonomous driving capabilities and the past 8 years of experience in the field of automotive intelligence.
Judging from this announcement, this cooperation is based on Baidu, supplemented by Geely. For Baidu, in addition to Geely’s investment, Geely can also provide engineering and plant construction or upgrade support.
This is the result of the competition between Baidu’s in-vehicle system and Huawei’s in-vehicle system in major car companies, and the result of the actual cooperative application of the system.
Apollo is positioned as an open platform. Although the core competitiveness of autonomous driving capabilities is leading in the industry, it is far from reaching the level of commercial popularity. Except for autonomous driving, the threshold for other functions is not high. At present, only Weimar is the queen host of Baidu Apollo. plant. For a long time, the Weimar autonomous driving field has been deeply bound with Baidu Apollo.
Baidu’s departure to build a car means that it has to follow the path of “Apple” in the Chinese auto industry, otherwise the money invested in autonomous driving will not be reliableThe way of recycling, not to mention the profit. Because only the system is provided, and there are two systems to choose from, I am at a disadvantage, and the OEM is really unreliable after cooperation.
At present, domestic state-owned automobile companies are already behind in the competition with private companies and cannot be relied on; BYD is more likely to choose Huawei first, or even build its own system; this leaves only Geely.
From the perspective of Geely’s investment in Mercedes-Benz and the reorganization of Lifan, Geely is indeed more open, and it is inevitable that both parties will hit it off.
In order to quickly bring Baidu’s cars to the market, it is not excluded to use Geely’s existing plants or purchase existing plants of other companies. Of course, this process does require people who are really familiar with related businesses.
With the direct entry of Baidu, China’s auto industry is bound to usher in a new stage.
At the same time, why Baidu wants to build a car? It needs a new story to stabilize its market value. On January 11, Baidu’s stock price reached a high of US$248 in the past six months, leaving room for imagination in the market, which may be a new story of car building.
Which other companies are making cars
At noon on January 11, Xiaopeng Motors Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng said on his personal Weibo: “As far as I know, there are probably several technology companies that may become new forces in different models of car manufacturing this year. And the real arrival of the new mobile ecology will have a very positive acceleration effect.”
At the beginning of the new year, Tesla waved the flag of price cuts to hit the Chinese market, and competitors were also huddling together.
So what other companies are building cars?
Currently, Hyundai and Apple plan to produce cars at the Kia Motors plant in Georgia, or jointly invest in a new plant in the United States, and produce 100,000 vehicles around 2024, with a total annual production capacity of 400,000 vehicles.
Why is the partner Hyundai? On the one hand, Hyundai Motors is competitive in terms of quality and price. On the other hand, it is because the company’s production base is close to China. China is the world’s largest auto market and has the largest demand for new energy vehicles. Apple Supply Chain Enterprise.
The Chinese market is a very important strategic fulcrum for Hyundai and Kia Motors. Hyundai-Kia Motors Co., Ltd. cooperates with Beijing Automobile Company, which is engaged in export agency. Established a Chinese company called Beijing Hyundai, and established a cooperative factory with 50% capital each in 2002.
Of the 1.26 million Hyundai and Kia Motors sold in 2012, 770,000 were vehicles produced in the United States and 490,000 were vehicles exported from South Korea. In 2012, Hyundai and Kia Motors established production plants in Georgia and Alabama, with an annual production capacity of 730,000 vehicles.
Hyundai-Kia Motors regards South Korea as a world transfer station for production and research and development, China as a global growth driver, and the United States as the core of brand value enhancement. Hyundai-Kia Motors has strengthened the correlation between local research, development, production, and sales to build a system that quickly and appropriately responds to the current situation of the local market.
Cars really cannot be compared with mobile phones. Companies that can make mobile phones may not be able to make cars. The only thing in common is intelligence, but it’s like a mountain that is separated from each other. Whether Apple can succeed is another question.
Earlier, in November last year, SAIC Group announced that it would cooperate with Pudong New Area and Alibaba to jointly build a high-end smart pure electric vehicle project Zhiji Auto.
SAIC was established in the 1960s, the full name is Shanghai Automotive Group Co., Ltd., is the earliest passenger car company in China.
In the era of planned economy, the development pattern of “North Red Flag and South Shanghai” was formed. In 1985, with the establishment of Shanghai Volkswagen, SAIC entered the fast lane of development. Since 1990, SAIC has developed into China’s largest automobile company. With the realization of overall listing through asset reorganization in 2011, SAIC Motor is also the largest among my country’s A-share auto listed companies.
According to the data at the end of 2019, the company’s total shares have reached 11.7 billion shares. In 2018, SAIC Group’s turnover ranked first in Fortune, and it was the seventh largest automobile company in China.
In 2020, its market value reached 300 billion, but it was once surpassed by the power of new energy vehicles.
Although there are currently only six joint venture brands including Volkswagen, Iveco, Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, and Volvo, SAIC currently relies mainly on three joint ventures (SAIC-Volkswagen, SAIC-GM, and SAIC-GM-Wuling) (SAIC 51%, GM 44 %, Liuzhou Wuling shares 5%).
Among SAIC’s total sales of 6.238 million vehicles in 2019, SAIC Volkswagen was 2.02 million, SAIC-GM 1.6 million, and SAIC-GM-Wuling 1.66 million, accounting for 84.4% of total sales, occupying an absolute dominant position. The sales volume of its Chinese brands, even including the joint ventures Wuling and Baojun, is only 2.6 million, accounting for42%.
In the same month, Changan Automobile Chairman Zhu Huarong also revealed to the outside world that the company is working with Huawei and CATL to jointly build high-end smart car brands and high-tech high-end products.
From the above cases, in the face of the power of new energy vehicles, the trend of joint ventures between traditional automobile companies and platform-based Internet companies has become more and more obvious.
Shuangli cooperation: what is the future of Geely?
Li Yanhong in the Internet industry and Li Shufu in the traditional automobile industry will finally cooperate in 2021. There has been widespread rumors that Baidu will build a car, but there has been no official announcement. This time it is finally confirmed.
In 2011, Geely Automobile has begun to carry out a cutting-edge strategic layout in the field of intelligent driving. After years of exploration and development, Geely Automobile has established the INTEC technology as the framework, which is based on human safety, efficient power, intelligent driving, and intelligent driving. Connected car dealerships, healthy ecology and other five aspects realize the intelligent interconnection of people, vehicles and technology, bring more intelligent, efficient and humane experience to travel life, and create the core technology of “smart driving + smart connected car dealership” dual-engine strategy.
In 2015, Geely Automobile has marketed its automatic assisted driving system (ADAS). Driven by its platform strategy, all new products of Geely have realized L1 autonomous driving technology, achieving the initial goal of liberating the feet.
At the beginning of 2018, Geely Automobile has entered the L2 autonomous driving stage, implementing the G-PILOT 2.0 strategy. The vehicle is equipped with sensor and data-driven technology to ensure accurate perception and effective processing of the external environment, and is equipped with an intelligent pilot system (ICC). ), automatic parking system (APS) and other intelligent auxiliary configuration, basically realize the automatic driving function in specific environment, and promote and apply it on Geely products on a large scale. Borui GE has become the first new generation equipped with L2 automatic driving function The mass-produced model has achieved the goal of fully liberating the feet.
In 2019, Geely Automobile released the “Crawler” intelligent system.
At present, Geely Automobile isIn terms of application popularization, intelligent driving technologies such as ACC adaptive cruise system, LDW active yaw warning system, parking assist system, blind spot monitoring system, adaptive high beam and urban pre-collision safety system have been applied to mass-produced vehicles.
At the same time, it is equipped with G-NETLINK smart connected car technology, G-ID as the vehicle ID, with a humanized voice service assistant, equipped with G-ON Call, G-Store, Audience and Auto Amap, To adapt to the law of market supply and demand as the guide.
But Geely Auto is still facing problems. As we all know, the development of smart cars is based on the intelligent upgrading of traditional cars.
From the perspective of the five levels of smart cars, including automated assisted driving, partially automated driving, conditional automated driving, highly automated driving, and fully automated driving (unmanned driving), the corresponding technical requirements include assisted driving technology , Autonomous driving technology and Internet of Everything technology, and the main profits of smart cars are concentrated on these core technologies, including automotive electronic modules, Internet technology modules and the three major components of the vehicle (engine, gearbox, chassis) and other high value-added Technical aspects.
Take millimeter-wave radar as an example. It is at the core technology link in the field of smart cars. This technology has been controlled by international tier-one component suppliers including Bosch, Continental, and Denso. They cover up to 70 %.
The integration of traditional automobile manufacturing and new technologies is lacking, and the application of intelligent driving assistance technology in traditional mass-produced models is not enough. The development of smart cars started from traditional cars, endowed with different levels of intelligent driving assistance technology, and finally realized unmanned driving.
Beyond the car itself, Geely’s actual needs are intelligent networking and intelligent driving. Perhaps this is the basis of the two-horse cooperation.