Even when it comes to building cars, technology companies are coming aggressively with their own style.
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “geek park” (ID: geekpark), Author: Zhao Zi Xiao.
Even if it is building a car, technology companies are aggressive with their own style.
In the early days of the three Internet giants BAT, two of them have officially announced that they will build cars, and Baidu seems to be the one with greater determination.
On January 11, Baidu announced the formal establishment of a smart car company to enter the automotive industry as a vehicle manufacturer. At the same time, the partner selected by Baidu has also confirmed that Geely Holding Group will become a strategic partner of the new company.
Although there is no more effective news to disclose, Baidu’s official announcement of the car is a blockbuster news for the auto industry or the Internet industry. It not only means that Baidu’s accumulation in the field of smart cars for many years has begun to be released as a whole, but also proves from one side that Internet companies have stopped building cars, which may become an inevitable trend.
Baidu builds a car, seriously
Since the rumors of Baidu building a car, it has received a warm response in the capital market. As of January 11, Baidu’s share price in US stocks has risen 67% in one month, and its market value has risen to US$80 billion after two years.
But from the perspective of an ordinary user, there may be no way to understand the logic of Baidu’s car making. Baidu has established itself as a technology company for 20 years. It has been like this from the PC Internet era to the transformation of artificial intelligence. There is not much experience in car sales. In terms of car intelligence technology, the user side is not very strong for Baidu Perceived, and Baidu’s car manufacturing clearly pointed out that the new car company will face the passenger car market.
However, we can still see from some clues that Baidu is so serious about making cars.
As for the equity arrangement of the new company, Baidu said that the company was initiated and led by Baidu, and the registered capital is temporarily inconvenient to disclose. Geely Holding Group is currently the only investor besides Baidu. An insider familiar with Baidu said that Baidu is an absolute holding company in the new company, and Geely only holds a small share of it.
The cooperation between the two parties can also show some clues. The company that cooperates with Baidu is “Geely Holding Group” rather than “Geely Automobile”. In terms of the content of the cooperation, Baidu revealed to Geek Park (ID: geekpark) that the two parties will be based on Geely’s latest global leading pure electric architecture-Haohan SEA’s intelligent evolutionary experience architecture has conducted close cooperation in related fields of smart car manufacturing to jointly build the next generation of smart cars.
So, what are the advantages of Baidu’s car making? The answer points to Baidu’s bet on one of the future-oriented technologies-autonomous driving.
8 years of autonomous driving, commercialization has just started
2Since 013, Baidu began to invest in autonomous driving on a large scale. Since then, it has successively adjusted its structure and technology. Baidu Intelligent Driving Group (IDG) has gradually become one of Baidu’s “troika”, the autonomous driving brand Apollo The important strategic position is in line with artificial intelligence and mobile ecology. At the same time, the autonomous driving industry has been ups and downs in recent years, constantly attracting people’s attention.
This is the strong rise of autonomous driving, but it is generally believed in the industry that the commercialization of autonomous driving is not as smooth as people expected.
Li Zhenyu, vice president of Baidu Group and general manager of the intelligent driving business group, has previously stated publicly: Baidu has not made a profit since its establishment of autonomous driving 7 years ago, but they can continue to research and develop autonomous driving technology for the next 7 years.
Baidu Apollo has been combing and developing forward｜Baidu
Judging from past experience, Baidu has indeed continued to invest in autonomous driving, and the flags set for the development of autonomous driving every year have also been responded to, but there is indeed no outstanding performance in commercialization.
For example, the Apollon minibus cooperating with King Long Bus and the miniBus cooperating with Jiangling Motors are all attempts in the field of autonomous driving commercial; Baidu also said that it will jointly launch a mass production version of unmanned vehicles with car companies, but so far , Only self-driving vehicles are tested in the region.
Baidu Autonomous Driving proposed a goal of “climbing Mount Everest and laying eggs along the way” in 2019, that is, before reaching the highest level of autonomous driving, it will gradually release commercial capabilities during the technological advancement stage. And, in the past two years, it is rapidly being implemented. Starting in 2020, riding on the east wind of “new infrastructure”, Baidu Apollo will build autonomous driving demonstration areas across the country, accelerate the implementation of autonomous driving capabilities in various regions, and accelerate “vehicle-road coordination” to create an intelligent transportation plan.
With years of accumulation in autonomous driving and intelligent transportation, Baidu, which is close to forming a closed loop, still lacks a successful commercialization of autonomous driving. However, since most of the auto-driving vehicles that Baidu participated in the transformation are mainly installed later, it seems that it cannot achieve the effect Baidu wants.
The reason why high-level autonomous driving is delayed in commercialization is closely related to factors such as technical difficulty and cost. Baidu Apollo and FAW HongqishenThe pre-installed mass-produced self-driving cars of the degree cooperation, with lidar, computing platform and multiple sensors, each of which is very valuable. But the pre-installation also means that Baidu has gone through many pits when designing and developing an autonomous car.
Baidu ANP pilot assisted autopilot function, benchmarking Tesla’s NOA｜Baidu
From the perspective of the technical route, Baidu has both high-level and low-level autonomous driving technologies. It is not impossible to find a suitable solution to integrate into mass-produced models.
At the Apollo Ecological Conference at the end of 2020, Baidu launched a plan to benchmark Tesla’s NOA and Weilai’s NOP, that is, the pilot assisted autonomous driving function, which uses peripheral supporting infrastructure such as cameras and high-precision maps to complete certain High-stage automatic driving function for a section of route.
It is worth mentioning that this set of solutions is not the focus of Baidu’s self-driving manned test landing, but the overall solution for the sales of car companies.
If Baidu participates in the manufacturing of smart cars, covering high intelligence with low cost is the best way for a car brand to gain user awareness. To sum up, Baidu may not just need to build a car, but it is also a bold attempt. Perhaps the first Baidu car can meet you with such a high profile.
Internet companies build cars with their own minds
2020 is also the year when Internet technology companies collectively “end off” to build cars.
Didi officially announced that it will cooperate with BYD to launch the first customized car-hailing. Didi obviously regards this car as one of the long-term priorities for the future and has built a blueprint for a customized car-hailing capable of autonomous driving in 2030. ; Alibaba and SAIC each have a 50% stake in the establishment of “Zhiji Auto” to impact high-end smart car brands and seize the name of “Chuang 2” in the auto circle; Huawei, which does not build cars, announced a deep cooperation with Changan; the world’s largest company Apple has also been exposed to determine a car-making plan, and it is rumored that it will finalize a cooperation with Hyundai and officially land in 2024.
Xiaopeng Motors Chairman He Xiaopeng recently released a Weibo statement: “As far as I know, there are probably several technology companies that may become new forces in different models of car manufacturing this year. This is a real arrival for the smart car market and the new mobile ecosystem. Will have a very positive acceleration effect.”
He Xiaopeng said that this year several technology companies will enter the car making｜Weibo
Science and technology companies have entered the automotive field with large sums of money, and they have taken a fancy to the transformation of the car in the intelligent age must be the core reason. Electricity and intelligence are in front of technology companies. The high walls built by traditional cars are beginning to collapse. The threshold for smart cars has not yet been established. It is the best time for the giants to discover the potential and seize the number of admissions.
It’s just that looking for a foundry with in-depth cooperation is still the best choice at the moment, which proves that the threshold for building cars is not that low. After all, it took five years for the new forces to build cars to reach nearly 100 billion yuan and they have just begun to run their business models through.
After all, building a car is a very complicated matter, and there is a slight difference between its own positioning and the choice of foundries and models.
Apple and Huawei ate dividends on mobile terminals. The former made a lot of money because of the earliest construction of a mobile ecosystem. No other market can accommodate these giants. Therefore, the car has become the next one. The most imaginative part of the battlefield.
Investment is also an important part of participating in the strategy. Although Ali has not officially announced that it will participate in car building, from the perspective of its investment in Xiaopeng Motors and joint ventures to establish Zhiji Motors, Ali has not missed opportunities.
A smart car built by Alibaba and SAIC｜Network
And companies like Baidu and Didi, which have no experience in building cars but have inextricable relationships with cars, seem to best represent the goals of technology companies in the field of smart cars: driving cars to become intelligent In the process of transformation, grasp the right to define the future of the field you are best at.
Because each company has a different understanding of “smart cars”, it is the state where a hundred flowers bloom today. Technology, marketing, services, products… everything may be reshaped, and technology companies may especially need to adopt a set The overall product output, to show their right to speak.