Bloomberg has teasedly said that if you have visited Foxconn headquarters, you will feel uneasy about its prospects for car design.
Musk’s most facelifting car combination has appeared. Recently, Fiat Chrysler (FCA) confirmed that it is forming a joint venture with Foxconn’s parent company Hon Hai to produce electric vehicles and engage in connected car business. Its initial focus was on the Chinese market.
FCA revealed that it is signing a preliminary agreement with Hon Hai with the aim of reaching a final binding agreement in the coming months. FCA will hold more than 50% of the joint venture and Foxconn will not hold more than 40%. “This will prompt two world-renowned companies to bring together capabilities in the areas of automotive design, engineering and manufacturing and mobile software technology to focus on the growing battery electric vehicle market.”
Intesa Sanpaolo analyst Monica Bosio described the deal as “positive”, saying it would help FCA reduce its gap with Asia in electric vehicles. Currently, FCA has a 0.35% share of the Chinese passenger car market. It conducts business through a joint venture with the GAC Group, but has never produced electric vehicles in China.
Five years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk told the German Business Daily: “Compared with mobile phones or smart watches, cars are very complicated. You can’t go to a supplier like Foxconn , And then said, ‘Build a car for me.’ At the time, Tesla’s main automotive engineering pipeline, Ge Fei Fei, also said, “Foxconn’s model is very different from Tesla’s, because Foxconn uses physical labor to quickly achieve economies of scale. .
For the cooperation between Foxconn and FCA, Bloomberg said jokingly, “Foxconn’s global headquarters is one of the ugliest office buildings in the world. If you visit it, you will design cars for this company. The prospect is disturbed. I hope that FCA will dominate the cooperation. “
But in fact, Foxconn’s car ambitions have never extinguished. It invested in a large number of travel-related companies such as Didi Chuxing, Byton, Xiaopeng Automobile, and Ningde Times. In 2015, Foxconn worked with Tencent and Harmony to build electric vehicles. Foxconn was responsible for the design and production of electric vehicles, but this project was terminated in 2016.
In November 2019, Liu Yangwei, Foxconn ’s new chairman, said: “Electric vehicles, digital healthcare, and robots are the three goals of Foxconn. The company relies heavily on foundry electronics manufacturing. These three key areas will serve as the future. Growth momentum. “With the cooperation with FCA, Foxconn is expected to look for new growth points outside of electronics.
As for FCA, it has just merged with French PSA Group in December 2019, holding at 50:50The joint venture has become the fourth-largest automobile group in the world by sales. Earlier, FCA CEO Mike Manley revealed that electrification will be carried out on a large scale after the merger. According to the FCA five-year plan, by 2022, FCA will invest 9 billion yuan to provide one or more electric versions for at least 30 global models.
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