Baidu's rumors of making cars are getting worse, which stems from frequent interaction with car companies?
The wind rises at the end of qingping. 65438+In mid-February, foreign media reports once again triggered infinite speculation about "Baidu making cars" inside and outside the industry-Baidu is trying to make self-driving electric cars, and has held consultations with car companies including Geely, GAC and FAW Hongqi to explore the possibility of establishing joint ventures.
However, the result disappointed the "people who eat melons": Baidu declined to comment on this matter; Geely said he didn't know about it; FAW did not respond to this matter; Guangzhou Automobile is open-minded, saying that it has reached a strategic cooperation with Baidu and everything can be discussed.
Of course, the waves are between ripples, and there will be no news of "Baidu making cars" for no reason. In fact, many parties involved in this rumor do have frequent intimate interactions.
If it's too far, just start with 20 19. On July 3, 20 19, the "Baidu Creation 20 19" Baidu AI Developer Conference was held. At the main forum, Baidu announced that it has reached strategic cooperation with Geely in the fields of intelligent networking, intelligent driving, smart home and e-commerce. Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, personally witnessed it.
At the same time, Baidu and Hongqi jointly built China's first L4 passenger car front assembly line, which was put into production in Changchun. At that time, Baidu also announced that the road test mileage of L4 self-driving city officially exceeded 2 million kilometers.
On February 8, 2020, 12, Baidu and GAC also signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement. The two sides will jointly develop related technologies and industries such as intelligent driving, intelligent car association and digital marketing through effective cooperation methods such as complementary resources and technologies. The above Guangqi said that "strategic cooperation" with Baidu refers to this matter, a powerful joint event newly released.
In fact, many people don't know that there is also Baidu's support behind the well-known new car-making force Weimar Automobile. On September 22, 2020, Weimar Automobile announced the completion of the D round of financing of RMB 654.38+000 billion, with bright development prospects. Baidu is Weimar's largest institutional investor and external investor so far.
However, these interactions are appearances, not the direct support of "Baidu making cars". As the saying goes, "There is no fine steel if you drill porcelain". Coincidentally, Baidu just has "Jin Gangzuan" entering the field of car making, which is "Apollo". The plan was officially released by Baidu on 20 17. Today, Apollo is in smart cars, intelligent transportation, and so on.
On the eve of Apollo's summit sprint, Sturm and Delong racetracks.
America's "Apollo" is the moon landing plan; Baidu's "Apollo" is to let us run fast, steadily and safely on the earth's road, freeing our hands and feet. So in the past three years, more and more people have equated Baidu's Apollo with autonomous driving. In fact, this is a narrow understanding. Because in addition to autonomous driving, Baidu also has intelligent information control, voice assistant, map, road coordination, Robotaxi, ANP, AVP and other related automobile businesses, which can be summarized into three major sectors: smart car, intelligent transportation and autonomous driving.
In the future, cars will be completely digital. In 2020, when many car companies faced the wave of car intelligence and just realized the need for all in, Baidu, which has been deeply involved in this field since 20 13, has become a "senior player".
In terms of smart cars, the first-Mover advantage of Baidu Apollo is expanding. On February 8th, 65438, Baidu Apollo launched four series of products, namely, intelligent cab, intelligent cloud, intelligent driver and intelligent map, and called them "Lego intelligent vehicle solutions". Among them, the Apollo intelligent cabin has carried more than 6.5438+0.5 million vehicles; According to the report released by IDC, an authoritative global consulting organization, the Apollo Zhitu series ranked first in the market share in June 5438+065438+ 10. Intelligent driving expands the mass production scheme of autonomous driving from parking field to driving field, that is, ANP pilot assisted driving, and the era of autonomous driving has begun.
In terms of intelligent transportation, Baidu is a global leader. In April this year, Apollo released the next-generation intelligent transportation solution "ACE Intelligent Transportation Engine", which has been put into practice in more than 20 cities, and also won the largest tender order in the field of intelligent transportation in China this year, amounting to nearly 460 million yuan.
In terms of autonomous driving, Baidu is the leader. On February 7th, 65438, Apollo has obtained the exclusive license for unmanned test in Beijing, and the mileage of unmanned test in Beijing and Changsha has exceeded 52,000 kilometers. Moreover, ApolloGo is the only travel service in the world that operates Robotaxi and Robobus in several cities, receiving more than 265,438+00,000 passengers. According to the 2020 1 quarter autopilot competitiveness ranking released by Navigant Research, Baidu ranks in the first echelon, and its teammates are Waymo, Cruise and Ford self-driving vehicles.
The rumors of "Baidu making cars" in the future will not be unusual, because there is still a lot of room for imagination in the cooperation between Baidu and car companies.
What is the logic behind the soaring market value and capital favor?
With the acceleration of the commercialization of driverless technology, the attitude of the capital market towards Apollo's future prospects is very direct: buy while buying!
65438+February 10, UBS released a research report, which upgraded Baidu's rating from "neutral" to "buy", and the target price was also raised from 130 USD/share to 190 USD/share.
On the same day, the fund founded by Cathie Wood, who is known as "Female Buffett", bought more than170,000 shares of Baidu, and by June 65438+February 15, it had continuously increased its position to 983,000 shares.
In fact, Baidu's share price has been soaring since the Apollo Ecological Conference was held on February 8, 65438, and reached a new high in 2020, that is, 201.1/USD/share, with a market value of about 68 billion USD.
According to the analysis, this is the market's revaluation and compensation for the value of Baidu and Apollo, but it still cannot reflect its true value. The stock market fluctuates in the short term, but the long-term value of a good company can be grasped. So how much is Baidu worth?
Looking at the autonomous driving business alone, in February 1 10, UBS released a report saying: We conservatively assume that the valuation of Apollo is 10 billion US dollars. It is worth mentioning that UBS's valuation of Waymo is 30 billion US dollars, and Baidu's autopilot valuation is one-third of Waymo's. However, UBS has always been conservative in autonomous driving. Morgan Stanley valued Waymo at $654.38+005 million. Referring to this value, even if Baidu's autonomous driving business is only one-third of Waymo's valuation, it will exceed $35 billion. Blue Lotus predicts that in 2025, the utilization rate of automatic driving system in China will reach 30%. This was a great benefit for Apollo.
Looking at smart cars, taking Tesla as an example, its market value has exceeded 620 billion US dollars. Morgan Stanley believes that the value of its core software FSD accounts for about one-third of the total stock price, or more than 200 billion US dollars. Of course, Tesla is an anomaly in the automobile market. Even Toyota, the number one car company, can't touch its skirt, so we won't compare it with Apollo's smart car business.
Fortunately, China also has well-known new car-making forces, such as Weilai and Tucki. For Weilai Automobile whose market value exceeds 7 1 100 million dollars, the CICC report shows that the partial valuation of Weilai Software accounts for 1/2 of the market value, that is, 35.5 billion dollars. Referring to its valuation, it can be seen that there is still much room for improvement in the valuation of Apollo smart car business. After all, Apollo's smart car business is bigger and smarter.
As for intelligent transportation, it is still in the pilot stage, or the eve of the outbreak. Baidu's "Ace Intelligent Transportation Engine" is the first full-stack intelligent transportation solution with integrated vehicles and roads at home and abroad. It has landed in Huangpu District of Guangzhou, launched the world's largest self-driving MaaS platform, and deployed four major fleets, including self-driving taxis, self-driving buses, self-driving inspection and self-driving work vehicles. The establishment of the first vehicle+road+cloud automatic network monitoring system in China means that the development opportunities of intelligent transportation are about to be released on a large scale, and the value space is immeasurable.
AM mirror summary
The general attack horn of the intelligent decisive battle in the automobile industry has quietly sounded, and all those who oppose or resist this wave will become spectators under the wheel of history. Apollo has a strong first-Mover advantage and unique localization conditions in the field of automotive intelligence. The future is definitely the king in the field of automotive intelligence. At present, Baidu and Apollo are still underestimated.