1988, Taiwan Province Hon Hai Precision Group came to Shenzhen for the first time, also known as the first year of Taiwanese businessmen. Hon Hai Precision Group established Foxconn in China, positioning itself as a high-tech enterprise, and its president is of course Guo Taiming, founder of Hon Hai Precision Group. In the second year of its establishment, Taiwan Province Lithium Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Foxconn, was established, focusing on the research and development and manufacturing of rechargeable batteries. One of the purposes of this company is to study automobile batteries, which is considered to be a market with great potential, and this is also the first step for Foxconn to enter the automobile field.
But it is not easy to enter the automobile industry. Because the supply chain of automobile manufacturers is more conservative than 3C OEM that Foxconn is good at, they will not change suppliers easily. It is very difficult to expand in business, because the automobile industry is mainly concentrated in Europe and America at this time, while Japanese and Korean enterprises generally build their own parts systems, which makes it more difficult to enter. At this point, what Foxconn can do is to hire a group of retired Ford executives to run around Detroit, but with little effect.
In 2005, Foxconn acquired Antai Electric, an auto parts manufacturer with more than 40 years of manufacturing experience in Taiwan Province Province. Aetna is one of the four automotive wiring harness factories in Taiwan Province Province, mainly engaged in the manufacture of automotive wiring harness such as battery cables, audio-visual transmission lines, and automotive electronic products such as reversing radar and electric seat memory controller. Through this acquisition, Foxconn entered the supply chain of car companies.
After years of painstaking efforts, Foxconn finally stepped into the door of the automobile industry, and thus opened the second pulse of new energy and automotive electronics. In 2007, Foxconn cooperated with Shenyang Machine Tool Co., Ltd., and the two sides will jointly develop and produce nano-Cu-Mg alloy parts for IT and electronics industries. This is the first time that Foxconn entered the field of auto parts manufacturing by itself since it entered Chinese mainland. Of course, cooperation is more about paying tuition. At this time, Foxconn may not have really made up its mind to build a car. All this changed in 2009.
For Foxconn, 2009 was a year of great changes in Guo Taiming's judgment on the automobile industry. In May 2009, when Hon Hai released its financial report, Guo Taiming lashed out at competitor BYD for stealing its trade secrets, and there was unfair competition in IT OEM. He even turned a deaf ear to BYD's automobile business and automobile quality, and even questioned Buffett who invested in BYD's "dare to get off work in BYD's car". Previously, Foxconn and BYD went to court, and the two companies had a bloody battle.
Guo Taiming and BYD Wang Chuanfu
Nevertheless, at that time, Guo Taiming's rare attack on his competitors shocked the whole industry. Many analysts speculate that this is the only way to divert public attention from its poor financial report. Unexpectedly, a week later, Hon Hai entered the competition of core components of electric vehicles through cooperation with American battery companies, which made the outside world suddenly realize that the feud between Guo Taiming and Wang Chuanfu would spread from the traditional IT OEM to the emerging field of electric vehicles.
According to insiders, Guo Taiming probably won't fully enter Rainbow Chuanfu in the field of automobile manufacturing, and probably only involves the manufacturing of core products such as electric vehicle batteries based on the existing advantages. When Guo Taiming bombarded BYD, he let go of his cruel words: "If I lose to BYD, I will jump from here." Therefore, it is difficult to judge to what extent Foxconn will go deep into electric vehicles in the future.
In the lawsuit at that time, Foxconn claimed that BYD had affected its income of more than 5 billion yuan, which made Foxconn worried about it. I don't know whether it's because of inner resentment or because of good business prospects. Foxconn did start the electric vehicle business after 2009. Around 20 10, Foxconn contacted Geely Group to jointly develop new energy vehicles. The news that Geely teamed up with Foxconn to enter electric vehicles is regarded as a challenge to BYD's position in the field of new energy vehicles, but the cooperation between them has not progressed.
Also on 20 10, Foxconn cooperated with Yingli Group to build a polysilicon production base in Datong. New energy vehicle is an important application industry in new energy industry. The cooperation between Foxconn and Geely in the field of new energy vehicles can be regarded as their implementation of the established new energy business strategy. In particular, the layout of electric vehicles and energy storage can realize a complete closed loop of the industrial chain. This series of layouts is regarded as a "bottom-up" behavior against BYD.
One year later, at 20 1 1, Foxconn invested more than 1 billion dollars to set up new factories in Shenyang and Yingkou, Liaoning Province, involving precision CNC machine tools and nano-copper-magnesium alloy auto parts projects. 2065 438+02-2065 438+03, Foxconn began to make intensive efforts in the field of auto parts. In 20 13, Foxconn won the order for the interior panel of Tesla Model S and became a member of Tesla supply chain. In the same year, Foxconn became a supplier of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and other car companies, and its business involved automotive motors, central security, automotive electronics and other systems.
In addition, in 20 13, Huatai automobile also reached a cooperation intention with Foxconn, and the two sides will set up a joint venture company in Ordos. The announcement at the time of signing the contract shows that the joint venture company is mainly responsible for the research and development, production and sales of high-efficiency small diesel engines and automatic transmissions, which are mainly exported to Europe and North America. However, there is no new trend in this cooperation.
In fact, it was not until 20 14 that we got the first confirmation from Guo Taiming. 20 14 At the Shanxi Merchants Conference, Guo Taiming said that he believed that Shanxi had always been the most important energy exporting province in Chinese mainland. However, a single energy output is not conducive to economic development. To use energy more effectively, we should build a circular economy in Shanxi, "don't export the local future coalbed methane", effectively use Shanxi energy, turn it into scientific and technological products, and even directly vertically integrate it to manufacture electric vehicles.
Of course, this investment of 5 billion yuan not only refers to electric vehicles, but may be the investment quota invested by Hon Hai Group in Shanxi that year. But 20 14 is Foxconn's real year of electric vehicle action. This year, Foxconn's actions in the field of car-making are dazzling.
At the beginning of 20 14, a spokesman for Hon Hai Precision pointed out that in the field of new energy vehicles, Foxconn's R&D business group has the world's leading "R&D, test and verification, system integration and all-round solutions for core key components", and the intention of electric vehicles is emerging;
In August, 20 14, Guo Taiming visited Xinxiang City to test the electric vehicles produced by Xinneng Electric Vehicle Company and Xinma Company. Finally, President Guo Taiming and provincial and municipal leaders reached an agreement on the planning and construction of an annual output of 500,000 electric vehicles and 200,000 electric vehicle batteries in Xinxiang.
20 14, 10, it is said that Foxconn invested 8110 million dollars to build a "large" mold workshop;
10 In late June, Foxconn and BAIC jointly established an electric car rental company and launched "Green Go";
On February 4, 65438, Guo Taiming made a surprise visit to Sanmenxia City, Henan Province to discuss cooperation with Suda Company, an emerging electric vehicle manufacturer. Zhang Weining, Vice Governor of Henan Province, and Chen Fugang, Deputy Director of the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology also attended the meeting. Guo Taiming test-drove the Suda electric car and even said four "very good";
12 On February 22nd, Foxconn participated in Harmony.
In particular, at the end of the year, the shareholding in Harmony Automobile opened the prelude to Foxconn's "car dream"; On March 23rd, 20 15, Harmony Auto, Foxconn and Tencent signed the Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement for Intelligent Electric Vehicles in internet plus. Foxconn, Tencent and Harmony Auto invested $ 10 billion at a ratio of 3:3:4, and "Harmony Futeng" was born.
Since then, Harmony Futeng began to recruit, and Dai Lei, the former general manager of finidi China, Bi Fukang, the former head of BMW i8 project, and Fu Qiang, the former CEO of Volvo Car China Sales Company, joined in, bringing a harmonious atmosphere to harmony. However, due to internal management differences, Harmony Futeng subsequently decided to divide its cars into two product lines and operate them separately.
However, the decision to divide the soldiers into two roads touched Guo Taiming's sensitive nerves. He suddenly realized that it was not easy to build a car, and publicly stated: "Any industry plus the Internet of Things has become the Internet, but conversely, it is not easy for the Internet industry to manufacture. Taking cars as an example, the success rate of Internet companies building cars is very small, because cars involve human lives and there are a lot of hardware problems to be solved. " This sentence completely subverts "harmony and prosperity", which also means that Guo Taiming lost the first battle of the automobile industry.
In the following year, although Guo Taiming changed his view on making cars, he did not give up the automobile industry, especially on clean cars.
20 15 In an interview with the media, Guo Taiming once said that autonomous driving still has a long way to go, and he dare not drive a car made by an Internet company. "Many Internet companies are scrambling to make Internet cars. I can say that I absolutely dare not drive that car, because it is not a remote control car for toys, because the car has potential safety hazards. I went to Google to see its internet car four years ago, and it is still in a very early experimental stage. Many domestic automobile factories say that I can drive unmanned. I think if this car comes out one day, I also advise you to think twice before buying it, because this is a real world. Internet car, I think there is still a long way to go. Clean energy vehicles can go first. Internet cars have long existed, as well as autonomous driving. This is my idea. "
Since then, from 2065438 to June 2006, Foxconn and Kunshan Municipal Government signed the Agreement on Comprehensively Deepening Strategic Cooperation, and planned to invest 25 billion yuan to develop and produce charging devices and lithium batteries. In June 5438+10, Foxconn and the venture capital company IDG planned to invest10.5 billion US dollars to set up the automobile technology fund. 2065438+September 2006, Foxconn invested 800 million yuan in Didi, trying to lay out the field of travel. But a year later, Foxconn still invested in autonomous driving and took over this industry that was not optimistic about Guo Taiming.
20 17 In August, Guo Taiming finalized the plan to set up a research and development center related to autonomous driving technology in Michigan, USA. Some media said that the total investment of R&D center may be as high as several billion dollars. However, whether Foxconn will develop a finished car that supports autonomous driving in the United States has not been made public. In the following year, Foxconn also invested heavily twice: once in 20 17, Foxconn invested in the battery company Contemporary Amp Technology Co., Ltd., which was called a long-term investment project; The other is 20 18' s investment in Xpeng motor.
In fact, on February 6th, 20 17, when Weilai's first production car, the ES8, went on the market, Guo Taiming and Li Bin had a two-hour secret talk, the contents of which were unknown. After the talk, Guotai Min 'an did not invest in Weilai, but invested the money in Xpeng Motors one month later.
On June 5438+ 10, 2020, the official of Fiat Chrysler Automobile (hereinafter referred to as "FAC") has also confirmed that it is exploring the possibility of establishing a peer-to-peer joint venture with Hon Hai Group to jointly develop and produce pure electric vehicles in the China market and set foot in the car networking business. It is reported that FCA will hold 50% shares of the joint venture company, while Foxconn will hold no more than 40% shares. After the new company is established, it will first put cars in the China market, and then consider the export market.
One month after officially announcing the "marriage" with FCA, Foxconn said it would set up a joint venture with Taiwan Province Yulong Automobile and cooperate with another subsidiary of Yulong to develop electric vehicles. Foxconn may provide parts assembly services for this joint venture.
At the beginning of this month, Liu Yangwei, chairman of Hon Hai Group, said that the company hopes to occupy 65,438+00% market share in the electric vehicle market from 2025 to 2027, and has already negotiated with a number of automobile manufacturers on future cooperation.
Liu Yangwei also said that the company's goal is to become "Android in the electric vehicle industry". To this end, Foxconn launched the "EV Open Platform" at the HHTD 20 event just held, which will be shared with other companies, allowing external companies to design large parts of electric vehicles, and then Foxconn will produce them to achieve "mutual benefit".
In Foxconn's blueprint, car manufacturers can choose the chassis design of SUVs and cars on the platform and customize them according to their own wishes, including the distance between wheels and the size of batteries. Foxconn said that this open platform will be able to share important software and hardware designs from solid-state batteries to data processing tools. The company believes that this platform can help reduce the time and money needed to manufacture new cars.
On the first working day of 20021,that is, 654381October 4, Baiteng Automobile signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Foxconn Technology Group and Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone to jointly speed up the mass production of the first model M-Byte of Baiteng, and strive to achieve mass production of M-Byte before the first quarter of 2022. According to the agreement, Foxconn will provide advanced manufacturing technology, operation management experience and industrial chain resources, and fully support the mass production of the first model M-Byte of Baiteng.
It is reported that Foxconn will also invest 200 million US dollars in Batten, and will also provide many resources to help it mass-produce. The sale of Foxconn saved this new car-making enterprise facing crisis. Of course, the white knight doesn't just want to make a financial investment. Liu Yangwei, Chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, issued the following statement: "The cooperation with Baiteng is an important part of our layout of electric vehicles. We will try our best to help Baiteng M-Byte mass-produce as soon as possible and board the stage of electric vehicles in the world." Foxconn's complete vehicle plan on Baiteng is undoubted.
It is worth mentioning that when Apple started to build cars, Foxconn did not know whether it was related to the large-scale layout of the automobile industry. After all, he is Apple's largest foundry in the world, and it is not surprising if he wants to contract for Apple cars. Think about it. Six years ago, the founder of Tesla ridiculed Foxconn and said, "Compared with mobile phones or smart watches, cars are very complicated. You can't go to a supplier like Foxconn and say' build me a car'. " Unexpectedly, the words that were ridiculed in the past actually came true.