It is a question to build a car or not.
The previous problem basically belonged to Huawei. This week, Xiaomi and Baidu reported that they would build a car. These days, it seems that no one has heard of the "scandal" of making cars, and no one can be called a large Internet technology company.
One,
This week, a news about Xiaomi Automobile first spread on the Internet.
The rumor that Xiaomi has a nose and eyes not only released the news, but also plausibly matched the name, picture, price and Xiaomi's logo. As soon as the news came out, the people who ate melons responded enthusiastically.
12 15, Xu, general manager of the public relations department of Xiaomi Group, publicly denied the rumor, "Anything that says that Xiaomi wants to build a car is fake news."
On the day Xiaomi rumored to build a car, the media once again broke the news that Baidu would cooperate with Geely, GAC and FAW to set up a joint venture company to build its own electric car. 18, Baidu invested in Weimar again among the negotiation partners.
For the comment on the next car, Baidu's response is "no comment on market rumors". However, the response of the capital market is enthusiastic. From February 65438 to February 15, Baidu's share price has been rising continuously by 20%, and it is close to $200 again. ?
Baidu's car and Xiaomi's car are all antiques in the industry. Among them, the rumor that Baidu built a car can be traced back to 20 15 when Baidu announced that it would develop a driverless car. Xiaomi, which was reported at both ends in three days, will launch the "first car for young people".
In fact, today's large Internet technology companies have heard more or less anecdotes about building cars, but Xiaomi and Baidu are especially numerous. This easy-to-rumor physique is inseparable from its business characteristics.
Let's start with Xiaomi.
Xiaomi may be one of the internet technology companies that know the most about hardware. In the third quarter of this year, Xiaomi's mobile phone shipments reached 46.5 million, making it the third largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. On the other hand, Xiaomi has laid out the intelligent hardware ecological chain since 20 13, and is the earliest Internet company in China to promote the IoT ecosystem. This layout makes Xiaomi actually closer to manufacturing than most Internet companies.
In addition, Xiaomi has not never built a car, although this car is somewhat different from the imagination. At the 10th anniversary celebration of Xiaomi in August this year, Xiaomi released a go-kart co-branded with Lamborghini and Electric. ?
Of course, if you are lucky enough to see such a car on the road, don't think that this is the great cause of making cars secretly promoted by Xiaomi. This is an obscene operation of a low-speed electric vehicle enterprise in Shandong, and it has been convicted of infringement.
However, the enduring rumors of Xiaomi's car-making actually hide consumers' expectations for smart electric vehicles.
So far, smart electric vehicles that are easy to use (compared with fuel vehicles) are still not cheap, and are generally distributed in the high-end car market of more than 200,000 yuan. Xiaomi once successfully turned smart phones into cheap consumer electronic products with the business model of Internet mobile phones, which promoted its popularity.
The people who eat melons are highly concerned about the rumors of Xiaomi's car making, which is also a similar psychological mapping-I hope Xiaomi will once again play the role of popularizing smart electric vehicles, contribute cost-effective products, and create "the first smart electric vehicle for young people (affordable)".
However, the window period of building a car has passed, and the large amount of money needed to build a car will also make low-profit Xiaomi face serious financial pressure. Xiaomi's car is not a good enough choice at present. In the real intelligent electric vehicle manufacturing, Xiaomi mainly appears as an investor. Shunwei Capital, founded by Lei Jun, is one of the cornerstone investors of Weilai. As a strategic investor, Xiaomi participated in the C round of $400 million financing of Xpeng Motors 2065438+2009.
Let me talk about Baidu.
The rumors of Baidu's car-making are also widely concerned. On the one hand, Baidu and Xiaomi are the cornerstone investors of Weilai, and they have also invested in Weimar, a new force in car making; On the other hand, it is the intelligent driving business Apollo, which is closely related to the automobile industry.
Prior to this, Baidu's deepest involvement in the field of car-making was to cooperate with FAW Hongqi to create "the first domestic pre-installed mass production Robotaxi". In September last year, Robotaxi based on Hongqi EV took to the streets of Changsha and started the autopilot test.
According to the routing agency, although the production of this car is entirely under the responsibility of FAW, in terms of functional configuration and product definition, Baidu intervened before production and put forward many demands, rather than modifying it after production. To some extent, Baidu has actually participated in the process of building a car.
Now, Baidu is seeking to expand its robotaxi fleet to accelerate the commercialization of autonomous driving business. For Baidu, which has no experience in automobile manufacturing, choosing a partner as a "foundry" is a logical choice, which can not only better implement its own accumulation and understanding of autonomous driving technology, but also avoid the shortcomings of insufficient automobile hardware reserves, and also prevent short-term financial pressure caused by excessive capital investment.
Judging from the ambiguous response of Baidu and its partners that they "don't comment on market rumors", at least Baidu is seriously discussing the possibility of finding partners to OEM self-driving cars.
If Baidu finally forms a joint venture company and successfully promotes the OEM of self-driving cars, it is not the first to eat crabs. In June of this year 165438+ 10, Didi and BYD launched the "new species of network car" Didi D 1, taking the definition of Didi's leading product, and BYD was responsible for the OEM path of vehicle production.
Second,
In fact, today's Internet technology giants, whether it is the old giant BAT or the new giant TMD, including Huawei and Xiaomi, have had rumors of building cars, but until now, no one has built their own cars.
But it is obvious that through the bond of capital, they have significantly affected the development pattern of intelligent electric vehicles.
In the second half of 20 19, Xpeng Motors is in full swing to prepare for the second production model P7. During the C round of financing, due to the size of Tucki and the wait-and-see of the capital market, the financing work was not as smooth as expected. However, Xiaomi invested US$ 50 million in this round of financing, becoming a strategic investor of Xpeng Motors, helping Tucki to finally raise US$ 400 million, and storing sufficient ammunition for the mass production delivery of P7.
In 2020, P7 went public, and the sales were hot, which enabled Tucki to hold the positions of three outstanding new forces and successfully went public.
On Weimar's side, 20 17 and 20 19, Baidu led the investment in Weimar for several rounds, making Weimar the only new force who was born as a traditional autobot but was favored by the Internet giant. Baidu's influence also made Weimar be regarded as the TOP3 of new forces for a period of time. Later, although the rise of ideals temporarily gave Weimar the status of three outstanding new forces, it was still considered as the head enterprise among the new forces. Baidu's continuous empowerment in the field of intelligent driving has also made Weimar's products still retain more imagination.
Last year, at the darkest hour of financing difficulties, Weilai could hardly get paid. Tencent can be said to have paid and contributed to helping Weilai. In September, Weilai issued $200 million in convertible bonds, of which Tencent subscribed for $654.38 billion, alleviating its urgent needs. Subsequently, Tencent found Feng Wei, CFO from CICC today for Wei Lai.
Under these rescue measures, Weilai survived the temporary difficulties, and was invested in Hefei the following year and reborn.
Similarly, in the process of Li Jianshe No.1 Middle School, there were also financing problems caused by choosing the route of capital increase.
At this time, it was Wang Xing, the founder of Meituan, who invested about $300 million in Ideality at a critical moment. Ideality raised enough funds to complete the production of Harmony in Li Yi. Although the delivery time of Li one was one year later than that of the first car of Weilai, Weimar, it continued to sell well with its unique positioning after listing, making Ideal "three outstanding new forces".
In the knockout stage of smart electric vehicles, the internet giant supported a "car-making agent" with capital. Although they didn't build their own cars, they obviously influenced the trend of the new forces of building cars.
Internet giants obviously have more than just capital.
In April this year, in the document "Opinions on Building a More Perfect System and Mechanism for Factor Market Allocation" issued by the State Council, data were listed as "factors of production" for the first time, alongside traditional factors of production such as capital, technology, land and labor. Earlier this year, Liu Yuhui, a professor at the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, further stated in his speech that data and scenes are the core production factors in the digital economy era.
Projected into the automotive field, when the automotive industry and the digital economy become more and more closely linked, the influence of Internet giants on the industry will be further amplified.
In fact, if we carefully observe the current travel and car use scenarios, we will find that Internet giants often occupy high-frequency services that users can clearly perceive-taxi, map navigation, in-car content consumption, car payment, even voice interaction, intelligent driving and so on.
Internet giants' possession of these scenes depends on users' continuous accumulation of data, more accurate insight into users' needs (for example, distinguishing between "pain points" and "itching points"), and promoting service upgrades at a much faster speed than auto companies.
When they have mastered enough user needs different from traditional car companies and have a large number of users, they have the motivation and ability to "redefine cars".
A typical example is that Didi cooperated with BYD to create Didi D 1, which is very different from the traditional form of online car, and redefines the online car.
In the future, BAT, TMD, Huawei and Xiaomi will get on the bus one after another. Will they choose to redefine the car for the needs of users? This possibility is getting bigger and bigger.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.