Text | Li Yan
When the big guys discovered that cars might become the new generation of smart terminals after mobile phones, technology companies, real estate companies, mobile phone manufacturers, digital Industry circles, and even home appliance design and manufacturing companies... have all taken great strides to build cars, and some even "ran with their eyes closed."
Last month, Apple released the third version of iOS and iPadOS? 13.4 An API called CarKey in a beta version update brought the topic of Apple building a car to the surface again.
I still remember that it was still in 2015, and there were rumors in the circle about Apple’s great plan to build a car. However, as it transitions to developing autonomous driving systems, everyone seems to have acquiesced in Apple's abandonment of car manufacturing. However, last year, Apple continued to reveal car-related patented technologies. It can be seen that Apple has always been "mysterious". On the road of "building cars". Whether it can succeed is still hard to say. If not, it may withdraw from this market like Dyson and Gree Dong Mingzhu. If it succeeds, then it may be another "Tesla". It's just that In recent years, there have been so many cross-border car manufacturing companies that it is difficult to remember their names. I am very confused, is the threshold for a bulk product like a car really so low? But in the past few years, Apple has not made any move to "land it". , looking at the new car-making forces, most of them have survived the release of concept models, but fell before mass production. This in turn gives a conclusion that is contrary to the market phenomenon: the threshold for car-making is not low, so come and eat the cake. There are many people, but not many can grab it.
Ali, Huawei, Xiaomi, Tencent, Baidu and other leading companies in the industry only gently lean in to help build cars, and do not dare to "try the law" easily. It’s not hard to understand the desire to enter the automobile market, but not everyone has the skills to successfully build a car. This is a business with large investment, long return period, and intensive technology and talent. Got it.
"Unbreakable" Barriers
When it comes to barriers, technical barriers must be listed as one of the factors that most affect automobiles. Technical barriers have been a common saying for many years. A real problem. It is impossible for an automobile industry that has been around for more than 130 years to achieve a breakthrough in a short period of time. The barriers in terms of core technology accumulation, policies and regulations, patent ecology, and brand power are indeed high.
As far as the traditional automobile industry is concerned, for a long time, there have been only three core parts of automobiles that can be mass-produced. For new power brands, technology is obvious. gap. If they cannot produce high-quality cars, they can only occupy the low end of the industry chain. However, the status of core OEMs will decline in the future. In the future, they may be more inclined to not look at the brand but the configuration, just like now. When buying a computer, it makes no sense to just talk about Lenovo or Dell. In the final analysis, it depends on its product configuration. However, under the same configuration, the role of brand power is highlighted again, which is another link between new power cars and consumers. Gap. Personally, I believe that technological breakthroughs must be integrated with brands. Judging from the current situation, the success of technological breakthroughs cannot synchronize the brand mentality in consumers' minds.
Technology is a tangible barrier, while brand power is an invisible barrier. To borrow an old saying: “Fill your place in your place.” If the brand is at the low end, even if it makes high-end products, it will be difficult to seize the market from existing high-end brands. After all, brand recognition requires a process of testing and accumulation. New power brands that have been ranked low-end since the beginning need more to build brand power through products step by step. He Haiming, a member of the China Marketing Society (Automotive) Marketing Expert Committee, once said: "In the future, our value may be reflected in the value of services and a series of supporting facilities, not just in building cars and selling them to consumers. . ” In addition, the manufacturing process and the high complexity of automobile industry regulations are also barriers that new forces cannot quickly overcome.
The endless cycle of production and reward
This process is very similar to the process of a mother giving birth to a child. Peng Yong, chief automotive analyst at Bank of China Securities, once calculated that as far as Chinese brand passenger cars are concerned, according to the production capacity design of 150,000 units, the investment in production equipment and facilities for each vehicle is about 10,000 yuan. The cost is about 300 million to 400 million yuan. Including related links, a passenger car project requires at least about 3 billion yuan of funds to start.
This is no exaggeration. Look at today’s new energy and new forces, which one is not worth tens of billions.
The product cycle of a car itself is very long. It takes at least 4 years to develop a new platform and there are almost 10,000 parts in the car. Ying Yilun, founder and CEO of PATEO Group, a leader in Internet of Vehicles technology, once said: “For new forces, it takes four years from the establishment of a company to the launch of the first car, and from the first car to an annual output of 200,000 units. It will take another four years to achieve profitability. "Of course, if old car companies such as Volkswagen and Toyota switch to a scale of 200,000 electric vehicles, it is estimated that it will only take two years, or even less than two years. It took about four years for car companies such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and WM Motor to produce their first car. And this is only to say that it has been established. The reality is that if a product cycle and product window are not grasped, the company is likely to face elimination.
Due to the previous restrictions under the national access management mechanism, on the one hand, some companies that fished in troubled waters were "isolated", but on the other hand, the price of production qualifications was also made higher. The continuous growth of automobiles for many years and the blue ocean of new energy automobile market have made many people eager to enter the entrepreneurial business of automobile manufacturing. But at that time, the system was strict. To become a qualified automobile manufacturer, it not only required hundreds of millions of capital investment and time costs. If you want to build a car, you must first have production qualifications.
However, this cost is too high, and many companies have no choice but to seek "shortcuts." In the past few years, there have been many examples of companies quickly entering the market by purchasing the production qualifications of existing companies. It is reported that WM Motor acquired the resources of the original Shenyang Zhongshun Automobile and transferred its qualifications to WM Motor's new factory in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, so that it successfully obtained the product announcement in 2018. Another example is Byton Motors’ purchase of FAW Huali’s production qualifications for 800 million. This kind of "buying a shell" cost obviously makes the company that is already short of funds even more burdensome, and each vehicle also has a corresponding additional cost of several thousand or even tens of thousands. Under such circumstances, it becomes even more difficult to get started. The problems exposed under these systems have finally been improved with the innovation of the "Administrative Measures for Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Product Access" and the "Automotive Industry Investment Management Regulations" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission in 2018. Although some more stringent procedural rules have been introduced, the new regulations affirm the foundry model, and as long as the scale reaches 30,000 vehicles/3 billion yuan, it is possible to obtain qualifications. Compared with the previous ones that cost hundreds of millions or dozens of For companies with Yilaibuy qualifications, the latter companies have indeed made money. However, for companies that have already purchased the qualifications, they can skip the requirements in the new regulations and save a lot of time, thus gaining more costs for production and innovation.
But even so, there are still not many new forces alive. And living and living well, almost none. The leaders of new forces like NIO are still losing billions a year. Of course, this is not a loss for Weilai, but an investment that will pay off in the future. However, this payback period is slightly longer. Tesla, the benchmark for new energy vehicles, has also been losing money on an annual basis, and its return on equity has been negative for a long time. The automobile manufacturing industry not only has a long investment return cycle, but also has a low return on equity. It not only relies on financial investment, but also requires technical reserves. In this process, investors may not be able to wait any longer.
The "life-saving straw" of Internet of Vehicles and new energy
For car manufacturing, the threshold is definitely high. I won’t go into details about the barriers and problems that are often mentioned in the industry. Here we talk about the hope points. Why do I classify these two as the focus of new car builders? trend. As the next generation of smart terminals, technology will be missing from the future core competitiveness. As for the Internet of Vehicles, it is the only one that has high-frequency contact with users and can provide the ultimate experience of software and hardware based on intelligent operating systems. Personally, I think driverless driving is more like the ultimate form of Internet of Vehicles in the next few years.
Looking at the automotive products currently launched on the market, they are gradually pursuing higher intelligence in intelligent connected systems. With the development of smart cities, smart transportation, and smart homes, the market for Internet of Vehicles is still huge. But good things are hard to make. The potential of the Internet of Vehicles is deep enough, the market created is strong enough, and the difficulty of opening it is difficult enough. The central controls, large screens, smart keys, etc. installed on many cars are not yet connected to the Internet of Vehicles in the true sense. The core of the Internet of Vehicles lies in the software platform, cloud platform and data platform. Let’s talk about the current hot new energy market.
Why new energy? On the one hand, it is policy support and technological trends. On the other hand, this is currently the only consumer product that can absorb various advanced productivity, just like the previous mobile phones, which made Apple possible. This is one of the reasons why real estate companies like Evergrande and technology companies like Apple are stepping in.
However, judging from the living conditions of new energy and new forces in recent years, it is obvious that this market is more "violent" towards newcomers. When I first entered the game, a brand that didn’t even sound remotely associated with cars was also a new car-making force. Now, there isn't much left. Those who are alive are either running around raising money or unable to achieve mass production. Occasionally, we have to worry about the public opinion caused by inadequate technology, such as Tesla's self-combustion and NIO's "laying in bed". Financing is the first threshold for new energy, and it has become the primary task of the current new car-making forces. NIO founder Li Bin once publicly stated that it would take at least 20 billion yuan for an electric vehicle company to reach mass production. The emergence of electric vehicles made capital tycoons think that making electric vehicles was similar to making mobile phones. However, when they actually invested money, they found that mass production was really difficult. For example, Faraday has not yet been mass-produced, and FF91 is still alive on PPT. To be honest, few new forces have achieved mass production. For new energy vehicles, there is a gap between concept cars and mass production.
In addition to the parts already available from the supplier, there are also more complex guarantees for vehicle matching, power calibration, safety attributes, electrical architecture and other procedures. Coupled with various problems such as rigorous three-high experiments, the production of a car requires at least thousands of such engineers to work hard for several years before it can be realized. It is difficult for new car manufacturers to have such talent and capital accumulation. Even if they have sufficient financing, talent is not something that can be acquired in a short time. There is also a "globalization" threshold for new energy, and that is battery technology.
As powerful as Tesla is, it has also failed to solve the pain points of new energy vehicles, including range anxiety and safety anxiety. my country is considered a leader in the new energy market. In terms of production and sales, China has ranked first in the world's new energy vehicle production and sales for four consecutive years since 2015. Each year, the production, sales and ownership of new energy vehicles account for 10% of the global market. More than 50%. In terms of technology, China ranks among the top in the world in the production of lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries, the main power batteries for new energy electric vehicles. Some "clues" can also be seen from a real-life joke on the Internet. A Tesla owner whose battery failed went to "Chentian Village" in Guangzhou when the 4S store refused to compensate. As a result, the master there was very skillful in finding the faulty battery, and in just one night, he replaced all 5,000 lithium batteries. Even auto parts are so powerful, let alone the automotive industry. (Yuanfang, what do you think about this~)
A car is a comprehensive product that contains a large number of safety parts, involves a large number of regulations, and is even complementary to the economic status of the entire country. It is not simple and easy to mass-produce a good car that meets the needs of the public, whether it is electric or fuel-powered. This requires not only Internet thinking in the new era, but also awe of the traditional automobile industry. Of course, being able to cross the entry threshold is a prerequisite.
With the comprehensive acceleration of electrification driven by global policies, it will undoubtedly bring a huge incremental market to Chinese car companies. China is the world's largest automobile and new energy vehicle market. In the future, the Chinese market will be the largest and will have the strongest growth. However, car companies that just want to take advantage of the popularity of electric vehicles will definitely "fall to death." of. Car building is a track with very long R&D, manufacturing, iteration cycles and payback cycles, and there is little room for error for novices. We also have to admit that building cars is the highest threshold among current civilian products.
Automobiles are a good market and a good project, but the dividend period of "you can make money with your eyes closed" in previous years has passed. It is not easy to get in and share the pie. Whether you are already in the game or about to join the game, just go ahead and cherish it. Your arrival will definitely be a fresh addition to the automotive industry.
#All picture materials in this article come from the Internet
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.