Recently, He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Automobile Company, posted on social media: "It seems that the next-generation autonomous driving architecture in Tucki that we released yesterday made some people in the West very unhappy." "What I want to say is that rumors have long proved that you can't beat any competitors. From next year, you must be mentally prepared to be defeated by us in China. "
Although He Xiaopeng did not mention who is "someone in the West", it is widely believed in the industry that this person refers to Tesla CEO Musk.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show on165438+1October 20th, He announced that the software and hardware system of Xpeng Motors' next-generation self-driving will be greatly upgraded, and lidar technology will be adopted to improve its performance. It is understood that in 20021year, Xpeng Motors will be the first in the world to launch the first mass-produced smart car equipped with laser radar.
In this regard, the American media reported that Xpeng Motors was equipped with lidar, and then Tesla CEO Musk forwarded this tweet, saying that they had the old version of Tesla's software, but not our latest neural network computer. Obviously, this is only a problem in Tucki, and other China companies have not done so. Musk's remarks also suggest that Xpeng Motors has secrets related to Tesla Autopilot.
In March of this year, Tesla sued Cao, a former senior engineer of Tesla, who later jumped to Xpeng Motors as the head of perception on the grounds that Xpeng Motors had plagiarized the code of Tesla Autopilot. In April 2020, Xpeng Motors issued an official statement saying that in the past year, Xpeng Motors has been trying to assist in the investigation of the case and has not concealed anything, but so far there is no evidence that Xpeng Motors has abused trade secrets or other misconduct. It can be seen that Tesla has no evidence to prove that Xpeng Motors is suspected of plagiarism. Moreover, according to the current planning of Xpeng Motors, Xpeng Motors takes laser radar as its development direction, while Tesla takes pure visual computing as its direction. There are essential differences in technical route between the two, and Tesla hinted that Tucki's plagiarism is difficult to establish.
For Tesla's frequent challenges to Xpeng Motors, some analysts believe that on the one hand, Tesla used this to suppress lidar, on the other hand, it promoted its own products and enhanced its influence. As we all know, Tesla adopts a pure visual computing scheme in autonomous driving. In order to promote his products, Musk has always opposed the use of lidar in autonomous driving technology, and called lidar "expensive, ugly and unnecessary".
On the other hand, in Tesla's most valued China market? Xpeng Motors P7 and Tesla domestic models? There is also overlap and competition in price. According to the price in car home, the manufacturer's guide price of P7 in Tucki is 229,900-409,900 yuan, while Model? The manufacturer's guide price of 3 is 26.97-4 1.98 million yuan. It is not difficult to see that the prices of these two models overlap greatly.
Not only is there competition in price, but the recent development of Xpeng Motors has forced Tesla to pay attention to it. Recently, Xpeng Automobile officially announced the third quarter financial report of fiscal year 2020. The financial report shows that the cumulative sales volume of Xpeng vehicles in the third quarter was 8,578, a year-on-year increase of 265.8%; Operating income was US$ 293 million, about RMB 65.438+RMB 99 million, a year-on-year increase of 342.5%. It is worth noting that in the third quarter, Xpeng Motors also achieved a positive gross profit margin for the first time. In the third quarter of 2020, the gross profit margin of Xpeng Motors was 4.6%, compared with-10. 1% and -2.7% in the same period last year and the second quarter of 2020 respectively. In this regard, He, CEO of Xpeng Motors, pointed out: "The first realization of gross profit turning positive also highlights our ability to grow and achieve economies of scale." Compared with Weilai, the first new car-making force listed in the United States, the gross profit margin turned positive for the first time in the second quarter of this year, and Xpeng Motors developed very rapidly.
However, there is still a big gap between Tucki and Tesla. Tesla's third-quarter financial report shows that its total revenue in the third quarter was $877,654.38 billion, up 39% year-on-year, and its cumulative sales in the third quarter was 654.38+ 039.3 million. And Tesla, which has occupied the top three in the new energy rankings all the year round, since Model? After the birth of children in the three countries, the sharp price cuts have become a problem that new forces have to face.
Although the performance is far less than Tesla, in the field of autonomous driving, the new forces of building cars are also desperately catching up. At the conference call in the third quarter of this year, Li Bin, the founder of Weilai, said that Weilai is accelerating the development of the second generation technology platform NT2.0, and the core of NT2.0 is the industry-leading mass production autopilot system. Li ONE is equipped with MobileyeEyeQ4 visual recognition chip, which can support L3 automatic driving. On September 22nd, Ideality also formally reached a strategic cooperation with NVIDIA and Desai Siwei. It is expected that the next generation of ideal products will take the lead in using NVIDIAOrin chips.
In addition, in the field of autonomous driving, major car companies are also actively deploying autonomous driving technology. 20 19 12, Audi China demonstrated the automatic driving and vehicle-road coordination of passenger car formation L4 for the first time in China; BMW plans to equip itself with L3 autopilot for the first time on 202 1. INEXT production models will be officially launched; In March, 2020, Changan launched the UNI-T model with L3-class automatic driving capability. In April this year, the L4-class automatic driving operation project of Changan Automobile with a total investment of 654.38 billion yuan was launched.
It can be seen that while Tucki is confident to return to Tesla, it also needs to face up to the fact that Tesla has a perfect layout. As more and more mainstream car companies begin to pay attention to the layout of autonomous driving technology, their competition will become more and more fierce. In addition to autonomous driving, in the new energy market, in view of the subsequent layout of major car companies, it is bound to enter fierce competition.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.