原标题：小米造汽车，吊着吗？
概括
[DoesXiaomimakeacarsuspension?Howtomakethetrackattractivechallenginganddifficult:OEMorself-produced?AftermanyroundsofbuildingmomentumXiaomi’scarbuildinghasfinallyofficiallylandedIntheeyesofmanypeopleintheindustryitisnoteasyforLeiJunwhoisnaturallycautioustomakethischoiceThe52-year-oldLeiJunfinallydecidedtouseXiaomitobetonhisfutureEverythingisstillunknownandthemovingdecisionisultimatelybasedonstep-by-stepandsteadyexecution(ChinaBusinessNews)
After many rounds of building momentum, Xiaomi’s car building has finally officially landed.
On the evening of March 29th and 30th, Xiaomi held two press conferences. The founder and CEO Lei Jun said that he had quit during the press conference on the 29th. One day later, on the afternoon of the 30th, Xiaomi Group (01810.HK) announced that it was voluntary.announcement, Also through Lei JunWeiboOfficially announced the news of car manufacturing, claiming to formally enter the smart electric car market, and it is expected to invest 10 billion US dollars in the next 10 years. On the evening of the 30th, Lei Jun disclosed his thoughts on building a car in the last half hour. Lei Jun said that he is willing to bet on his full reputation in his life, personally lead the team, and fight for Xiaomi Motors. Building a car will be the last major entrepreneurial project in his life. On the Chinese Internet, netizens joked that “Rebs” has become “Reske”.
In fact, since last year, market rumors about Xiaomi making cars have appeared many times. Every time the rumors appeared, Xu Jieyun, deputy director of the General Office of Xiaomi Group, came forward to refute the rumors: “Anyone saying that Xiaomi wants to build a car is fake news.” It is precisely because of this. Therefore, since the afternoon of March 30, industry colleagues in the circle of friends are “waiting for Xu Jieyun to come forward to refute the rumors again.”
However, the reporter of “China Business News” learned from authoritative sources that the previously rumored matter of Xiaomi and Great Wall’s cooperation in building cars was actually only contact, and there was no substantial cooperation negotiation.
The reporter noticed that after the announcement of Xiaomi’s car-making news, the stock price of Xiaomi Group rose instantly at the end of March 30, with an increase of 2.2%. Recently, when rumors of Xiaomi making cars flowed out, the stock price also rose in a straight line, with an increase of more than 12% at one time. This at least shows that the capital market still has expectations for Xiaomi’s car manufacturing.
The reporter has learned from many sources that the Xiaomi car-making team has moved to the industrial park in Building A to work together. The heads of multiple teams within Xiaomi have joined, and Lei Jun is also the CEO. However, the specific responsibility is Wang Chuan, the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Xiaomi Group. . In addition, as early as 2013, Xiaomi began to deploy in the automotive field. Since 2015, it has applied for more than 800 automotive-related patents, but most of them are concentrated in communications, transmission, navigation and other fields related to smart cockpits.
Unlike Huawei repeatedly reiterating that it “does not build cars” but will carry out Hicar, Lidar and other related businesses, although Lei Jun officially announced that Xiaomi will build cars, there are still many suspenseful paths and business boundaries. For example, Xiaomi’s true intentions in the field of electric vehicles, how to build a car, whether it is positioned as the “young people’s first car” or to jump out of the past to directly position high-end cars, etc., there are still too many questions to be answered. Or is it Xiaomi’s tactics and tactics to leave suspense?
Is US$10 billion enough?
Xiaomi stated in the announcement that it plans to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary to be responsible for the smart electric vehicle business. The initial investment is RMB 10 billion, and the investment is expected to be USD 10 billion in the next 10 years. Lei Jun will concurrently serve as the CEO of the smart electric vehicle business.
Lei Jun said that over the years, in XiaomiExecutivesThere were also occasional discussions at the meeting. “Until January 15th of this year, we began to be seriousResearch. “Lei Jun’s confidence lies in Xiaomi’s existing cash reserves of 108 billion yuan, and all the money for Xiaomi’s car manufacturing is paid by Xiaomi, and it can afford to enter the car.
However, whether it is the first 10 billion yuan or 10 billion US dollars in 10 years, it may not really be a huge sum of money for the “burning” car industry.
Financial commentator Tan Haojun told reporters: “Lei Jun thinks Xiaomi can afford to lose. 108 billion yuan is certainly an astronomical figure in the eyes of ordinary enterprises and ordinary people. However, for auto companies, the investment of tens of billions of yuan may be possible. It’s all going to be lost. And it’s really hard to say whether 108 billion yuan can really afford to lose. Because, for car building, it’s not just a loss, and there will be no effect if the heavy money is dropped.”
According to statistics from relevant media, established in 2014Wei LaiSo far, the total financing of automobiles has exceeded 9.6 billion US dollars, of which 6.11 billion US dollars will be raised in 2020.Xiaopeng MotorsThe total amount of financing also reached 7.7 billion US dollars.Wei LaiThe founder Li Bin once said bluntly, do not build a car without 20 billion yuan.
Other data show that in 2020Wei Lai,ideal,Xiaopeng Motors43,728, 32,624 and 27,041 electric vehicles have been delivered, and they have all been put on the market. At present, the cash reserves of each company are more than 30 billion yuan.
A digital expert told this reporter: “At this stage, I think Xiaomi’s investment in car manufacturing is not enough. LeTV’s first investment in that year was also about the same scale. If it is only for a certain part of the industry chain, such as autonomous driving and control System, core hardware, etc. are enough.”
Lei Jun also admitted that they know very wellAutomobile industryThe risk of tens of billions of investment can only be effective in three to five years. “This is not a small risk for Xiaomi, but Xiaomi, which started its business in the past ten years, has already accumulated a certain amount. At present, Xiaomi has a research and development team of more than 10,000 people, has a steady growth in the world’s third mobile phone business, and has the best intelligence. Ecological, there is a cash reserve of 108 billion yuan.”
How to make: OEM or self-produced?
After making up my mind and having money, the next question facing Xiaomi is how to create it.
At present, the modes of Internet technology companies entering the bureau to build cars mainly include foundry, joint ventures and cooperation, and self-production.
Didi,appleCustomized cars like this are using the foundry model, which can rely on the auto companies’ own equipment and technology to achieve the fastest large-scale production and relatively guaranteed quality. This is also considered by the outside world to be the most likely model Xiaomi will adopt in the future.
Relatively speaking,BaiduInternet giants such as Alibaba have adopted a joint venture and cooperation model to jointly establish companies with auto companies to build cars. last year end,AlibabaversusSAIC, Pudong New Area jointly established Zhiji Auto; on March 2 this year,BaiduversusGeely AutomobileJointly established Jidu Automobile. Like the foundry model, it still uses automakers to build cars, but the Internet giants are more involved, have more voice, and have higher requirements for their capital and technology.
There is something likeTeslaLike new car-building forces such as Xiaopeng and Xiaopeng, they build their own factories and build their own cars. Judging from the current accumulation of Xiaomi’s own automotive technology, talents, patents, etc., this possibility is the smallest.However, what is interesting is that Xiaomi has established certain cooperation with many new energy car companies. For example, Xiaomi watches can be used as smart remote controls for NIO owners, and Xiaomi phones can act as Xiaopeng andBYDCar keys and so on.
The reporter noticed that at the press conference, Xiaomi did not disclose the partner. Although Lei Jun has not disclosed too many details about car building, from the perspective of the industry, the possibility of Xiaomi car manufacturing is relatively high. In the future, Xiaomi cars may be similar to mobile phones.
“The advantage of Rebs’s car manufacturing lies in the accumulation of rice noodles and popularity of Xiaomi mobile phones. At present, the expansion space of mobile phones is limited, while electric vehicles have opened up another vast space. At present, there is no high-quality car product launched by Xiaomi. It can be seen that Xiaomi has pressed the accelerator key for the transformation or withdrawal of existing auto manufacturers, and it also indicates that the door to the era of competition for automotive products as electronic products has opened.” Industry insiders said.
However, if Xiaomi wants to make a difference in the field of electric vehicles, it must overcome the current problems faced by electric vehicle companies, such as the current hot car chip problem.
Tan Haojun is even more blunt, according to the strength of Xiaomi’s R&D team, instead of building a car, it may not be as good as a core. Although the initial investment will be large and the success rate is not 100%, the joy of success may be much greater than that of building a car. As long as we organize a group of technicians and provide them with sufficient research funds and let them concentrate on research behind closed doors, perhaps Xiaomi will become a leader in chip research in China.
Pan Helin, executive dean and professor of the Institute of Digital Economy, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said: “Xiaomi has sufficient cash reserves. It is understandable to build a car. From the perspective of the capital market, building a car can give Xiaomi providePerformanceImagination, compared toTesla, Xiaomi’s concept of making cars may be the closest, because they all want to seize market share through cost-effectiveness and long-term benefits through the Internet cloud platform ecology. “
The track is attractive and challenging
The electric car track is indeed attractive.
According to IDC forecasts, driven by policies and other factors, ChinaGuoxin EnergyThe automobile market will usher in strong growth in the next five years. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2020 to 2025 will reach 36.1%. The overall sales volume is expected to reach 5.42 million vehicles in 2025, and the market size can reach several trillion yuan. Even if it can grab a 3% market share, it can bring enough room for imagination to Xiaomi’s performance and capital market.
However, today’s electricAutomobile industryThe track is already very crowded.In addition to traditional car companies with both capital and technical talents, there are also fierceTeslaWith new car-building forces such as Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng, etc., in the near futureBaidu, Ali,appleEven Foxconn and other Internet technology giants have also stopped building cars, and the pressure on Xiaomi cars is not small.
Even the new car-building forces that have recently entered the game have actually been working on the new energy car track for a long time and have accumulated a lot of accumulation.
At the same time, it was also reported that Huawei was entering the game.Automobile industryRumors. A few years ago, Huawei has begun to invest in the field of smart cars, and gradually announced plans and strategies in the field of smart cars. Huawei said that its positioning as a supplier of smart auto parts has not changed, and it will provide services and assistance to auto companies in areas such as Internet of Vehicles, smart cockpits, autonomous driving, voice interaction, and power management. However, Huawei has stated many times before that it will not build cars, but will focus on ICT technology as a supplier of incremental components for smart cars to help automakers build good cars. Compared with Xiaomi’s own car building, Huawei has undoubtedly chosen a more realistic and stable route.
Pan Helin believes that from the perspective of market value and sales performance, “Xiaomi’s real competitors should be Tesla andBYDHe believes that Xiaomi wants to subvert the car industry, but the subversion takes risks. It will take time to prove whether its mobile phone model can be promoted to the automotive field.
At the same time, Xiaomi’s car manufacturing also has some unique advantages of its own. For example, Xiaomi’s AIoT (Intelligent Internet of Things) ecology. Relying on Xiaomi’s mobile phones, TVs and other smart homes, Xiaomi has built a relatively mature smart product ecology. Smart cars may also become an important part of Xiaomi’s smart ecology. Realize technology replication and user migration, etc.
As of December 2020, Xiaomi’s global MIUI monthly active users reached 396 million, a year-on-year increase of 28%. Among them, the number of MIUI monthly active users in Mainland China is 111 million.According to 2018auroraAccording to the big data report, 26.9% of Xiaomi’s users are 25 years old and under, and 83.9% of users are 35 and under.
Sun Yanbiao, Dean of the First Mobile Phone Industry Research Institute, told our reporter: “Autonomous driving is very popular now. Cars are actually equivalent to smartphones with four wheels. The Tesla phenomenon is already obvious. In the past, Xiaomi cooperated with Midea, The rapid launch of the IoT business has enabled Xiaomi’s home appliances to rapidly improve. It is possible that car manufacturers will adopt the idea of home appliance cooperation to create marketing advantages and achieve certain results in the field of new energy vehicles.”
The sales of electric vehicles are different from the traditional automobile industry. Xiaomi’s marketing system can directly face the C-end and deliver the cars directly to users. The cost may be much lower than that of traditional car companies.
However, the electric vehicle industry is already a red sea, with traditional car companies and new car manufacturers in the past, and Baidu,appleIn fact, in 2014 and 2015, there were hundreds of new energy car companies in China, but only a dozen of them survived in the end. Based on the previous experience of Xiaopeng and Weimar, Xiaomi may not have mass-produced models off the assembly line until 2023 at the earliest.
The car made by Xiaomi, which has become a wolf and a tiger, may face the problem of homogenization with other cars. With many heavyweight rivals, what are the advantages of Xiaomi Auto in terms of capital, manpower, technology, and cost? How can Xiaomi, who is halfway through, create value differences and unique advantages to stand out from the crowd? This will be a realistic problem facing Xiaomi’s car building.
“It’s really a question of whether to do or not to do it. This decision is too important for me.” Lei Jun said frankly that the experience during this period was very painful.
In any case, Xiaomi and Lei Jun finally decided to build a car. Lei Jun said emotionally at the press conference: “In the past 75 days, Xiaomi’s management has experienced 85 industry visits, in-depth exchanges with more than 200 automotive industry veterans, 4 internal management discussions, and 2 formal meetings. The board of directors conducted extremely rigorous and detailed investigations and demonstrations before making the most important decision in Xiaomi’s history.”
In the eyes of many people in the industry, it is not easy for Lei Jun, who is naturally cautious, to make this choice. The 52-year-old Lei Jun finally decided to use Xiaomi to bet on his future. Everything is still unknown, and the moving decision is ultimately based on step-by-step and steady execution.
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(Source: China Business News)
(Editor in charge: DF150)
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