Lead: One is Toyota, the world's largest automobile manufacturer, and the other is BYD, the leader of new energy vehicles. In this land of China, they used to be competitors and killed each other, but now they have become partners who are married and win together.

On March 25th, 22, BYD and Toyota jointly established BYD Toyota Electric Vehicle Technology Co., Ltd., registered in Shenzhen, with a registered capital of 345 million yuan. Toyota Motor Corporation and BYD Co., Ltd. each contributed 172.5 million yuan, with each holding 5% of the shares. Generally speaking, the business scope is to jointly develop pure electric cars and SUVs and the required power batteries. The models produced in the future will hang Toyota's brand LOGO, and it is planned to be put into the market in 225.

the chairman of the joint venture company is an hongshang, president of Toyota global powertrain, and the legal person and general manager are Zhao binggen, assistant to the president of BYD automotive engineering research institute. Chairman of Toyota China Ueda Dalang, Chief Manager of Toyota Electric Project Toyoda Koji, Senior Vice President of BYD and President of Automotive Engineering Research Institute Lian Yubo are directors of the joint venture company.

As early as before, the two car companies showed clear cooperation intentions. Event review:

1. On July 19th, 219, the two companies reached a "verbal agreement" and announced that they would jointly develop pure electric vehicles for cars and SUVs.

2. On November 7th of the same year, BYD signed a joint venture agreement with Toyota to set up a pure electric vehicle research and development company, and confirmed that the new company will be formally established in China in 22;

On March 5th, 22, the joint venture between BYD and Toyota was formally established. It was only half a year from the determination of cooperation intention to the formal establishment of the joint venture, which can be said to be a race against time.

◆ It is normal to cooperate in the production of new energy vehicles, and the joint venture between BYD and Toyota seems to be deeper

Although it is generally believed that electrification is the general trend in the future, it will take a relatively long transition from the traditional fuel vehicles to the electrification era. Especially for some powerful foreign brands at present, whether electric vehicles can really replace fuel vehicles in the future still needs to be questioned. At present, their foundation is still traditional fuel vehicles, and the introduction of electric products may only be a task-based test market. Naturally, they will not go to great pains and spend huge sums of money to shift their focus to electric vehicles. The best way is to use existing domestic resources and cooperate in production to reduce costs. Like the Tengshi brand created by Daimler and BYD before, and the Sihao brand launched by Volkswagen and Jianghuai are all representatives of this.

It's a shame. Both Si Hao and Teng Shi ended in failure, which seems to have been doomed. First of all, despite the endorsement of foreign brands, the third-party brands launched have low recognition after all. The most important thing is that since we are joint ventures, we all think for our own interests, there will inevitably be some selfishness and contradictions, and the technical communication will not be thorough. In the final analysis, the products produced are not hung with our own brands, even if the signboards are smashed. Perhaps the initial starting point is good, but this joint venture model is obviously not thorough enough.

Different from launching a third-party brand, the products jointly produced by BYD and Toyota are clear: the Toyota logo will be hung in the future. Since it is a Toyota logo, Toyota will naturally work hard and do its best to make its products the best. After all, it can't smash its own signboard. For BYD, the success of joint venture products can further enhance its battery market share and international brand awareness, so both of them will spare no effort to take good care of this "pro-son".

◆ What can the joint venture bring to Toyota

As the world's largest automobile manufacturer, there is no doubt that Toyota enjoys a high reputation and brand influence in the world. In terms of new energy sources, Toyota is somewhat stubborn and inflexible, and has been betting on hydrogen energy, and some even reject pure electric vehicles. While Honda, Volkswagen, Nissan and other powerful foreign brands have launched electric vehicles in China, Toyota seems to have gradually begun to understand that there is no technical route. You know, so far, Toyota has not had a pure electric product in the domestic market. It can be said that Toyota entered the electric age a little late.

of course, judging from Toyota's current strength, it is absolutely capable of forming its own brand-new pure electric products or pure electric platforms, but it costs a lot of money. How can we guarantee the advanced nature of this platform after a long research and development cycle? Toyota can't afford time. This powerful old car company, which started with traditional fuel vehicles, has become its soft spot with pure electric products, which is BYD's strong point ...

BYD, which started with battery production, laid out early and deeply cultivated the new energy market all the year round, has really realized its slogan of "new energy vehicle leader", which is not difficult to see from the product and sales volume: many PHEV, EV models and traditional fuel power are put on the market at the same time; In 219, BYD's total sales volume was 461,4 units, including 229,5 new energy vehicles, accounting for almost half of the total sales volume. BYD, which has high attainments in new energy, just makes up for Toyota's shortcomings. In particular, the E platform built by BYD for electric vehicles after years of research and development has become a key factor to attract Toyota.

the so-called e platform is a pure electric platform with highly integrated hardware, which integrates all key parts of electric vehicle production. For Toyota, once this platform is used, the research and development cycle will be greatly shortened.

◆ What can the joint venture bring to BYD?

the failure of the joint venture with Daimler made BYD understand that it is really difficult to go out without brand influence. BYD, which has a strong technical background in new energy, has a weak brand. Once the Toyota brand is used, it is tantamount to "putting technology on the wings", which will further enhance BYD's share in batteries and consolidate its strong position in new energy.

Toyota, which has many years of experience in building cars, has always enjoyed the reputation of "worry-free, reliable and easy to feed" among the people, and its reliability and advanced experience in building cars are also places that BYD wants to learn in the future.

▲ The product conjecture launched by BYD and Toyota

According to Toyota's plan in China this year, the pure electric version of C-HR-EV/ FAW Toyota Yize EV will be put into the domestic market next month. Obviously, these models are all improved on the basis of traditional fuel vehicles. They don't need much energy, and their design and layout are limited. They are more transitional products that tend to be policy-oriented, such as Volkswagen's LaVida pure electric version and Xuanyi pure electric.

id.3, the first product of Volkswagen MEB pure level platform,

once it really enters the pure electric era in the future, this electric version improved by traditional fuel vehicles is obviously not very competitive, and the exclusive platform built for electric vehicles from beginning to end is the core of competition in the future, the most typical of which is Volkswagen pure electric MEB platform, whose products are completely born out of their traditional fuel vehicles in terms of layout, appearance and interior decoration. It can be predicted that the cooperation between Toyota and BYD is to build their own "MEB products", and their models will completely get rid of the traditional image of fuel vehicles in the past in terms of design and layout, which is a symbol of Toyota's entry into the electrification era in China.

This article comes from the author of Chejia, car home, and does not represent car home's standpoint.