Author | Michelle QL

This internal letter titled "OnePlus's New Journey" announced, "With the unanimous advice of OnePlus and OPPO's core management team, we have decided to Comprehensively merge the OnePlus team and the OPPO team. "

Secondly, the letter mentioned that "OnePlus needs to make changes" and "the process of creating more product lines, entering more product categories, and building an IoT ecosystem requires the support of stronger platforms and resources." .

This confirms that in early June, there was a lot of news on the Internet that OPPO registered the "OCAR" trademark, and the outside world has more basis for speculation about OPPO's car manufacturing.

Regarding how OPPO builds cars, as early as the 2019 OPPO INNODAY conference, Chen Mingyong said, “Even if we build cars, we will focus on the areas that OPPO can do well. "Similar to other mobile phone companies involved in car manufacturing, OPPO may also rely on its advantages in areas such as IoT and software and hardware to get involved in automotive intelligent networking and autonomous driving technology.

Regarding OPPO’s automotive business settling in Chengdu, OPPO has already News of the acquisition of multiple automobile-related intellectual property rights has been circulating.

This is just another "series" of stories about another mobile phone manufacturer and another Internet technology company entering the industry.

p>

Since this year, Huawei, Xiaomi, Meizu, and mobile phone manufacturers have successively announced their entry into the automobile industry. Major Internet companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, and 360 have also taken many practical actions to build cars, and the ways of participating in car manufacturing are different. The degree of development varies.

Among them, the loudest, most influential, and most discussed one is Huawei. At the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, Huawei and Jihu Automobile jointly launched the Jihu Alpha S HI. version, and also launched a new generation of automotive intelligent components and solutions, including imaging radar, AR-HUD, and high computing power platform MDC810.

In October 2020, Huawei launched its first smart car. HI, an independent brand of automotive solutions, aims to use full-stack smart car solutions and in-depth cooperation with car companies in an innovative model to create high-quality smart connected electric vehicles.

Although Huawei has previously stated in public. It has been clarified time and time again that “Huawei does not build cars, but is only an incremental component supplier for smart cars. Help car companies build good cars. "The outside world's prediction of its ability to build a full range of cars with software and hardware integration is somewhat doubtful about the "not building cars" argument.

During the auto show, Huawei launched a new HI car, and Huawei continues to make "not building cars" "The climax of the announcement.

At the same time, Huawei has started selling cars. It is expected to sell cars in 200 existing Huawei experience stores by the end of July, and expand to more than 1,000 by the end of the year. And next year, Yu Chengdong will be in the company An internal sales target of 300,000 units has been set.

Another company that officially announced in March this year that it would build a complete car is the mobile phone manufacturer Xiaomi. > On March 30, Xiaomi officially announced that the car-making project was officially launched. On April 6, Lei Jun held an online live broadcast and disclosed the details of the car-making project for the first time. He talked about the Xiaomi car logo, brand, Xiaomi car models and. Pricing. These details are all based on "research" conclusions based on Mifen's online voting.

Xiaomi's public plan is to establish a wholly-owned automobile subsidiary, with Lei Jun also serving as CEO, with an initial investment of 10 billion. RMB 10 billion will be invested in the next ten years. “We hope to use high-quality smart electric vehicles to enable users around the world to enjoy ubiquitous smart life.”

In terms of car manufacturing capabilities, Xiaomi has a good starting point: an engineering team of more than 10,000 people, the world’s third largest mobile phone business support, the most complete smart ecosystem, a cash balance of 108 billion yuan, and most importantly Yes, there is CEO Lei Jun.

Recent news shows that Xiaomi has been in contact with many car companies, including BYD and Great Wall, to further implement the next step in the implementation of car manufacturing. Staff recruitment has started.

Before there were Huawei and Xiaomi, followed by Meizu and OPPO. Mobile phone manufacturers seemed to have created a kind of industry consciousness and determined the possibility of new business growth brought about by the prospect of car manufacturing. This possibility Most of the popularity stems from mobile terminals, which belong to the smart era such as mobile phones and cars, and their great versatility in product digital technologies, such as Internet connectivity, autonomous driving and other fields.

Those digital giants in the technology world have been involved in the initial infancy of Internet car manufacturing, and are already considered to be deep cultivators in the field of car manufacturing.

Founded in 2014, Banma Smart Travel is a strategic cooperation between Alibaba and SAIC Motor. At that time, they announced the creation of a new category of Internet-based cars. Banma Intelligence fully leverages Alibaba’s technological and ecological advantages in voice, vision, chips, IoT, cloud computing, maps, payment, e-commerce and other fields to redefine cars together with car companies. In July 2016, the Roewe RX5, the world's first mass-produced Internet car, was successfully released.

In mid-2020, Banma reorganized and Alibaba became the largest shareholder. Banma Network in turn has complete ownership and use rights of the YunOS underlying architecture code, which can be authorized for use by car brands or their designated partners. This adjustment enables Zebra’s new Powered by AliOS technology brand to move further towards the automotive “ecological empowerment” model.

Then in November of the same year, Zhiji Auto was launched. It is a complete vehicle company created by SAIC, Alibaba and Shanghai Pudong New Area.

Ali was given the status of a vehicle manufacturer as he wished.

Baidu’s popularity in the automotive field was first established by the Apollo self-driving system.

This new plan, released in April 2017, aims to provide partners in the automotive industry and autonomous driving fields with an open, complete, and secure software platform to help them combine vehicles and hardware systems to quickly Build your own complete autonomous driving system.

In September 2020, Apollo announced the official opening of the self-driving taxi service Apollo Go in Beijing. Beijing users can make reservations to experience Robotaxi on Baidu Maps and Apollo’s official website. Baidu Apollo’s self-driving commercialization process has entered A period of substantial rapid development.

Between now and April this year, 35 "Apollo" self-driving cars developed and manufactured by Baidu have obtained commercial operation licenses for the first time.

In June, just a few days ago, Baidu held the Apollo Moon autonomous vehicle launch conference. The fifth-generation Baidu Apollo Robotaxi was officially unveiled. The new vehicle is based on the JiFox Alpha T and is known as Named Apollo Moon.

Baidu’s business related to vehicle manufacturing is implemented in the joint venture company established with Geely.

In January this year, Baidu announced the formal establishment of a smart car company to enter the automotive industry as a vehicle manufacturer. Geely Holding Group became a strategic partner of the new company.

Baidu announced that it plans to invest 50 billion yuan in vehicle manufacturing in the next five years.

In terms of investment in capital and technology, technology giants are serious about building cars, which at least reflects their commitment to long-term investment in a protracted war.

This is why external communication about car manufacturing has increasingly evolved into announcements of heavy investment in flags.

If you want to find out the origin and trace back when these companies started to get involved in the automotive field, I am afraid it will indeed take a lot of research. It is a common sense judgment to say that it is difficult to build a car. So, from the silent deployment of large and small factories to high-profile official announcements, what changes in world affairs and business times have they experienced?

The author can't help but think of the Hongmeng OS system recently released by Huawei. As a new generation of smart terminal operating systems built by its own brand, Hongmeng OS can realize a full-scenario interactive experience of intelligence, interconnection and collaboration for different devices. The design with mobile phone as the control center makes "internet" more concise, smooth and continuous.

The Huawei Alpha S version of JiFox is embedded with a 20.3-inch 4K touch widescreen car camera of the Hongmeng system, which can be interconnected with other smart devices of the Hongmeng system.

In fact, as early as July 2020, when BYD Han was launched, the Hongmeng OS system was already on board.

The HUAWEI HiCar system provides services based on Hongmeng OS. It is a vehicle-machine platform provided by Huawei for its efforts in automotive network intelligence. At that press conference, Huawei talked about the services provided by 5G, AI, IoT and other technologies in automobile smart travel, including mobile phone NFC car key functions.

It is worth mentioning that the current cooperation between mobile phone companies and car companies on car key functions is very typical. In addition to Huawei and BYD, there are also Xiaomi and Xpeng Automobile, OPPO and Li Auto.

Although this is only a small scene of the integration of mobile terminals, with the continuous advancement of intelligent network technology, the intelligence and convenience brought by the integration of mobile phones and cars are enough to give people a sense of the "Internet of Everything" "The imagination space generated.

In August 2019, Huawei released the "HUAWEI HiCar Ecological White Paper", claiming that Huawei HiCar provides a seamless interconnection solution for people, cars, and homes in all scenarios, integrating the entire smart terminal ecology with cars and homes. Combined, the car becomes a third living space.

Technically, the parts that can be implemented include mobile phones as hardware, as well as cockpit parts such as car central control screens, dashboards, HUDs, etc. The core part is the software and operating system that support the operation of the system.

This white paper created a popular trend of mobile terminal integration and became one of the car-making concepts adopted to varying degrees.

It should be said that Huawei has given a concrete and realistic example of mobile terminal integration. At this stage when smart car manufacturing has entered a period of accelerated growth, it is a more convincing ecological product definition model.

It is reported that Hongmeng Ecosystem currently has more than 20 hardware manufacturers and more than 280 application manufacturers*** participating in the ecological construction. It is expected that in 2021, there will be more than 40 mainstream brands and more than 100 million devices. , becoming a new entrance to the Hongmeng OS experience.

Mobile phones and automobiles represent the most timely entry point into IoT business opportunities.

Most timely, it means that the development of smart cars has reached a critical stage of reshaping product definition, usage scenario definition, and even ecological definition. It is almost acquiesced by the industry that past products are dominated by hardware. of subversion.

"Intelligence" and digitalization should be reflected through what product features, what network attributes the new mobile terminal has, how to shape the corresponding services, and how to reinvent and consolidate software and hardware, especially software technology. , determines the future business model of automobiles as new mobile terminals.

With the full development of 4G to 5G networks, smartphones have enough examples to learn from in the fields of software and hardware such as chips, cameras, sensors, operating systems, and displays, and even in the supply chain system. There is resource sharing with smart cars.

Although vehicle manufacturing and mobile phone manufacturing still belong to different fields, compared with other industries, smartphones and smart cars do have more practical significance for comparison.

Digital giants often occupy the commanding heights of technology collections based on big data, and data is the "blood" of connected systems and autonomous driving products. Products based on digital technology, no matter what definition or feature system they present, are essentially a process of evolution between data and product features.

This is a brand new product logic and definition paradigm. Just imagine, without data, how can machine learning be achieved, and how can autonomous driving be achieved?

Therefore, being able to control the dominance of the data value chain in the digital era is the core of future business logic and a necessary strategic choice.

For car manufacturers, for example, at the beginning of its establishment, Zhiji Auto declared that the brand would be based on building the world's first corporate form that creates a future company with users, using user data Drive value creation and create product value and brand value together with users.

Users will become the drivers of the company's entire business chain, including R&D, production, manufacturing, and marketing. By interacting with users' data, companies will build a new ecosystem that interacts with users.

Zhiji Auto, which possesses Alibaba genes, has advanced technological enterprise thinking: using data as the foundation of value production. At the same time, data is used to create a close connection with users, and the value of data is produced and shared. It has established a unique "user first creation" brand ecology.

It is conceivable that in the future, users, as holders of mobile terminal systems, will have increasingly strict data usage specifications, data security legislation, etc. to deepen user education, and users’ criteria for judging the value of data will change. Getting higher and higher. Users will inevitably participate in more initiative and creativity in the use of data throughout the product life cycle.

The business model of smart car manufacturing contains sufficient value creation potential driven by digitalization, which depends on how to use numbers to define the "third space".

When 360 officially announced its joint venture with Nezha Automobile to build a car, it claimed that it would “continue to pursue the Internet’s ideas of user first, ultimate experience, and product as king, and then build cars for the people.”

The concept of car-making is to "use Internet thinking to guide, use Internet concepts to empower, and use Internet technology to help traditional car-making."

Technological innovation in the Internet era, as the primary productive force, releases unimaginable huge driving force for value creation.

The difficulty is that completely reshaping the product form of a new software-defined automobile requires a high degree of integration of technological potential and innovative ideas. What's more, this new thing requires innovation in many fields such as energy, transportation, and manufacturing.

Building a car is not easy. There is no ready-made model, or any product that can be called a model, even if it is comparable to the existing product definition, manufacturing level and business format of fuel vehicles.

The century-old history of fuel vehicles has also gone through the evolution of manufacturing technology from workshop-style production to large-scale industrial mass production, and the maturity of the value chain is all nurtured by time.

Some industry analysts say that the new energy vehicle manufacturing industry has now surpassed the initial barbaric era and entered the so-called introduction period, which is the development and elimination period of competing for hard power.

As Li Auto described in its 2025 strategy: it will soon become a knockout tournament like the Football World Cup. Each brand will face qualifying from the group stage and rounds of knockout rounds.

Complete changes in concepts, resource self-sufficiency methods and practical methodologies need to be further explored and tested. Mobile phone companies and Internet companies continue to claim to enter the game to build cars. The opportunities seem to be great, and the challenges are numerous. In summary, some thresholds determine the "level" of players.

First, with reference to the size and market segments of the fuel vehicle market, the market concentration of new energy vehicles is highly variable. The head start effect has been highlighted. Leading car companies, as well as technology car manufacturers that have already entered the market, will accelerate the occupation of superior resources and push up the overall industry entry cost;

Secondly, brand premiumization is the overall choice. However, when the product technology definition roadmap is not yet clear, at least there are no overwhelmingly advantageous product features, especially software for differentiation, there are more problems. Whether users recognize it and how to standardize and benefit it, the market will have a long test period;

Third, the issue of money, money, money. The entire raw material supply chain is increasing in price, and the cost of building a car will become higher and higher. The possibility of profitability is even more worrying in the increasingly fierce competition, and the investment payback period will be longer;

Fourth, based on users Being centered means redefining "experience", and users will participate in decision-making to a large extent. Enterprises are facing more market uncertainties and complexity, whether in terms of products, technology, or management;

Fifth, it is difficult to match talents, organizations and capabilities in a short time. On the one hand, talents with new skills are scarce, and there is a demand for employment involving data, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, etc. that require high cross-border knowledge. A large increase will be a problem that cannot be solved at once for a long time to come. The new digital work organization and collaboration methods will also take time to be matched and trained.

In addition, in addition to the above internal and external environmental considerations, are car manufacturers also aware of the criticality of model selection? For example, the problem faced by Xiaomi is how to implement the realistic path of building cars in the future.

Whether to build a factory by itself, find an OEM, or form a joint venture with a car company, etc. Once a heavy investment is made in building a car, it requires a lot of time and resources to select technology, define products, determine the supply chain, etc. The cost of trial and error is extremely high. Funds are one aspect, and time is also the biggest consumption.

I believe that in a general sense, mobile phone manufacturers and Internet technology companies that rely on existing resource advantages have the opportunity to succeed: using the least cost, the most advantageous resources and capabilities, the most agile organizational form, and the most Building a car at a fast speed is the only goal.

As a technology company that serves as the benchmarking reference system for traditional automobile companies, they have a very high starting point: they have created a successful business model, Internet genes, and efficient internal driving force of the enterprise, which have been internalized into their own unique management models, products and user service systems, etc.

But at the same time, changing times have created higher goals.

This series of car-building stories may be just the beginning. I don’t know who the next new entrant will be, and I don’t know what the next step will be for those who announce the car-building.

With so much "talk", whether the car is really built or not, seeing is believing in the future.